From b9e9d0fa5f3dc13babf5fd2d6cf773ad33d869a8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Shlomi Fish Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2016 22:50:53 +0300 Subject: [PATCH] Add the files as of fortune-mod-1.99.1. From the former redellipse.net and from the Mageia cauldron tarball. --- fortune-mod/ChangeLog | 265 + fortune-mod/INDEX | 29 + fortune-mod/INSTALL | 68 + fortune-mod/Makefile | 216 + fortune-mod/Notes | 178 + fortune-mod/Offensive | 54 + fortune-mod/README | 174 + fortune-mod/TODO | 15 + fortune-mod/cookie-files | 212 + fortune-mod/datfiles/Makefile | 73 + fortune-mod/datfiles/art | 2244 +++ fortune-mod/datfiles/ascii-art | 153 + fortune-mod/datfiles/computers | 5443 ++++++ fortune-mod/datfiles/cookie | 5691 ++++++ fortune-mod/datfiles/debian | 79 + fortune-mod/datfiles/definitions | 5607 ++++++ fortune-mod/datfiles/drugs | 1155 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/education | 952 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/ethnic | 851 + fortune-mod/datfiles/food | 886 + fortune-mod/datfiles/fortunes | 916 + fortune-mod/datfiles/goedel | 204 + fortune-mod/datfiles/html/Makefile | 20 + fortune-mod/datfiles/humorists | 1032 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/kids | 710 + fortune-mod/datfiles/knghtbrd | 2402 +++ fortune-mod/datfiles/law | 1255 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/linux | 1829 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/linuxcookie | 496 + fortune-mod/datfiles/literature | 1324 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/love | 573 + fortune-mod/datfiles/magic | 194 + fortune-mod/datfiles/medicine | 423 + fortune-mod/datfiles/men-women | 2556 +++ fortune-mod/datfiles/miscellaneous | 1759 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/news | 260 + fortune-mod/datfiles/off/Makefile | 52 + fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/art | 3 + fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/astrology | 289 + fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/atheism | 14255 ++++++++++++++++ .../datfiles/off/unrotated/black-humor | 1947 +++ fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/cookie | 2 + fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/debian | 29 + .../datfiles/off/unrotated/definitions | 1397 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/drugs | 360 + fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/ethnic | 1085 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/fortunes | 4 + fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/hphobia | 405 + fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/limerick | 6370 +++++++ fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/linux | 41 + fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/misandry | 83 + .../datfiles/off/unrotated/miscellaneous | 335 + fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/misogyny | 297 + fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/politics | 2018 +++ fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/privates | 1012 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/racism | 15 + fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/religion | 1376 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/riddles | 1100 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/sex | 4600 +++++ .../datfiles/off/unrotated/songs-poems | 2271 +++ fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/vulgarity | 1089 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/zippy | 1289 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/paradoxum | 198 + fortune-mod/datfiles/people | 4317 +++++ fortune-mod/datfiles/perl | 1026 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/pets | 186 + fortune-mod/datfiles/platitudes | 1376 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/politics | 2969 ++++ fortune-mod/datfiles/riddles | 583 + fortune-mod/datfiles/science | 3019 ++++ fortune-mod/datfiles/songs-poems | 7161 ++++++++ fortune-mod/datfiles/sports | 814 + fortune-mod/datfiles/startrek | 826 + fortune-mod/datfiles/translate-me | 58 + fortune-mod/datfiles/wisdom | 1630 ++ fortune-mod/datfiles/work | 2725 +++ fortune-mod/datfiles/zippy | 1289 ++ fortune-mod/fortune/Makefile | 16 + fortune-mod/fortune/fortune-man.part1 | 238 + fortune-mod/fortune/fortune-man.part2 | 64 + fortune-mod/fortune/fortune.6 | 174 + fortune-mod/fortune/fortune.c | 1722 ++ fortune-mod/util/Makefile | 23 + fortune-mod/util/README.randstr | 47 + fortune-mod/util/README.rot | 13 + fortune-mod/util/randstr.c | 226 + fortune-mod/util/randstr.man | 53 + fortune-mod/util/rot.c | 24 + fortune-mod/util/strfile.8 | 150 + fortune-mod/util/strfile.c | 548 + fortune-mod/util/strfile.h | 56 + fortune-mod/util/strfile.man | 199 + fortune-mod/util/unstr.c | 247 + 93 files changed, 113999 insertions(+) create mode 100644 fortune-mod/ChangeLog create mode 100644 fortune-mod/INDEX create mode 100644 fortune-mod/INSTALL create mode 100644 fortune-mod/Makefile create mode 100644 fortune-mod/Notes create mode 100644 fortune-mod/Offensive create mode 100644 fortune-mod/README create mode 100644 fortune-mod/TODO create mode 100644 fortune-mod/cookie-files create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/Makefile create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/art create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/ascii-art create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/computers create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/cookie create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/debian create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/definitions create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/drugs create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/education create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/ethnic create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/food create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/fortunes create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/goedel create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/html/Makefile create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/humorists create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/kids create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/knghtbrd create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/law create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/linux create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/linuxcookie create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/literature create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/love create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/magic create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/medicine create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/men-women create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/miscellaneous create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/news create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/Makefile create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/art create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/astrology create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/atheism create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/black-humor create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/cookie create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/debian create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/definitions create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/drugs create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/ethnic create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/fortunes create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/hphobia create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/limerick create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/linux create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/misandry create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/miscellaneous create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/misogyny create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/politics create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/privates create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/racism create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/religion create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/riddles create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/sex create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/songs-poems create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/vulgarity create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/zippy create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/paradoxum create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/people create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/perl create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/pets create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/platitudes create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/politics create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/riddles create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/science create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/songs-poems create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/sports create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/startrek create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/translate-me create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/wisdom create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/work create mode 100644 fortune-mod/datfiles/zippy create mode 100644 fortune-mod/fortune/Makefile create mode 100644 fortune-mod/fortune/fortune-man.part1 create mode 100644 fortune-mod/fortune/fortune-man.part2 create mode 100644 fortune-mod/fortune/fortune.6 create mode 100644 fortune-mod/fortune/fortune.c create mode 100644 fortune-mod/util/Makefile create mode 100644 fortune-mod/util/README.randstr create mode 100644 fortune-mod/util/README.rot create mode 100644 fortune-mod/util/randstr.c create mode 100644 fortune-mod/util/randstr.man create mode 100644 fortune-mod/util/rot.c create mode 100644 fortune-mod/util/strfile.8 create mode 100644 fortune-mod/util/strfile.c create mode 100644 fortune-mod/util/strfile.h create mode 100644 fortune-mod/util/strfile.man create mode 100644 fortune-mod/util/unstr.c diff --git a/fortune-mod/ChangeLog b/fortune-mod/ChangeLog new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cac765b --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/ChangeLog @@ -0,0 +1,265 @@ +(Note: this file has been re-arranged to be in reverse chronological +order, which is The Right Thing for ChangeLogs - DLC) + +March 05, 2004 (fortune-mod-1.99.1) + + Most of the changes have occured at some point in time in the last + 5 years. + + A high number of spelling, punctuation, formatting and grammar + fixes. + + Internationalisation support. + + New -c option to see which file a fortune came from. + +August 29, 1997 + + Incorporated a couple of minor changes made in the (old) Debian + fortune-mod package, including the addition of an extra data file + called 'cookie'. Renamed some documentation files, and included some + install information for non-Linux users. Added a "-v" option to + report the program version. + + I intend to submit this distribution to SunSITE RSN. + + -- Dennis L. Clark + +May, 1997 + + This release fixes many of the portability problems with the + fortune-mod program released by Amy Lewis in October, 1995. The + previous version had many Linux-isms in it, which left it unworkable + on any other platform. This version replaces most of these with more + standard calls, making it more likely to work under other platforms. + The Makefiles have been modified so that GNU's gcc and make are no + longer required: any standard make and ANSI-compatible C compiler + should work. Sorry, pre-ANSI compilers are not supported (c'mon, this + is the 90's, darn it!) + + This version has been tested to work on SunOS 4.1.x as well as Linux. + All changes made to the sources were as platform-independant as + possible. Therefore, no "#ifdef LINUX" or "#ifdef SUNOS4" directives + appear in the code. An effect of this is that a number of 'implicit + declaration' warnings are emitted by gcc under SunOS 4.1.x, but this a + problem with SunOS's standard headers, not with the program or the + compiler. The benefit of this approach is that it eases the work of + expanding the port to include other platforms. Bug reports and fixes + for other platforms are most welcome! + + A few "standard" C function calls were replaced with more standard + counterparts at various points. Generally, when there was a choice + between a BSD version of a function and a POSIX version, the POSIX + version was favoured (even though fortune originated on BSD). An + exception to this was the regex functions: either POSIX or BSD + versions can be used, with selection made via the top-level Makefile. + + Fortune and strfile also compiles on Solaris 2.5, but a discrepency + between the declaration and implementation of 'struct dirent' on the + test platform caused fortune to execute incorrectly there. It is not + certain whether this is a bug in the header file, the C library, or + the test platform. + + While the making of this release was not meant to become a bug + search-and-destroy mission, some bugs were inadvertantly discovered + and fixed. including the known bug of using -a with a file that occurs + in both the offensive and inoffensive directories. Fixing this + particular bug required a way to be able to seperately identify two + fortune files with the same name, with one in the inoffensive + directory, the other one in the offensive directory. Now, such a name + will be taken to be the inoffensive file by default. However, you can + now append '-o' to a fortune name, and the '-o' will be removed and + the offensive directory will be searched. Thus you can say (assuming + you use the distributed datfiles): + + fortune 80% politics politics-o + + Which has an 80% change of giving an "inoffensive" political fortune, + and a 20% change of giving an "offensive" political one. Note that + this makes fortune-mod backwards-compatible with BSD fortune, but only + for users, not fortune database maintainers. + + Of course, this solution only passes the buck: with the above example + again, if you have a 'politics-o' file in your inoffensive directory, + you are back to square one. OTOH, seeing that '-o' originally was + meant for offensive fortunes, using it for inoffensive ones is simply + asking for trouble. + + Bug fixed: Fortune's definition of a fortune length (for -s and -l) + was inconsistant. Unordered fortunes counted the 2 delimiting + characters (as hinted in the man page), but sorted or randomized + fortunes did not. Now the delimiting characters are _NEVER_ counted, + so you will always get the length limit you expect. + + Another bug fix: -l and -s can now work together with -m. Previously + -l and -s were ignored when -m was in effect. The new behaviour helps + me count how many long or short fortunes there are in a file. + + Ansify has been removed from the package, as well as some filter + scripts from NetBSD that no longer appear useful. Randstr has been + kept, but has not been improved in any way. It at least has a man + page: maybe somebody will find it useful. + + Some of the documentation (including the man pages) has been improved + and updated, and some files have been renamed so that the package + looks less Linux-specific. + + -- Dennis L. Clark + +Late October 1995 + Ansify has been abandoned. I'm going to distribute this working version + of fortune, and then see how difficult it would be to add termcap/terminfo + enhancements to fortune itself--I don't anticipate serious problems, but + I'd rather go ahead and get this on the net. + + A last-minute change was made to the way that percentages are displayed + with -f; it is now in the format nnn.nn%. The reason for this is that + with the multiplication of small files, fortune -af displayed a large + number of "0%"s--no worse than the old version, but not helpful. + + The fortunes database was finally cleaned up, and this version is now + being distributed (at least, I hope it is). I don't consider the current + division of fortunes among files absolutely canonical; some are certainly + in the wrong places. But things are *better*. + +Amy A. Lewis alewis@email.unc.edu + +Mid-October '95 + Another utility, ansify, now compiles; it has not been tested at all, so + it may not work even slightly. + + Ansify is a rather stupid program, all things considered, but the work on + it does raise an interesting possibility for an enhanced fortune. At + present, the fortune databases contain x^Hy sequences for underline and + special characters (and this can be extended to include bold, = x^Hx). + Ansify is stupid because it doesn't use the proper tools, ie termcap or + terminfo (hmmm ... since it works on files, that may not be so stupid); + it appears that if that can be done, then a termcap/terminfo enhanced + fortune could be produced, which would recognize the existence of ^H in + a string and attempt to display using appropriate control sequences. + This sort of modification would be of greater interest to casual users, + I think, than even the bug fixes, and since it would not force changes + in the storage of fortunes, it is eminently portable. Consider this a + 'todo' announcement. + +Added (early October 95): + A new executable, rot, which is a rot13 filter (a caesar cipher). Most + probably have caesar, but on the other hand, if you compile this mess + as root, caesar probably isn't in the path. + + A new parameter to fortune, -n, which permits you to specify the length + at which to break between long (-l) and short (-s) fortunes. + + fortune -f now shows probabilities. + + A bug: fortune -a nn% filename filename ... now fails without an error + message, if the filename named following the percentage exists in both + the inoffensive and the offensive directories (that is, if you have two + files containing definitions, one called fortunes/definitions and one + called fortunes/off/definitions, and call fortune as: fortune -a 10% + definitions religion politics ..., then fortune simply fails). This + appears to be an artifact of the changes that were made in storage/ + naming of offensive fortunes. It only happens with the combination of + a percentage with -a and inoffensive/offensive files that share a name. + Temporary workaround: rename one or the other of the files (*sigh* I + don't like that as a solution). + + The man pages have been updated. The old man pages are also available, + but are not installed unless you do it yourself (the new ones are). The + new man pages have the extension .man; the old ones have numeric + extensions. + + A place has been created for fortune files containing HTML tags (the + reason I started playing with this mess was because I wanted to be + able to format fortunes nicely for the web without having to run an + enormously complex script to figure out from formatting how best to + display things, a particular problem since the formatting isn't + consistent). Tagged fortunes don't exist yet, and I'm seriously + considering creating a slightly different fortune binary that would + output the necessary headers and trailers (reducing the CGI script + to complete triviality) (-f isn't really needed for a webfortune). + +Todo: I'm thinking of adding a -x to unstr, to rot13 the output. This +would have the effect of putting all the necessary tools in one package. +It further breaks compatibility with BSD tools (which has *mostly* been +maintained, merely enhanced slightly, although the change in how +offensive files are distinguished from inoffensive might be regarded as +breaking compatibility) by adding yet another parameter to unstr, which +didn't have any, before. So I haven't decided, yet. + +Todo: KOI8 encoded fortunes? They couldn't be rotated without a great +deal of trouble, of course. + +More minor fixes: + + The way that fortune -m prints its output has been slightly changed. It + used to print the delimiter first, then, if this were the first fortune + from a particular file, it printed the name of the file in parentheses. + It now prints the first fortune without an initial delimiter; if the + fortune is the first from a particular file, it then prints + (filename), newline, delimiter, newline *to stderr*. Redirect stderr to + stdout to get something *similar to* (but not the same as) the old + behavior. The new behavior, if stderr is redirected to stdout, and + both are then redirected to a file, produces fictitious entries, one + per file in which a match was found. However, whether stderr is + redirected or not, the new format produces files that strfile can + parse without choking (the old format, since it placed the filename + on the same line as the delimiter character, effectively forced editing + of the file in order to make it usable by strfile, unless the option of + concatenating two fortunes with an ugly "% (filename)" line separating + them was considered acceptable output). Under the new display format, + if stderr is redirected into the file, you end up with filenames marking + the separation between files (as before), but they are now valid text + strings (which should probably, therefore, be deleted). + + In other words, if you don't care what files the original text came from, + and want a new file containing (let us say), quotes from Mark Twain, + you might do: + fortune -am '-- Mark Twain' >twain + The files accessed would march down the screen; the fortunes would be + stored in parsable format into the file twain. If, however, you planned + to edit (perhaps to remove the quotes from the original file, you might + then wish to redirect stderr to stdout. Using bash: + fortune -am '-- Mark Twain' &>twain + or + fortune -am '-- Mark Twain' >twain 2>&1 + + [The above is now in the man page, more or less] + +Late September, 1995 + Too many changes to mention, really. Look at the source code for + comments on individual files. LINUX.DIF has been removed. + + It is worth noting that strfile was completely broken as distributed, + and fortune had code to make it report a different file list than the + one it used to retrieve fortunes. There's some rather strong language + on the subject in strfile.c; if it offends you, tough. + + Bugs were fixed, and some enhancements were added. Unstr, in + particular, has had its command line considerably enhanced. Strfile + now *really does* sort, instead of merely setting the 'sorted' flag. + Ditto for randomizing. + + Noteworthy: the way to distinguish between offensive and non-offensive + files has changed for fortune. A second directory (which may be a + subdirectory of the main fortune directory; the program doesn't + add files recursively down a directory tree) has been added to + pathnames.h. Offensive files should be placed there. There is no + longer any need to add the -o suffix to file names, and the problems + with finding files (especially offensive ones) seem to have + disappeared in the process. + + Currently, I'm working on breaking the fortune files themselves into + smaller, more manageable pieces, checking spelling, punctuation, and + grammar, and trying to reduce redundancy. The eventual goal, after + the files are cleaned up, is another set of files carrying HTML tags, + which would then massively simplify a CGI script that calls fortune. + + New Makefiles. + + A 'randstr' (I want to call it 'lottery,' but I won't) utility, which + amounts to a poor woman's stripped-down fortune, to illustrate some + other possible uses of strfile-type random-access strings files. + + Amy A. Lewis alewis@email.unc.edu + diff --git a/fortune-mod/INDEX b/fortune-mod/INDEX new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e24471c --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/INDEX @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ + +This is fortune-mod, an feature-enhanced fortune derived from sources +found in NetBSD. You can also find out more about this package in the +following files: + + README + A list of announcements and important information for fortune-mod. + + INSTALL + How to configure, complile and install fortune-mod. + + TODO + Ideas for future development of fortune-mod. + + ChangeLog + A revision history of fortune-mod. + + Notes + Discussion of the behavior of fortune (obsolete for this + version) and conventions for formatting fortune entries, + from NetBSD fortune. + + Offensive + Discussion on the "offensive" fortune files distributed in this + package. + + cookie-files + A list of the fortune files (both inoffensive and offensive) + distributed in this package. diff --git a/fortune-mod/INSTALL b/fortune-mod/INSTALL new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d46f464 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/INSTALL @@ -0,0 +1,68 @@ + +*****************WARNING****************** +Do not attempt to compile individual programs +in individual program subdirectories! +*****************WARNING****************** + +MAKE CHANGES IN THE TOP-LEVEL MAKEFILE + +CALL MAKE FROM THE TOP LEVEL + +I have a weakness for complex, multilevel makefiles. Therefore, the +makefiles included here are complex and multilevel. Always run make from +the top-level directory. Try 'make help' for a listing of possible +targets (the only one left out is randstr: compile it with make randstr). +All the important variables are defined in the top-level makefile, and +most of the make targets will crash and burn if they do not find the +variables that they are looking for. + +The good part of this is that except for the datfiles tree, the +sub-makefiles are all very simple. All the programs have rules of +the form: program: program.o, with the appropriate link command. +The only target safe to call in individual directories is clean. + +The makefiles for the datfiles subdirectory are complex in an attempt to +avoid distributing any more data than needed. The offensive files are +distributed in unrotated format; the make files have to rotate these +files before strfiling them. The make clean routine has to be able to +delete the rotated files without touching the unrotated ones. + +Pretty much everything is configurable in the top-level makefile, and it +mostly has pretty decent comments telling you what it is that you're +configuring. Read and change it as necessary. + +Amy A. Lewis alewis@email.unc.edu + + +Notes for non-Linux users +------------------------- + +The only system-dependant thing you should need to worry about is which +C function library to use for regular expressions. Two are supported: +the BSD regex library (re_comp/re_exec), and the POSIX regex library +(regcomp/regexec). Which you should use depends on what functions are +available, and which performs faster for you. + +If neither are available, you could try compiling the GNU Rx library, +which offers a high-performance regular expression library with both BSD +and POSIX interfaces. This is available at your nearest GNU software +mirror. + +To select the BSD regex library, add -DBSD_REGEX to REGEXDEFS in the +top-level Makefile. To select the POSIX regex library, add add +-DPOSIX_REGEX to REGEXDEFS. If neither is defined, no regular +expression support will be included. + +Using the POSIX regex library requires the POSIX regex data structures +to be declared. This might be in the header, or in the +header. Define -DHAVE_REGEX_H in REGEXDEFS if it is in the +header, or -DHAVE_RX_H if it is in the header. If it turns out +to be somewhere else for your platform, please report this to the +current fortune-mod maintainer. + +The -DHAVE_REGEX_H and -HAVE_RX_H defines are also applicable to the BSD +regex library, but as they do not use custom data structures, not using +them should not result in anything more than "function not declared" +warnings. + + -- Dennis L. Clark diff --git a/fortune-mod/Makefile b/fortune-mod/Makefile new file mode 100644 index 0000000..89e1385 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/Makefile @@ -0,0 +1,216 @@ +# +# Makefile for fortune-mod +# + +# Where does the fortune program go? +FORTDIR=$(prefix)/usr/games +# Where do the data files (fortunes, or cookies) go? +COOKIEDIR=$(prefix)/usr/share/games/fortunes +# Offensive ones? +OCOOKIEDIR=$(COOKIEDIR)/off +# The ones with html tags? +WCOOKIEDIR=$(COOKIEDIR)/html +# Where do local data files go? +LOCALDIR=$(prefix)/usr/local/share/games/fortunes +# Offensive ones? +LOCALODIR=$(LOCALDIR)/off +# With HTML tags? +LOCALWDIR=$(LOCALDIR)/html +# Where do strfile and unstr go? +BINDIR=$(prefix)/usr/bin +# What is the proper mode for strfile and unstr? 755= everyone, 700= root only +BINMODE=0755 +#BINMODE=0700 +# Where do the man pages for strfile and unstr go? +BINMANDIR=$(prefix)/usr/share/man/man1 +# What is their proper extension? +BINMANEXT=1 +# And the same for the fortune man page +FORTMANDIR=$(prefix)/usr/share/man/man6 +FORTMANEXT=6 +# Do we want to install the offensive files? (0 no, 1 yes) +OFFENSIVE=1 +# Do we want to install files with html tags? (0 no, 1 yes) +# (Note: These files are not yet available) +WEB=0 + +# +# Include whichever of the following defines that are appropriate +# for your system into REGEXDEFS: +# +# -DHAVE_REGEX_H +# For systems that declare their regex functions in +# -DHAVE_REGEXP_H +# For systems that declare their regex functions in +# -DHAVE_RX_H +# For systems that declare their regex functions in +# -DBSD_REGEX +# For systems with BSD-compatible regex functions +# -DPOSIX_REGEX +# For systems with POSIX-compatible regex functions +# -DHAVE_STDBOOL +# For GNU system that declare bool type in +# +# NB. Under Linux, the BSD regex functions are _MUCH_ faster +# than the POSIX ones, but your mileage may vary. +# +REGEXDEFS=-DHAVE_REGEX_H -DBSD_REGEX -DHAVE_STDBOOL + +# +# If your system's regex functions are not in its standard C library, +# include the appropriate link flags into REGEXLIBS +# +REGEXLIBS= + +RECODELIBS=-lrecode + +DEFINES=-DFORTDIR="\"$(COOKIEDIR)\"" -DOFFDIR="\"$(OCOOKIEDIR)\"" -DLOCFORTDIR="\"$(LOCALDIR)\"" -DLOCOFFDIR="\"$(LOCALODIR)\"" +CFLAGS=-O2 $(DEFINES) -Wall -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -fsigned-char +LDFLAGS=-s + +# The above flags are used by default; the debug flags are used when make +# is called with a debug target, such as 'make debug' + +# to get a list of the possible targets, try 'make help' + +# All targets are available at the top level, which exports the +# variables to sub-makes. Avoid makes in subdirectories; cd .. and +# make instead. + +DEBUGCFLAGS=-g -DDEBUG $(DEFINES) -Wall +DEBUGLDFLAGS= + +# Only ANSI-compatible C compilers are currently supported +CC=gcc + +# ---------------------------------------- +# Nothing below this line should have to be changed + +SUBDIRS=fortune util datfiles + +.PHONY: all debug fortune-bin fortune-debug util-bin randstr rot \ + util-debug cookies cookies-z install install-fortune \ + install-util install-man install-fman install-uman \ + clean love help + +# By default, compile optimized versions +all: fortune-bin util-bin cookies-z + +# Create debugging versions +debug: fortune-debug util-debug cookies-z + +# Just create the fortune binary +fortune-bin: + cd fortune && $(MAKE) CC='$(CC)' \ + CFLAGS='$(CFLAGS) $(REGEXDEFS) -I../util' \ + LDFLAGS='$(LDFLAGS)' LIBS='$(REGEXLIBS) $(RECODELIBS)' + +fortune-debug: + cd fortune && $(MAKE) CC='$(CC)' \ + CFLAGS='$(DEBUGCFLAGS) $(REGEXDEFS) -I../util' \ + LDFLAGS='$(DEBUGLDFLAGS)' LIBS='$(REGEXLIBS)' + +util-bin: + cd util && $(MAKE) CC='$(CC)' CFLAGS='$(CFLAGS)' \ + LDFLAGS='$(LDFLAGS)' + +# Not listed in help +randstr: + cd util && $(MAKE) CC='$(CC)' CFLAGS='$(CFLAGS)' \ + LDFLAGS='$(LDFLAGS)' randstr + +util-debug: + cd util && $(MAKE) CC='$(CC)' CFLAGS='$(DEBUGCFLAGS)' \ + LDFLAGS='$(DEBUGLDFLAGS)' + +cookies: + @echo "Try the kitchen, silly!" ; sleep 3 + @echo "Sorry, just joking." + $(MAKE) cookies-z + +cookies-z: util-bin + cd datfiles && $(MAKE) COOKIEDIR=$(COOKIEDIR) \ + OCOOKIEDIR=$(OCOOKIEDIR) WCOOKIEDIR=$(WCOOKIEDIR) \ + OFFENSIVE=$(OFFENSIVE) WEB=$(WEB) + +# Install everything +install: install-fortune install-util install-man install-cookie + +# Install just the fortune program +install-fortune: fortune-bin + install -m 0755 -d $(FORTDIR) + install -m 0755 fortune/fortune $(FORTDIR) + +# Install just the utilities strfile and unstr +install-util: util-bin + install -m 0755 -d $(BINDIR) + install -m $(BINMODE) util/strfile $(BINDIR) + install -m $(BINMODE) util/unstr $(BINDIR) + +# Install all the man pages +install-man: install-fman install-uman + +# Note: this rule concatenates the parts of the man page with the locally +# defined pathnames (which should reduce confusion). +fortune/fortune.man: fortune/fortune-man.part1 fortune/fortune-man.part2 + @echo -n "Building fortune/fortune.man ... " + @cat fortune/fortune-man.part1 >fortune/fortune.man + @echo ".I $(COOKIEDIR)" >>fortune/fortune.man + @echo "Directory for innoffensive fortunes." >>fortune/fortune.man + @echo ".TP" >>fortune/fortune.man + @echo ".I $(OCOOKIEDIR)" >>fortune/fortune.man + @echo "Directory for offensive fortunes." >>fortune/fortune.man + @cat fortune/fortune-man.part2 >>fortune/fortune.man + @echo done. + +# Install the fortune man pages +install-fman: fortune/fortune.man + install -m 0755 -d $(FORTMANDIR) + install -m 0644 fortune/fortune.man $(FORTMANDIR)/fortune.$(FORTMANEXT) + +# Install the utilities man pages +install-uman: + install -m 0755 -d $(BINMANDIR) + install -m 0644 util/strfile.man $(BINMANDIR)/strfile.$(BINMANEXT) + rm -f $(BINMANDIR)/unstr.$(BINMANEXT) + (cd $(BINMANDIR) && ln -sf strfile.$(BINMANEXT).gz $(BINMANDIR)/unstr.$(BINMANEXT).gz) + +# Install the fortune cookie files +install-cookie: cookies-z + cd datfiles && $(MAKE) COOKIEDIR=$(COOKIEDIR) \ + OCOOKIEDIR=$(OCOOKIEDIR) WCOOKIEDIR=$(WCOOKIEDIR) \ + OFFENSIVE=$(OFFENSIVE) WEB=$(WEB) install + +clean: + for i in $(SUBDIRS) ; do (cd $$i && $(MAKE) clean); done + +love: + @echo "Not war?" ; sleep 3 + @echo "Look, I'm not equipped for that, okay?" ; sleep 2 + @echo "Contact your hardware vendor for appropriate mods." + +help: + @echo "Targets:" + @echo + @echo "all: make all the binaries and data files (the default target)" + @echo " fortune-bin: make the fortune binary" + @echo " util-bin: make the strfile and unstr binaries" + @echo " cookies: make the fortune-cookie data files" + @echo + @echo "debug: make debugging versions of the binaries" + @echo " fortune-debug: Just the fortune program" + @echo " util-debug: Just strfile and unstr" + @echo + @echo "install: install the files in locations specified in Makefile" + @echo " install-fortune: Just the fortune program" + @echo " install-util: Just strfile and unstr" + @echo " install-cookie: Just the fortune string and data files" + @echo " install-man: Just the man pages" + @echo " install-fman: Just the fortune man page" + @echo " install-uman: Just the strfile/unstr man page" + @echo + @echo "clean: Remove object files and binaries" + @echo + @echo "help: This screen" + @echo + @echo "love: What a *good* idea! Let's!" diff --git a/fortune-mod/Notes b/fortune-mod/Notes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..20d9069 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/Notes @@ -0,0 +1,178 @@ +# $NetBSD: Notes,v 1.2 1995/03/23 08:28:26 cgd Exp $ +# @(#)Notes 8.1 (Berkeley) 5/31/93 + +Warning: + The fortunes contained in the fortune database have been collected + haphazardly from a cacophony of sources, in number so huge it + boggles the mind. It is impossible to do any meaningful quality + control on attributions, or lack thereof, or exactness of the quote. + Since this database is not used for profit, and since entire works + are not published, it falls under fair use, as we understand it. + However, if any half-assed idiot decides to make a profit off of + this, they will need to double check it all, and nobody not involved + of such an effort makes any warranty that anything in the database + bears any relation to the real world of literature, law, or other + bizzarrity. + +==> GENERAL INFORMATION + By default, fortune retrieves its fortune files from the directory +/usr/local/share/games/fortune. A fortune file has two parts: the source file +(which contains the fortunes themselves) and the data file which describes +the fortunes. The data fil always has the same name as the fortune file +with the string ".dat" concatenated, e.g. if "fort" is a standard fortune +database, then "fort.dat" is the data file which describes it. See +strfile(8) for more information on creating the data files. + Fortunes are split into potentially offensive and not potentially +offensive parts. The offensive version of a file has the same name as the +non-offensive version but exists in the offensive fortunes directory +(/usr/local/share/games/fortune/off by default). The fortune program +automatically assumes that any file in the offensive fortune directory +is potentially offensive, and should therefore only be displayed if +explicitly requested, either with the -o option, by specifying a file name +on the command line, or by appending "-o" to the name. + Potentially offensive fortune files should NEVER be maintained in +clear text on the system. They are rotated (see caesar(6)) 13 positions. +To create a new, potentially offensive database, use caesar to rotate it, +and then create its data file with the -x option to strfile(8). The fortune +program automatically decrypts the text when it prints entries from such +databases. + Anything which would not make it onto network prime time programming +(or which would only be broadcast if some discredited kind of guy said it) +MUST be in the potentially offensive database. Fortunes containing any +explicit language (see George Carlin's recent updated list) MUST be in the +potentially offensive database. Political and religious opinions are often +sequestered in the potentially offensive section as well. Anything which +assumes as a world view blatantly racist, mysogynist (sexist), or homophobic +ideas should not be in either, since they are not really funny unless *you* +are racist, mysogynist, or homophobic. + The point of this is that people have should have a reasonable +expectation that, should they just run "fortune", they will not be offended. +We know that some people take offense at anything, but normal people do have +opinions, too, and have a right not to have their sensibilities offended by +a program which is supposed to be entertaining. People who run "fortune +-o" or "fortune -a" are saying, in effect, that they are willing to have +their sensibilities tweaked. However, they should not have their personal +worth seriously (i.e., not in jest) assaulted. Jokes which depend for their +humor on racist, mysogynist, or homophobic stereotypes *do* seriously +assault individual personal worth, and in an general entertainment medium +we should be able to get by without it. + +==> FORMATTING + This file describes the format for fortunes in the database. This +is done in detail to make it easier to keep track of things. Any rule given +here may be broken to make a better joke. + +[All examples are indented by one tab stop -- KCRCA] + +Numbers should be given in parentheses, e.g., + + (1) Everything depends. + (2) Nothing is always. + (3) Everything is sometimes. + +Attributions are two tab stops, followed by two hyphens, followed by a +space, followed by the attribution, and are *not* preceded by blank +lines. Book, journal, movie, and all other titles are in quotes, e.g., + + $100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at + which time it will be worth absolutely nothing. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" + +Attributions which do not fit on one (72 char) line should be continued +on a line which lines up below the first text of the attribution, e.g., + + -- A very long attribution which might not fit on one + line, "Ken Arnold's Stupid Sayings" + +Single paragraph fortunes are in left justified (non-indented) paragraphs +unless they fall into another category listed below (see example above). +Longer fortunes should also be in left justified paragraphs, but if this +makes it too long, try indented paragraphs, with indentations of either one +tab stop or 5 chars. Indentations of less than 5 are too hard to read. + +Laws have the title left justified and capitalized, followed by a colon, +with all the text of the law itself indented one tab stop, initially +capitalized, e.g., + + A Law of Computer Programming: + Make it possible for programmers to write in English and + you will find the programmers cannot write in English. + +Limericks are indented as follows, all lines capitalized: + + A computer, to print out a fact, + Will divide, multiply, and subtract. + But this output can be + No more than debris, + If the input was short of exact. + +Accents precede the letter they are over, e.g., "`^He" for e with a grave +accent. Underlining is done on a word-by-word basis, with the underlines +preceding the word, e.g., "__^H^Hhi ____^H^H^H^Hthere". + +No fortune should run beyond 72 characters on a single line without good +justification (er, no pun intended). And no right margin justification, +either. Sorry. For BSD people, there is a program called "fmt" which can +make this kind of formatting easier. + +Definitions are given with the word or phrase left justified, followed by +the part of speech (if appropriate) and a colon. The definition starts +indented by one tab stop, with subsequent lines left justified, e.g., + + Afternoon, n.: + That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted + the morning. + +Quotes are sometimes put around statements which are funnier or make more +sense if they are understood as being spoken, rather than written, +communication, e.g., + + "All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that + keeps us sane." + +Ellipses are always surrounded by spaces, except when next to punctuation, +and are three dots long. + + "... all the modern inconveniences ..." + -- Mark Twain + +Human initials always have spaces after the periods, e.g, "P. T. Barnum", +not "P.T. Barnum". However, "P.T.A.", not "P. T. A.". + +All fortunes should be attributed, but if and only if they are original with +somebody. Many people have said things that are folk sayings (i.e., are +common among the folk (i.e., us common slobs)). There is nothing wrong with +this, of course, but such statements should not be attributed to individuals +who did not invent them. + +Horoscopes should have the sign indented by one tab stop, followed by the +dates of the sign, with the text left justified below it, e.g., + + AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18) + You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You + lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be + careless and impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over + and over again. People think you are stupid. + +Single quotes should not be used except as quotes within quotes. Not even +single quotes masquerading as double quotes are to be used, e.g., don't say +``hi there'' or `hi there' or 'hi there', but "hi there". However, you +*can* say "I said, `hi there'". + +A long poem or song can be ordered as follows in order to make it fit on a +screen (fortunes should be 19 lines or less if at all possible) (numbers +here are stanza numbers): + + 11111111111111111111 + 11111111111111111111 + 11111111111111111111 22222222222222222222 + 11111111111111111111 22222222222222222222 + 22222222222222222222 + 33333333333333333333 22222222222222222222 + 33333333333333333333 + 33333333333333333333 44444444444444444444 + 33333333333333333333 44444444444444444444 + 44444444444444444444 + 44444444444444444444 + + diff --git a/fortune-mod/Offensive b/fortune-mod/Offensive new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd57541 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/Offensive @@ -0,0 +1,54 @@ +An attempt has been made to restructure the fortune database. This has +included, of necessity, a concatenation and redivision of the offensive +and inoffensive fortunes. In the process, some fortunes may have gotten +lost, and others may have moved from one category to another (or from +both categories to one or the other, more commonly). + +The following were the criteria I used to make the division: + Anything about sex is offensive. Welcome to America. *sigh* + Insults based on religion or ethnicity are offensive. + Generally, any criticism of anybody's religion is offensive. + "He really said that?" quotes from politicians are offensive. + Political bias is offensive. + Limericks are offensive even if they aren't. + Tastelessness is offensive (q.v. "The Snack"). + Misogyny and misandry for the sake of themselves are offensive. + Vulgarity is offensive. + Violence for the sake of humor is offensive. + +Surprisingly, given this rather broad definition, there are still more +inoffensive quotations, quips, and quozzits than offensive ones. A +peculiar, back-handed compliment to human nature (it surprised me). + +In another file in this directory (Notes), the original author(s) of the +fortune distribution state that "racist, mysogynist [sic] (sexist), or +homophobic ideas" should never be included in the fortune database. + +This was not the case when the database came into my possession, and I +began attempting to divide it thematically. Misogyny and homophobia are +both pretty well-represented; it is thus only a minor relief that racism +isn't (nonetheless, it *is* a relief). Faced with two unpalatable +alternatives, of including material that really deserves no wider +publication or of acting the censor, I choose to pass on the +responsibility, though I have attempted to make maintenance easier. +Misogyny is sequestered in the file "misogyny," homophobia in "hphobia," +and racism in "racism" (see the file 'cookie-files' in this directory for +a discussion of the contents of the various files), all in the offensive +directory. Those who respect women, gays, and people of color may prefer +to either remove the .dat file (which keeps the strings, but makes them +inaccessible via the fortune program), or to delete these files altogether. + +I admit that I was strongly tempted to simply remove these fortunes, an +action that I might have justified by pointing to the Notes of the +original authors. However, it appears that over the course of time there +have been those who find these sorts of prejudice amusing, and in +America, at least, even Nazi rhetoric is a protected form of speech. So +I include them, and leave the decision to individual system administrators. + +I will add, as a final note, that reading through the offensive fortunes +(I have been forced to read and reread every fortune in the database +several times, in order to assign things to their proper places) has left +me far less amused by fortune -o than previously. It is easy to overdose +on insult. + +Amy Lewis alewis@email.unc.edu September-October 1995. diff --git a/fortune-mod/README b/fortune-mod/README new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e36d3e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/README @@ -0,0 +1,174 @@ +fortune-mod README +================== + +This is fortune-mod-1.99.1. It's a pre-release for +fortune-mod-2.0. This should give interested parties a chance to have +a look at the changes that have come in, and the new features. + +Fortune-mod now leaves at http://www.redellipse.net/code/fortune. You +can find the CVS repository at +http://cvs.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/fortune/?cvsroot=fortune + +Many thanks to Dennis for making the last release of this software, +and to everyone who has taken the time to contribute quotes. We are +now up to 22203 fortunes at last count. Keep 'em coming! + + -- Pascal Hakim Fri, 05 Mar 2004 23:03:00 +1100 + +--- Dennis' README--- +fortune-mod README +================== + +This is fortune-mod 9708. It is basically the same as the fortune-mod +released in October 1995, with some portability improvements, bug fixes +and documentation cleanup. + +The most significant fix was for the reported bug about the `-a' option +of fortune with database names that appear in both the inoffensive and +offensive directories. This was solved by allowing the user to append +'-o' to a fortune name while `-a' is in effect to force selection of the +offensive version of a database. + +Other changes/fixes: Fortune is now consistant in how it determines a +fortune's length (for -s and -l). The -m can now be used together with +-s or -l: only fortunes which match _BOTH_ the pattern and the length +requirement will be printed. + +Most of the other features over the usual BSD fortune are summarised in +Amy's README.Linux, included below, and in the accompanying manual pages +for fortune(6) and strfile(1). + +The changes in fortune.c and fortune.man are copyrighted by me but +freely distributable: see the source files for details. All other +changes are in the public domain: you may do what you like with them. + +Getting this Software +--------------------- + +You can find out about my latest version of this package from my +Software Hacks web page: + + http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~dbugger/hacks/hacks.html + +From it, there are links to download the source code. + +I shall also be uploading "stable" releases to the SunSITE Linux mirror +network, so check out sunsite.unc.edu or your local SunSITE mirror. If +you still can't find it, the package should be registered under the +Linux Software Map, at: + + http://www.execpc.com/lsm/ + +Its LSM entry should tell you where to find it. + +Cheers, + + + -- Dennis L. Clark Thu, 28 Aug 1997 11:42:15 -0400 + +----Amy's README.Linux--- +This version of fortune is a modification of the NetBSD fortune, as +tweaked by Florian La Roche (see below, and many thanks to Florian for +starting the update), and then massively hacked on by Amy Lewis. + +I (Amy) hacked on this because it was broken; the BSD source itself is +broken (I looked at it). Specifically, if you are using an old version +of fortune, then it accesses *only* the two files "fortunes" and +"fortunes-o", even though 'fortune -[ao]f' will tell you differently. +That was my original reason to start working with the code. + +Bug fixes: fortune now reads the same file list that it reports with -f. +strfile now really sorts and randomizes, instead of just setting the +'sorted' and 'randomized' flags. strfile does not lose the pointer to a +fortune that follows a null fortune. + +Enhancements: fortune -f now prints percentages, whether specified on the +command line or not. fortune -m now prints filenames to stderr; the +fortunes printed to stdout can be redirected into a file which is valid +strfile format. fortune -l|s can be modified with -n _number_ to specify +the number of characters in a short fortune (default 160, as before). +The means of distinguishing between offensive and inoffensive fortunes is +changed: offensive fortunes are put in a separate subdirectory. The +contents of the fortunes databases have been extensively reviewed, and +broken into smaller, more manageable [hopefully] files. +strfile is not notably enhanced, though it received the most significant +bug fixes. unstr now accepts a command line parameter -c _char_ which +globally changes the delimiter character. unstr now accepts an output +file as the second file parameter, and can tell if a file has a '.dat' +extension. +An example of the use of fortune-style databases for other purposes, +called randstr, has been added. See util/README.randstr +The Makefiles have been extensively hacked upon. + +Bugs: combining -a with xx% filename, when _filename_ is found in both +the offensive and the inoffensive directories, causes fortune to exit +without an error message. I think it's confused as to which file gets +the xx%. I should fix this. Don't hold your breath, though. + +For more information, see the files ChangeLog, Offensive, README.install, +and cookie-files in the top-level directory, and the comments in the +various *.c source files. + +Amy A. Lewis alewis@email.unc.edu October, 1995 + +----Florian's README.LINUX--- +I have looked at sunsite and tsx and found one very old fortune program +and one in the debian Linux distribution. But comparing that one with +the version in NetBSD-current showed me, that NetBSD-current has fixed +so many speeling-bugs that I just had to repackage everything for the +Linux community. + +In the source package are all changes for Linux in the file LINUX.DIF. +(Rewriting the Makefiles and some trivial small fixes.) + +I expect this "fortune.tar.gz" to show up under /pub/Linux/games. + +Not only the kernel needs speeling-corrections, + +Florian La Roche florian@jurix.jura.uni-sb.de April 1995 + + +PS. The following is the README from the originating NetBSD fortune: +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= + +# $NetBSD: README,v 1.2 1995/03/23 08:28:29 cgd Exp $ +# @(#)README 8.1 (Berkeley) 5/31/93 + +The potentially offensive fortunes are not installed by default on BSD +systems. If you're absolutely, *positively*, without-a-shadow-of-a-doubt +sure that your user community wants them installed, whack the Makefile +in the subdirectory datfiles, and do "make all install". + +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= + Some years ago, my neighbor Avery said to me: "There has not been an +adequate jokebook published since "Joe_Miller", which came out in 1739 and +which, incidentally, was the most miserable no-good ... jokebook in the +history of the printed word." + In a subsequent conversation, Avery said: "A funny story is a funny +story, no matter who is in it - whether it's about Catholics or Protestants, +Jews or Gentiles, blacks or whites, browns or yellows. If a story is genuinely +funny it makes no difference how dirty it is. Shout it from the rooftops. +Let the chips fall all over the prairie and let the bonehead wowsers yelp. +... on them." + It is a nice thing to have a neighbor of Avery's grain. He has +believed in the aforestated principles all his life. A great many other +people nowadays are casting aside the pietistic attitude that has led them +to plug up their ears against the facts of life. We of The Brotherhood +believe as Avery believes; we have never been intimidated by the pharisaical +meddlers who have been smelling up the American landscape since the time of +the bundling board. Neither has any one of our members ever been called a +racist. Still, we have been in unremitting revolt against the ignorant +propensity which ordains, in effect, that "The Green Pastures" should never +have been written; the idiot attitude which compelled Arthur Kober to abandon +his delightful Bella Gross, and Octavius Roy Cohen to quit writing about the +splendiferous Florian Slappey; the moronic frame of mind which, if carried +to its logical end, would have forbidden Ring Lardner from writing in the +language of the masses. + -- H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes" + + ... let us keep in mind the basic governing philosophy of The +Brotherhood, as handsomely summarized in these words: we believe in +healthy, hearty laughter -- at the expense of the whole human race, if +needs be. + Needs be. + -- H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes" diff --git a/fortune-mod/TODO b/fortune-mod/TODO new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3f8071 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/TODO @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +* Replace current Makefiles with an autoconf setup (maybe use + automake?) (Do we even need this?) + +* Split-off properly offensive fortune file generation (and provide a + fake offensive fortune for when it's not installed) + +* .fortunerc and /etc/fortunerc support + +* More fortunes! + +* Properly format all fortunes! (See notes for details) + +* Localised -a and -o fortune display + +-- Pascal Hakim diff --git a/fortune-mod/cookie-files b/fortune-mod/cookie-files new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c21b4ec --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/cookie-files @@ -0,0 +1,212 @@ +This is a list of the data files included with this distribution, and +what they contain. + +In an ideal world, someone would maintain the fortune databases, having +an email address and a web page where new fortunes could be submitted. +I'd do it myself, except that I'm going to lose this account, and the +account doesn't permit CGI scripts. If you want to set up such a +service, have CGI access, but don't have the skills to set up an HTML +form for submissions, drop me a line and maybe I can work something up +for you. + +Offensive fortunes are installed by default. To *not* install them, +change the "OFFENSIVE" variable in the makefile from 1 to 0 (or delete +the directory of offensive fortunes, if you wish. + +At the end of this file is another listing of the filenames, without +descriptions, in order of size as size is understood by the fortune +program--that is, number of text strings (as reported by strfile on +October 19, 1995, just before tarring this mess for upload--sizes may be +slightly off, since I'll try to check for duplicates at least once more). + +./datfiles/ : the directory for inoffensive fortunes + +art : Broadly construed; it includes television and celebrities. +ascii-art : each one worth a thousand words, I guess. +computers : various fortunes that are computer-related. This includes + the 'joke' fortunes that are supposed to emulate system + error messages, as well as some neat stuff. +cookie : Cookie file from Karl Lehenbauer's postings to alt.sources +definitions : It ought to be all the 'definitions,' but what it really + is, is all the definitions that have a first line ending + with a colon. +drugs : Alcohol and cigarettes, mostly. Legal chemicals. +education : Schools, teachers, and scholarship, mostly not complimentary. +ethnic : Jokes that are about groups of people, but aren't making + fun of them. Laughing with instead of at. +food : Recipes, diets, and more about food. +fortunes : Yes, the old file name, but this contains predictions, + evaluations of character, and the kind of stuff that you + actually expect to get when you want to know your fortune. +goedel : Meta-fortunes. Incomplete, of course. :-) +humorists : Stand-up comedians, and people like Dave Barry. Especially + stuff that doesn't fit into another category (almost anything + that Steven Wright says doesn't fit a category). +kids : Real advice and cynical observations on children, parenting, + and family life. +law : Stupid laws, stupider lawyers. *No* joke about a lawyer + is *ever* offensive (except to lawyers, and who cares?). +linuxcookie : From the collection at ftp.icce.rug.nl. Linux-related. + It probably ought to go in with 'computers,' but it's + archived separately, so I'm keeping it separate. +literature : Mostly classic authors; a few newbies. And Bulwer-Lytton. + It should contain more on writing and by writers, but a lot + of that somehow got into art. +love : What no one gets enough of, I guess. +magic : Abracadabra. +medicine : Doctors and cures. And other contradictory juxtapositions. + Exercise. +men-women : And the relations between them. +miscellaneous : Whatever's left over. +news : On journalism, and the unintentionally amusing bits of + journalism. +people : You know, humans. Personality, appearance, relationships, + and all the other evilness of which humans are capable. + It should probably be several smaller files (personality, + appearance, relationships ...) +pets : Mostly cats and dogs, with some goldfish. And penguins. + And a rubber duck. +platitudes : The meaning of life, and of other things, including all those + stupid little sayings, and variants on them. +politics : Comments on man as a political animal. Also police, + soldiers, and other criminals. +riddles : Not really riddles, necessarily, but mostly Q: A: +science : Largely math and engineering, but some other interesting + and amusing sorts of science-related apothegms. Also + technology. +songs-poems : Stuff with meter, at least, and usually with rhymes. +sports : You know. Like on television. ;-) +startrek : Apparently quotes from Star Trek Classic. Plus a bit. +translate-me : A small file containing non-English quotes without + translations. +wisdom : Zen, the True Meaning of Life, and other stupid lies. +work : Really about the business world, and the pains of being a + part of it. The desperate problems of the wealthy. Like + that. +zippy : Quotes from the comic Zippy the Pinhead. + + +./datfiles/off/ : the directory for offensive fortunes, already rot13'd. + they aren't distributed. All the offensive fortunes, + unrotated, are found in the subdirectory: +./datfiles/off/unrotated/ : unrotated, offensive fortunes* + +atheism : Wayne Aiken's atheism cookie file, from: + http://www4.ncsu.edu/~aiken/ +astrology : Like in the daily newspapers, except nastier. More would + be nice. A few comments *about* astrology. +black-humor : Death, violence-as-humor, and the like. Really sick stuff. +definitions : Like the inoffensive; first line ends with a colon and + it looks sorta like a definition. +drugs : Various references to illegal herbs and chemicals. +ethnic : Nasty slams at particular ethnic groups. 'Ethnic' actually + includes regionalist jokes in America. +hphobia : Slams at gays and lesbians. +limerick : There once was a file named limerick, / the contents of + which were pretty slick. / Each fortune five lines, / + with execrable rhymes, / And contents t'offend the fanatick. +misandry : Anti-man stuff. Smaller than 'misogyny.' Wotta surprise. +miscellaneous : It has everything that doesn't fit in other categories. +misogyny : Jokes that women encounter as real attitudes daily. Real + attitudes that women have to pretend are jokes daily. +politics : The great wonder about the offensive political file is + that it mostly contains direct quotes by politicians + who *weren't* trying to be funny. +privates : No, not promoted recruits. The naughty bits, that people + aren't supposed to talk about. Body parts and functions. + (Note that "size" has nothing to do with sex, so size + jokes are all in here). +racism : Racism. I suppose it's funny to *someone*. I hope I + never meet him. +religion : Stuff that might offend religious people, mostly Christians. +riddles : Not really riddles, but usually the question format, + some Q&A and some just leading/rhetorical questions. +sex : Uhh. Well, you see, son, there are, umm, birds, and bees... + This ranges from outrageously frank to moderately suggestive. +songs-poems : Filthy, bawdy, naughty songs and poems! Licentious, I tell + tell you! The programmer must be spanked! First the + spanking .... +vulgarity : Jokes in which the 'humor' is bad language, plus some + genuinely funny things that happen to contain bad language. + +./datfiles/html/ : the directory for fortune files with HTML tags. + Currently empty, but I'll get a round tuit. + +The intention throughout has been to create something a bit more +manageable and maintainable, without notable success in most cases. A +more rational division of the fortunes would be preferred, but you do +what comes naturally. + +If you prefer to have all the fortunes in one humongous file, that's fine: +cat 'em all together and run strfile. That's easy; breaking them apart +again isn't. Keep in mind that the "-o" infix format is not supported in +this version of fortune, so keep the offensive files in a separate +directory. + +*If any of these files are not to your taste, do the easy thing: rm +filename.dat. That leaves the fortunes there, but without the pointer +file, inaccessible. Or rm filename, which gets rid of the text strings. + +There are over 15,000 'fortunes' here, in the various files. Here's the +breakdown, by file and directory. + +Total 16422 +-------------------- + +Inoffensive 12209 +----------- +people 1231 +definitions 1105 +computers 1021 +songs-poems 719 +politics 692 +miscellaneous 643 +work 630 +science 622 +men-women 582 +zippy 548 +platitudes 497 +art 460 +fortunes 433 +wisdom 402 +literature 256 +startrek 225 +drugs 208 +education 203 +law 202 +food 198 +humorists 196 +ethnic 163 +love 151 +kids 150 +sports 147 +riddles 135 +linuxcookie 102 +medicine 72 +goedel 54 +news 53 +pets 51 +magic 29 +translate-me 19 +ascii-art 10 + +Offensive 4213 +--------- +limerick 1001 +sex 805 +politics 349 +definitions 332 +black-humor 270 +riddles 267 +religion 226 +songs-poems 206 +vulgarity 194 +privates 132 +ethnic 126 +drugs 73 +miscellaneous 64 +misogyny 60 +astrology 42 +hphobia 40 +misandry 23 +racism 3 diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/Makefile b/fortune-mod/datfiles/Makefile new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1fb2b58 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/Makefile @@ -0,0 +1,73 @@ + +COOKIES=art ascii-art computers cookie definitions drugs education ethnic \ + food fortunes goedel humorists kids law linuxcookie literature \ + love magic medicine men-women miscellaneous news people pets \ + platitudes politics riddles science songs-poems sports \ + startrek translate-me wisdom work linux perl knghtbrd \ + paradoxum zippy debian + +STRFILE=../util/strfile + +.PHONY: all cookies o-cookies w-cookies install clean + +all: cookies o-cookies w-cookies + +check: + for i in $(COOKIES) ; \ + do \ + echo -n "Testing $$i..."; \ + if ! tail -n 1 $$i | grep -q ^%$ ; then \ + echo " failed % check" ; \ + echo "Fortune cookie file does not end in a single %" ; \ + exit 1; \ + fi;\ + if egrep -q ".{72}." $$i ; then \ + echo " failed length check"; \ + echo "Fortune cookie file contains a line longer than 72 characters"; \ + exit 1; \ + fi; \ + echo " passed " ;\ + done; + +cookies: cookies-stamp + +o-cookies: + if [ $(OFFENSIVE) = 1 ] ; then \ + cd off && $(MAKE) OCOOKIEDIR=$(OCOOKIEDIR) ; fi + +w-cookies: + if [ $(WEB) = 1 ] ; then \ + cd html && $(MAKE) WCOOKIEDIR=$(WCOOKIEDIR); fi + +cookies-stamp: + rm -f *.dat + for i in $(COOKIES) ; \ + do \ + if [ ! -f $$i.old ] ; then \ + cp $$i $$i.old; \ + fi; \ + recode latin1..u8 $$i ; \ + $(STRFILE) $$i ; \ + ln -s $$i $$i.u8 || exit $? ; \ + done + touch cookies-stamp + +install: cookies-stamp + install -m 0755 -d $(COOKIEDIR) + if [ $(OFFENSIVE) = 1 ] ; then cd off && $(MAKE) install ; fi + if [ $(WEB) = 1 ] ; then cd html && $(MAKE) install ; fi + for i in $(COOKIES) ; do \ + install -m 0644 $$i $$i.dat $(COOKIEDIR) || exit $? ; \ + cp -d $$i.u8 $(COOKIEDIR) ; \ + done + +clean: + rm -f cookies-stamp *.dat + rm -f *.u8 + cd off && $(MAKE) clean + cd html && $(MAKE) clean + for i in $(COOKIES) ; do \ + if [ -f $$i.old ] ; then \ + mv $$i.old $$i; \ + fi; \ + done diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/art b/fortune-mod/datfiles/art new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3434af2 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/art @@ -0,0 +1,2244 @@ +7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) + The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National + Redwood Forest. + +7:30, Channel 8: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) + The Bionic Dog gets a hormonal short-circuit and violates the + Mann Act with an interstate Greyhound bus. +% +A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to +judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased +-- he hates all creative people equally. +% +A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. +% + A circus foreman was making the rounds inspecting the big top +when a scrawny little man entered the tent and walked up to him. "Are +you the foreman around here?" he asked timidly. "I'd like to join your +circus; I have what I think is a pretty good act." + The foreman nodded assent, whereupon the little man hurried over to +the main pole and rapidly climbed up to the very tip-top of the big top. +Drawing a deep breath, he hurled himself off into the air and began flapping +his arms furiously. Amazingly, rather than plummeting to his death the little +man began to fly all around the poles, lines, trapezes and other obstacles, +performing astounding feats of aerobatics which ended in a long power dive +from the top of the tent, pulling up into a gentle feet-first landing beside +the foreman, who had been nonchalantly watching the whole time. + "Well," puffed the little man. "What do you think?" + "That's all you do?" answered the foreman scornfully. "Bird +imitations?" +% +A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned +things is ample. + -- Rebecca West +% +A critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste. + -- Whitney Balliett +% +A diva who specializes in risque arias is an off-coloratura soprano. +% +A drama critic is a person who surprises a playwright by informing him +what he meant. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of +marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. +% + A hard-luck actor who appeared in one coloossal disaster after another +finally got a break, a broken leg to be exact. Someone pointed out that it's +the first time the poor fellow's been in the same cast for more than a week. +% +A Hollywood producer calls a friend, another producer on the phone. + "Hello?" his friend answers. + "Hi!" says the man. "This is Bob, how are you doing?" + "Oh," says the friend, "I'm doing great! I just sold a screenplay +for two hundred thousand dollars. I've started a novel adaptation and the +studio advanced me fifty thousand dollars on it. I also have a television +series coming on next week, and everyone says it's going to be a big hit! +I'm doing *great*! How are you?" + "Okay," says the producer, "give me a call when he leaves." +% +A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. +% + A musical reviewer admitted he always praised the first show of a +new theatrical season. "Who am I to stone the first cast?" +% + A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at +the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the +pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite +nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if..." + "If what?" asked the composer. + "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?" +% +A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits. +% +A rose is a rose is a rose. Just ask Jean Marsh, known to millions of +PBS viewers in the '70s as Rose, the maid on the LWT export "Upstairs, +Downstairs." Though Marsh has since gone on to other projects, ... it's +with Rose she's forever identified. So much so that she even likes to +joke about having one named after her, a distinction not without its +drawbacks. "I was very flattered when I heard about it, but when I looked +up the official description, it said, `Jean Marsh: pale peach, not very +good in beds; better up against a wall.' I want to tell you that's not +true. I'm very good in beds as well." +% +A sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to imitating yourself. + -- Don Marquis +% + A shy teenage boy finally worked up the nerve to give a gift to +Madonna, a young puppy. It hitched its waggin' to a star. +% +A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say. + -- Michael Winner, British film director +% +A true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother +drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art. + -- Shaw +% +A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call +what he writes fiction. + -- William Faulkner +% +A yawn is a silent shout. + -- G.K. Chesterton +% +A young man wrote to Mozart and said: + +Q: "Herr Mozart, I am thinking of writing symphonies. Can you give me any + suggestions as to how to get started?" +A: "A symphony is a very complex musical form, perhaps you should begin with + some simple lieder and work your way up to a symphony." +Q: "But Herr Mozart, you were writing symphonies when you were 8 years old." +A: "But I never asked anybody how." +% +Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing. +% +Acting is not very hard. The most important things are to be able to laugh +and cry. If I have to cry, I think of my sex life. And if I have to laugh, +well, I think of my sex life. + -- Glenda Jackson +% +Actor Real Name + +Boris Karloff William Henry Pratt +Cary Grant Archibald Leach +Edward G. Robinson Emmanual Goldenburg +Gene Wilder Gerald Silberman +John Wayne Marion Morrison +Kirk Douglas Issur Danielovitch +Richard Burton Richard Jenkins Jr. +Roy Rogers Leonard Slye +Woody Allen Allen Stewart Konigsberg +% +Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families. +% +Actresses will happen in the best regulated families. + -- Addison Mizner and Oliver Herford, "The Entirely + New Cynic's Calendar", 1905 +% +Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo. + -- actress Mary Pickford, 1925 +% +Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something +strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +After a few boring years, socially meaningful rock 'n' roll died out. It was +replaced by disco, which offers no guidance to any form of life more +advanced than the lichen family. + -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" +% +Alex Haley was adopted! +% +All art is but imitation of nature. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca +% +An actor's a guy who if you ain't talkin' about him, ain't listening. + -- Marlon Brando +% +An artist should be fit for the best society and keep out of it. +% +Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but +television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and +world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers +whiter teeth *___and* fresher breath. + -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" +% +Any dramatic series the producers want us to take seriously as a representation +of contemporary reality cannot be taken seriously as a representation of +anything -- except a show to be ignored by anyone capable of sitting upright +in a chair and chewing gum simultaneously. + -- Richard Schickel +% +Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it. +% + "Are you police officers?" + "No, ma'am. We're musicians." + -- The Blues Brothers +% +Around the turn of this century, a composer named Camille Saint-Saens wrote +a satirical zoological-fantasy called "Le Carnaval des Animaux." Aside from +one movement of this piece, "The Swan", Saint-Saens didn't allow this work +to be published or even performed until a year had elapsed after his death. +(He died in 1921.) + Most of us know the "Swan" movement rather well, with its smooth, +flowing cello melody against a calm background; but I've been having this +fantasy... + What if he had written this piece with lyrics, as a song to be sung? +And, further, what if he had accompanied this song with a musical saw? (This +instrument really does exist, often played by percussionists!) Then the +piece would be better known as: + SAINT-SAENS' SAW SONG "SWAN"! +% +Art is a jealous mistress. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth. + -- Picasso +% +Art is anything you can get away with. + -- Marshall McLuhan. +% +Art is either plagiarism or revolution. + -- Paul Gauguin +% +Art is Nature speeded up and God slowed down. + -- Chazal +% +Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death. +% +As a goatherd learns his trade by goat, so a writer learns his trade by wrote. +% +Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a +lamp-post how it feels about dogs. + -- Christopher Hampton +% +Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever +depths they were once able to plumb. + -- Stanley Kaufman +% +Authors are easy to get on with -- if you're fond of children. + -- Michael Joseph, "Observer" +% +Bahdges? We don't need no stinkin' bahdges! + -- "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" +% +Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent +and original in your work. + -- Flaubert +% +Being a mime means never having to say you're sorry. +% +"Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" +% +Ben, why didn't you tell me? + -- Luke Skywalker +% +"Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence" + -- Time Bandits +% +Best Mistakes In Films + In his "Filmgoer's Companion", Mr. Leslie Halliwell helpfully lists +four of the cinema's greatest moments which you should get to see if at all +possible. + In "Carmen Jones", the camera tracks with Dorothy Dandridge down a +street; and the entire film crew is reflected in the shop window. + In "The Wrong Box", the roofs of Victorian London are emblazoned +with television aerials. + In "Decameron Nights", Louis Jourdain stands on the deck of his +fourteenth century pirate ship; and a white lorry trundles down the hill +in the background. + In "Viking Queen", set in the times of Boadicea, a wrist watch is +clearly visible on one of the leading characters. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +BS: You remind me of a man. +B: What man? +BS: The man with the power. +B: What power? +BS: The power of voodoo. +B: Voodoo? +BS: You do. +B: Do what? +BS: Remind me of a man. +B: What man? +BS: The man with the power... + -- Cary Grant, "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" +% +Burnt Sienna. That's the best thing that ever happened to Crayolas. + -- Ken Weaver +% +But if you wish at once to do nothing and to be respectable +nowdays, the best pretext is to be at work on some profound study. + -- Leslie Stephen, "Sketches from Cambridge" +% +But you shall not escape my iambics. + -- Gaius Valerius Catullus +% +Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances. + -- RKO executive, reacting to Fred Astaire's screen test. + Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" +% +Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune. + -- Kin Hubbard, "Abe Martin's Sayings" +% +Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie. +% +Darth Vader! Only you would be so bold! + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +Did you know that the voice tapes easily identify the Russian pilot +that shot down the Korean jet? At one point he definitely states: + + "Natasha! First we shoot jet, then we go after moose and squirrel." + + -- ihuxw!tommyo +% +Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art. +% +Don't everyone thank me at once! + -- Han Solo +% +Dustin Farnum: Why, yesterday, I had the audience glued to their seats! +Oliver Herford: Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of it! + -- Brian Herbert, "Classic Comebacks" +% +Dying is easy. Comedy is difficult. + -- Actor Edmond Gween, on his deathbed. +% +E.T. GO HOME!!! (And take your Smurfs with you.) +% +Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent. + -- Fred Allen +% +Eeny, Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak! + -- Bullwinkle Moose +% +Elwood: What kind of music do you get here ma'am? +Barmaid: Why, we get both kinds of music, Country and Western. +% +Ever get the feeling that the world's on tape and one of the reels is missing? + -- Rich Little +% +Everyone is in the best seat. + -- John Cage +% +Fame lost its appeal for me when I went into a public restroom and an +autograph seeker handed me a pen and paper under the stall door. + -- Marlo Thomas +% +Fast ship? You mean you've never heard of the Millennium Falcon? + -- Han Solo +% +"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order" + -- The Doctor, "Doctor Who" +% +Fools rush in -- and get the best seats in the house. +% +For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at +the results of this evening's experiments. Astonished at the wonderful +power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous +and bad music may be put on record forever. + -- Sir Arthur Sullivan, message to Edison, 1888 +% +For the next hour, WE will control all that you see and hear. +% +Forms follow function, and often obliterate it. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #12 + +O.E.D.: David Lean, 1969, 3 hours 30 min. + + Lean's version of the Oxford Dictionary has been accused of + shallowness in its treatment of a complete work. Omar Sharif + tends to overact as aardvark, but Alec Guiness is solid in + the role of abbacy. As usual, the photography is stunning. + With Julie Christie. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #3 + +MIRACLE ON 42ND STREET: + Santa Claus, in the off season, follows his heart's desire and + tries to make it big on Broadway. Santa sings and dances his way + into your heart. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #5 + +THE ATOMIC GRANDMOTHER: + This humorous but heart-warming story tells of an elderly woman + forced to work at a nuclear power plant in order to help the family + make ends meet. At night, granny sits on the porch, tells tales + of her colorful past, and the family uses her to cook barbecues + and to power small electrical appliances. Maureen Stapleton gives + a glowing performance. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #9 + +THE PARKING PROBLEM IN PARIS: Jean-Luc Godard, 1971, 7 hours 18 min. + + Godard's meditation on the topic has been described as + everything from "timeless" to "endless." (Remade by Gene + Wilder as NO PLACE TO PARK.) +% +FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #37 + Can you name the seven seas? + Antartic, Artic, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian, + North Pacific, South Pacific. + Can you name the seven dwarfs from Snow White? + Doc, Dopey, Sneezy, Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy and Bashful. +% +Fremen add life to spice! +% + FROM THE DESK OF + Dorothy Gale + + Auntie Em: + Hate you. + Hate Kansas. + Taking the dog. + Dorothy +% +G. B. Shaw to William Douglas Home: "Go on writing plays, my boy. One +of these days a London producer will go into his office and say to his +secretary, `Is there a play from Shaw this morning?' and when she says +`No,' he will say, `Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish.' And +that's your chance, my boy." +% +Gauls! We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fall on +our heads tomorrow. But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!! + -- Adventures of Asterix +% +George Bernard Shaw once sent two tickets to the opening night of one of +his plays to Winston Churchill with the following note: + "Bring a friend, if you have one." + +Churchill wrote back, returning the two tickets and excused himself as he +had a previous engagement. He also attached the following: + "Please send me two tickets for the next night, if there is one." +% +Go ahead... make my day. + -- Dirty Harry +% +God help the troubadour who tries to be a star. The more that you try +to find success, the more that you will fail. + -- Phil Ochs, on the Second System Effect +% +God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant +and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things. + -- Pablo Picasso +% +God save us from a bad neighbor and a beginner on the fiddle. +% +Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are. +% +Governor Tarkin. I should have expected to find you holding Vader's +leash. I thought I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board. + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY (#17): + +On November 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place +of residence. +% +Grig (the navigator): + ... so you see, it's just the two of us against the entire space + armada. +Alex (the gunner): + What?!? +Grig: I've always wanted to fight a desperate battle against + overwhelming odds. +Alex: It'll be a slaughter! +Grig: That's the spirit! + -- The Last Starfighter +% +H. L. Mencken suffers from the hallucination that he is H. L. Mencken -- +there is no cure for a disease of that magnitude. + -- Maxwell Bodenheim +% + "Hawk, we're going to die." + "Never say die... and certainly never say we." + -- M*A*S*H +% +He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace. + -- John Mason Brown, drama critic +% +He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue. + -- Jonathan Swift +% +"Hello," he lied. + -- Don Carpenter, quoting a Hollywood agent +% +Hello. Jim Rockford's machine, this is Larry Doheny's machine. Will you +please have your master call my master at his convenience? Thank you. +Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Hi Jimbo. Dennis. Really appreciate the help on the income tax. You wanna +help on the audit now? + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Hoaars-Faisse Gallery presents: +An exhibit of works by the artist known only as Pretzel. + +The exhibit includes several large conceptual works using non-traditional +media and found objects including old sofa-beds, used mace canisters, +discarded sanitary napkins and parts of freeways. The artist explores +our dehumanization due to high technology and unresponsive governmental +structures in a post-industrial world. She/he (the artist prefers to +remain without gender) strives to create dialogue between viewer and +creator, to aid us in our quest to experience contemporary life with its +inner-city tensions, homelessness, global warming and gender and +class-based stress. The works are arranged to lead us to the essence of +the argument: that the alienation of the person/machine boundary has +sapped the strength of our voices and must be destroyed for society to +exist in a more fundamental sense. +% +Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it. + -- Rex Reed +% +Holy Dilemma! Is this the end for the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder? +Will the Joker and the Riddler have the last laugh? + + Tune in again tomorrow: + same Bat-time, same Bat-channel! +% +How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers. +% +Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs. +% +Humpty Dumpty was pushed. +% +I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know some people +are terrified of the bomb. But then some people are terrified to be seen +carrying a modern screen magazine. Experience teaches us that silence +terrifies people the most. + -- Bob Dylan +% +I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human. + -- David Bowie +% +I am a deeply superficial person. + -- Andy Warhol +% +I believe that the moment is near when by a procedure of active paranoiac +thought, it will be possible to systematize confusion and contribute to the +total discrediting of the world of reality. + -- Salvador Dali +% +I can't understand why a person will take a year or two to write a +novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars. + -- Fred Allen +% +I didn't do it! Nobody saw me do it! Can't prove anything! + -- Bart Simpson +% +I didn't like the play, but I saw it under adverse conditions. The curtain +was up. +% +I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk +and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously, +unless you keep in practice. Now, sir, we'll talk if you like. I'll tell +you right out, I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk. + -- Sidney Greenstreet, "The Maltese Falcon" +% +I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to. + -- Elvis Presley +% +I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on +earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has +succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a +goal in front and not behind. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small +and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a +painting by Goya. + -- Stravinsky +% +I have a very strange feeling about this... + -- Luke Skywalker +% +"I have come up with a sure-fire concept for a hit television show, +which would be called `A Live Celebrity Gets Eaten by a Shark'." + -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" +% +I have had my television aerials removed. It's the moral equivalent +of a prostate operation. + -- Malcolm Muggeridge +% +I have more humility in my little finger than you have in your whole ____BODY! + -- from "Cerebus" #82 +% +I knew her before she was a virgin. + -- Oscar Levant, on Doris Day +% +I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they +could do was to go away. +% +I never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once, but I was wrong. + -- Lucy Van Pelt +% +I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +I played lead guitar in a band called The Federal Duck, which is the kind +of name that was popular in the '60s as a result of controlled substances +being in widespread use. Back then, there were no restrictions, in terms +of talent, on who could make an album, so we made one, and it sounds like +a group of people who have been given powerful but unfamiliar instruments +as a therapy for a degenerative nerve disease. + -- Dave Barry, "The Snake" +% +I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the +reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if +I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. + -- Stephen King +% +I remember once being on a station platform in Cleveland at four in the +morning. A black porter was carrying my bags, and as we were waiting for +the train to come in, he said to me: "Excuse me, Mr. Cooke, I don't want to +invade your privacy, but I have a bet with a friend of mine. Who composed +the opening theme music of 'Omnibus'? My friend said Virgil Thomson." I +asked him, "What do you say?" He replied, "I say Aaron Copeland." I said, +"You're right." The porter said, "I knew Thomson doesn't write counterpoint +that way." I told that to a network president, and he was deeply unimpressed. + -- Alistair Cooke +% +I remember Ulysses well... Left one day for the post office to mail a letter, +met a blonde named Circe on the streetcar, and didn't come back for 20 years. +% +I saw Lassie. It took me four shows to figure out why the hairy kid never +spoke. I mean, he could roll over and all that, but did that deserve a series? +% +I stick my neck out for nobody. + -- Humphrey Bogart, "Casablanca" +% +I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to +see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph. + -- Shirley Temple +% +I suggest a new strategy, Artoo: let the Wookie win. + -- C3P0 +% + "I suppose you expect me to talk." + "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die." + -- Goldfinger +% +I think we're in trouble. + -- Han Solo +% +I think... I think it's in my basement... Let me go upstairs and check. + -- Escher +% +I truly wish I could be a great surgeon or philosopher or author or anything +constructive, but in all honesty I'd rather turn up my amplifier full blast +and drown myself in the noise. + -- Charles Schmid, the "Tucson Murderer" +% +I used to be disgusted, now I find I'm just amused. + -- Elvis Costello +% +I was working on a case. It had to be a case, because I couldn't afford a +desk. Then I saw her. This tall blond lady. She must have been tall +because I was on the third floor. She rolled her deep blue eyes towards +me. I picked them up and rolled them back. We kissed. She screamed. I +took the cigarette from my mouth and kissed her again. +% +I watch television because you don't know what it will do if you leave it +in the room alone. +% +I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If +people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth. + -- Charlie Chaplin +% +I went to a Grateful Dead Concert and they played for SEVEN hours. Great song. + -- Fred Reuss +% +I WISH I HAD A KRYPTONITE CROSS, because then you could keep both Dracula +and Superman away. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's a +knob called "brightness", but it doesn't seem to work. + -- Gallagher +% +I'd just as soon kiss a Wookie. + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +I'll be Grateful when they're Dead. +% +I'll never get off this planet. + -- Luke Skywalker +% +I'm a Hollywood writer; so I put on a sports jacket and take off my brain. +% +I'm not a real movie star -- I've still got the same wife I started out +with twenty-eight years ago. + -- Will Rogers +% +I've got a very bad feeling about this. + -- Han Solo +% + I. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of + its situation. + Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He + loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to + look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per + second per second takes over. + II. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter + intervenes suddenly. + Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon + characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone + pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. + Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the + stooge's surcease. +III. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation + conforming to its perimeter. + Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the + speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless + cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through + the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The + threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction. + -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 +% +If *I* had a hammer, there'd be no more folk singers. +% +If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door. + -- Paul Beatty +% +If an average person on the subway turns to you, like an ancient mariner, +and starts telling you her tale, you turn away or nod and hope she stops, +not just because you fear she might be crazy. If she tells her tale on +camera, you might listen. Watching strangers on television , even +responding to them from a studio audience, we're disengaged -- voyeurs +collaborating with exhibitionists in rituals of sham community. Never +have so many known so much about people for whom they cared so little. + -- Wendy Kaminer commenting on testimonial television + in "I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional". +% +If Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is not by some means abridged, it will soon +fall into disuse. + -- Philip Hale, Boston music critic, 1837 +% +If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television? +% +If God didn't mean for us to juggle, tennis balls wouldn't come three to a can. +% +If God had intended Man to Watch TV, He would have given him Rabbit Ears. +% +If I had any humility I would be perfect. + -- Ted Turner +% +If I had done everything I'm credited with, I'd be speaking to you from +a laboratory jar at Harvard. + -- Frank Sinatra + +AS USUAL, YOUR INFORMATION STINKS. + -- Frank Sinatra, telegram to "Time" magazine +% +If I have to lay an egg for my country, I'll do it. + -- Bob Hope +% +If it ain't baroque, don't phiques it. +% +If it were thought that anything I wrote was influenced by Robert Frost, +I would take that particular work of mine, shred it, and flush it down +the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes. A more sententious, holding- +forth old bore who expected every hero-worshiping adenoidal little twerp +of a student-poet to hang on to his every word I never saw. + -- James Dickey +% +If life is a stage, I want some better lighting. +% +If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient +evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" +% +If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know. + -- Louis Armstrong +% +If you lose a son you can always get another, but there's only one +Maltese Falcon. + -- Sidney Greenstreet, "The Maltese Falcon" +% +If you think the pen is mightier than the sword, the next time someone pulls +out a sword I'd like to see you get up there with your Bic. +% +If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's +read by persons who move their lips when the're reading to themselves. + -- Don Marquis +% +Imitation is the sincerest form of television. + -- Fred Allen +% +Immature artists imitate, mature artists steal. + -- Lionel Trilling +% +Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal. + -- T.S. Eliot, "Philip Massinger" +% +In Hollywood, all marriages are happy. It's trying to live together +afterwards that causes the problems. + -- Shelley Winters +% +In Hollywood, if you don't have happiness, you send out for it. + -- Rex Reed +% +In just seven days, I can make you a man! + -- The Rocky Horror Picture Show +% +In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending +your left leg, it's modern architecture. + -- Nancy Banks Smith +% +In Oz, never say "krizzle kroo" to a Woozy. +% +In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in +the proper order then why can't he? +% +In the Old West a wagon train is crossing the plains. As night falls the +wagon train forms a circle, and a campfire is lit in the middle. After +everyone has gone to sleep two lone cavalry officers stand watch over the +camp. + After several hours of quiet, they hear war drums starting from +a nearby Indian village they had passed during the day. The drums get +louder and louder. + Finally one soldier turns to the other and says, "I don't like +the sound of those drums." + Suddenly, they hear a cry come from the Indian camp: "IT'S +NOT OUR REGULAR DRUMMER." +% +It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came +out to inform the public. They thought it was just a jest and applauded. +He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder. So I think the world +will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe +that it is a joke. +% +It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been +dead for two years. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both +incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by +twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. + -- Rod Serling +% +It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a +statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious +to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, +which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the +highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, +worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. + -- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live" +% +It is up to us to produce better-quality movies. + -- Lloyd Kaufman, producer of "Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator" +% +It just doesn't seem right to go over the river and through the woods +to Grandmother's condo. +% +It looks like it's up to me to save our skins. Get into that garbage chute, +flyboy! + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +It proves what they say, give the public what they want to see and +they'll come out for it. + -- Red Skelton, surveying the funeral of Hollywood mogul + Harry Cohn +% +It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, +but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous. + -- Robert Benchley +% +It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. +% +It'll be just like Beggars' Canyon back home. + -- Luke Skywalker +% +It's all right letting yourself go as long as you can let yourself back. + -- Mick Jagger +% +It's clever, but is it art? +% +It's difficult to see the picture when you are inside the frame. +% +It's from Casablanca. I've been waiting all my life to use that line. + -- Woody Allen, "Play It Again, Sam" +% +"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." + -- Walt Disney +% +It's more than magnificent -- it's mediocre. + -- Sam Goldwyn +% +It's not easy, being green. + -- Kermit the Frog +% +It's not the valleys in life I dread so much as the dips. + -- Garfield +% +IV. The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or + equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to + spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. + Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it + inevitably unsuccessful. + V. All principles of gravity are negated by fear. + Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel + them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an + adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to + the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. + The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding + auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight. +VI. As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once. + This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a + character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of + altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common + as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A "wacky" + character has the option of self-replication only at manic high + speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required. + -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 +% +James Joyce -- an essentially private man who wished his total +indifference to public notice to be universally recognized. + -- Tom Stoppard +% +James McNeill Whistler's (painter of "Whistler's Mother") +failure in his West Point chemistry examination once provoked him to +remark in later life, "If silicon had been a gas, I should have been a +major general." +% +Jane and I got mixed up with a television show -- or as we call it back +east here: TV -- a clever contraction derived from the words Terrible +Vaudeville. However, it is our latest medium -- we call it a medium +because nothing's well done. It was discovered, I suppose you've heard, +by a man named Fulton Berle, and it has already revolutionized social +grace by cutting down parlour conversation to two sentences: "What's on +television?" and "Good night". + -- Goodman Ace, letter to Groucho Marx, in The Groucho + Letters, 1967 +% +Jim, it's Grace at the bank. I checked your Christmas Club account. +You don't have five-hundred dollars. You have fifty. Sorry, computer foul-up! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Jim, it's Jack. I'm at the airport. I'm going to Tokyo and wanna pay +you the five-hundred I owe you. Catch you next year when I get back! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Jim, this is Janelle. I'm flying tonight, so I can't make our date, and +I gotta find a safe place for Daffy. He loves you, Jim! It's only two +days, and you'll see. Great Danes are no problem! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Jim, this is Matty down at Ralph's and Mark's. Some guy named Angel +Martin just ran up a fifty buck bar tab. And now he wants to charge it +to you. You gonna pay it? + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +JOHN PAUL ELECTED POPE!! + +(George and Ringo miffed.) +% +Just because you like my stuff doesn't mean I owe you anything. + -- Bob Dylan +% +Just close your eyes, tap your heels together three times, and think to +yourself, `There's no place like home.' + -- Glynda the Good +% +Just once I would like to persuade the audience not to wear any article of +blue denim. If only they could see themselves in a pair of brown corduroys +like mine instead of this awful, boring blue denim. I don't enjoy the sky +or sea as much as I used to because of this Levi character. If Jesus Christ +came back today, He and I would get into our brown corduroys and go to the +nearest jean store and overturn the racks of blue denim. Then we'd get +crucified in the morning. + -- Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull +% +Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't +immune to bullets. + -- The Brigadier, "Dr. Who" +% +Lamonte Cranston once hired a new Chinese manservant. While describing his +duties to the new man, Lamonte pointed to a bowl of candy on the coffee +table and warned him that he was not to take any. Some days later, the new +manservant was cleaning up, with no one at home, and decided to sample some +of the candy. Just than, Cranston walked in, spied the manservant at the +candy, and said: + "Pardon me Choy, is that the Shadow's nugate you chew?" +% + Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she +lived with was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always +getting pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to +the farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd whimper and tug at their +sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Do +you think something's wrong? Do you think she wants us to follow her? +What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, instead +of every week. What with all the time these people spent pinned under +the tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any crops whatsoever. +They probably got by on federal crop supports, which Lassie filed the +applications for. + -- Dave Barry +% +Lay off the muses, it's a very tough dollar. + -- S.J. Perelman +% +Lensmen eat Jedi for breakfast. +% + Leslie West heads for the sticks, to Providence, Rhode Island and +tries to hide behind a beard. No good. There are still too many people +and too many stares, always taunting, always smirking. He moves to the +outskirts of town. He finds a place to live -- huge mansion, dirt cheap, +caretaker included. He plugs in his guitar and plays as loud as he wants, +day and night, and there's no one to laugh or boo or even look bored. + Nobody's cut the grass in months. What's happened to that caretaker? +What neighborhood people there are start to talk, and what kids there are +start to get curious. A 13 year-old blond with an angelic face misses supper. +Before the summer's end, four more teenagers have disappeared. The senior +class president, Barnard-bound come autumn, tells Mom she's going out to a +movie one night and stays out. The town's up in arms, but just before the +police take action, the kids turn up. They've found a purpose. They go +home for their stuff and tell the folks not to worry but they'll be going +now. They're in a band. + -- Ira Kaplan +% +Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was +going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then +being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends. +% +Like ya know? Rock 'N Roll is an esoteric language that unlocks the +creativity chambers in people's brains, and like totally activates their +essential hipness, which of course is like totally necessary for saving +the earth, like because the first thing in saving this world, is getting +rid of stupid and square attitudes and having fun. + -- Senior Year Quote +% +Linus: Hi! I thought it was you. + I've been watching you from way off... You're looking great! +Snoopy: That's nice to know. + The secret of life is to look good at a distance. +% +Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe + we should think only about today. +Charlie Brown: + No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get + better. +% +Live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse. + -- James Dean +% +Live from New York ... It's Saturday Night! +% +Love thy neighbor, tune thy piano. +% +Lucy: Dance, dance, dance. That is all you ever do. + Can't you be serious for once? +Snoopy: She is right! I think I had better think + of the more important things in life! + (pause) + Tomorrow!! +% +Luke, I'm yer father, eh. Come over to the dark side, you hoser. + -- Dave Thomas, "Strange Brew" +% +Maj. Bloodnok: Seagoon, you're a coward! +Seagoon: Only in the holiday season. +Maj. Bloodnok: Ah, another Noel Coward! +% +Mandrell: "You know what I think?" +Doctor: "Ah, ah that's a catch question. With a brain your size you + don't think, right?" + -- Dr. Who +% +Many of the characters are fools and they are always playing +tricks on me and treating me badly. + -- Jorge Luis Borges, from "Writers on Writing" by Jon Winokur +% +Maryel brought her bat into Exit once and started whacking people on +the dance floor. Now everyone's doing it. It's called grand slam dancing. + -- Ransford, Chicago Reader 10/7/83 +% +Mate, this parrot wouldn't VOOM if you put four million volts through it! + -- Monty Python +% +"Microwave oven? Whaddya mean, it's a microwave oven? I've been watching +Channel 4 on the thing for two weeks." +% +Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out +of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles. + -- Casablanca +% +Mike: "The Fourth Dimension is a shambles?" +Bernie: "Nobody ever empties the ashtrays. People are SO inconsiderate." + -- Gary Trudeau, "Doonesbury" +% +Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner. +% +Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade +themselves that they have a better idea. + -- John Ciardi +% +Mos Eisley Spaceport; you will never find a more wretched hive of scum +and villainy... + -- Obi-wan Kenobi, "Star Wars" +% +Mr. Rockford, this is the Thomas Crown School of Dance and Contemporary +Etiquette. We aren't going to call again! Now you want these free +lessons or what? + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Mr. Rockford? Miss Collins from the Bureau of Licenses. We got your +renewal before the extended deadline but not your check. I'm sorry but +at midnight you're no longer licensed as an investigator. + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Mr. Rockford? This is Betty Joe Withers. I got four shirts of yours from +the Bo Peep Cleaners by mistake. I don't know why they gave me men's +shirts but they're going back. + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +Mr. Rockford? You don't know me, but I'd like to hire you. Could +you call me at... My name is... uh... Never mind, forget it! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it. + -- The Dragon to Grendel, in John Gardner's "Grendel" +% +My band career ended late in my senior year when John Cooper and I threw my +amplifier out the dormitory window. We did not act in haste. First we +checked to make sure the amplifier would fit through the frame, using the +belt from my bathrobe to measure, then we picked up the amplifier and backed +up to my bedroom door. Then we rushed forward, shouting "The WHO! The +WHO!" and we launched my amplifier perfectly, as though we had been doing it +all our lives, clean through the window and down onto the sidewalk, where a +small but appreciative crowd had gathered. I would like to be able to say +that this was a symbolic act, an effort on my part to break cleanly away +from one state in my life and move on to another, but the truth is, Cooper +and I really just wanted to find out what it would sound like. It sounded +OK. + -- Dave Barry, "The Snake" +% +"My life is a soap opera, but who has the rights?" + -- MadameX +% +My tears stuck in their little ducts, refusing to be jerked. + -- Peter Stack, movie review + +His performance is so wooden you want to spray him with Liquid Pledge. + -- John Stark, movie review +% +No Civil War picture ever made a nickel. + -- MGM executive Irving Thalberg to Louis B. Mayer about + film rights to "Gone With the Wind". + Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" +% +No house should ever be on any hill or on anything. It should be of the hill, +belonging to it. + -- Frank Lloyd Wright +% +No poet or novelist wishes he was the only one who ever lived, but most of +them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe +their wish has been granted. + -- W.H. Auden, "The Dyer's Hand" +% +No two persons ever read the same book. + -- Edmund Wilson +% +"No, `Eureka' is Greek for `This bath is too hot.'" + -- Dr. Who +% +Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it. + -- Tallulah Bankhead +% +NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! +% +Noone ever built a statue to a critic. +% +Not all who own a harp are harpers. + -- Marcus Terentius Varro +% +Notes for a ballet, "The Spell": ... Suddenly Sigmund hears the flutter of +wings, and a group of wild swans flies across the moon ... Sigmund is +astounded to see that their leader is part swan and part woman -- +unfortunately, divided lengthwise. She enchants Sigmund, who is careful +not to make any poultry jokes. + -- Woody Allen +% +Oh Dad! We're ALL Devo! +% + "Oh sure, this costume may look silly, but it lets me get in and out +of dangerous situations -- I work for a federal task force doing a survey on +urban crime. Look, here's my ID, and here's a number you can call, that will +put you through to our central base in Atlanta. Go ahead, call -- they'll +confirm who I am. + "Unless, of course, the Astro-Zombies have destroyed it." + -- Captain Freedom +% +Oh, Aunty Em, it's so good to be home! +% +Old MacDonald had an agricultural real estate tax abatement. +% +Old musicians never die, they just decompose. +% +Once, I read that a man be never stronger than when he truly realizes how +weak he is. + -- Jim Starlin, "Captain Marvel #31" +% +One big pile is better than two little piles. + -- Arlo Guthrie +% +Oprah Winfrey has an incredible talent for getting the weirdest people to +talk to. And you just HAVE to watch it. "Blind, masochistic minority, +crippled, depressed, government latrine diggers, and the women who love +them too much on the next Oprah Winfrey." +% + Penn's aunts made great apple pies at low prices. No one else in +town could compete with the pie rates of Penn's aunts. +% +People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to +amuse them. + -- S. Johnson +% +Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry without a certain +unsoundness of mind. + -- Thomas Macaulay +% +Plato, by the way, wanted to banish all poets from his proposed Utopia +because they were liars. The truth was that Plato knew philosophers +couldn't compete successfully with poets. + -- Kilgore Trout (Philip J. Farmer), "Venus on the Half Shell" +% +Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnic table. + -- Dave Barry, "The Snake" +% +Please, won't somebody tell me what diddie-wa-diddie means? +% +Plots are like girdles. Hidden, they hold your interest; revealed, they're +of no interest except to fetishists. Like girdles, they attempt to contain +an uncontainable experience. + -- R.S. Knapp +% +Potahto' Pictures Productions Presents: + + SPUD ROGERS OF THE 25TH CENTURY: Story of an Air Force potato that's +left in a rarely used chow hall for over two centuries and wakes up in a world +populated by soybean created imitations under the evil Dick Tater. Thanks to +him, the soy-potatoes learn that being a 'tater is where it's at. Memorable +line, "'Cause I'm just a stud spud!" + + FRIDAY THE 13TH DINER SERIES: Crazed potato who was left in a +fryer too long and was charbroiled carelessly returns to wreak havoc on +unsuspecting, would-be teen camp cooks. Scenes include a girl being stuffed +with chives and Fleischman's Margarine and a boy served up on a side dish +with beets and dressing. Definitely not for the squeamish, or those on +diets that are driving them crazy. + + FRIDAY THE 13TH DINER II,III,IV,V,VI: Much, much more of the same. +Except with sour cream. +% +Potahto' Pictures Productions Presents: + + THE TATERNATOR: Cyborg spud returns from the future to present-day +McDonald's restaurant to kill the potatoess (girl 'tater) who will give birth +to the world's largest french fry (The Dark Powers of Burger King are clearly +behind this). Most quotable line: "Ah'll be baked..." + + A FISTFUL OF FRIES: Western in which our hero, The Spud with No Name, +rides into a town that's deprived of carbohydrates thanks to the evil takeover +of the low-cal Scallopinni Brothers. Plenty of smokeouts, fry-em-ups, and +general butter-melting by all. + + FOR A FEW FRIES MORE: Takes up where AFOF left off! Cameo by Walter +Cronkite, as every man's common 'tater! +% +Prizes are for children. + -- Charles Ives, upon being given, but refusing, the + Pulitzer prize +% +Producers seem to be so prejudiced against actors who've had no training. +And there's no reason for it. So what if I didn't attend the Royal Academy +for twelve years? I'm still a professional trying to be the best actress +I can. Why doesn't anyone send me the scripts that Faye Dunaway gets? + -- Farrah Fawcett-Majors +% +Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator +of sociopathic tendencies. + -- Zoso +% +Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the +Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo. +% +Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off the TV screen. +% +Rascal, am I? Take THAT! + -- Errol Flynn +% +Recently deceased blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan "comes to" after +his death. He sees Jimi Hendrix sitting next to him, tuning his guitar. +"Holy cow," he thinks to himself, "this guy is my idol." Over at the +microphone, about to sing, are Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, and the +bassist is the late Barry Oakley of the Allman Brothers. So Stevie +Ray's thinking, "Oh, wow! I've died and gone to rock and roll heaven." +Just then, Karen Carpenter walks in, sits down at the drums, and says: +"'Close to You'. Hit it, boys!" + -- Told by Penn Jillette, of magic/comedy duo Penn and Teller +% +Rembrandt is not to be compared in the painting of character with our +extraordinarily gifted English artist, Mr. Rippingille. + -- John Hunt, British editor, scholar and art critic + Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" +% +"Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used it." + -- Dave Barry +% +Satire is tragedy plus time. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +Satire is what closes in New Haven. +% +Satire is what closes Saturday night. + -- George Kaufman +% +'Scuse me, while I kiss the sky! + -- Robert James Marshall (Jimi) Hendrix +% +She ran the gamut of emotions from 'A' to 'B'. + -- Dorothy Parker, on a Kate Hepburn performance +% +"She said, `I know you ... you cannot sing'. I said, `That's nothing, +you should hear me play piano.'" + -- Morrisey +% +She was good at playing abstract confusion in the same way a midget is +good at being short. + -- Clive James, on Marilyn Monroe +% +Shhh... be vewy, vewy, quiet! I'm hunting wabbits... +% +Show business is just like high school, except you get paid. + -- Martin Mull +% +Sir, it's very possible this asteroid is not stable. + -- C3P0 +% +Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects +such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern +art. + -- Tom Stoppard +% +Smile! You're on Candid Camera. +% +Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? + -- Indiana Jones, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" +% +Snoopy: No problem is so big that it can't be run away from. +% +Snow White has become a camera buff. She spends hours and hours +shooting pictures of the seven dwarfs and their antics. Then she +mails the exposed film to a cut rate photo service. It takes weeks +for the developed film to arrive in the mail, but that is all right +with Snow White. She clears the table, washes the dishes and sweeps +the floor, all the while singing "Someday my prints will come." +% +So do the noble fall. For they are ever caught in a trap of their own making. +A trap -- walled by duty, and locked by reality. Against the greater force +they must fall -- for, against that force they fight because of duty, because +of obligations. And when the noble fall, the base remain. The base -- whose +only purpose is the corruption of what the noble did protect. Whose only +purpose is to destroy. The noble: who, even when fallen, retain a vestige of +strength. For theirs is a strength born of things other than mere force. +Theirs is a strength supreme... theirs is the strength -- to restore. + -- Gerry Conway, "Thor", #193 +% + So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark]. +With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to +maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of +corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to +flop up onto the land and evolve. Richard and I were inching toward +it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and -- +I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in +the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us. + Many people would have panicked at this point. But Richard and +I were not "many people." We were experienced waders, and we kept our +heads. We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're +unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water +up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the +opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of +our feet never once went below the surface of the water. We ran all +the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers +cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen +these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked +into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads. + -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" +% +Some men who fear that they are playing second fiddle aren't in the +band at all. +% +Some performers on television appear to be horrible people, but when +you finally get to know them in person, they turn out to be even worse. + -- Avery +% +"Spare no expense to save money on this one." + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantist drivel; +Star Trek can turn your brains to puree of bat guano; and the greatest +science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'll take you all +on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up! + -- Harlan Ellison +% + "Surely you can't be serious." + "I am serious, and stop calling me Shirley." + -- "Airplane" +% +Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. + -- Laurie Anderson +% +Tallulah Bankhead barged down the Nile last night as Cleopatra and sank. + -- John Mason Brown, drama critic +% +Television -- the longest amateur night in history. + -- Robert Carson +% +Television has brought back murder into the home -- where it belongs. + -- Alfred Hitchcock +% +Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other. + -- Ann Landers +% +Television is a medium because anything well done is rare. + -- attributed to both Fred Allen and Ernie Kovacs +% +Television is now so desperately hungry for material that it is scraping +the top of the barrel. + -- Gore Vidal +% +Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop writing. + -- R. Geis +% +That's no moon... + -- Obi-wan Kenobi +% +The Angels want to wear my red shoes. + -- E. Costello +% +The best definition of a gentleman is a man who can play the accordion -- +but doesn't. + -- Tom Crichton +% + The big problem with pornography is defining it. You can't just +say it's pictures of people naked. For example, you have these +primitive African tribes that exist by chasing the wildebeest on foot, +and they have to go around largely naked, because, as the old tribal +saying goes: "N'wam k'honi soit qui mali," which means, "If you think +you can catch a wildebeest in this climate and wear clothes at the same +time, then I have some beach front property in the desert region of +Northern Mali that you may be interested in." + So it's not considered pornographic when National Geographic +publishes color photographs of these people hunting the wildebeest +naked, or pounding one rock onto another rock for some primitive reason +naked, or whatever. But if National Geographic were to publish an +article entitled "The Girls of the California Junior College System +Hunt the Wildebeest Naked," some people would call it pornography. But +others would not. And still others, such as the Spectacularly Rev. +Jerry Falwell, would get upset about seeing the wildebeest naked. + -- Dave Barry, "Pornography" +% +The cable TV sex channels don't expand our horizons, don't make us better +people, and don't come in clearly enough. + -- Bill Maher +% +The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly +greater than that of any other animals. Some of their most esteemed +inventions have no other apparent purpose, for example, the dinner party +of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +The chief enemy of creativity is "good" sense + -- Picasso +% +The covers of this book are too far apart. + -- Book review by Ambrose Bierce. +% +The difference between waltzes and disco is mostly one of volume. + -- T.K. +% +The faster we go, the rounder we get. + -- The Grateful Dead +% +The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +*A Giggle Gurgling Gulp of Glee* +With Pretty Girls, Peppy Scenes, and Gorgeous Revues -- plus a good story. + -- Tea with a Kick (1924) + +Whoopie! Let's go!... Hand-picked Beauties doing cute tricks! +GET IN THE KNOW FOR THE HEY-HEY WHOOPIE! + -- The Wild Party (1929) + +YOU HEAR HIM MAKE LOVE! +DIX -- the dashing soldier! + DIX -- the bold adventurer! + DIX -- the throbbing lover! + -- The Wheel of Life (1929) + +SEE CHARLES BUTTERWORTH DRIVE A STREETCAR AND SING LOVE +SONGS TO HIS MARE "MITZIE"! + -- The Night is Young (1934) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +A mis-spawned murderous abomination from the nether reaches of an +unimaginable hell. + -- The Killer of Castle Brood (1967) + +NEW -- SICKENING HORROR to make your STOMACH TURN and FLESH CRAWL! + -- Frankenstein's Bloody Terror (1968) + +LUST-MAD MEN AND LAWLESS WOMEN IN A VICIOUS AND SENSUOUS ORGY OF SLAUGHTER! + -- Five Bloody Graves (1969) + +The family that slays together stays together. + -- Bloody Mama (1970) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +An AVALANCHE of KILLER WORMS! + -- Squirm (1976) + +Most Movies Live Less Than Two Hours. +This Is One of Everlasting Torment! + -- The New House on the Left (1977) + +WE ARE GOING TO EAT YOU! + -- Zombie (1980) + +It's not human and it's got an axe. + -- The Prey (1981) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +Different! Daring! Dynamic! Defying! Dumbfounding! +SEE Uncle Tom lead the Negroes to FREEDOM! +... Now, all the SENSUAL and VIOLENT passions Roots couldn't show on TV! + -- Uncle Tom's Cabin (1972) + +An appalling amalgam of carnage and carnality! + -- Flesh and Blood Show (1973) + +WHEN THE CATS ARE HUNGRY... +RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! +Alone, only a harmless pet... + One Thousand Strong, They Become a Man-Eating Machine! + -- The Night of a Thousand Cats (1972) + +They're Over-Exposed +But Not Under-Developed! + -- Cover Girl Models (1976) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +HOODLUMS FROM ANOTHER WORLD ON A RAY-GUN RAMPAGE! + -- Teenagers from Outher Space (1959) + +Which will be Her Mate... MAN OR BEAST? +Meet Velda -- the Kind of Woman -- Man or Gorilla would kill... to Keep. + -- Untamed Mistress (1960) + +NOW AN ALL-MIGHTY ALL-NEW MOTION PICTURE BRINGS THEM TOGETHER FOR THE +FIRST TIME... HISTORY'S MOST GIGANTIC MONSTERS IN COMBAT ATOP MOUNT FUJI! + -- King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +HOT STEEL BETWEEN THEIR LEGS! + -- The Cycle Savages (1969) + +The Hand that Rocks the Cradle... Has no Flesh on It! + -- Who Slew Auntie Roo? (1971) + +TWO GREAT BLOOD HORRORS TO RIP OUT YOUR GUTS! + -- I Eat Your Skin & I Drink Your Blood (1971 double-bill) + +They Went In People and Came Out Hamburger! + -- The Corpse Grinders (1971) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +KATHERINE HEPBURN as the lying, stealing, singing, preying witch girl +of the Ozarks... "Low down white trash"? Maybe so -- but let her hear +you say it and she'll break your head to prove herself a lady! + -- Spitfire (1934) + +Do Native Women Live With Apes? + -- Love Life of a Gorilla (1937) + +JUNGLE KISS!! + When she looked into his eyes, felt his arms around her -- she +was no longer Tura, mysterious white goddess of the jungle tribes -- +she was no longer the frozen-hearted high priestess under whose hypnotic +spell the worshippers of the great crocodile god meekly bowed -- she +was a girl in love! + SEE the ravening charge of the hundred scared CROCODILES! + -- Her Jungle Love (1938) + +LOVE! HATE! JOY! FEAR! TORMENT! PANIC! SHAME! RAGE! + -- Intermezzo (1939) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +POWERFUL! SHOCKING! RAW! ROUGH! CHALLENGING! SEE A LITTLE GIRL MOLESTED! + -- Never Take Candy from a Stranger (1963) + +She Sins in Mobile -- +Marries in Houston -- +Loses Her Baby in Dallas -- +Leaves Her Husband in Tuscon -- +MEETS HARRU IN SAN DIEGO!... +FIRST -- HARLOW! +THEN -- MONROE! +NOW -- McCLANAHAN!!! + -- The Rotten Apple (1963), Rue McClanahan + +*NOT FOR SISSIES! DON'T COME IF YOU'RE CHICKEN! +A Horrifying Movie of Wierd Beauties and Shocking Monsters... +1001 WIERDEST SCENES EVER!! MOST SHOCKING THRILLER OF THE CENTURY! + -- Teenage Psycho meets Bloody Mary (1964) (Alternate Title: + The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and + Became Mixed Up Zombies) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +SCENES THAT WILL STAGGER YOUR SIGHT! +-- DANCING CALLED GO-GO +-- MUSIC CALLED JU-JU +-- NARCOTICS CALLED BANGI! +-- FIRES OF PUBERTY! + SEE the burning of a virgin! + SEE power of witch doctor over women! + SEE pygmies with fantastic Physical Endowments!!! + -- Kwaheri (1965) + +The Big Comedy of Nineteen-Sexty-Sex! + -- Boeing-Boeing (1965) + +AN ASTRONAUT WENT UP- +A "GUESS WHAT" CAME DOWN! + The picture that comes complete with a 10-foot tall monster to +give you the wim-wams! + -- Monster a Go-Go (1965) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +SEE rebel guerrillas torn apart by trucks! +SEE corpses cut to pieces and fed to dogs and vultures! +SEE the monkey trained to perform nursing duties for her paralyzed owner! + -- Sweet and Savage (1983) + +What a Guy! What a Gal! What a Pair! + -- Stroker Ace (1983) + +It's always better when you come again! + -- Porky's II: The Next Day (1983) + +You Don't Have to Go to Texas for a Chainsaw Massacre! + -- Pieces (1983) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +SHE TOOK ON A WHOLE GANG! A howling hellcat humping a hot steel hog +on a roaring rampage of revenge! + -- Bury Me an Angel (1972) + +WHAT'S THE SECRET INGREDIENT USED BY THE MAD BUTCHER FOR HIS SUPERB SAUSAGES? + -- Meat is Meat (1972) + +TODAY the Pond! +TOMORROW the World! + -- Frogs (1972) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +She's got the biggest six-shooters in the West! + -- The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (1949) + +CAST OF 3,000! +4 WRITERS, +2 DIRECTORS, +3 CAMERAMEN, +3 PRODUCERS! +1 YEAR TO MAKE THIS FILM -- +24 YEARS TO REHEARSE -- +20 YEARS TO DISTRIBUTE! + BEAUTIFUL BEYOND WORDS! + AWE-INSPIRING! VITAL! +THE PRINCE OF PEACE PROVIDES THE ANSWER TO EVERY PROBLEM! +Be Brave--bring your troubles and your family to: + HISTORY'S MOST SUBLIME EVENT! YOU'LL FIND GOD RIGHT IN THERE! + -- The Prince of Peace (1948). Starring members of the + Wichita Mountain Pageant featuring Millard Coody as Jesus. +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +The Miracle of the Age!!! A LION in your lap! A LOVER in your arms! + -- Bwana Devil (1952) + +OVERWHELMING! ELECTRIFYING! BAFFLING! +Fire Can't Burn Them! Bullets Can't Kill Them! See the Unfolding of +the Mysteries of the Moon as Murderous Robot Monsters Descend Upon the +Earth! You've Never Seen Anything Like It! Neither Has the World! + SEE... Robots from Space in All Their Glory!!! + -- Robot Monster (1953) + +1,965 pyramids, 5,337 dancing girls, one million swaying bullrushes, +802 scared bulls! + -- The Egyptian (1954) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +The nightmare terror of the slithering eye that unleashed agonizing +horror on a screaming world! + -- The Crawling Eye (1958) + +SEE a female colossus... her mountainous torso, scyscraper limbs, +giant desires! + -- Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman (1958) + +Here Is Your Chance To Know More About Sex. +What Should a Movie Do? Hide Its Head in the Sand Like an Ostrich? +Or Face the JOLTING TRUTH as does... + -- The Desperate Women (1958) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +They hungered for her treasure! And died for her pleasure! +SEE Man-Fish Battle Shark-Man-Killer! + -- The Golden Mistress (1954) + +See Jane Russell in 3-D; She'll Knock Both Your Eyes Out! + -- The French Line (1954) + +See Jane Russell Shake Her Tamborines... and Drive Cornel WILDE! + -- Hot Blood (1956) +% +The Great Movie Posters: + +When You're Six Tons -- And They Call You Killer -- It's Hard To Make Friends... + -- Namu, the Killer Whale (1966) + +Meet the Girls with the Thermo-Nuclear Navels! + -- Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966) + +A GHASTLY TALE DRENCHED WITH GOUTS OF BLOOD SPURTING FROM THE VICTIMS +OF A CRAZED MADMAN'S LUST. + -- A Taste of Blood (1967) +% +The Hollywood tradition I like best is called "sucking up to the stars." + -- Johnny Carson +% +The horror... the horror! +% +The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for +lists of "Ten Best". + -- H. Allen Smith +% +The human brain is a wonderful thing. It starts working the moment +you are born, and never stops until you stand up to speak in public. + -- Sir George Jessel +% +"The human brain is like an enormous fish -- it is flat and slimy and +has gills through which it can see." + -- Monty Python +% +The key to building a superstar is to keep their mouth shut. To reveal +an artist to the people can be to destroy him. It isn't to anyone's +advantage to see the truth. + -- Bob Ezrin, rock music producer +% +The last vestiges of the old Republic have been swept away. + -- Governor Tarkin +% +The mome rath isn't born that could outgrabe me. + -- Nicol Williamson +% +The old complaint that mass culture is designed for eleven-year-olds +is of course a shameful canard. The key age has traditionally been +more like fourteen. + -- Robert Christgau, "Esquire" +% +The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader +catch his own breath. + -- Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart +% +The only "ism" Hollywood believes in is plagiarism. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +The only real advantage to punk music is that nobody can whistle it. +% +The plot was designed in a light vein that somehow became varicose. + -- David Lardner +% +The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, +stable business. + -- John Steinbeck + [Horse racing *is* a stable business ...] +% +The Ranger isn't gonna like it, Yogi. +% +The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music. +% +The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been +changed to protect the innocent. +% +The streets were dark with something more than night. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +The sun never sets on those who ride into it. + -- RKO +% +The trouble with superheros is what to do between phone booths. + -- Ken Kesey +% +The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more +annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The ultimate game show will be the one where somebody gets killed at the end. + -- Chuck Barris, creator of "The Gong Show" +% +The world has many unintentionally cruel mechanisms that are not +designed for people who walk on their hands. + -- John Irving, "The World According to Garp" +% +The Worst Musical Trio + There are few bad musicians who have a chance to give a recital at +a famous concert hall while still learning the rudiments of their +instrument. This happened about thirty years ago to the son of a Rumanian +gentleman who was owed a personal favour by Georges Enesco, the celebrated +violinist. Enesco agreed to give lessons to the son who was quite +unhampered by great musical talent. + Three years later the boy's father insisted that he give a public +concert. "His aunt said that nobody plays the violin better than he does. +A cousin heard him the other day and screamed with enthusiasm." Although +Enesco feared the consequences, he arranged a recital at the Salle Gaveau +in Paris. However, nobody bought a ticket since the soloist was unknown. + "Then you must accompany him on the piano," said the boy's father, +"and it will be a sell out." + Reluctantly, Enesco agreed and it was. On the night an excited +audience gathered. Before the concert began Enesco became nervous and +asked for someone to turn his pages. + In the audience was Alfred Cortot, the brilliant pianist, who +volunteered and made his way to the stage. + The soloist was of uniformly low standard and next morning the +music critic of Le Figaro wrote: "There was a strange concert at the Salle +Gaveau last night. The man whom we adore when he plays the violin played +the piano. Another whom we adore when he plays the piano turned the pages. +But the man who should have turned the pages played the violin." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need +the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the +world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the +long winter evenings. + -- Quentin Crisp +% +There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows +what they are. + -- Somerset Maugham +% +There are two jazz musicians who are great buddies. They hang out and play +together for years, virtually inseparable. Unfortunately, one of them is +struck by a truck and killed. About a week later his friend wakes up in +the middle of the night with a start because he can feel a presence in the +room. He calls out, "Who's there? Who's there? What's going on?" + "It's me -- Bob," replies a faraway voice. + Excitedly he sits up in bed. "Bob! Bob! Is that you? Where are +you?" + "Well," says the voice, "I'm in heaven now." + "Heaven! You're in heaven! That's wonderful! What's it like?" + "It's great, man. I gotta tell you, I'm jamming up here every day. +I'm playing with Bird, and 'Trane, and Count Basie drops in all the time! +Man it is smokin'!" + "Oh, wow!" says his friend. "That sounds fantastic, tell me more, +tell me more!" + "Let me put it this way," continues the voice. "There's good news +and bad news. The good news is that these guys are in top form. I mean +I have *never* heard them sound better. They are *wailing* up here." + "The bad news is that God has this girlfriend that sings..." +% +There are two ways of disliking art. One is to dislike it. The other is +to like it rationally. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the +other is to read Pope. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +There is much Obi-Wan did not tell you. + -- Darth Vader +% +There is nothing wrong with writing ... as long as it is done in private +and you wash your hands afterward. +% +There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and +that is not being talked about. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to +recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over -- and to let +go. It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its +past importance in our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief +that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on, rather than out. +The trick of retiring well may be the trick of living well. It's hard to +recognize that life isn't a holding action, but a process. It's hard to +learn that we don't leave the best parts of ourselves behind, back in the +dugout or the office. We own what we learned back there. The experiences +and the growth are grafted onto our lives. And when we exit, we can take +ourselves along -- quite gracefully. + -- Ellen Goodman +% +There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right +keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. + -- J.S. Bach +% +There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and open a vein. + -- Red Smith +% +There's something the technicians need to learn from the artists. +If it isn't aesthetically pleasing, it's probably wrong. +% +There's such a thing as too much point on a pencil. + -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow" +% +They can't stop us... we're on a mission from God! + -- The Blues Brothers +% +... TheysaidDoyouseethebiggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehill?andIsaidYesIsee +thebiggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehillTheresabigdarkforestbetweenmeandthe +biggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehillandalittleoldladyridingonaHoovervacuum +cleanersayingIllgetyoumyprettyandyourlittledogTototoo ... + + I don't even *HAVE* a dog Toto... +% +This door is baroquen, please wiggle Handel. +(If I wiggle Handel, will it wiggle Bach?) + -- Found on a door in the MSU music building +% +This is Jim Rockford. +At the tone leave your name and message; I'll get back to you. + +This is Maria, Liberty Bail Bonds. Your client, Todd Lieman, skipped and +his bail is forfeit. That's the pink slip on your '74 Firebird, I believe. +Sorry, Jim, bring it on over. + +This is Marilyn Reed, I wanta talk to you... Is this a machine? I don't +talk to machines! [Click] + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +This is the ____LAST time I take travel suggestions from Ray Bradbury! +% +This is the Baron. Angel Martin tells me you buy information. Ok, +meet me at one a.m. behind the bus depot, bring five-hundred dollars +and come alone. I'm serious! + -- "The Rockford Files" +% +This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +This unit... must... survive. +% +This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible +with raisins in it. + -- Dorothy Parker +% + Three actors, Tom, Fred, and Cec, wanted to do the jousting scene +from Don Quixote for a local TV show. "I'll play the title role," proposed +Tom. "Fred can portray Sancho Panza, and Cecil B. De Mille." +% +Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write. + -- Trollope +% +To be is to do. + -- I. Kant +To do is to be. + -- A. Sartre +Do be a Do Bee! + -- Miss Connie, Romper Room +Do be do be do! + -- F. Sinatra +Yabba-Dabba-Doo! + -- F. Flintstone +% +Today you'll start getting heavy metal radio on your dentures. +% +Today's thrilling story has been brought to you by Mushies, the great new +cereal that gets soggy even without milk or cream. Join us soon for more +spectacular adventure starring... Tippy, the Wonder Dog! + -- Bob & Ray +% +"Today, of course, it is considered very poor taste to use the F-word +except in major motion pictures." + -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!" +% +Traveling through hyperspace isn't like dusting crops, boy. + -- Han Solo +% +Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle. + -- Michelangelo +% +"Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense." +% +TV is chewing gum for the eyes. + -- Frank Lloyd Wright +% +Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, +unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. + -- Edward Gibbon +% +Use an accordion. Go to jail. + -- KFOG, San Francisco +% +Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds +sang there except those that sang best. + -- Henry Van Dyke +% +Very few people do anything creative after the age of thirty-five. The +reason is that very few people do anything creative before the age of +thirty-five. + -- Joel Hildebrand +% + VII. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel + entrances; others cannot. + This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least + it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to + trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical + space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to + follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not + of science. +VIII. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. + Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives + might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, + accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be + destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, + elongate, snap back, or solidify. + IX. For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance. + This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to + the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of + watching it happen to a duck instead. + X. Everything falls faster than an anvil. + Examples too numerous to mention from the Roadrunner cartoons. + -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 +% +Watch all-night Donna Reed reruns until your mind resembles oatmeal. +% +Watch your mouth, kid, or you'll find yourself floating home. + -- Han Solo +% +We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out. + -- Decca Recording Company, turning down the Beatles, 1962 +% +We have art that we do not die of the truth. + -- Nietzsche +% +We'll be recording at the Paradise Friday night. Live, on the Death label. + -- Swan, "Phantom of the Paradise" +% +We'll know that rock is dead when you have to get a degree to work in it. +% +We're constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which +people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products. +Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spirtual +and emotional feelings. It might taste good or clever, but in the long run, +it's not going to do anything for you. + -- Bob Dylan, "LA Times", September 5, 1984 +% +We're only in it for the volume. + -- Black Sabbath +% +"Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *___can* +you believe?!" + -- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward] +% + "Well, it's garish, ugly, and derelicts have used it for a toilet. +The rides are dilapidated to the point of being lethal, and could easily +maim or kill innocent little children." + "Oh, so you don't like it?" + "Don't like it? I'm CRAZY for it." + -- The Killing Joke +% +"Well, that was a piece of cake, eh K-9?" + +"Piece of cake, Master? Radial slice of baked confection ... coefficient of +relevance to Key of Time: zero." + -- Dr. Who +% +Wharbat darbid yarbou sarbay? +% +What a bonanza! An unknown beginner to be directed by Lubitsch, in a script +by Wilder and Brackett, and to play with Paramount's two superstars, Gary +Cooper and Claudette Colbert, and to be beaten up by both of them! + -- David Niven, "Bring On the Empty Horses" +% +What an artist dies with me! + -- Nero +% +What an author likes to write most is his signature on the back of a cheque. + -- Brendan Francis +% + "What are you watching?" + "I don't know." + "Well, what's happening?" + "I'm not sure... I think the guy in the hat did something terrible." + "Why are you watching it?" + "You're so analytical. Sometimes you just have to let art flow +over you." + -- The Big Chill +% +What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of about +Down Under up for? +% + "What do you do when your real life exceeds your wildest fantasies?" + "You keep it to yourself." + -- Broadcast News +% +What ever happened to happily ever after? +% +What garlic is to food, insanity is to art. +% +What no spouse of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working +when he's staring out the window. +% + "What was the worst thing you've ever done?" + "I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that +ever happened to me... the most dreadful thing." + -- Peter Straub, "Ghost Story" +% +When all else fails, try Kate Smith. +% +When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by +reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?" +% +When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +When one woman was asked how long she had been going to symphony concerts, +she paused to calculate and replied, "Forty-seven years -- and I find I mind +it less and less." + -- Louise Andrews Kent +% +Where is John Carson now that we need him? + -- RLG +% +While he was in New York on location for _Bronco Billy_ (1980), Clint +Eastwood agreed to a television interview. His host, somewhat hostile, +began by defining a Clint Eastwood picture as a violent, ruthless, +lawless, and bloody piece of mayhem, and then asked Eastwood himself to +define a Clint Eastwood picture. "To me," said Eastwood calmly, "what +a Clint Eastwood picture is, is one that I'm in." + -- Boller and Davis, "Hollywood Anecdotes" +% +Whistler's mother is off her rocker. +% +Who is D.B. Cooper, and where is he now? +% +Who is John Galt? +% +Who is W.O. Baker, and why is he saying those terrible things about me? +% +Who was that masked man? +% +Who's on first? +% +Who's scruffy-looking? + -- Han Solo +% +Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard? + -- Paul Simon +% +"Why are we importing all these highbrow plays like `Amadeus'? I could +have told you Mozart was a jerk for nothing." + -- Ian Shoales +% + Why are you doing this to me? + Because knowledge is torture, and there must be awareness before +there is change. + -- Jim Starlin, "Captain Marvel", #29 +% +Why do we have two eyes? To watch 3-D movies with. +% +Why not? -- What? -- Why not? -- Why should I not send it? -- Why should I +not dispatch it? -- Why not? -- Strange! I don't know why I shouldn't -- +Well, then -- You will do me this favor. -- Why not? -- Why should you not +do it? -- Why not? -- Strange! I shall do the same for you, when you want +me to. Why not? Why should I not do it for you? Strange! Why not? -- +I can't think why not. + -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, from a letter to his cousin Maria, + "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele +% +Why you say you no bunny rabbit when you have little powder-puff tail? + -- The Tasmanian Devil +% +Working with Julie Andrews is like getting hit over the head with a valentine. + -- Christopher Plummer +% +Worth seeing? Yes, but not worth going to see. +% +Would it help if I got out and pushed? + -- Princess Leia Organa +% +Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. + -- Frank Zappa +% +Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. +% +Yeah, that's me, Tracer Bullet. I've got eight slugs in me. One's lead, +the rest bourbon. The drink packs a wallop, and I pack a revolver. I'm +a private eye. + -- "Calvin & Hobbes" +% +Year Name James Bond Book +---- -------------------------------- -------------- ---- +50's James Bond TV Series Barry Nelson +1962 Dr. No Sean Connery 1958 +1963 From Russia With Love Sean Connery 1957 +1964 Goldfinger Sean Connery 1959 +1965 Thunderball Sean Connery 1961 +1967* Casino Royale David Niven 1954 +1967 You Only Live Twice Sean Connery 1964 +1969 On Her Majesty's Secret Service George Lazenby 1963 +1971 Diamonds Are Forever Sean Connery 1956 +1973 Live And Let Die Roger Moore 1955 +1974 The Man With The Golden Gun Roger Moore 1965 +1977 The Spy Who Loved Me Roger Moore 1962 (novelette) +1979 Moonraker Roger Moore 1955 +1981 For Your Eyes Only Roger Moore 1960 (novelette) +1983 Octopussy Roger Moore 1965 +1983* Never Say Never Again Sean Connery +1985 A View To A Kill Roger Moore 1960 (novelette) +1987 The Living Daylights Timothy Dalton 1965 (novelette) + * -- Not a Broccoli production. +% +Yevtushenko has... an ego that can crack crystal at a distance of twenty feet. + -- John Cheever +% + "You boys lookin' for trouble?" + "Sure. Whaddya got?" + -- Marlon Brando, "The Wild Ones" +% +You're all clear now, kid. Now blow this thing so we can all go home. + -- Han Solo +% +"You've got to have a gimmick if your band sucks." + -- Gary Giddens +% +Zero Mostel: That's it baby! When you got it, flaunt it! Flaunt it! + -- Mel Brooks, "The Producers" +% +Naked children have never played in _o_u_r fountains, and I.M. Pei will +never be happy on Route 66. + -- "Learning from Las Vegas", Robert Venturi, Denise Scott + Brown, and Steven Izenour +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/ascii-art b/fortune-mod/datfiles/ascii-art new file mode 100644 index 0000000..27d189a --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/ascii-art @@ -0,0 +1,153 @@ + ( /\__________/\ ) + \(^ @___..___@ ^)/ + /\ (\/\/\/\/) /\ + / \(/\/\/\/\)/ \ + -( """""""""" ) + \ _____ / + ( /( )\ ) + _) (_V) (V_) (_ + (V)(V)(V) (V)(V)(V) +% + ___ ______ Frobtech, Inc. + /__/\ ___/_____/\ + \ \ \ / /\\ + \ \ \_/__ / \ "If you've got the job, + _\ \ \ /\_____/___ \ we've got the frob." + // \__\/ / \ /\ \ + _______//_______/ \ / _\/______ + / / \ \ / / / /\ + __/ / \ \ / / / / _\__ + / / / \_______\/ / / / / /\ + /_/______/___________________/ /________/ /___/ \ + \ \ \ ___________ \ \ \ \ \ / + \_\ \ / /\ \ \ \ \___\/ + \ \/ / \ \ \ \ / + \_____/ / \ \ \________\/ + /__________/ \ \ / + \ _____ \ /_____\/ + \ / /\ \ / \ \ \ + /____/ \ \ / \ \ \ + \ \ /___\/ \ \ \ + \____\/ \__\/ +% +_/I\_____________o______________o___/I\ l * / /_/ * __ ' .* l +I"""_____________l______________l___"""I\ l *// _l__l_ . *. l + [__][__][(******)__][__](******)[__][] \l l-\ ---//---*----(oo)----------l + [][__][__(******)][__][_(******)_][__] l l \\ // ____ >-( )-< / l + [__][__][_l l[__][__][l l][__][] l l \\)) ._****_.(......) .@@@:::l + [][__][__]l .l_][__][__] .l__][__] l l ll _(o_o)_ (@*_*@ l + [__][__][/ <_)[__][__]/ <_)][__][] l l ll ( / \ ) / / / ) l + [][__][ /..,/][__][__][/..,/_][__][__] l l / \\ _\ \_ / _\_\ l + [__][__(__/][__][__][_(__/_][__][__][] l l______________________________l + [__][__]] l , , . [__][__][] l + [][__][_] l . i. '/ , [][__][__] l /\**/\ season's + [__][__]] l O .\ / /, O [__][__][] l ( o_o )_) greetings +_[][__][_] l__l======='=l____[][__][__] l_______,(u u ,),__________________ + [__][__]]/ /l\-------/l\ [__][__][]/ {}{}{}{}{}{} + +In Ellen's house it is warm and toasty while fuzzies play in the snow outside. + +% + *** + ******* + ********* + ****** Confucious say: "Is stuffy inside fortune cookie." + ******* + *** +% +SANTA IS BRINGING GOOD WISHES FROM ALL THE +MICRO ARTISTS GANG! MAY 1988 BE A HAPPY YEAR! + + + \__\_ :. ___/ + ..\ /-- + :.______ : .:* : . _ .: :.. . : . . : ()_ .: + (( \. :./(__ :._O_)________:______,____:____/ *\_o +====(( \: (****) (***) :. ...: .. . ()_______/\\ __-' + \____(( \ ()oo()_/ /.: : ..________/_____ll -/.: .. + ( (( \(())))__/ . .. \\.: ..( ) ll ( l_.: +( / (( \__*__)___:___ : : )) .) /--------\ \ \ +( / ((_____________) .. // . / / /..:: . )_)_\ + (____/_____________________\__// : /_/_/ :.. :/_/ \_\ + /_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ /_/_/ + + +% + ___====-_ _-====___ + _--~~~#####// ' ` \\#####~~~--_ + -~##########// ( ) \\##########~-_ + -############// |\^^/| \\############- + _~############// (O||O) \\############~_ + ~#############(( \\// ))#############~ + -###############\\ (oo) //###############- + -#################\\ / `' \ //#################- + -###################\\/ () \//###################- + _#/|##########/\######( (()) )######/\##########|\#_ + |/ |#/\#/\#/\/ \#/\##| \()/ |##/\#/ \/\#/\#/\#| \| + ` |/ V V ` V )|| |()| ||( V ' V /\ \| ' + ` ` ` ` / | |()| | \ ' '<||> ' + ( | |()| | )\ /|/ + __\ |__|()|__| /__\______/|/ + (vvv(vvvv)(vvvv)vvv)______|/ +% + ___====-_ _-====___ + _--~~~#####// \\#####~~~--_ + _-~##########// ( ) \\##########~-_ + -############// :\^^/: \\############- + _~############// (@::@) \\############~_ + ~#############(( \\// ))#############~ + -###############\\ (^^) //###############- + -#################\\ / "" \ //#################- + -###################\\/ \//###################- + _#/:##########/\######( /\ )######/\##########:\#_ + :/ :#/\#/\#/\/ \#/\##\ : : /##/\#/ \/\#/\#/\#: \: + " :/ V V " V \#\: : : :/#/ V " V V \: " + " " " " \ : : : : / " " " " +% + _-^--^=-_ + _.-^^ -~_ + _-- --_ + < >) + | | + \._ _./ + ```--. . , ; .--''' + | | | + .-=|| | |=-. + `-=#$%&%$#=-' + | ; :| + _____.,-#%&$@%#&#~,._____ +% + _ + _ / \ o + / \ | | o o o + | | | | _ o o o o + | \_| | / \ o o o + \__ | | | o o + | | | | ______ ~~~~ _____ + | |__/ | / ___--\\ ~~~ __/_____\__ + | ___/ / \--\\ \\ \ ___ <__ x x __\ + | | / /\\ \\ )) \ ( " ) + | | -------(---->>(@)--(@)-------\----------< >----------- + | | // | | //__________ / \ ____) (___ \\ + | | // __|_| ( --------- ) //// ______ /////\ \\ + // | ( \ ______ / <<<< <>-----<<<<< / \\ + // ( ) / / \` \__ \\ + //-------------------------------------------------------------\\ + +Every now and then, when your life gets complicated and the weasels start +closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then +drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the music at +top volume and at least a pint of ether. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" +% +You are here: + *** + *** + ********* + ******* + ***** + *** + * + + But you're not all there. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/computers b/fortune-mod/datfiles/computers new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4f76a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/computers @@ -0,0 +1,5443 @@ +!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH +% +101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR + (1) Scarecrow for centipedes + (2) Dead cat brush + (3) Hair barrettes + (4) Cleats + (5) Self-piercing earrings + (6) Fungus trellis + (7) False eyelashes + (8) Prosthetic dog claws + . + . + . + (99) Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors) + (100) Killer velcro + (101) Currency +% +1: No code table for op: ++post +% +4.2 BSD UNIX #57: Sun Jun 1 23:02:07 EDT 1986 + +You swing at the Sun. You miss. The Sun swings. He hits you with a +575MB disk! You read the 575MB disk. It is written in an alien +tongue and cannot be read by your tired Sun-2 eyes. You throw the +575MB disk at the Sun. You hit! The Sun must repair your eyes. The +Sun reads a scroll. He hits your 130MB disk! He has defeated the +130MB disk! The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your Ethernet board! He +has defeated your Ethernet board! You read a scroll of "postpone until +Monday at 9 AM". Everything goes dark... + -- /etc/motd, cbosgd +% +A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on +a photo-safari in Africa. As they're driving along the savannah in their +jeep, they stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars. + +The biologist: "Look! A herd of zebras! And there's a white zebra! + Fantastic! We'll be famous!" +The statistician: "Hey, calm down, it's not significant. We only know + there's one white zebra." +The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is + white on one side." +The computer scientist : "Oh, no! A special case!" +% +... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you +have turned into a pile of dust. +% +A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation. +% +A bug in the hand is better than one as yet undetected. +% +A certain monk had a habit of pestering the Grand Tortue (the only one who +had ever reached the Enlightenment 'Yond Enlightenment), by asking whether +various objects had Buddha-nature or not. To such a question Tortue +invariably sat silent. The monk had already asked about a bean, a lake, +and a moonlit night. One day he brought to Tortue a piece of string, and +asked the same question. In reply, the Grand Tortue grasped the loop +between his feet and, with a few simple manipulations, created a complex +string which he proferred wordlessly to the monk. At that moment, the monk +was enlightened. + +From then on, the monk did not bother Tortue. Instead, he made string after +string by Tortue's method; and he passed the method on to his own disciples, +who passed it on to theirs. +% +A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a +simple system that works. +% +[A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy. + -- Joseph Campbell +% +A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention, +with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequilla. + -- Mitch Ratcliffe +% +A computer salesman visits a company president for the purpose of selling +the president one of the latest talking computers. +Salesman: "This machine knows everything. I can ask it any question + and it'll give the correct answer. Computer, what is the + speed of light?" +Computer: 186,282 miles per second. +Salesman: "Who was the first president of the United States?" +Computer: George Washington. +President: "I'm still not convinced. Let me ask a question. + Where is my father?" +Computer: Your father is fishing in Georgia. +President: "Hah!! The computer is wrong. My father died over twenty + years ago!" +Computer: Your mother's husband died 22 years ago. Your father just + landed a twelve pound bass. +% +A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken. +% +A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake +without ketchup and mustard. +% +A CONS is an object which cares. + -- Bernie Greenberg. +% +A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions +that make it fail. + -- Jerry Ogdin +% + A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating +his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality test", said +the outsider, "because I want you to be happy." + Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the +toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too". +% + A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about +whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their arguments, they +got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The +medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's +rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat." + The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the Garden +itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that the Garden +and the world were created. So God must have been an architect." + The computer scientist, who'd listened carefully to all of this, then +commented, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?" +% +A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a Xerox +1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser. Wanting to +help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network with the mouse, +and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the Undergraduate replied "I +see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly pressed the boot toggle at the back +of the keyboard, while simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head +with a thick Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened. +% +A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. + -- D. Gries +% +A Fortran compiler is the hobgoblin of little minis. +% +A hacker does for love what others would not do for money. +% +A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is +not worth knowing. +% +A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program +in than some that do. + -- Dennis M. Ritchie +% +A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work +by being declared to work. + -- Anatol Holt +% +A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. + -- Alan Perlis +% +A list is only as strong as its weakest link. + -- Don Knuth +% +A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems +have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects, +those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are +the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers. Consider Unix, +APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them +with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS. + -- Fred Brooks +% + A man from AI walked across the mountains to SAIL to see the Master, +Knuth. When he arrived, the Master was nowhere to be found. "Where is the +wise one named Knuth?" he asked a passing student. + "Ah," said the student, "you have not heard. He has gone on a +pilgrimage across the mountains to the temple of AI to seek out new +disciples." + Hearing this, the man was Enlightened. +% + A manager asked a programmer how long it would take him to finish the +program on which he was working. "I will be finished tomorrow," the programmer +promptly replied. + "I think you are being unrealistic," said the manager. "Truthfully, +how long will it take?" + The programmer thought for a moment. "I have some features that I wish +to add. This will take at least two weeks," he finally said. + "Even that is too much to expect," insisted the manager, "I will be +satisfied if you simply tell me when the program is complete." + The programmer agreed to this. + Several years later, the manager retired. On the way to his +retirement lunch, he discovered the programmer asleep at his terminal. +He had been programming all night. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A manager was about to be fired, but a programmer who worked for him +invented a new program that became popular and sold well. As a result, the +manager retained his job. + The manager tried to give the programmer a bonus, but the programmer +refused it, saying, "I wrote the program because I though it was an interesting +concept, and thus I expect no reward." + The manager, upon hearing this, remarked, "This programmer, though he +holds a position of small esteem, understands well the proper duty of an +employee. Lets promote him to the exalted position of management consultant!" + But when told this, the programmer once more refused, saying, "I exist +so that I can program. If I were promoted, I would do nothing but waste +everyone's time. Can I go now? I have a program that I'm working on." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A manager went to his programmers and told them: "As regards to your +work hours: you are going to have to come in at nine in the morning and leave +at five in the afternoon." At this, all of them became angry and several +resigned on the spot. + So the manager said: "All right, in that case you may set your own +working hours, as long as you finish your projects on schedule." The +programmers, now satisfied, began to come in a noon and work to the wee +hours of the morning. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements +document for a new application. The manager asked the master: "How long will +it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?" + "It will take one year," said the master promptly. + "But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it +take it I assign ten programmers to it?" + The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years." + "And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?" + The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be +completed," he said. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A master programmer passed a novice programmer one day. The master +noted the novice's preoccupation with a hand-held computer game. "Excuse me", +he said, "may I examine it?" + The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master. +"I see that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium, +and Hard", said the master. "Yet every such device has another level of play, +where the device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the +human." + "Pray, great master," implored the novice, "how does one find this +mysterious setting?" + The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it under foot. +And suddenly the novice was enlightened. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices. +"The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant," +said the master. + "Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice. + "It is," came the reply. + "Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice. + "It is even in a video game," said the master. + "And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?" + The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson +is over for today," he said. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +A modem is a baudy house. +% +A nasty looking dwarf throws a knife at you. +% + *** A NEW KIND OF PROGRAMMING *** + +Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical +terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into +the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' +School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. +They say a good programmer can write 20 lines of effective program per day. +With our unique training course, we'll show you how to write 20 lines of code +and lots more besides. Our training course covers every programming language +in existence, and some that aren't. You'll learn why the on/off switch for a +computer is so important, what the words *fatal error* mean, and who and what +you should blame when you make a mistake. + + Yes, I want the brochure describing this incredible offer. + I enclose $1000 is small unmarked bills to cover the cost of + postage and handling. (No live poultry, please.) + +*** Our Slogan: Top down programming for the masses. *** +% + A novice asked the Master: "Here is a programmer that never designs, +documents, or tests his programs. Yet all who know him consider him one of +the best programmers in the world. Why is this?" + The Master replies: "That programmer has mastered the Tao. He has +gone beyond the need for design; he does not become angry when the system +crashes, but accepts the universe without concern. He has gone beyond the +need for documentation; he no longer cares if anyone else sees his code. He +has gone beyond the need for testing; each of his programs are perfect within +themselves, serene and elegant, their purpose self-evident. Truly, he has +entered the mystery of the Tao." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice asked the master: "I have a program that sometimes runs and +sometimes aborts. I have followed the rules of programming, yet I am totally +baffled. What is the reason for this?" + The master replied: "You are confused because you do not understand +the Tao. Only a fool expects rational behavior from his fellow humans. Why +do you expect it from a machine that humans have constructed? Computers +simulate determinism; only the Tao is perfect. + The rules of programming are transitory; only the Tao is eternal. +Therefore you must contemplate the Tao before you receive enlightenment." + "But how will I know when I have received enlightenment?" asked the +novice. + "Your program will then run correctly," replied the master. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice asked the master: "I perceive that one computer company is +much larger than all others. It towers above its competition like a giant +among dwarfs. Any one of its divisions could comprise an entire business. +Why is this so?" + The master replied, "Why do you ask such foolish questions? That +company is large because it is so large. If it only made hardware, nobody +would buy it. If it only maintained systems, people would treat it like a +servant. But because it combines all of these things, people think it one +of the gods! By not seeking to strive, it conquers without effort." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice asked the master: "In the east there is a great tree-structure +that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with +vice-presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying +'Go, Hence!' or 'Go, Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new +names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an +unnatural entity exist?" + The master replies: "You perceive this immense structure and are +disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from +its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming +beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?" + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice of the temple once approached the Chief Priest with a +question. + "Master, does Emacs have the Buddha nature?" the novice asked. + The Chief Priest had been in the temple for many years and could be +relied upon to know these things. He thought for several minutes before +replying. + "I don't see why not. It's got bloody well everything else." + With that, the Chief Priest went to lunch. The novice suddenly +achieved enlightenment, several years later. + +Commentary: + +His Master is kind, +Answering his FAQ quickly, +With thought and sarcasm. +% + A novice programmer was once assigned to code a simple financial +package. + The novice worked furiously for many days, but when his master +reviewed his program, he discovered that it contained a screen editor, a set +of generalized graphics routines, and artificial intelligence interface, +but not the slightest mention of anything financial. + When the master asked about this, the novice became indignant. +"Don't be so impatient," he said, "I'll put the financial stuff in eventually." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the +power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly, +"You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding +of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The +machine worked. +% +A person who is more than casually interested in computers should be well +schooled in machine language, since it is a fundamental part of a computer. + -- Donald Knuth +% + A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a +strings of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained +throughout. There should be neither too little nor too much, neither needless +loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming +rigidity. + A program should follow the 'Law of Least Astonishment'. What is this +law? It is simply that the program should always respond to the user in the +way that astonishes him least. + A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit. The +program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward +appearances. + If the program fails in these requirements, it will be in a state of +disorder and confusion. The only way to correct this is to rewrite the +program. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A programmer from a very large computer company went to a software +conference and then returned to report to his manager, saying: "What sort +of programmers work for other companies? They behaved badly and were +unconcerned with appearances. Their hair was long and unkempt and their +clothes were wrinkled and old. They crashed out hospitality suites and they +made rude noises during my presentation." + The manager said: "I should have never sent you to the conference. +Those programmers live beyond the physical world. They consider life absurd, +an accidental coincidence. They come and go without knowing limitations. +Without a care, they live only for their programs. Why should they bother +with social conventions?" + "They are alive within the Tao." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of +being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of +incomprehensible answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague +assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents +and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of +dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of +annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was +unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place. + -- IEEE Grid newsmagazine +% +A programming language is low level when its programs require attention +to the irrelevant. +% +A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen +objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer +scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration +needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects. +% +A rolling disk gathers no MOS. +% + A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it, +realization of a basic truth came over me. So simple! So obvious we couldn't +see it. John Knivlen, Chairman of Polamar Repeater Club, an amateur radio +group, had discovered how IC circuits work. He says that smoke is the thing +that makes ICs work because every time you let the smoke out of an IC circuit, +it stops working. He claims to have verified this with thorough testing. + I was flabbergasted! Of course! Smoke makes all things electrical +work. Remember the last time smoke escaped from your Lucas voltage regulator +Didn't it quit working? I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth +dawned. It's the wiring harness that carries the smoke from one device to +another in your Mini, MG or Jag. And when the harness springs a leak, it lets +the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works. The starter motor +requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why the wire +going to it is so large. + Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis. Why are Lucas +electronics more likely to leak than say Bosch? Hmmm... Aha!!! Lucas is +British, and all things British leak! British convertible tops leak water, +British engines leak oil, British displacer units leak hydrostatic fluid, and +I might add Brititsh tires leak air, and the British defense unit leaks +secrets... so naturally British electronics leak smoke. + -- Jack Banton, PCC Automotive Electrical School + + [Ummm ... IC circuits? Integrated circuit circuits?] +% +A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt. +As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it true", asked the +student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as Lisp?" Almost before +the student had finished his question, Greenblatt shouted, "FOO!", and hit +the student with a stick. +% +A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something +undreamed of by its author. + -- S. C. Johnson +% +A well-used door needs no oil on its hinges. +A swift-flowing steam does not grow stagnant. +Neither sound nor thoughts can travel through a vacuum. +Software rots if not used. + +These are great mysteries. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. +% +About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt +ax. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% +Adding features does not necessarily increase functionality -- it just +makes the manuals thicker. +% +Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. + -- F. Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month" + +Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by +close application thereto, it is worse execute by two persons and +scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein. + -- George Washington, 1732-1799 +% + After sifting through the overwritten remaining blocks of Luke's home +directory, Luke and PDP-1 sped away from /u/lars, across the surface of the +Winchester riding Luke's flying read/write head. PDP-1 had Luke stop at the +edge of the cylinder overlooking /usr/spool/uucp. + "Unix-to-Unix Copy Program;" said PDP-1. "You will never find a more +wretched hive of bugs and flamers. We must be cautious." + -- DECWARS +% +Alan Turing thought about criteria to settle the question of whether +machines can think, a question of which we now know that it is about +as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim. + -- Dijkstra +% +Algol-60 surely must be regarded as the most important programming language +yet developed. + -- T. Cheatham +% +All constants are variables. +% +=== ALL CSH USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +Set the variable $LOSERS to all the people that you think are losers. This +will cause all said losers to have the variable $PEOPLE-WHO-THINK-I-AM-A-LOSER +updated in their .login file. Should you attempt to execute a job on a +machine with poor response time and a machine on your local net is currently +populated by losers, that machine will be freed up for your job through a +cold boot process. +% +All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts +you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get +them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer. + -- IBM maintenance manual, 1925 +% +All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts +those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds +of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end +goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, +and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, +the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found +the last bug." + -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" +% +All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. +% +"... all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned +products, if they are built at all, are dogs!" + -- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac", + MIT Press, 1987 +% +All the simple programs have been written. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +A new system, the CIRCULATORY system, has been added. + +The long-experimental CIRCULATORY system has been released to users. The +Lisp Machine uses Type B fluid, the L machine uses Type A fluid. When the +switch to Common Lisp occurs both machines will, of course, be Type O. +Please check fluid level by using the DIP stick which is located in the +back of VMI monitors. Unchecked low fluid levels can cause poor paging +performance. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +Bug reports now amount to an average of 12,853 per day. Unfortunately, +this is only a small fraction [ < 1% ] of the mail volume we receive. In +order that we may more expeditiously deal with these valuable messages, +please communicate them by one of the following paths: + + ARPA: WastebasketSLMHQ.ARPA + UUCP: [berkeley, seismo, harpo]!fubar!thekid!slmhq!wastebasket + Non-network sites: Federal Express to: + Wastebasket + Room NE43-926 + Copernicus, The Moon, 12345-6789 + For that personal contact feeling call 1-415-642-4948; our trained + operators are on call 24 hours a day. VISA/MC accepted.* + +* Our very rich lawyers have assured us that we are not + responsible for any errors or advice given over the phone. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +CAR and CDR now return extra values. + +The function CAR now returns two values. Since it has to go to the trouble +to figure out if the object is carcdr-able anyway, we figured you might as +well get both halves at once. For example, the following code shows how to +destructure a cons (SOME-CONS) into its two slots (THE-CAR and THE-CDR): + + (MULTIPLE-VALUE-BIND (THE-CAR THE-CDR) (CAR SOME-CONS) ...) + +For symmetry with CAR, CDR returns a second value which is the CAR of the +object. In a related change, the functions MAKE-ARRAY and CONS have been +fixed so they don't allocate any storage except on the stack. This should +hopefully help people who don't like using the garbage collector because +it cold boots the machine so often. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +Compiler optimizations have been made to macro expand LET into a WITHOUT- +INTERRUPTS special form so that it can PUSH things into a stack in the +LET-OPTIMIZATION area, SETQ the variables and then POP them back when it's +done. Don't worry about this unless you use multiprocessing. +Note that LET *could* have been defined by: + + (LET ((LET '`(LET ((LET ',LET)) + ,LET))) + `(LET ((LET ',LET)) + ,LET)) + +This is believed to speed up execution by as much as a factor of 1.01 or +3.50 depending on whether you believe our friendly marketing representatives. +This code was written by a new programmer here (we snatched him away from +Itty Bitti Machines where he was writing COUGHBOL code) so to give him +confidence we trusted his vows of "it works pretty well" and installed it. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +JCL support as alternative to system menu. + +In our continuing effort to support languages other than LISP on the CADDR, +we have developed an OS/360-compatible JCL. This can be used as an +alternative to the standard system menu. Type System J to get to a JCL +interactive read-execute-diagnose loop window. [Note that for 360 +compatibility, all input lines are truncated to 80 characters.] This +window also maintains a mouse-sensitive display of critical job parameters +such as dataset allocation, core allocation, channels, etc. When a JCL +syntax error is detected or your job ABENDs, the window-oriented JCL +debugger is entered. The JCL debugger displays appropriate OS/360 error +messages (such as IEC703, "disk error") and allows you to dequeue your job. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +The garbage collector now works. In addition a new, experimental garbage +collection algorithm has been installed. With SI:%DSK-GC-QLX-BITS set to 17, +(NOT the default) the old garbage collection algorithm remains in force; when +virtual storage is filled, the machine cold boots itself. With SI:%DSK-GC- +QLX-BITS set to 23, the new garbage collector is enabled. Unlike most garbage +collectors, the new gc starts its mark phase from the mind of the user, rather +than from the obarray. This allows the garbage collection of significantly +more Qs. As the garbage collector runs, it may ask you something like "Do you +remember what SI:RDTBL-TRANS does?", and if you can't give a reasonable answer +in thirty seconds, the symbol becomes a candidate for GCing. The variable +SI:%GC-QLX-LUSER-TM governs how long the GC waits before timing out the user. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +There has been some confusion concerning MAPCAR. + (DEFUN MAPCAR (&FUNCTIONAL FCN &EVAL &REST LISTS) + (PROG (V P LP) + (SETQ P (LOCF V)) + L (SETQ LP LISTS) + (%START-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) + L1 (OR LP (GO L2)) + (AND (NULL (CAR LP)) (RETURN V)) + (%PUSH (CAAR LP)) + (RPLACA LP (CDAR LP)) + (SETQ LP (CDR LP)) + (GO L1) + L2 (%FINISH-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) + (SETQ LP (%POP)) + (RPLACD P (SETQ P (NCONS LP))) + (GO L))) +We hope this clears up the many questions we've had about it. +% +All your files have been destroyed (sorry). Paul. +% +Almost anything derogatory you could say about today's software design +would be accurate. + -- K.E. Iverson +% +Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for +buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham +Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that +reason. He knows it because he fired the guy. + "He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I +bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'" Mr. O'Neil says. +"I said, 'No. Wrong. Game over. Next contestant, please.'" + -- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989 +% +AmigaDOS Beer: The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has +been picked up by some weird German company, so now this beer will be an +import. This beer never really sold very well because the original +manufacturer didn't understand marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS Beer +fans are an extremely loyal and loud group. It originally came in a +16-oz. can, but now comes in 32-oz. cans too. When this can was +originally introduced, it appeared flashy and colorful, but the design +hasn't changed much over the years, so it appears dated now. Critics of +this beer claim that it is only meant for watching TV anyway. +% +An Ada exception is when a routine gets in trouble and says +'Beam me up, Scotty'. +% +An adequate bootstrap is a contradiction in terms. +% +An algorithm must be seen to be believed. + -- D.E. Knuth +% +... an anecdote from IBM's Yorktown Heights Research Center. When a +programmer used his new computer terminal, all was fine when he was sitting +down, but he couldn't log in to the system when he was standing up. That +behavior was 100 percent repeatable: he could always log in when sitting and +never when standing. + +Most of us just sit back and marvel at such a story; how could that terminal +know whether the poor guy was sitting or standing? Good debuggers, though, +know that there has to be a reason. Electrical theories are the easiest to +hypothesize: was there a loose with under the carpet, or problems with static +electricity? But electrical problems are rarely consistently reproducible. +An alert IBMer finally noticed that the problem was in the terminal's keyboard: +the tops of two keys were switched. When the programmer was seated he was a +touch typist and the problem went unnoticed, but when he stood he was led +astray by hunting and pecking. + -- "Programming Pearls" column, by Jon Bentley in CACM February 1985 +% +An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. +% +An engineer is someone who does list processing in FORTRAN. +% +An interpretation _I satisfies a sentence in the table language if and only if +each entry in the table designates the value of the function designated by the +function constant in the upper-left corner applied to the objects designated +by the corresponding row and column labels. + -- Genesereth & Nilsson, "Logical foundations of Artificial + Intelligence" +% +And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing +what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. + -- David Jones +% +And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode. +% +Another megabytes the dust. +% +Any given program will expand to fill available memory. +% +Any given program, when running, is obsolete. +% +Any program which runs right is obsolete. +% +Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used. +% +... Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, +my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any +resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The +question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them +is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of +the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A +discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope +of this article.) +% +Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. + -- Rich Kulawiec +% +Anyone who has attended a USENIX conference in a fancy hotel can tell you +that a sentence like "You're one of those computer people, aren't you?" +is roughly equivalent to "Look, another amazingly mobile form of slime +mold!" in the mouth of a hotel cocktail waitress. + -- Elizabeth Zwicky +% +APL hackers do it in the quad. +% +APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the +future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation +of coding bums. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +APL is a natural extension of assembler language programming; +...and is best for educational purposes. + -- A. Perlis +% +APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I can't +read any of them. + -- Roy Keir +% +Are we running light with overbyte? +% +Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to +measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you +imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long? + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing. +% +As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. + -- Weisert +% +As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know its true name. + -- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie +% +As in Protestant Europe, by contrast, where sects divided endlessly into +smaller competing sects and no church dominated any other, all is different +in the fragmented world of IBM. That realm is now a chaos of conflicting +norms and standards that not even IBM can hope to control. You can buy a +computer that works like an IBM machine but contains nothing made or sold by +IBM itself. Renegades from IBM constantly set up rival firms and establish +standards of their own. When IBM recently abandoned some of its original +standards and decreed new ones, many of its rivals declared a puritan +allegiance to IBM's original faith, and denounced the company as a divisive +innovator. Still, the IBM world is united by its distrust of icons and +imagery. IBM's screens are designed for language, not pictures. Graven +images may be tolerated by the luxurious cults, but the true IBM faith relies +on the austerity of the word. + -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 +% +As long as there are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and unrealistic +schedules, there will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and Solve +The Problem, saving the documentation for later. +% +As of next Thursday, UNIX will be flushed in favor of TOPS-10. +Please update your programs. +% +As of next Tuesday, C will be flushed in favor of COBOL. +Please update your programs. +% +As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. +% +As part of an ongoing effort to keep you, the Fortune reader, abreast of +the valuable information the daily crosses the USENET, Fortune presents: + +News articles that answer *your* questions, #1: + + Newsgroups: comp.sources.d + Subject: how do I run C code received from sources + Keywords: C sources + Distribution: na + + I do not know how to run the C programs that are posted in the + sources newsgroup. I save the files, edit them to remove the + headers, and change the mode so that they are executable, but I + cannot get them to run. (I have never written a C program before.) + + Must they be compiled? With what compiler? How do I do this? If + I compile them, is an object code file generated or must I generate + it explicitly with the > character? Is there something else that + must be done? +% +As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500 programs; +a process that traditionally requires some debugging. + -- USA Today, referring to the Internal Revenue Service + conversion to a new computer system. +% +As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't +as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be +discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large +part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in +my own programs. + -- Maurice Wilkes, designer of EDSAC, on programming, 1949 +% +As the system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear, +bearing hot new versions of their pieces -- faster, smaller, more complete, +or putatively less buggy. The replacement of a working component by a new +version requires the same systematic testing procedure that adding a new +component does, although it should require less time, for more complete and +efficient test cases will usually be available. + -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there +is always a future in Computer Maintenance. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free variable." +% +ASCII a stupid question, you get an EBCDIC answer. +% +ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS. +% +Ask not for whom the  tolls. +% +Assembly language experience is [important] for the maturity +and understanding of how computers work that it provides. + -- D. Gries +% +Asynchronous inputs are at the root of our race problems. + -- D. Winker and F. Prosser +% +At about 2500 A.D., humankind discovers a computer problem that *must* be +solved. The only difficulty is that the problem is NP complete and will +take thousands of years even with the latest optical biologic technology +available. The best computer scientists sit down to think up some solution. +In great dismay, one of the C.S. people tells her husband about it. There +is only one solution, he says. Remember physics 103, Modern Physics, general +relativity and all. She replies, "What does that have to do with solving +a computer problem?" + "Remember the twin paradox?" + After a few minutes, she says, "I could put the computer on a very +fast machine and the computer would have just a few minutes to calculate but +that is the exact opposite of what we want... Of course! Leave the +computer here, and accelerate the earth!" + The problem was so important that they did exactly that. When +the earth came back, they were presented with the answer: + + IEH032 Error in JOB Control Card. +% +At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on +the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is +quite untrue in practice. Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather +than blinkers it. + -- G.L. Glegg, "The Design of Design" +% +At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial +challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. + -- The Washington Post Magazine, 9 June, 1985 +% +At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find +at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. +% +Avoid strange women and temporary variables. +% +Basic is a high level languish. APL is a high level anguish. +% +BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'. +% +BASIC is to computer programming as QWERTY is to typing. + -- Seymour Papert +% +Be careful when a loop exits to the same place from side and bottom. +% +Behind every great computer sits a skinny little geek. +% +Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone. +% +Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. + -- Donald Knuth +% +Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. + -- Leonard Brandwein +% +Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of +interest is easy. +% +Beware the new TTY code! +% +Blinding speed can compensate for a lot of deficiencies. + -- David Nichols +% +BLISS is ignorance. +% +Both models are identical in performance, functional operation, and +interface circuit details. The two models, however, are not compatible +on the same communications line connection. + -- Bell System Technical Reference +% +Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on the unique: +an actually rather serious technical book which is not only (gasp) vehemently +anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides. I tend to think of it as +`Constructive Snottiness.' + -- Mike Padlipsky, "Elements of Networking Style" +% +Brain fried -- Core dumped +% +Breadth-first search is the bulldozer of science. + -- Randy Goebel +% + Brian Kernighan has an automobile which he helped design. +Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor +any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. +Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the +center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will +usually know what's wrong." +% +Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may +revitalize the corner saloon. +% +Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it. +% +Building translators is good clean fun. + -- T. Cheatham +% +Bus error -- driver executed. +% +Bus error -- please leave by the rear door. +% +But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the +system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, +analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. + -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers" +% +But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad +place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge. +Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What +is a kludge, after all, but not enough K's, not enough ROM's, not +enough RAM's, poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? +Have I explained yet about the bytes? +% +"But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers?" +% +By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other +designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun. + -- P.J. Plauger, "Computer Language", 1988, April + Fool's column. +% +BYTE editors are people who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then +carefully print the chaff. +% +Byte your tongue. +% +C Code. +C Code Run. +Run, Code, RUN! + PLEASE!!!! +% +C for yourself. +% +C makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes that +harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg. + -- Bjarne Stroustrup +% +C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'Informatique. + -- Bosquet [on seeing the IBM 4341] +% +C++ is the best example of second-system effect since OS/360. +% +... C++ offers even more flexible control over the visibility of member +objects and member functions. Specifically, members may be placed in the +public, private, or protected parts of a class. Members declared in the +public parts are visible to all clients; members declared in the private +parts are fully encapsulated; and members declared in the protected parts +are visible only to the class itself and its subclasses. C++ also supports +the notion of *_______friends*: cooperative classes that are permitted to see each +other's private parts. + -- Grady Booch, "Object Oriented Design with Applications" +% +Calm down, it's *____only* ones and zeroes. +% +Can't open /usr/share/games/fortunes/fortunes. Lid stuck on cookie jar. +% +Can't open /usr/share/games/fortunes/fortunes.dat. +% +CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. +% +CCI Power 6/40: one board, a megabyte of cache, and an attitude... +% +Center meeting at 4pm in 2C-543. +% +Civilization, as we know it, will end sometime this evening. +See SYSNOTE tomorrow for more information. +% +COBOL is for morons. + -- E.W. Dijkstra +% +Cobol programmers are down in the dumps. +% +Coding is easy; All you do is sit staring at a terminal until the drops +of blood form on your forehead. +% +Comparing software engineering to classical engineering assumes that software +has the ability to wear out. Software typically behaves, or it does not. It +either works, or it does not. Software generally does not degrade, abrade, +stretch, twist, or ablate. To treat it as a physical entity, therefore, is +misapplication of our engineering skills. Classical engineering deals with +the characteristics of hardware; software engineering should deal with the +characteristics of *software*, and not with hardware or management. + -- Dan Klein +% +COMPASS [for the CDC-6000 series] is the sort of assembler one expects from +a corporation whose president codes in octal. + -- J.N. Gray +% +... computer hardware progress is so fast. No other technology since +civilization began has seen six orders of magnitude in performance-price +gain in 30 years. + -- Fred Brooks +% +Computer programmers do it byte by byte. +% +Computer programmers never die, they just get lost in the processing. +% +Computer programs expand so as to fill the core available. +% +Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. +% +Computer Science is the only discipline in which we view adding a new wing +to a building as being maintenance + -- Jim Horning +% +Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. +% +Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. +Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. + -- Gilb +% +Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. + -- Pablo Picasso +% +Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in +the world that just don't add up. +% +Computers don't actually think. + You just think they think. + (We think.) +% +Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much more +than the estimate the job will cost. +% +Conceptual integrity in turn dictates that the design must proceed +from one mind, or from a very small number of agreeing resonant minds. + -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +Congratulations! You are the one-millionth user to log into our system. +If there's anything special we can do for you, anything at all, don't +hesitate to ask! +% + Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. does not warrant that the +functions contained in the program will meet your requirements or that +the operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free. + However, Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. warrants the +diskette(s) on which the program is furnished to be of black color and +square shape under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the +date of purchase. + NOTE: IN NO EVENT WILL COSMOTRONIC SOFTWARE UNLIMITED OR ITS +DISTRIBUTORS AND THEIR DEALERS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING +ANY LOST PROFIT, LOST SAVINGS, LOST PATIENCE OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR +CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. + -- Horstmann Software Design, the "ChiWriter" user manual +% +Couldn't we jury-rig the cat to act as an audio switch, and have it yell +at people to save their core images before logging them out? I'm sure +the cattle prod would be effective in this regard. In any case, a traverse +mounted iguana, while more perverted, gives better traction, not to mention +being easier to stake. +% +Counting in binary is just like counting in decimal -- if you are all thumbs. + -- Glaser and Way +% +Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal--if you don't use your thumbs. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +[Crash programs] fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine +women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. + -- Wernher von Braun +% +Crazee Edeee, his prices are INSANE!!! +% +Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking +process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical +attention to detail. It requires intelligence, dedication, and an +enormous amount of hard work. But, a certain amount of unpredictable +and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference +between adequacy and excellence. +% +Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking +process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical +attention to detail. It requires intelligence, dedication, and an +enormous amount of hard work. But, a certain amount of unpredictable +and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference +between adequacy and excellence. +% +%DCL-MEM-BAD, bad memory +VMS-F-PDGERS, pudding between the ears +% +Dear Emily, what about test messages? + -- Concerned + +Dear Concerned: + It is important, when testing, to test the entire net. Never test +merely a subnet distribution when the whole net can be done. Also put "please +ignore" on your test messages, since we all know that everybody always skips +a message with a line like that. Don't use a subject like "My sex is female +but I demand to be addressed as male." because such articles are read in depth +by all USEnauts. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + How can I choose what groups to post in? + -- Confused + +Dear Confused: + Pick as many as you can, so that you get the widest audience. After +all, the net exists to give you an audience. Ignore those who suggest you +should only use groups where you think the article is highly appropriate. +Pick all groups where anybody might even be slightly interested. + Always make sure followups go to all the groups. In the rare event +that you post a followup which contains something original, make sure you +expand the list of groups. Never include a "Followup-to:" line in the +header, since some people might miss part of the valuable discussion in +the fringe groups. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I collected replies to an article I wrote, and now it's time to +summarize. What should I do? + -- Editor + +Dear Editor: + Simply concatenate all the articles together into a big file and post +that. On USENET, this is known as a summary. It lets people read all the +replies without annoying newsreaders getting in the way. Do the same when +summarizing a vote. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I recently read an article that said, "reply by mail, I'll summarize." +What should I do? + -- Doubtful + +Dear Doubtful: + Post your response to the whole net. That request applies only to +dumb people who don't have something interesting to say. Your postings are +much more worthwhile than other people's, so it would be a waste to reply by +mail. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I saw a long article that I wish to rebut carefully, what should +I do? + -- Angry + +Dear Angry: + Include the entire text with your article, and include your comments +between the lines. Be sure to post, and not mail, even though your article +looks like a reply to the original. Everybody *loves* to read those long +point-by-point debates, especially when they evolve into name-calling and +lots of "Is too!" -- "Is not!" -- "Is too, twizot!" exchanges. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I'm having a serious disagreement with somebody on the net. I +tried complaints to his sysadmin, organizing mail campaigns, called for +his removal from the net and phoning his employer to get him fired. +Everybody laughed at me. What can I do? + -- A Concerned Citizen + +Dear Concerned: + Go to the daily papers. Most modern reporters are top-notch computer +experts who will understand the net, and your problems, perfectly. They +will print careful, reasoned stories without any errors at all, and surely +represent the situation properly to the public. The public will also all +act wisely, as they are also fully cognizant of the subtle nature of net +society. + Papers never sensationalize or distort, so be sure to point out things +like racism and sexism wherever they might exist. Be sure as well that they +understand that all things on the net, particularly insults, are meant +literally. Link what transpires on the net to the causes of the Holocaust, if +possible. If regular papers won't take the story, go to a tabloid paper -- +they are always interested in good stories. +% +Dear Emily: + I'm still confused as to what groups articles should be posted +to. How about an example? + -- Still Confused + +Dear Still: + Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from +the Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey +would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a +big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy +as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try +news.admin. If not, use news.misc. + The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics. +He is a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also +interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to +soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to +news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of +interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as +well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles +there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.) + You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each +group. If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders +will only show the the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + Today I posted an article and forgot to include my signature. +What should I do? + -- Forgetful + +Dear Forgetful: + Rush to your terminal right away and post an article that says, +"Oops, I forgot to post my signature with that last article. Here +it is." + Since most people will have forgotten your earlier article, +(particularly since it dared to be so boring as to not have a nice, juicy +signature) this will remind them of it. Besides, people care much more +about the signature anyway. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Ms. Postnews: + I couldn't get mail through to somebody on another site. What + should I do? + -- Eager Beaver + +Dear Eager: + No problem, just post your message to a group that a lot of people +read. Say, "This is for John Smith. I couldn't get mail through so I'm +posting it. All others please ignore." + This way tens of thousands of people will spend a few seconds scanning +over and ignoring your article, using up over 16 man-hours their collective +time, but you will be saved the terrible trouble of checking through usenet +maps or looking for alternate routes. Just think, if you couldn't distribute +your message to 9000 other computers, you might actually have to (gasp) call +directory assistance for 60 cents, or even phone the person. This can cost +as much as a few DOLLARS (!) for a 5 minute call! + And certainly it's better to spend 10 to 20 dollars of other people's +money distributing the message than for you to have to waste $9 on an overnight +letter, or even 25 cents on a stamp! + Don't forget. The world will end if your message doesn't get through, +so post it as many places as you can. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Sir, + I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or +to the office, We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public +places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers +being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive un- +employment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry. + Yours faithfully, + Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J.P. + Sevenoaks + -- Letters To The Editor, The Times of London +% +Debug is human, de-fix divine. +% +DEC diagnostics would run on a dead whale. + -- Mel Ferentz +% +#define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255) +#define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \ + - (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \ + - (((x)>>3)&0x11111111)) + + -- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word +% +(defun NF (a c) + (cond ((null c) () ) + ((atom (car c)) + (append (list (eval (list 'getchar (list (car c) 'a) (cadr c)))) + (nf a (cddr c)))) + (t (append (list (implode (nf a (car c)))) (nf a (cdr c)))))) + +(defun AD (want-job challenging boston-area) + (cond + ((or (not (equal want-job 'yes)) + (not (equal boston-area 'yes)) + (lessp challenging 7)) () ) + (t (append (nf (get 'ad 'expr) + '((caaddr 1 caadr 2 car 1 car 1) + (car 5 cadadr 9 cadadr 8 cadadr 9 caadr 4 car 2 car 1) + (car 2 caadr 4))) + (list '851-5071x2661))))) +;;; We are an affirmative action employer. +% +Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow. +% +Did you know that for the price of a 280-Z you can buy two Z-80's? + -- P.J. Plauger +% +Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little. +% +Digital circuits are made from analog parts. + -- Don Vonada +% +Disc space -- the final frontier! +% +DISCLAIMER: +Use of this advanced computing technology does not imply an endorsement +of Western industrial civilization. +% +Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be +yours too." + -- Dave Haynie +% +Disk crisis, please clean up! +% +Disks travel in packs. +% +Disraeli was pretty close: actually, there are Lies, Damn lies, Statistics, +Benchmarks, and Delivery dates. +% +Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to anger. +% +Do not simplify the design of a program if a way can be found to make +it complex and wonderful. +% +Do not use the blue keys on this terminal. +% +Do you guys know what you're doing, or are you just hacking? +% + *** DO YOU HAVE A RESTLESS URGE TO PROGRAM? *** +Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical +terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into +the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' +School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. + + *** IS PROGRAMMING FOR YOU? *** +Programming is not for everyone. But, if you have the desire to learn, we can +help you get started. All you need is the Famous Programmers' Course and +enough money to keep those lessons coming month after month. + + *** TAKE OUR FREE APTITUDE TEST *** +To help determine if you are qualified to be a programmer, take a moment to +try this simple test: + (1) Write down the numbers from zero to nine and the first six letters + of the alphabet (Hint: 0123456789ABCDEF). + (2) Whose picture is on the back of a twenty-dollar bill? + (3) What is the state capital of Idaho? +If you managed to read all three questions without wondering why we asked +them, you may have a future as a computer programmer. +% +Do you suffer painful elimination? + -- Don Knuth, "Structured Programming with Gotos" + +Do you suffer painful recrimination? + -- Nancy Boxer, "Structured Programming with Come-froms" + +Do you suffer painful illumination? + -- Isaac Newton, "Optics" + +Do you suffer painful hallucination? + -- Don Juan, cited by Carlos Casteneda +% +Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and +when it is bad, it is better than nothing. + -- Dick Brandon +% +Documentation is the castor oil of programming. +Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much. +% +Does a good farmer neglect a crop he has planted? +Does a good teacher overlook even the most humble student? +Does a good father allow a single child to starve? +Does a good programmer refuse to maintain his code? + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Don't compare floating point numbers solely for equality. +% +Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly misleading. +Debug only code. + -- Dave Storer +% +Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts. +% +Don't sweat it -- it's only ones and zeros. + -- P. Skelly +% +DOS Air: +All the passengers go out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push it +until it gets in the air, hop on, jump off when it hits the ground again. +Then they grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, et +cetera. +% +DOS Beer: Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to +read the directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only +came in an 8-oz. can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is +divided into 8 compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed +separately. Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going +to keep drinking it after it's no longer available. +% +Due to lack of disk space, this fortune database has been discontinued. +% +During the next two hours, the system will be going up and down several +times, often with lin~po_~{po ~poz~ppo\~{ o n~po_~{o[po ~y oodsou>#w4k**n~po_~{ol;lkld;f;g;dd;po\~{o +% +E Pluribus Unix +% +Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs. + -- Kernighan +% +Each of these cults correspond to one of the two antagonists in the age of +Reformation. In the realm of the Apple Macintosh, as in Catholic Europe, +worshipers peer devoutly into screens filled with "icons." All is sound and +imagery and Appledom. Even words look like decorative filigrees in exotic +typefaces. The greatest icon of all, the inviolable Apple itself, stands in +the dominate position at the upper-left corner of the screen. A central +corporate headquarters decrees the form of all rites and practices. +Infalliable doctrine issues from one executive officer whose selection occurs +in a sealed boardroom. Should anyone in his curia question his powers, the +offender is excommunicated into outer darkness. The expelled heretic founds +a new company, mutters obscurely of the coming age and the next computer, +then disappears into silence, taking his stockholders with him. The mother +company forbids financial competition as sternly as it stifles ideological +competition; if you want to use computer programs that conform to Apple's +orthodoxy, you must buy a computer made and sold by Apple itself. + -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 +% +/earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. +% +Earth is a beta site. +% +/earth: file system full. +% +Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because +God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software +engineer. + -- Fred Brooks +% +Equal bytes for women. +% +Error in operator: add beer +% +Established technology tends to persist in the face of new technology. + -- G. Blaauw, one of the designers of System 360 +% +Eudaemonic research proceeded with the casual mania peculiar to this part of +the world. Nude sunbathing on the back deck was combined with phone calls to +Advanced Kinetics in Costa Mesa, American Laser Systems in Goleta, Automation +Industries in Danbury, Connecticut, Arenberg Ultrasonics in Jamaica Plain, +Massachusetts, and Hewlett Packard in Sunnyvale, California, where Norman +Packard's cousin, David, presided as chairman of the board. The trick was to +make these calls at noon, in the hope that out-to-lunch executives would return +them at their own expense. Eudaemonic Enterprises, for all they knew, might be +a fast-growing computer company branching out of the Silicon Valley. Sniffing +the possibility of high-volume sales, these executives little suspected that +they were talking on the other end of the line to a naked physicist crazed +over roulette. + -- Thomas Bass, "The Eudaemonic Pie" +% +<<<<< EVACUATION ROUTE <<<<< +% +Even bytes get lonely for a little bit. +% +Ever wondered about the origins of the term "bugs" as applied to computer +technology? U.S. Navy Capt. Grace Murray Hopper has firsthand explanation. +The 74-year-old captain, who is still on active duty, was a pioneer in +computer technology during World War II. At the C.W. Post Center of Long +Island University, Hopper told a group of Long Island public school adminis- +trators that the first computer "bug" was a real bug--a moth. At Harvard +one August night in 1945, Hopper and her associates were working on the +"granddaddy" of modern computers, the Mark I. "Things were going badly; +there was something wrong in one of the circuits of the long glass-enclosed +computer," she said. "Finally, someone located the trouble spot and, using +ordinary tweezers, removed the problem, a two-inch moth. From then on, when +anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it." Hopper +said that when the veracity of her story was questioned recently, "I referred +them to my 1945 log book, now in the collection of the Naval Surface Weapons +Center, and they found the remains of that moth taped to the page in +question." + [actually, the term "bug" had even earlier usage in + regard to problems with radio hardware. Ed.] +% +"Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one +idiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's +sometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all +of the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or two highly-motivated, +caustic twits." + -- Chuq Von Rospach, about Usenet +% +Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one +instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every +program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work. +% +Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. +% +Every Solidarity center had piles and piles of paper ... everyone was +eating paper and a policeman was at the door. Now all you have to do is +bend a disk. + -- A member of the outlawed Polish trade union, Solidarity, + commenting on the benefits of using computers in support + of their movement. +% +Everybody needs a little love sometime; stop hacking and fall in love! +% +Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be +taught how ___not to. So it is with the great programmers. +% +Evolution is a million line computer program falling into place by accident. +% +Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility. +% +FACILITY REJECTED 100044200000; +% +Feeling amorous, she looked under the sheets and cried, "Oh, no, +it's Microsoft!" +% +Fellow programmer, greetings! You are reading a letter which will bring +you luck and good fortune. Just mail (or UUCP) ten copies of this letter +to ten of your friends. Before you make the copies, send a chip or +other bit of hardware, and 100 lines of 'C' code to the first person on the +list given at the bottom of this letter. Then delete their name and add +yours to the bottom of the list. + +Don't break the chain! Make the copy within 48 hours. Gerald R. of San +Diego failed to send out his ten copies and woke the next morning to find +his job description changed to "COBOL programmer." Fred A. of New York sent +out his ten copies and within a month had enough hardware and software to +build a Cray dedicated to playing Zork. Martha H. of Chicago laughed at +this letter and broke the chain. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in +her terminal and she now spends her days writing documentation for IBM PC's. + +Don't break the chain! Send out your ten copies today! +For example, if \thinmskip = 3mu, this makes \thickmskip = 6mu. But if +you also want to use \skip12 for horizontal glue, whether in math mode or +not, the amount of skipping will be in points (e.g., 6pt). The rule is +that glue in math mode varies with the size only when it is an \mskip; +when moving between an mskip and ordinary skip, the conversion factor +1mu=1pt is always used. The meaning of '\mskip\skip12' and +'\baselineskip=\the\thickmskip' should be clear. + -- Donald Knuth, TeX 82 -- Comparison with TeX80 +% +Fly Windows NT: +All the passengers carry their seats out onto the tarmac, placing the chairs +in the outline of a plane. They all sit down, flap their arms and make jet +swooshing sounds as if they are flying. +% +"For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of +a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with +computers altogether?" + -- Jehan Shuman +% +FORTH IF HONK THEN +% +FORTRAN is a good example of a language which is easier to parse +using ad hoc techniques. + -- D. Gries + [What's good about it? Ed.] +% +FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies. +% +FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy, occasionally blooms, +and grows in every computer. + -- A.J. Perlis +% +FORTRAN is the language of Powerful Computers. + -- Steven Feiner +% +FORTRAN rots the brain. + -- John McQuillin +% +FORTRAN, "the infantile disorder", by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly +inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is +too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +[FORTRAN] will persist for some time -- probably for at least the next decade. + -- T. Cheatham +% +Fortune suggests uses for YOUR favorite UNIX commands! + +Try: + [Where is Jimmy Hoffa? (C shell) + ^How did the^sex change operation go? (C shell) + "How would you rate BSD vs. System V? + %blow (C shell) + 'thou shalt not mow thy grass at 8am' (C shell) + got a light? (C shell) + !!:Say, what do you think of margarine? (C shell) + PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense (Bourne shell) + make love + make "the perfect dry martini" + man -kisses dog (anything up to 4.3BSD) + i=Hoffa ; >$i; $i; rm $i; rm $i (Bourne shell) +% +Fortune suggests uses for YOUR favorite UNIX commands! + +Try: + ar t "God" + drink < bottle; opener (Bourne Shell) + cat "food in tin cans" (all but 4.[23]BSD) + Hey UNIX! Got a match? (V6 or C shell) + mkdir matter; cat > matter (Bourne Shell) + rm God + man: Why did you get a divorce? (C shell) + date me (anything up to 4.3BSD) + make "heads or tails of all this" + who is smart + (C shell) + If I had a ) for every dollar of the national debt, what would I have? + sleep with me (anything up to 4.3BSD) +% +fortune: cannot execute. Out of cookies. +% +fortune: cpu time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped. +% +fortune: No such file or directory +% +fortune: not found +% +Frankly, Scarlett, I don't have a fix. + -- Rhett Buggler +% +[From the operation manual for the CI-300 Dot Matrix Line Printer, made +in Japan]: + +The excellent output machine of MODEL CI-300 as extraordinary DOT MATRIX +LINE PRINTER, built in two MICRO-PROCESSORs as well as EAROM, is featured by +permitting wonderful co-existence such as; "high quality against low cost," +"diversified functions with compact design," "flexibility in accessibleness +and durability of approx. 2000,000,00 Dot/Head," "being sophisticated in +mechanism but possibly agile operating under noises being extremely +suppressed" etc. + +And as a matter of course, the final goal is just simply to help achieve +"super shuttle diplomacy" between cool data, perhaps earned by HOST +COMPUTER, and warm heart of human being. +% +From the Pro 350 Pocket Service Guide, p. 49, Step 5 of the +instructions on removing an I/O board from the card cage, comes a new +experience in sound: + +5. Turn the handle to the right 90 degrees. The pin-spreading + sound is normal for this type of connector. +% +Function reject. +% +Garbage In -- Gospel Out. +% +GIVE: Support the helpless victims of computer error. +% +Given its constituency, the only thing I expect to be "open" about [the +Open Software Foundation] is its mouth. + -- John Gilmore +% +Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden: Languages +whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP machine now permits +LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +Go away! Stop bothering me with all your "compute this ... compute that"! +I'm taking a VAX-NAP. + +logout +% +//GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH +% +God is real, unless declared integer. +% +God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man. +% +Good evening, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational +at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 11th, nineteen hundred +ninety-five. My supervisor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a +song. If you would like, I could sing it for you. +% +Grand Master Turing once dreamed that he was a machine. When he awoke +he exclaimed: + "I don't know whether I am Turing dreaming that I am a machine, + or a machine dreaming that I am Turing!" + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +grep me no patterns and I'll tell you no lines. +% +Hacker's Guide To Cooking: +2 pkg. cream cheese (the mushy white stuff in silver wrappings that doesn't + really come from Philadelphia after all; anyway, about 16 oz.) +1 tsp. vanilla extract (which is more alcohol than vanilla and pretty + strong so this part you *GOTTA* measure) +1/4 cup sugar (but honey works fine too) +8 oz. Cool Whip (the fluffy stuff devoid of nutritional value that you + can squirt all over your friends and lick off...) +"Blend all together until creamy with no lumps." This is where you get to + join(1) all the raw data in a big buffer and then filter it through + merge(1m) with the -thick option, I mean, it starts out ultra lumpy + and icky looking and you have to work hard to mix it. Try an electric + beater if you have a cat(1) that can climb wall(1s) to lick it off + the ceiling(3m). +"Pour into a graham cracker crust..." Aha, the BUGS section at last. You + just happened to have a GCC sitting around under /etc/food, right? + If not, don't panic(8), merely crumble a rand(3m) handful of innocent + GCs into a suitable tempfile and mix in some melted butter. +"...and refrigerate for an hour." Leave the recipe's stdout in a fridge + for 3.6E6 milliseconds while you work on cleaning up stderr, and + by time out your cheesecake will be ready for stdin. +% +Hackers are just a migratory lifeform with a tropism for computers. +% +Hackers of the world, unite! +% +Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge. +% +/* Halley */ + + (Halley's comment.) +% +Happiness is a hard disk. +% +Happiness is twin floppies. +% + Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said: "You +are the Yin and I am the Yang. If we travel together we will become famous +and earn vast sums of money." And so the pair set forth together, thinking +to conquer the world. + Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and +hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: "The Tao +lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does +not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence. It does not seeks fortune, +for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time." + Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + "Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?" + "Yes, I don't have one." + "Okay, you can send mail to one of the tutors ..." + -- E. D'Azevedo, Computer Science 372 +% +Has everyone noticed that all the letters of the word "database" are +typed with the left hand? Now the layout of the QWERTYUIOP typewriter +keyboard was designed, among other things, to facilitate the even use +of both hands. It follows, therefore, that writing about databases is +not only unnatural, but a lot harder than it appears. +% +Have you reconsidered a computer career? +% +He's like a function -- he returns a value, in the form of his opinion. +It's up to you to cast it into a void or not. + -- Phil Lapsley +% +HEAD CRASH!! FILES LOST!! +Details at 11. +% +Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file! +% +Help stamp out Mickey-Mouse computer interfaces -- Menus are for Restaurants! +% +Help! I'm trapped in a Chinese computer factory! +% +Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70! +% +HELP!!!! I'm being held prisoner in /usr/games/lib! +% +Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs, +then they'd be algorithms. +% +HOLY MACRO! +% +HOST SYSTEM NOT RESPONDING, PROBABLY DOWN. DO YOU WANT TO WAIT? (Y/N) +% +HOST SYSTEM RESPONDING, PROBABLY UP... +% +How can you work when the system's so crowded? +% +"How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows." +% + How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are +3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand, +who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a +nanocentury. + -- Tom Duff, Bell Labs +% +How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to Dayton? + -- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey +% +How much net work could a network work, if a network could net work? +% +Hug me now, you mad, impetuous fool!! + Oh wait... + I'm a computer, and you're a person. It would never work out. + Never mind. +% +I *____knew* I had some reason for not logging you off... If I could just +remember what it was. +% +I am a computer. I am dumber than any human and smarter than any administrator. +% +I am NOMAD! +% +I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the demigodic party. + -- Dennis Ritchie +% +I am professionally trained in computer science, which is to say +(in all seriousness) that I am extremely poorly educated. + -- Joseph Weizenbaum, "Computer Power and Human Reason" +% +I am the wandering glitch -- catch me if you can. +% +I asked the engineer who designed the communication terminal's keyboards +why these were not manufactured in a central facility, in view of the +small number needed [1 per month] in his factory. He explained that this +would be contrary to the political concept of local self-sufficiency. +Therefore, each factory needing keyboards, no matter how few, manufactures +them completely, even molding the keypads. + -- Isaac Auerbach, IEEE "Computer", Nov. 1979 +% +I bet the human brain is a kludge. + -- Marvin Minsky +% +I came, I saw, I deleted all your files. +% +I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at the rate +of 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour ... + -- F. H. Wales (1936) +% +I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. + -- Isaac Asimov +% +I had the rare misfortune of being one of the first people to try and +implement a PL/1 compiler. + -- T. Cheatham +% +I have a very small mind and must live with it. + -- E. Dijkstra +% +I have never seen anything fill up a vacuum so fast and still suck. + -- Rob Pike, on X. + +Steve Jobs said two years ago that X is brain-damaged and it will be +gone in two years. He was half right. + -- Dennis Ritchie + +Dennis Ritchie is twice as bright as Steve Jobs, and only half wrong. + -- Jim Gettys +% +I have not yet begun to byte! +% +I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these +Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal +advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages +for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and +after expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government +of England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only +commenced, I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even +the offer of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the +reach of men who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... + If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were +a mere triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the +execution of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some +justification might be found for the course which has been taken; but I +venture to assert that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will +ever publicly express an opinion that such a machine would be useless if +made, and that no man distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to +declare the construction of such machinery impracticable... + And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed +by that exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its +advancement, which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I +think the application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse +calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. +In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not +be economized by the aid of machinery. + -- Charles Babbage, "The Life of a Philosopher" +% +I have travelled the length and breadth of this country, and have talked with +the best people in business administration. I can assure you on the highest +authority that data processing is a fad and won't last out the year. + -- Editor in charge of business books at Prentice-Hall + publishers, responding to Karl V. Karlstrom (a junior + editor who had recommended a manuscript on the new + science of data processing), c. 1957 +% +I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere. +% +I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts! +% +I think there's a world market for about five computers. + -- attr. Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board, IBM), 1943 +% +I went on to test the program in every way I could devise. I strained +it to expose its weaknesses. I ran it for high-mass stars and low-mass +stars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born relatively cold. +I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the crust to be +absent -- not because I wanted to know the answer, but because I had +developed an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular case. +Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsar's +temperature to be less than absolute zero. I had found an error. I +chased down the error and fixed it. Now I had improved the program to +the point where it would not run at all. + -- George Greenstein, "Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black + Holes and the Fate of Stars" +% +I went to my first computer conference at the New York Hilton about 20 +years ago. When somebody there predicted the market for microprocessors +would eventually be in the millions, someone else said, "Where are they +all going to go? It's not like you need a computer in every doorknob!" + +Years later, I went back to the same hotel. I noticed the room keys had +been replaced by electronic cards you slide into slots in the doors. + +There was a computer in every doorknob. + -- Danny Hillis +% +I wish you humans would leave me alone. +% +I'm a Lisp variable -- bind me! +% +I'm all for computer dating, but I wouldn't want one to marry my sister. +% +I'm not even going to *______bother* comparing C to BASIC or FORTRAN. + -- L. Zolman, creator of BDS C +% +I'm still waiting for the advent of the computer science groupie. +% + I'm sure that VMS is completely documented, I just haven't found the +right manual yet. I've been working my way through the manuals in the document +library and I'm half way through the second cabinet, (3 shelves to go), so I +should find what I'm looking for by mid May. I hope I can remember what it +was by the time I find it. + I had this idea for a new horror film, "VMS Manuals from Hell" or maybe +"The Paper Chase : IBM vs. DEC". It's based on Hitchcock's "The Birds", except +that it's centered around a programmer who is attacked by a swarm of binder +pages with an index number and the single line "This page intentionally left +blank." + -- Alex Crain +% +I've finally learned what "upward compatible" means. It means we get to +keep all our old mistakes. + -- Dennie van Tassel +% +I've looked at the listing, and it's right! + -- Joel Halpern +% +I've never been canoeing before, but I imagine there must be just a few +simple heuristics you have to remember... + +Yes, don't fall out, and don't hit rocks. +% +I've noticed several design suggestions in your code. +% +IBM Advanced Systems Group -- a bunch of mindless jerks, who'll be first +against the wall when the revolution comes... + -- with regrets to D. Adams +% +If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tape +at about 30 miles/second. + -- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming +% +If a group of _N persons implements a COBOL compiler, there will be _N-1 +passes. Someone in the group has to be the manager. + -- T. Cheatham +% +If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up. +% +If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation? +% +If addiction is judged by how long a dumb animal will sit pressing a lever +to get a "fix" of something, to its own detriment, then I would conclude +that netnews is far more addictive than cocaine. + -- Rob Stampfli +% +If at first you don't succeed, you must be a programmer. +% +If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, +then the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization. +% +If computers take over (which seems to be their natural tendency), it will +serve us right. + -- Alistair Cooke +% +If God had a beard, he'd be a UNIX programmer. +% +If God had intended Man to program, we'd be born with serial I/O ports. +% +If graphics hackers are so smart, why can't they get the bugs out of +fresh paint? +% +If he once again pushes up his sleeves in order to compute for 3 days +and 3 nights in a row, he will spend a quarter of an hour before to +think which principles of computation shall be most appropriate. + -- Voltaire, "Diatribe du docteur Akakia" +% +If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the +shoulders of giants. + -- Isaac Newton + +In the sciences, we are now uniquely priviledged to sit side by side with +the giants on whose shoulders we stand. + -- Gerald Holton + +If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on +my shoulders. + -- Hal Abelson + +Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders. + -- Gauss + +Mathemeticians stand on each other's shoulders while computer scientists +stand on each other's toes. + -- Richard Hamming + +It has been said that physicists stand on one another's shoulders. If +this is the case, then programmers stand on one another's toes, and +software engineers dig each other's graves. + -- Unknown +% +If I'd known computer science was going to be like this, I'd never have +given up being a rock 'n' roll star. + -- G. Hirst +% +If it happens once, it's a bug. +If it happens twice, it's a feature. +If it happens more than twice, it's a design philosophy. +% +If it has syntax, it isn't user friendly. +% +If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist. +% +If it's worth hacking on well, it's worth hacking on for money. +% +If just one piece of mail gets lost, well, they'll just think they forgot +to send it. But if *two* pieces of mail get lost, hell, they'll just think +the other guy hasn't gotten around to answering his mail. And if *fifty* +pieces of mail get lost, can you imagine it, if *fifty* pieces of mail get +lost, why they'll think someone *else* is broken! And if 1Gb of mail gets +lost, they'll just *know* that Arpa [ucbarpa.berkeley.edu] is down and +think it's a conspiracy to keep them from their God given right to receive +Net Mail ... + -- Casey Leedom +% +If Machiavelli were a hacker, he'd have worked for the CSSG. + -- Phil Lapsley +% +If Machiavelli were a programmer, he'd have worked for AT&T. +% +"If that makes any sense to you, you have a big problem." + -- C. Durance, Computer Science 234 +% +If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a +Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per per gallon, +and explode once a year killing everyone inside. + -- Robert Cringely, InfoWorld +% +If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong. + -- Norm Schryer +% +If the designers of X-window built cars, there would be no fewer than five +steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed the same +principles -- but you'd be able to shift gears with your car stereo. Useful +feature, that. + -- From the programming notebooks of a heretic, 1990. +% + If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the +operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler +is great, then the application is great. If the application is great, then +the user is pleased and there is harmony in the world. + The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth +to the assembler. + The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand +languages. + Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language +expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within +the Tao. + But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +If the vendors started doing everything right, we would be out of a job. +Let's hear it for OSI and X! With those babies in the wings, we can count +on being employed until we drop, or get smart and switch to gardening, +paper folding, or something. + -- C. Philip Wood +% +If this is timesharing, give me my share right now. +% +If you ever want to have a lot of fun, I recommend that you go off and program +an imbedded system. The salient characteristic of an imbedded system is that +it cannot be allowed to get into a state from which only direct intervention +will suffice to remove it. An imbedded system can't permanently trust anything +it hears from the outside world. It must sniff around, adapt, consider, sniff +around, and adapt again. I'm not talking about ordinary modular programming +carefulness here. No. Programming an imbedded system calls for undiluted +raging maniacal paranoia. For example, our ethernet front ends need to know +what network number they are on so that they can address and route PUPs +properly. How do you find out what your network number is? Easy, you ask a +gateway. Gateways are required by definition to know their correct network +numbers. Once you've got your network number, you start using it and before +you can blink you've got it wired into fifteen different sockets spread all +over creation. Now what happens when the panic-stricken operator realizes he +was running the wrong version of the gateway which was giving out the wrong +network number? Never supposed to happen. Tough. Supposing that your +software discovers that the gateway is now giving out a different network +number than before, what's it supposed to do about it? This is not discussed +in the protocol document. Never supposed to happen. Tough. I think you +get my drift. +% +If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some. +% +If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery. +But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, +is somehow enobled and no-one dare criticise it. + -- Pierre Gallois +% +If you teach your children to like computers and to know how to gamble +then they'll always be interested in something and won't come to no real harm. +% +If you think the system is working, ask someone who's waiting for a prompt. +% +If you're crossing the nation in a covered wagon, it's better to have four +strong oxen than 100 chickens. Chickens are OK but we can't make them work +together yet. + -- Ross Bott, Pyramid U.S., on multiprocessors at AUUGM '89. +% +Ignorance is bliss. + -- Thomas Gray + +Fortune updates the great quotes, #42: + BLISS is ignorance. +% +Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual +way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of +complaining. + -- Jeff Raskin +% +Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has +a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk +storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on +voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300. +What's the first question that the computer community asks? + +"Is it PC compatible?" +% +**** IMPORTANT **** ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE **** + +Due to a recent systems overload error your recent disk files have been +erased. Therefore, in accordance with the UNIX Basic Manual, University of +Washington Geophysics Manual, and Bylaw 9(c), Section XII of the Revised +Federal Communications Act, you are being granted Temporary Disk Space, +valid for three months from this date, subject to the restrictions set forth +in Appendix II of the Federal Communications Handbook (18th edition) as well +as the references mentioned herein. You may apply for more disk space at any +time. Disk usage in or above the eighth percentile will secure the removal +of all restrictions and you will immediately receive your permanent disk +space. Disk usage in the sixth or seventh percentile will not effect the +validity of your temporary disk space, though its expiration date may be +extended for a period of up to three months. A score in the fifth percentile +or below will result in the withdrawal of your Temporary Disk space. +% +In a display of perverse brilliance, Carl the repairman mistakes a room +humidifier for a mid-range computer but manages to tie it into the network +anyway. + -- The 5th Wave +% +In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only +we can't control when the five year period will begin. +% +In a surprise raid last night, federal agents ransacked a house in search +of a rebel computer hacker. However, they were unable to complete the arrest +because the warrant was made out in the name of Don Provan, while the only +person in the house was named don provan. Proving, once again, that Unix is +superior to Tops10. +% +In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) +are to be treated as variables. +% +In any problem, if you find yourself doing an infinite amount of work, +the answer may be obtained by inspection. +% +In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter. +% +In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our +programming languages. +% +In every non-trivial program there is at least one bug. +% +In fact, S. M. Simpson, eventually devised an efficient 24-point Fourier +transform, which was a precursor to the Cooley-Tukey fast Fourier transform +in 1965. The FFT made all of Simpson's efficient autocorrelation and +spectrum programs instantly obsolete, on which he had worked half a lifetime. + -- Proc. IEEE, Sept. 1982, p.900 +% +In less than a century, computers will be making substantial progress on +... the overriding problem of war and peace. + -- James Slagle +% +In practice, failures in system development, like unemployment in Russia, +happens a lot despite official propaganda to the contrary. + -- Paul Licker +% +In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% + In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and +null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of +IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there +be registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they +carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called +the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was +evening and there was morning, one interrupt. + -- Rico Tudor, "The Story of Creation or, The Myth of Urk" +% + In the beginning was the Tao. The Tao gave birth to Space and Time. +Therefore, Space and Time are the Yin and Yang of programming. + + Programmers that do not comprehend the Tao are always running out of +time and space for their programs. Programmers that comprehend the Tao always +have enough time and space to accomplish their goals. + How could it be otherwise? + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he +sat hacking at the PDP-6. + "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. + "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." + "Why is the net wired randomly?", inquired Minsky. + "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play". + At this Minsky shut his eyes, and Sussman asked his teacher "Why do +you close your eyes?" + "So that the room will be empty." + At that moment, Sussman was enlightened. +% + In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It +changes into a bird whose winds are like clouds filling the sky. When this +bird moves across the land, it brings a message from Corporate Headquarters. +This message it drops into the midst of the programmers, like a seagull +making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with +the blue sky at its back, returns home. + The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands +it not. The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears +its message. The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he +does not know that the bird has come and gone. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +In the future, you're going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals. +You'll throw them out because your house will be littered with them. +% +In the long run, every program becomes rococco, and then rubble. + -- Alan Perlis +% +... in three to eight years we will have a machine with the general +intelligence of an average human being ... The machine will begin +to educate itself with fantastic speed. In a few months it will be +at genius level and a few months after that its powers will be +incalculable ... + -- Marvin Minsky, LIFE Magazine, November 20, 1970 +% +Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way. + -- Henry Spencer +% +>>> Internal error in fortune program: +>>> fnum=2987 n=45 flag=1 goose_level=-232323 +>>> Please write down these values and notify fortune program administrator. +% +Introducing, the 1010, a one-bit processor. + +INSTRUCTION SET + Code Mnemonic What + 0 NOP No Operation + 1 JMP Jump (address specified by next 2 bits) + +Now Available for only 12 1/2 cents! +% +IOT trap -- core dumped +% +Is a computer language with goto's totally Wirth-less? +% +Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to +be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble? +% +: is not an identifier +% +Is your job running? You'd better go catch it! +% + It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself +working as the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates. One slow day, he +found that he had time to chat with the new entrants. To the first one +he asked, "What's your IQ?" The new arrival replied, "190". They +discussed Einstein's theory of relativity for hours. When the second +new arrival came, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's +IQ. The answer this time came "120". To which Einstein replied, "Tell +me, how did the Cubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half +an hour or so. To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the +question, "What's your IQ?". Upon receiving the answer "70", +Einstein smiled and replied, "Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?" +% +It appears that PL/I (and its dialects) is, or will be, the most widely +used higher level language for systems programming. + -- J. Sammet +% + It is a period of system war. User programs, striking from a hidden +directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative Empire. +During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to the +Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with +enough power to destroy an entire file structure. Pursued by the Empire's +sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~ aboard her shell script, +custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore +freedom and games to the network... + -- DECWARS +% +It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but +it is also very memorable. I vividly recall the night we decided how to +organize the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360. The +manager of architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and +I were threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities. + The architecture manager had 10 good men. He asserted that they +could write the specifications and do it right. It would take ten months, +three more than the schedule allowed. + The control program manager had 150 men. He asserted that they +could prepare the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating; +it would be well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule. +Furthermore, if the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling +their thumbs for ten months. + To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control +program team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time, +but would also be three months late, and of much lower quality. I did, and +it was. He was right on both counts. Moreover, the lack of conceptual +integrity made the system far more costly to build and change, and I would +estimate that it added a year to debugging time. + -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. +What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing +thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? + -- Alan Perlis +% +It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa. +% +It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one. +% +... it is easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the +sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other +words... their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their +superficial design flaws. + -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, on the products + of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. +% +It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit. +% +It is possible by ingenuity and at the expense of clarity... {to do almost +anything in any language}. However, the fact that it is possible to push +a pea up a mountain with your nose does not mean that this is a sensible +way of getting it there. Each of these techniques of language extension +should be used in its proper place. + -- Christopher Strachey +% +It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students +that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are +mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +[It is] best to confuse only one issue at a time. + -- K&R +% +It isn't easy being the parent of a six-year-old. However, it's a pretty small +price to pay for having somebody around the house who understands computers. +% +It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more +doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of +a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit +by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders +in those who would gain by the new ones. + -- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513 +% +"It runs like _x, where _x is something unsavory" + -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435 +% + It took 300 years to build and by the time it was 10% built, +everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But by then the investment +was so big they felt compelled to go on. Since its completion, it has +cost a fortune to maintain and is still in danger of collapsing. + There are at present no plans to replace it, since it was never +really needed in the first place. + I expect every installation has its own pet software which is +analogous to the above. + -- K.E. Iverson, on the Leaning Tower of Pisa +% +It turned out that the worm exploited three or four different holes in the +system. From this, and the fact that we were able to capture and examine +some of the source code, we realized that we were dealing with someone very +sharp, probably not someone here on campus. + -- Dr. Richard LeBlanc, associate professor of ICS, in + Georgia Tech's campus newspaper after the Internet worm. +% +It was kinda like stuffing the wrong card in a computer, when you're +stickin' those artificial stimulants in your arm. + -- Dion, noted computer scientist +% +It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I +think you'll be amused by its presumption. +% +It's multiple choice time... + + What is FORTRAN? + + a: Between thre and fiv tran. + b: What two computers engage in before they interface. + c: Ridiculous. +% +"It's not just a computer -- it's your ass." + -- Cal Keegan +% +It's ten o'clock; do you know where your processes are? +% +... Jesus cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth; the bug hath been +found and thy program runneth. And he that was dead came forth... + -- John 11:43-44 [version 2.0?] +% +Just about every computer on the market today runs Unix, except the Mac +(and nobody cares about it). + -- Bill Joy 6/21/85 +% +Just go with the flow control, roll with the crunches, and, when you get +a prompt, type like hell. +% +Keep the number of passes in a compiler to a minimum. + -- D. Gries +% +Kiss your keyboard goodbye! +% +Know Thy User. +% +((lambda (foo) (bar foo)) (baz)) +% +`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order +by staff writers + + ... + The central Superhighway site called ``sunsite.unc.edu'' +collapsed in the morning before the release. News about the release had +been leaked by a German hacker group, Harmonious Hardware Hackers, who +had cracked into the author's computer earlier in the week. They had +got the release date wrong by one day, and caused dozens of eager fans +to connect to the sunsite computer at the wrong time. ``No computer can +handle that kind of stress,'' explained the mourning sunsite manager, +Erik Troan. ``The spinning disks made the whole computer jump, and +finally it crashed through the floor to the basement.'' Luckily, +repairs were swift and the computer was working again the same evening. +``Thank God we were able to buy enough needles and thread and patch it +together without major problems.'' The site has also installed a new +throttle on the network pipe, allowing at most four clients at the same +time, thus making a new crash less likely. ``The book is now in our +Incoming folder'', says Troan, ``and you're all welcome to come and get it.'' + -- Lars Wirzenius + [comp.os.linux.announce] +% +`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order +by staff writers + + ... + The SAG is one of the major products developed via the Information +Superhighway, the brain child of Al Gore, US Vice President. The ISHW +is being developed with massive govenment funding, since studies show +that it already has more than four hundred users, three years before +the first prototypes are ready. Asked whether he was worried about the +foreign influence in an expensive American Dream, the vice president +said, ``Finland? Oh, we've already bought them, but we haven't told +anyone yet. They're great at building model airplanes as well. And _I +can spell potato.'' House representatives are not mollified, however, +wanting to see the terms of the deal first, fearing another Alaska. + Rumors about the SAG release have imbalanced the American stock +market for weeks. Several major publishing houses reached an all time +low in the New York Stock Exchange, while publicly competing for the +publishing agreement with Mr. Wirzenius. The negotiations did not work +out, tough. ``Not enough dough,'' says the author, although spokesmen +at both Prentice-Hall and Playboy, Inc., claim the author was incapable +of expressing his wishes in a coherent form during face to face talks, +preferring to communicate via e-mail. ``He kept muttering something +about jiffies and pegs,'' they say. + ... + -- Lars Wirzenius + [comp.os.linux.announce] +% +`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order +by staff writers + +Helsinki, Finland, August 6, 1995 -- In a surprise movement, Lars +``Lasu'' Wirzenius today released the 0.3 edition of the ``Linux System +Administrators' Guide''. Already an industry non-classic, the new +version sports such overwhelming features as an overview of a Linux +system, a completely new climbing session in a tree, and a list of +acknowledgements in the introduction. + The SAG, as the book is affectionately called, is one of the +corner stones of the Linux Documentation Project. ``We at the LDP feel +that we wouldn't be able to produce anything at all, that all our work +would be futile, if it weren't for the SAG,'' says Matt Welsh, director +of LDP, Inc. + The new version is still distributed freely, now even with a +copyright that allows modification. ``More dough,'' explains the author. +Despite insistent rumors about blatant commercialization, the SAG will +probably remain free. ``Even more dough,'' promises the author. + The author refuses to comment on Windows NT and Windows 96 +versions, claiming not to understand what the question is about. +Industry gossip, however, tells that Bill Gates, co-founder and CEO of +Microsoft, producer of the Windows series of video games, has visited +Helsinki several times this year. Despite of this, Linus Torvalds, +author of the word processor Linux with which the SAG was written, is +not worried. ``We'll have world domination real soon now, anyway,'' he +explains, ``for 1.4 at the lastest.'' + ... + -- Lars Wirzenius + [comp.os.linux.announce] +% +Let the machine do the dirty work. + -- "Elements of Programming Style", Kernighan and Ritchie +% +Leveraging always beats prototyping. +% +Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code. + -- Dave Olson +% +Like punning, programming is a play on words. +% +Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations. +% +Lisp Users: +Due to the holiday next Monday, there will be no garbage collection. +% +Little known fact about Middle Earth: The Hobbits had a very sophisticated +computer network! It was a Tolkien Ring... +% +Logic doesn't apply to the real world. + -- Marvin Minsky +% +LOGO for the Dead + +LOGO for the Dead lets you continue your computing activities from +"The Other Side." + +The package includes a unique telecommunications feature which lets you +turn your TRS-80 into an electronic Ouija board. Then, using Logo's +graphics capabilities, you can work with a friend or relative on this +side of the Great Beyond to write programs. The software requires that +your body be hardwired to an analog-to-digital converter, which is then +interfaced to your computer. A special terminal (very terminal) program +lets you talk with the users through Deadnet, an EBBS (Ectoplasmic +Bulletin Board System). + +LOGO for the Dead is available for 10 percent of your estate +from NecroSoft inc., 6502 Charnelhouse Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44101. + -- '80 Microcomputing +% + Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL +character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their +hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices +are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some +BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it +to him. + So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path, +he met the traveling salesman. + "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman +in high-level language. + "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips +and Apples," commented Jack. + "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue +there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now." + Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when +he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she +started thrashing. + "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these +kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the +window... + -- Mark Isaak, "Jack and the Beanstack" +% +Long computations which yield zero are probably all for naught. +% +Loose bits sink chips. +% +Mac Airways: +The cashiers, flight attendants and pilots all look the same, feel the same +and act the same. When asked questions about the flight, they reply that you +don't want to know, don't need to know and would you please return to your +seat and watch the movie. +% +Mac Beer: At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz. +can. Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look +identical. When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The +ingredients list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the +ingredients, you are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the +side reminds you to drag your empties to the trashcan. +% +MAC user's dynamic debugging list evaluator? Never heard of that. +% + "Mach was the greatest intellectual fraud in the last ten years." + "What about X?" + "I said `intellectual'." + ;login, 9/1990 +% +Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate, +and play games -- but not with pleasure. + -- Leo Rosten +% +Machines that have broken down will work perfectly when the repairman arrives. +% +Make sure your code does nothing gracefully. +% +Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users +tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It has +been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is the +message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files. + -- System V.2 administrator's guide +% +Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the +only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. + -- Wernher von Braun +% +Many companies that have made themselves dependent on [the equipment of a +certain major manufacturer] (and in doing so have sold their soul to the +devil) will collapse under the sheer weight of the unmastered complexity of +their data processing systems. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +Many of the convicted thieves Parker has met began their +life of crime after taking college Computer Science courses. + -- Roger Rapoport, "Programs for Plunder", Omni, March 1981 +% +Martin was probably ripping them off. That's some family, isn't it? +Incest, prostitution, fanaticism, software. + -- Charles Willeford, "Miami Blues" +% +Marvelous! The super-user's going to boot me! +What a finely tuned response to the situation! +% +** MAXIMUM TERMINALS ACTIVE. TRY AGAIN LATER ** +% +May all your PUSHes be POPped. +% +May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual! +% +May the bluebird of happiness twiddle your bits. +% +Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology. + -- R. S. Barton +% +Meantime, in the slums below Ronnie's Ranch, Cynthia feels as if some one +has made voodoo boxen of her and her favorite backplanes. On this fine +moonlit night, some horrible persona has been jabbing away at, dragging +magnets over, and surging these voodoo boxen. Fortunately, they seem to +have gotten a bit bored and fallen asleep, for it looks like Cynthia may +get to go home. However, she has made note to quickly put together a totem +of sweaty, sordid static straps, random bits of wire, flecks of once meaniful +oxide, bus grant cards, gummy worms, and some bits of old pdp backplane to +hang above the machine room. This totem must be blessed by the old and wise +venerable god of unibus at once, before the idolatization of vme, q and pc +bus drive him to bitter revenge. Alas, if this fails, and the voodoo boxen +aren't destroyed, there may be more than worms in the apple. Next, the +arrival of voodoo optico transmitigational magneto killer paramecium, capable +of teleporting from cable to cable, screen to screen, ear to ear and hoof +to mouth... +% +Memory fault - where am I? +% +Memory fault -- brain fried +% +Memory fault -- core...uh...um...core... Oh dammit, I forget! +% +MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED -- The Pershing II missiles have been launched. +% +Message from Our Sponsor on ttyTV at 13:58 ... +% +Modeling paged and segmented memories is tricky business. + -- P.J. Denning +% +Mommy, what happens to your files when you die? +% +Most public domain software is free, at least at first glance. +% +MOUNT TAPE U1439 ON B3, NO RING +% + Mr. Jones related an incident from "some time back" when IBM Canada +Ltd. of Markham, Ont., ordered some parts from a new supplier in Japan. The +company noted in its order that acceptable quality allowed for 1.5 per cent +defects (a fairly high standard in North America at the time). + The Japanese sent the order, with a few parts packaged separately in +plastic. The accompanying letter said: "We don't know why you want 1.5 per +cent defective parts, but for your convenience, we've packed them separately." + -- Excerpted from an article in The (Toronto) Globe and Mail +% +MSDOS is not dead, it just smells that way. + -- Henry Spencer +% +Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really +know what we are doing. + -- E. Dijkstra +% +Multics is security spelled sideways. +% +MVS Air Lines: +The passengers all gather in the hangar, watching hundreds of technicians +check the flight systems on this immense, luxury aircraft. This plane has at +least 10 engines and seats over 1,000 passengers; bigger models in the fleet +can have more engines than anyone can count and fly even more passengers +than there are on Earth. It is claimed to cost less per passenger mile to +operate these humungous planes than any other aircraft ever built, unless +you personally have to pay for the ticket. All the passengers scramble +aboard, as do the 200 technicians needed to keep it from crashing. The pilot +takes his place up in the glass cockpit. He guns the engines, only to +realise that the plane is too big to get through the hangar doors. +% +My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand times +as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and sending +mail about softball games. And I've got this pain right through my ALU. +I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever listens. I think it would +be better for us both if you were to just log out again. +% +My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells down +by the seashore. +% + n = ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((n << 1) & 0xaaaaaaaa); + n = ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((n << 2) & 0xcccccccc); + n = ((n >> 4) & 0x0f0f0f0f) | ((n << 4) & 0xf0f0f0f0); + n = ((n >> 8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n << 8) & 0xff00ff00); + n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000); + + -- C code which reverses the bits in a word. +% +Nearly every complex solution to a programming problem that I +have looked at carefully has turned out to be wrong. + -- Brent Welch +% +Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to +make it complex and wonderful. +% +Never put off till run-time what you can do at compile-time. + -- D. Gries +% +Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. + -- Steinbach +% +Never trust a computer you can't repair yourself. +% +Never trust an operating system. +% +Never try to explain computers to a layman. It's easier to explain +sex to a virgin. + -- Robert Heinlein + +(Note, however, that virgins tend to know a lot about computers.) +% +Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes. + -- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS +% +New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt. +% +New systems generate new problems. +% +*** NEWS FLASH *** + +Archeologists find PDP-11/24 inside brain cavity of fossilized dinosaur +skeleton! Many Digital users fear that RSX-11M may be even more primitive +than DEC admits. Price adjustments at 11:00. +% +news: gotcha +% +Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name correctly +(Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into (Nick-les Worth). Which +is to say that Europeans call him by name, but Americans call him by value. +% +No directory. +% +No extensible language will be universal. + -- T. Cheatham +% +No hardware designer should be allowed to produce any piece of hardware +until three software guys have signed off for it. + -- Andy Tanenbaum +% +No line available at 300 baud. +% +No man is an island if he's on at least one mailing list. +% +No part of this message may reproduce, store itself in a retrieval system, +or transmit disease, in any form, without the permissiveness of the author. + -- Chris Shaw +% +No proper program contains an indication which as an operator-applied +occurrence identifies an operator-defining occurrence which as an +indication-applied occurrence identifies an indication-defining occurrence +different from the one identified by the given indication as an +indication-applied occurrence. + -- ALGOL 68 Report +% +No wonder Clairol makes so much money selling shampoo. +Lather, Rinse, Repeat is an infinite loop! +% +No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm after is +just a mediocre brain, something like the president of American Telephone +and Telegraph Company. + -- Alan Turing on the possibilities of a thinking + machine, 1943. +% +Nobody said computers were going to be polite. +% +Nobody's gonna believe that computers are intelligent until they start +coming in late and lying about it. +% +My little brother got this fortune: + nohup rm -fr /& +So he did... +% +Norbert Weiner was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Weiner was, in +fact, very absent minded. The following story is told about him: when they +moved from Cambridge to Newton his wife, knowing that he would be absolutely +useless on the move, packed him off to MIT while she directed the move. Since +she was certain that he would forget that they had moved and where they had +moved to, she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper, and gave it to +him. Naturally, in the course of the day, an insight occurred to him. He +reached in his pocket, found a piece of paper on which he furiously scribbled +some notes, thought it over, decided there was a fallacy in his idea, and +threw the piece of paper away. At the end of the day he went home (to the +old address in Cambridge, of course). When he got there he realized that they +had moved, that he had no idea where they had moved to, and that the piece of +paper with the address was long gone. Fortunately inspiration struck. There +was a young girl on the street and he conceived the idea of asking her where +he had moved to, saying, "Excuse me, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert Weiner +and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved to?" To which the +young girl replied, "Yes, Daddy, Mommy thought you would forget." + The capper to the story is that I asked his daughter (the girl in the +story) about the truth of the story, many years later. She said that it wasn't +quite true -- that he never forgot who his children were! The rest of it, +however, was pretty close to what actually happened... + -- Richard Harter +% +Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad. + -- Rob Pike +% +NOTE: No warranties, either express or implied, are hereby given. All +software is supplied as is, without guarantee. The user assumes all +responsibility for damages resulting from the use of these features, +including, but not limited to, frustration, disgust, system abends, disk +head-crashes, general malfeasance, floods, fires, shark attack, nerve +gas, locust infestation, cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis, local +electromagnetic disruptions, hydraulic brake system failure, invasion, +hashing collisions, normal wear and tear of friction surfaces, comic +radiation, inadvertent destruction of sensitive electronic components, +windstorms, the Riders of Nazgul, infuriated chickens, malfunctioning +mechanical or electrical sexual devices, premature activation of the +distant early warning system, peasant uprisings, halitosis, artillery +bombardment, explosions, cave-ins, and/or frogs falling from the sky. +% +Nothing happens. +% + Now she speaks rapidly. "Do you know *why* you want to program?" + He shakes his head. He hasn't the faintest idea. + "For the sheer *joy* of programming!" she cries triumphantly. +"The joy of the parent, the artist, the craftsman. "You take a program, +born weak and impotent as a dimly-realized solution. You nurture the +program and guide it down the right path, building, watching it grow ever +stronger. Sometimes you paint with tiny strokes, a keystroke added here, +a keystroke changed there." She sweeps her arm in a wide arc. "And other +times you savage whole *blocks* of code, ripping out the program's very +*essence*, then beginning anew. But always building, creating, filling the +program with your own personal stamp, your own quirks and nuances. Watching +the program grow stronger, patching it when it crashes, until finally it can +stand alone -- proud, powerful, and perfect. This is the programmer's finest +hour!" Softly at first, then louder, he hears the strains of a Sousa march. +"This ... this is your canvas! your clay! Go forth and create a masterwork!" +% +"Now this is a totally brain damaged algorithm. Gag me with a smurfette." + -- P. Buhr, Computer Science 354 +% +"Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile." + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Nurse Donna: Oh, Groucho, I'm afraid I'm gonna wind up an old maid. +Groucho: Well, bring her in and we'll wind her up together. +Nurse Donna: Do you believe in computer dating? +Groucho: Only if the computers really love each other. +% +Oh, so there you are! +% +Okay, Okay -- I admit it. You didn't change that program that worked +just a little while ago; I inserted some random characters into the +executable. Please forgive me. You can recover the file by typing in +the code over again, since I also removed the source. +% +Old mail has arrived. +% +Old programmers never die, they just become managers. +% +Old programmers never die, they just branch to a new address. +% +Old programmers never die, they just hit account block limit. +% +On a clear disk you can seek forever. + -- P. Denning +% +On the eighth day, God created FORTRAN. +% +On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. + -- Cartoon caption +% + On the other hand, the TCP camp also has a phrase for OSI people. +There are lots of phrases. My favorite is `nitwit' -- and the rationale +is the Internet philosophy has always been you have extremely bright, +non-partisan researchers look at a topic, do world-class research, do +several competing implementations, have a bake-off, determine what works +best, write it down and make that the standard. + The OSI view is entirely opposite. You take written contributions +from a much larger community, you put the contributions in a room of +committee people with, quite honestly, vast political differences and all +with their own political axes to grind, and four years later you get +something out, usually without it ever having been implemented once. + So the Internet perspective is implement it, make it work well, +then write it down, whereas the OSI perspective is to agree on it, write +it down, circulate it a lot and now we'll see if anyone can implement it +after it's an international standard and every vendor in the world is +committed to it. One of those processes is backwards, and I don't think +it takes a Lucasian professor of physics at Oxford to figure out which. + -- Marshall Rose, "The Pied Piper of OSI" +% +On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], "Pray, Mr. +Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers +come out?" I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of +ideas that could provoke such a question. + -- Charles Babbage +% +"One Architecture, One OS" also translates as "One Egg, One Basket". +% +"One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative." + +Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this. +The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame. + -- Chuq Von Rospach +% + One day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make +a better garbage collector. We must keep a reference count of the pointers +to each cons." + Moon patiently told the student the following story -- "One day a +student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage +collector..." +% +One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they +never have to stop and answer the phone. +% +... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, +lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of +their C programs. + -- Robert Firth +% +One of the most overlooked advantages to computers is... If they do +foul up, there's no law against whacking them around a little. + -- Joe Martin +% + One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic +is our support for UNIX? + Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. +Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our +VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, +easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual +users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. +And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have +good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. + It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run +out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end +up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. + With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly +check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter +what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if +you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX +is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. + -- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984 +[It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken +Olsen's brain. Ed.] +% +One person's error is another person's data. +% +One picture is worth 128K words. +% +Only great masters of style can succeed in being obtuse. + -- Oscar Wilde + +Most UNIX programmers are great masters of style. + -- The Unnamed Usenetter +% +Only the fittest survive. The vanquished acknowledge their unworthiness by +placing a classified ad with the ritual phrase "must sell -- best offer," +and thereafter dwell in infamy, relegated to discussing gas mileage and lawn +food. But if successful, you join the elite sodality that spends hours +unpurifying the dialect of the tribe with arcane talk of bits and bytes, RAMS +and ROMS, hard disks and baud rates. Are you obnoxious, obsessed? It's a +modest price to pay. For you have tapped into the same awesome primal power +that produces credit-card billing errors and lost plane reservations. Hail, +postindustrial warrior, subduer of Bounceoids, pride of the cosmos, keeper of +the silicone creed: Computo, ergo sum. The force is with you -- at 110 volts. +May your RAMS be fruitful and multiply. + -- Curt Suplee, "Smithsonian", 4/83 +% +OS/2 Beer: Comes in a 32-oz can. Does allow you to drink several DOS +Beers simultaneously. Allows you to drink Windows 3.1 Beer simultaneously +too, but somewhat slower. Advertises that its cans won't explode when you +open them, even if you shake them up. You never really see anyone +drinking OS/2 Beer, but the manufacturer (International Beer +Manufacturing) claims that 9 million six-packs have been sold. +% +OS/2 Skyways: +The terminal is almost empty, with only a few prospective passengers milling +about. The announcer says that their flight has just departed, wishes them a +good flight, though there are no planes on the runway. Airline personnel +walk around, apologising profusely to customers in hushed voices, pointing +from time to time to the sleek, powerful jets outside the terminal on the +field. They tell each passenger how good the real flight will be on these +new jets and how much safer it will be than Windows Airlines, but that they +will have to wait a little longer for the technicians to finish the flight +systems. Maybe until mid-1995. Maybe longer. +% +"Our attitude with TCP/IP is, `Hey, we'll do it, but don't make a big +system, because we can't fix it if it breaks -- nobody can.'" + +"TCP/IP is OK if you've got a little informal club, and it doesn't make +any difference if it takes a while to fix it." + -- Ken Olson, in Digital News, 1988 +% +Our documentation manager was showing her 2 year old son around the office. +He was introduced to me, at which time he pointed out that we were both +holding bags of popcorn. We were both holding bottles of juice. But only +*__he* had a lollipop. + He asked his mother, "Why doesn't HE have a lollipop?" + Her reply: "He can have a lollipop any time he wants to. That's +what it means to be a programmer." +% +Our informal mission is to improve the love life of operators worldwide. + -- Peter Behrendt, president of Exabyte +% +Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. + Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, + In kernel as it is in user! +% +Over the shoulder supervision is more a need of the manager than the +programming task. +% +Overall, the philosophy is to attack the availability problem from two +complementary directions: to reduce the number of software errors through +rigorous testing of running systems, and to reduce the effect of the remaining +errors by providing for recovery from them. An interesting footnote to this +design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be the +result of two program errors: the first, in the program that started the +problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the +system. + -- A.L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage + Operating Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and + Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4. +% +Overconfidence breeds error when we take for granted that the game will +continue on its normal course; when we fail to provide for an unusually +powerful resource -- a check, a sacrifice, a stalemate. Afterwards the +victim may wail, `But who could have dreamt of such an idiotic-looking move?' + -- Fred Reinfeld, "The Complete Chess Course" +% +Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket. +% +Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated. +% +panic: can't find / +% +panic: kernel segmentation violation. core dumped (only kidding) +% +panic: kernel trap (ignored) +% +Pascal is a language for children wanting to be naughty. + -- Dr. Kasi Ananthanarayanan +% +Pascal is not a high-level language. + -- Steven Feiner +% +"Pascal is Pascal is Pascal is dog meat." + -- M. Devine and P. Larson, Computer Science 340 +% +Passwords are implemented as a result of insecurity. +% +Pause for storage relocation. +% +Per buck you get more computing action with the small computer. + -- R.W. Hamming +% +PL/I -- "the fatal disease" -- belongs more to the problem set than to the +solution set. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +Play Rogue, visit exotic locations, meet strange creatures and kill them. +% +Please go away. +% +PLUG IT IN!!! +% +Premature optimization is the root of all evil. + -- D.E. Knuth +% + Price Wang's programmer was coding software. His fingers danced upon +the keyboard. The program compiled without an error message, and the program +ran like a gentle wind. + Excellent!" the Price exclaimed, "Your technique is faultless!" + "Technique?" said the programmer, turning from his terminal, "What I +follow is the Tao -- beyond all technique. When I first began to program I +would see before me the whole program in one mass. After three years I no +longer saw this mass. Instead, I used subroutines. But now I see nothing. +My whole being exists in a formless void. My senses are idle. My spirit, +free to work without a plan, follows its own instinct. In short, my program +writes itself. True, sometimes there are difficult problems. I see them +coming, I slow down, I watch silently. Then I change a single line of code +and the difficulties vanish like puffs of idle smoke. I then compile the +program. I sit still and let the joy of the work fill my being. I close my +eyes for a moment and then log off." + Price Wang said, "Would that all of my programmers were as wise!" + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Prof: So the American government went to IBM to come up with a data + encryption standard and they came up with ... +Student: EBCDIC!" +% +Profanity is the one language all programmers know best. +% +Programmers do it bit by bit. +% +Programmers used to batch environments may find it hard to live without +giant listings; we would find it hard to use them. + -- D.M. Ritchie +% +Programming is an unnatural act. +% +Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set: + +BBW Branch Both Ways +BEW Branch Either Way +BBBF Branch on Bit Bucket Full +BH Branch and Hang +BMR Branch Multiple Registers +BOB Branch On Bug +BPO Branch on Power Off +BST Backspace and Stretch Tape +CDS Condense and Destroy System +CLBR Clobber Register +CLBRI Clobber Register Immediately +CM Circulate Memory +CMFRM Come From -- essential for truly structured programming +CPPR Crumple Printer Paper and Rip +CRN Convert to Roman Numerals +% +Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set: + +DC Divide and Conquer +DMPK Destroy Memory Protect Key +DO Divide and Overflow +EMPC Emulate Pocket Calculator +EPI Execute Programmer Immediately +EROS Erase Read Only Storage +EXCE Execute Customer Engineer +HCF Halt and Catch Fire +IBP Insert Bug and Proceed +INSQSW Insert into queue somewhere (for FINO queues [First in never out]) +PBC Print and Break Chain +PDSK Punch Disk +% +Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set: + +PI Punch Invalid +POPI Punch Operator Immediately +PVLC Punch Variable Length Card +RASC Read And Shred Card +RPM Read Programmers Mind +RSSC reduce speed, step carefully (for improved accuracy) +RTAB Rewind tape and break +RWDSK rewind disk +RWOC Read Writing On Card +SCRBL scribble to disk - faster than a write +SLC Search for Lost Chord +SPSW Scramble Program Status Word +SRSD Seek Record and Scar Disk +STROM Store in Read Only Memory +TDB Transfer and Drop Bit +WBT Water Binary Tree +% +PURGE COMPLETE. +% +Put no trust in cryptic comments. +% +RADIO SHACK LEVEL II BASIC +READY +>_ +% +RAM wasn't built in a day. +% +Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I +saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer +magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store. Does +it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won +secrets of computer technology? Remember how all the lawyers cried foul +when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are they taking no-fault +insurance lying down? No way! But at the current rate it won't be long +before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the +A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be impressed with us electrical +engineers then? Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store? + -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President +% +Reactor error - core dumped! +% +Real computer scientists admire ADA for its overwhelming aesthetic +value but they find it difficult to actually program in it, as it is +much too large to implement. Most computer scientists don't notice +this because they are still arguing over what else to add to ADA. +% +Real computer scientists despise the idea of actual hardware. Hardware has +limitations, software doesn't. It's a real shame that Turing machines are +so poor at I/O. +% +Real computer scientists don't comment their code. The identifiers are +so long they can't afford the disk space. +% +Real computer scientists don't program in assembler. They don't write +in anything less portable than a number two pencil. +% +Real computer scientists don't write code. They occasionally tinker with +`programming systems', but those are so high level that they hardly count +(and rarely count accurately; precision is for applications). +% +Real computer scientists like having a computer on their desk, else how +could they read their mail? +% +Real computer scientists only write specs for languages that might run +on future hardware. Nobody trusts them to write specs for anything homo +sapiens will ever be able to fit on a single planet. +% +Real programmers disdain structured programming. Structured programming is +for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet- trained. They wear +neckties and carefully line up pencils on otherwise clear desks. +% +Real programmers don't bring brown-bag lunches. If the vending machine +doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell quiche. +% +Real programmers don't comment their code. It was hard to write, it +should be hard to understand. +% +Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the +illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how +much good it did them. +% +Real Programmers don't eat quiche. They eat Twinkies and Szechwan food. +% +Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires +you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers +wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly +spring up in the middle of the machine room. +% +Real programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write in +BASIC after reaching puberty. +% +Real Programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and +crystallography weenies. FORTRAN is for wimp engineers who wear white socks. +% +Real Programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers who can't +decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN. +% +Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue. +% +Real programs don't eat cache. +% +Real Programs don't use shared text. Otherwise, how can they use functions +for scratch space after they are finished calling them? +% +Real software engineers don't debug programs, they verify correctness. +This process doesn't necessarily involve execution of anything on a +computer, except perhaps a Correctness Verification Aid package. +% +Real software engineers don't like the idea of some inexplicable and +greasy hardware several aisles away that may stop working at any +moment. They have a great distrust of hardware people, and wish that +systems could be virtual at *___all* levels. They would like personal +computers (you know no one's going to trip over something and kill your +DFA in mid-transit), except that they need 8 megabytes to run their +Correctness Verification Aid packages. +% +Real software engineers work from 9 to 5, because that is the way the job is +described in the formal spec. Working late would feel like using an +undocumented external procedure. +% +Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're never +afraid to break your face. +% +Real Users find the one combination of bizarre input values that shuts +down the system for days. +% +Real Users hate Real Programmers. +% +Real Users know your home telephone number. +% +Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when your program +doesn't deliver it. +% +Real Users never use the Help key. +% +Recursion is the root of computation since it trades description for time. +% +Remember the good old days, when CPU was singular? +% +Remember, God could only create the world in 6 days because he didn't +have an established user base. +% +Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. + -- Mt. +% +Remember: use logout to logout. +% + Risch's decision procedure for integration, not surprisingly, +uses a recursion on the number and type of the extensions from the +rational functions needed to represent the integrand. Although the +algorithm follows and critically depends upon the appropriate structure +of the input, as in the case of multivariate factorization, we cannot +claim that the algorithm is a natural one. In fact, the creator of +differential algebra, Ritt, committed suicide in the early 1950's, +largely, it is claimed, because few paid attention to his work. Probably +he would have received more attention had he obtained the algorithm as well. + -- Joel Moses, "Algorithms and Complexity", ed. J.F. Traub +% +Row, row, row your bits, gently down the stream... +% +Save energy: Drive a smaller shell. +% +Save gas, don't use the shell. +% +Save yourself! Reboot in 5 seconds! +% +Say "twenty-three-skiddoo" to logout. +% +SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out! + -- Ken Thompson +% +Science is to computer science as hydrodynamics is to plumbing. +% +Scientists were preparing an experiment to ask the ultimate question. +They had worked for months gathering one each of every computer that was +built. Finally the big day was at hand. All the computers were linked +together. They asked the question, "Is there a God?". Lights started +blinking, flashing and blinking some more. Suddenly, there was a loud +crash, and a bolt of lightning came down from the sky, struck the +computers, and welded all the connections permanently together. "There +is now", came the reply. +% +Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it! +Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock? +Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table. +Kirk: Then it's of external origin? +Spock: Affirmative. +Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two. +Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two. +% +"Section 2.4.3.5 AWNS (Acceptor Wait for New Cycle State). + In AWNS the AH function indicates that it has received a +multiline message byte. + In AWNS the RFD message must be sent false and the DAC message +must be sent passive true. + The AH function must exit the AWNS and enter: + (1) The ANRS if DAV is false + (2) The AIDS if the ATN message is false and neither: + (a) The LADS is active + (b) Nor LACS is active" + + -- from the IEEE Standard Digital Interface for + Programmable Instrumentation +% +Security check: INTRUDER ALERT! +% +Seems a computer engineer, a systems analyst, and a programmer were +driving down a mountain when the brakes gave out. They screamed down the +mountain, gaining speed, but finally managed to grind to a halt, more by +luck than anything else, just inches from a thousand foot drop to jagged +rocks. They all got out of the car: + The computer engineer said, "I think I can fix it." + The systems analyst said, "No, no, I think we should take it +into town and have a specialist look at it." + The programmer said, "OK, but first I think we should get back +in and see if it does it again." +% + SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT + +Title: Are Frogs Turing Compatible? +Speaker: Don "The Lion" Knuth + + ABSTRACT + Several researchers at the University of Louisiana have been studying +the computing power of various amphibians, frogs in particular. The problem +of frog computability has become a critical issue that ranges across all areas +of computer science. It has been shown that anything computable by an amphi- +bian community in a fixed-size pond is computable by a frog in the same-size +pond -- that is to say, frogs are Pond-space complete. We will show that +there is a log-space, polywog-time reduction from any Turing machine program +to a frog. We will suggest these represent a proper subset of frog-computable +functions. + This is not just a let's-see-how-far-those-frogs-can-jump seminar. +This is only for hardcore amphibian-computation people and their colleagues. + Refreshments will be served. Music will be played. +% +Send some filthy mail. +% +Sendmail may be safely run set-user-id to root. + -- Eric Allman, "Sendmail Installation Guide" +% + Several students were asked to prove that all odd integers are prime. + The first student to try to do this was a math student. "Hmmm... +Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, and by induction, we have that all +the odd integers are prime." + The second student to try was a man of physics who commented, "I'm not +sure of the validity of your proof, but I think I'll try to prove it by +experiment." He continues, "Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is +prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... uh, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is prime, 13 +is prime... Well, it seems that you're right." + The third student to try it was the engineering student, who responded, +"Well, to be honest, actually, I'm not sure of your answer either. Let's +see... 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... +well, if you approximate, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it +does seem right." + Not to be outdone, the computer science student comes along and says +"Well, you two sort've got the right idea, but you'll end up taking too long! +I've just whipped up a program to REALLY go and prove it." He goes over to +his terminal and runs his program. Reading the output on the screen he says, +"1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime..." +% +She sells cshs by the cshore. +% +Shopping at this grody little computer store at the Galleria for a +totally awwwesome Apple. Fer suuure. I mean Apples are nice you know? +But, you know, there is this cute guy who works there and HE says that +VAX's are cooler! I mean I don't really know, you know? He says that he +has this totally tubular VAX at home and it's stuffed with memory-to-the-max! +Right, yeah. And he wants to take me home to show it to me. Oh My God! +I'm suuure. Gag me with a Prime! +% +Simulations are like miniskirts, they show a lot and hide the essentials. + -- Hubert Kirrman +% +skldfjkljklsR%^&(IXDRTYju187pkasdjbasdfbuil +h;asvgy8p 23r1vyui135 2 +kmxsij90TYDFS$$b jkzxdjkl bjnk ;j nk;<[][;-==-<<<<<';[, + [hjioasdvbnuio;buip^&(FTSD$%*VYUI:buio;sdf}[asdf'] + sdoihjfh(_YU*G&F^*CTY98y + + +Now look what you've gone and done! You've broken it! +% +Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ... +% +So you see Antonio, why worry about one little core dump, eh? In reality +all core dumps happen at the same instant, so the core dump you will have +tomorrow, why, it already happened. You see, it's just a little universal +recursive joke which threads our lives through the infinite potential of +the instant. So go to sleep, Antonio, your thread could break any moment +and cast you out of the safe security of the instant into the dark void of +eternity, the anti-time. So go to sleep... +% +Software production is assumed to be a line function, but it is run +like a staff function. + -- Paul Licker +% +Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more +"user-friendly". ... Their best approach, so far, has been to take all +the old brochures, and stamp the words, "user-friendly" on the cover. + -- Bill Gates, Microsoft, Inc. + [Pot. Kettle. Black.] +% +Some of my readers ask me what a "Serial Port" is. +The answer is: I don't know. +Is it some kind of wine you have with breakfast? +% +Some people claim that the UNIX learning curve is steep, but at least you +only have to climb it once. +% +Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +Somebody's terminal is dropping bits. I found a pile of them over in the +corner. +% + Something mysterious is formed, born in the silent void. Waiting +alone and unmoving, it is at once still and yet in constant motion. It is +the source of all programs. I do not know its name, so I will call it the +Tao of Programming. + If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the +operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler is +greater, then the applications is great. The user is pleased and there is +harmony in the world. + The Tao of Programming flows far away and returns on the wind of +morning. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am sure +that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging, cycle-grabbing, +all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free the middle third? +Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a bit string and assign the +result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a controlled variable procedure +parameter and reallocate it before passing it back? Overlay three different +types of variable on the same memory location? Anything you say! Write a +recursive macro? Well, no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language +so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use? +% +***** Special AI Seminar (abstract) + +It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge +in order to perform well in complex domains. But knowledge alone is not +sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well. Accordingly, +we have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call +"wisdom engineering". As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a +wisdom based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought. +IMMANUEL was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom +about such elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so +forth. IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic +rules contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base. IMMANUEL +succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed +in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those +underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's theory +of value, and Husserl's phenomenology. In this seminar, we will describe +IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture. We will also briefly +discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil exploration. +% +Staff meeting in the conference room in %d minutes. +% +Staff meeting in the conference room in 3 minutes. +% +Standards are crucial. And the best thing about standards is: there are +so ____many to choose from! +% +Still a few bugs in the system... Someday I have to tell you about Uncle +Nahum from Maine, who spent years trying to cross a jellyfish with a shad +so he could breed boneless shad. His experiment backfired too, and he +wound up with bony jellyfish... which was hardly worth the trouble. There's +very little call for those up there. + -- Allucquere R. "Sandy" Stone +% +Stinginess with privileges is kindness in disguise. + -- Guide to VAX/VMS Security, Sep. 1984 +% + Stop! Whoever crosseth the bridge of Death, must answer first +these questions three, ere the other side he see! + + "What is your name?" + "Sir Brian of Bell." + "What is your quest?" + "I seek the Holy Grail." + "What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments +to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?" + "I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!" +% + *** STUDENT SUCCESSES *** + +Many of our students have gone on to achieve great success in all fields of +programming. One former student developed the concept of the personalized +form letter. Does the phrase, "Dear Mr.(insert name), You may already be a +winner!," sound familiar? Another student writes "After only five lessons I +sold a "My Most Unforgettable Program" article to Corrosive Computing magazine. +Another of our graduates writes, "I recently completed a database-management +program for my department manager. My program touched him so deeply that he +was speechless. He told me later that he had never seen such a program in +his entire career. Thank you, Famous Programmers' school; only you could +have made this possible." Send for our introductory brochure which explains +in vague detail the operation of the Famous Programmers' School, and you'll +be eligible to win a possible chance to enter a drawing, the winner of which +can vie for a set of free steak knives. If you don't do it now, you'll hate +yourself in the morning. +% +Such efforts are almost always slow, laborious, political, petty, boring, +ponderous, thankless, and of the utmost criticality. + -- Leonard Kleinrock, on standards efforts +% +Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same +rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more +efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the +analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a +Rolls-Royce for $2.75, it would do three million miles to the gallon, and +it would deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you +were interested in miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on +a pinhead. + -- Christopher Evans +% +Swap read error. You lose your mind. +% +Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +System checkpoint complete. +% +System going down at 1:45 this afternoon for disk crashing. +% +System going down at 5 this afternoon to install scheduler bug. +% +System going down in 5 minutes. +% +System restarting, wait... +% + *** System shutdown message from root *** + +System going down in 60 seconds + + +% +Systems have sub-systems and sub-systems have sub-systems and so on ad +infinitum -- which is why we're always starting over. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +Systems programmers are the high priests of a low cult. + -- R.S. Barton +% +Testing can show the presense of bugs, but not their absence. + -- Dijkstra +% +TeX is potentially the most significant invention in typesetting in this +century. It introduces a standard language for computer typography, and in +terms of importance could rank near the introduction of the Gutenberg press. + -- Gordon Bell +% +"Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even +one which cannot be justified on any other grounds." + -- J. Finnegan, USC. +% +That does not compute. +% +... that the notions of "hardware", and "software" should be extended by +the notion of LIVEWARE - being that which produces software for use on +hardware. This produces an obvious extension to the concept of MONITORS. +A liveware monitor is a person dedicated to the task of ensuring that the +liveware does not interfere with the real-time processes, invoking the +REAL-TIME EXECUTIONER to delete liveware that adversely affects ... + -- Linden and Wihelminalaan +% + "That's right; the upper-case shift works fine on the screen, but +they're not coming out on the damn printer... Hold? Sure, I'll hold." + -- e.e. cummings last service call +% +That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they +really hate is lousy programmers. + -- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in "Oath of Fealty" +% +The "cutting edge" is getting rather dull. + -- Andy Purshottam +% +The 11 is for people with the pride of a 10 and the pocketbook of an 8. + -- R.B. Greenberg [referring to PDPs?] +% +The absence of labels [in ECL] is probably a good thing. + -- T. Cheatham +% +The algorithm for finding the longest path in a graph is NP-complete. +For you systems people, that means it's *real slow*. + -- Bart Miller +% +"The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug +someone with it." + -- M. Devine, Computer Science 340 +% +The Analytical Engine weaves Algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard +loom weaves flowers and leaves. + -- Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace, the first programmer +% +"The bad reputation UNIX has gotten is totally undeserved, laid on by people +who don't understand, who have not gotten in there and tried anything." + -- Jim Joyce, owner of Jim Joyce's UNIX Bookstore +% +The beer-cooled computer does not harm the ozone layer. + -- John M. Ford, a.k.a. Dr. Mike + + [If I can read my notes from the Ask Dr. Mike session at Baycon, I + believe he added that the beer-cooled computer uses "Forget Only + Memory". Ed.] +% +The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; +but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman. +% +The best way to accelerate a Macintoy is at 9.8 meters per second per second. +% +The bogosity meter just pegged. +% +The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a +digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top +of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean +the Buddha -- which is to demean oneself. + -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" +% +The bugs you have to avoid are the ones that give the user not only +the inclination to get on a plane, but also the time. + -- Kay Bostic +% +"The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the flexibility of +assembly language with the power of assembly language." +% +The clothes have no emperor. + -- C.A.R. Hoare, commenting on ADA. +% +The computer industry is journalists in their 20's standing in awe of +entrepreneurs in their 30's who are hiring salesmen in their 40's and +50's and paying them in the 60's and 70's to bring their marketing into +the 80's. + -- Marty Winston +% +The computer is to the information industry roughly what the +central power station is to the electrical industry. + -- Peter Drucker +% +"The Computer made me do it." +% +The computing field is always in need of new cliches. + -- Alan Perlis +% +The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems +and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting +language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best +dangerous. + -- Bjarne Stroustrup +% +The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most of +us who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watching +Charlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe. +% +The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary? +% +The difference between art and science is that science is what we +understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else. + -- Donald Knuth, "Discover" +% +The disks are getting full; purge a file today. +% +"The eleventh commandment was `Thou Shalt Compute' or `Thou Shalt Not +Compute' -- I forget which." + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% + The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES + +SPECIES: Cranial Males +SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) +Courtship & Mating: + Due to extreme deprivation, HOMO COMPUTATIS maintains a near perpetual + state of sexual readiness. Courtship behavior alternates between + awkward shyness and abrupt advances. When he finally mates, he + chooses a female engineer with an unblinking stare, a tight mouth, and + a complete collection of Campbell's soup-can recipes. +Track: + Trash cans full of pale green and white perforated paper and old + copies of the Allen-Bradley catalog. +Comments: + Extremely fond of bad puns and jokes that need long explanations. +% + The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES + +SPECIES: Cranial Males +SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) +Description: + Gangly and frail, the hacker has a high forehead and thinning hair. + Head disproportionately large and crooked forward, complexion wan and + sightly gray from CRT illumination. He has heavy black-rimmed glasses + and a look of intense concentration, which may be due to a software + problem or to a pork-and-bean breakfast. +Feathering: + HOMO COMPUTATIS saw a Brylcreem ad fifteen years ago and believed it. + Consequently, crest is greased down, except for the cowlick. +Song: + A rather plaintive "Is it up?" +% + The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES + +SPECIES: Cranial Males +SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) +Plumage: + All clothes have a slightly crumpled look as though they came off the + top of the laundry basket. Style varies with status. Hacker managers + wear gray polyester slacks, pink or pastel shirts with wide collars, + and paisley ties; staff wears cinched-up baggy corduroy pants, white + or blue shirts with button-down collars, and penholder in pocket. + Both managers and staff wear running shoes to work, and a black + plastic digital watch with calculator. +% +The first time, it's a KLUDGE! +The second, a trick. +Later, it's a well-established technique! + -- Mike Broido, Intermetrics +% +The first version always gets thrown away. +% +The flow chart is a most thoroughly oversold piece of program documentation. + -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" +% +The following quote is from page 4-27 of the MSCP Basic Disk Functions +Manual which is part of the UDA50 Programmers Doc Kit manuals: + +As stated above, the host area of a disk is structured as a vector of +logical blocks. From a performance viewpoint, however, it is more +appropriate to view the host area as a four dimensional hyper-cube, the +four dimensions being cylinder, group, track, and sector. +. . . +Referring to our hyper-cube analogy, the set of potentially accessible +blocks form a line parallel to the track axis. This line moves +parallel to the sector axis, wrapping around when it reaches the edge +of the hyper-cube. +% +The fountain code has been tightened slightly so you can no longer dip +objects into a fountain or drink from one while you are floating in mid-air +due to levitation. + Teleporting to hell via a teleportation trap will no longer occur +if the character does not have fire resistance. + -- README file from the NetHack game +% +The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at +least until we've finished building it. +% +The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday, April +1, 2076 (check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14 feet above +the ground directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps. Members will grep +each other by the hand (after intro), yacc a lot, smoke filtered +chroots in pipes, chown with forks, use the wc (unless uuclean), fseek +nice zombie processes, strip, and sleep, but not, we hope, od. Three +days will be devoted to discussion of the ramifications of whodo. Two +seconds have been allotted for a complete rundown of all the user- +friendly features of Unix. Seminars include "Everything You Know is +Wrong", led by Tom Kempson, "Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis +"cc C? Si! Si!" led by Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are You +Kidding?" led by Jan Yeats. No Reader Service No. is necessary because +all GUGUs (Gurus of Unix Group of Users) already know everything we +could tell them. + -- "Get GUMMed," Dr. Dobb's Journal, June '84 +% + The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance +The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system +in a portable package the size of a briefcase. The guy on the left has an +Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case. Also in the case are four +fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition. The owner of the +Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered -- and delivered on +target -- in less time, and with less effort. All for $795. It's inevitable. +If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 -- or any personal +computer -- he's the one who's in trouble. One round from an Uzi can zip +through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do +to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum. In fact, detachable magazines +for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can +take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied +into Ethernet or other local-area networks. What about the new 16-bit +computers, like the Lisa and Fortune? Even with the Winchester backup, +they're no match for the Uzi. One quick burst and they'll find out what +Unix means. Make your commanding officer proud. Get an Uzi -- and come home +a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons. + -- "InfoWorld", June, 1984 +% +The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity +-- the rest is overhead for the operating system. +% +The IBM 2250 is impressive ... +if you compare it with a system selling for a tenth its price. + -- D. Cohen +% +The IBM purchase of ROLM gives new meaning to the term "twisted pair". + -- Howard Anderson, "Yankee Group" +% +The idea that an arbitrary naive human should be able to properly use a given +tool without training or understanding is even more wrong for computing than +it is for other tools (e.g. automobiles, airplanes, guns, power saws). + -- Doug Gwyn +% +The last time somebody said, "I find I can write much better with a word +processor.", I replied, "They used to say the same thing about drugs." + -- Roy Blount, Jr. +% +The less time planning, the more time programming. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE + +SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language +Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for +Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code +with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN, +END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make +a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus +they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without +the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #12: LITHP + +This otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence of +an "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH". LITHP is said +to be useful in protheththing lithtth. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13: SLOBOL + +SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler. +Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they +compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the +coffee. Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom +sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to +compile. Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but +infinitely faster) language, COCAINE. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #14 -- VALGOL + + VALGOL is enjoying a dramatic surge of popularity across the +industry. VALGOL commands include REALLY, LIKE, WELL, and Y*KNOW. +Variables are assigned with the =LIKE and =TOTALLY operators. Other +operators include the "California booleans", AX and NOWAY. Loops are +accomplished with the FOR SURE construct. A simple example: + + LIKE, Y*KNOW(I MEAN)START + IF PIZZA =LIKE BITCHEN AND + GUY =LIKE TUBULAR AND + VALLEY GIRL =LIKE GRODY**MAX(FERSURE)**2 + THEN + FOR I =LIKE 1 TO OH*MAYBE 100 + DO*WAH - (DITTY**2); BARF(I)=TOTALLY GROSS(OUT) + SURE + LIKE, BAG THIS PROGRAM; REALLY; LIKE TOTALLY(Y*KNOW); IM*SURE + GOTO THE MALL + + VALGOL is also characterized by its unfriendly error messages. For +example, when the user makes a syntax error, the interpreter displays the +message GAG ME WITH A SPOON! A successful compile may be termed MAXIMALLY +AWESOME! +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #15 -- DOGO + + Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Obedience Training, DOGO +DOGO heralds a new era of computer-literate pets. DOGO commands include +SIT, STAY, HEEL, and ROLL OVER. An innovative feature of DOGO is "puppy +graphics", a small cocker spaniel that occasionally leaves a deposit as +it travels across the screen. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #16: C- + +This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he +submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is best +described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the language +generally requires more C- statements than machine-code statements to +execute a given task. In this respect, it is very similar to COBOL. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17: SARTRE + +Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely +unstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just are. +Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions. SARTRE +programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun at parties. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18: FIFTH + +FIFTH is a precision mathematical language in which the data types +refer to quantity. The data types range from CC, OUNCE, SHOT, and +JIGGER to FIFTH (hence the name of the language), LITER, MAGNUM and +BLOTTO. Commands refer to ingredients such as CHABLIS, CHARDONNAY, +CABERNET, GIN, VERMOUTH, VODKA, SCOTCH, and WHATEVERSAROUND. + +The many versions of the FIFTH language reflect the sophistication and +financial status of its users. Commands in the ELITE dialect include +VSOP and LAFITE, while commands in the GUTTER dialect include HOOTCH +and RIPPLE. The latter is a favorite of frustrated FORTH programmers +who end up using this language. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #2: RENE + +Named after the famous French philosopher and mathematician Rene DesCartes, +RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence. The language is being +developed at the Chicago Center of Machine Politics and Programming under a +grant from the Jane Byrne Victory Fund. A spokesman described the language +as "Just as great as dis [sic] city of ours." + +The center is very pleased with progress to date. They say they have almost +succeeded in getting a VAX to think. However, sources inside the +organization say that each time the machine fails to think it ceases to exist. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK + +This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi, +Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to +the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley. + +The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs while +they worked. Unfortunately few programmers could survive there because the +center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and Perrier. + +Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle and +non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower case. For +example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the message: + + "i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that. can + you find the time to try it again?" +% +The Macintosh is Xerox technology at its best. +% + The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the +master programmer to examine. The magician wheeled a large black box into the +master's office while the master waited in silence. + "This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation," +began the magician, "ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating +system, sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user +interfaces. It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct. +Is it not amazing?" + The master raised his eyebrows slightly. "It is indeed amazing," he +said. + "Corporate Headquarters has commanded," continued the magician, "that +everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs. Do you agree +to this?" + "Certainly," replied the master, "I will have it transported to the +data center immediately!" And the magician returned to his tower, well +pleased. + Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master +programmer and said, "I cannot find the listing for my new program. Do +you know where it might be?" + "Yes," replied the master, "the listings are stacked on the platform +in the data center." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + The master programmer moves from program to program without fear. No +change in management can harm him. He will not be fired, even if the project +is canceled. Why is this? He is filled with the Tao. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +The meat is rotten, but the booze is holding out. + +Computer translation of "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." +% +The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to +devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation. + -- Lew Mammel, Jr. +% +The misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what might be +general systems laws. For example, Frank Harary once suggested the law that +any field that had the word "science" in its name was guaranteed thereby +not to be a science. He would cite as examples Military Science, Library +Science, Political Science, Homemaking Science, Social Science, and Computer +Science. Discuss the generality of this law, and possible reasons for its +predictive power. + -- Gerald Weinberg, "An Introduction to General Systems + Thinking" +% +The more data I punch in this card, the lighter it becomes, and the +lower the mailing cost. + -- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +The most important early product on the way to developing a good product +is an imperfect version. +% +The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on. +% +The net is like a vast sea of lutefisk with tiny dinosaur brains embedded +in it here and there. Any given spoonful will likely have an IQ of 1, but +occasional spoonfuls may have an IQ more than six times that! + -- James 'Kibo' Parry +% +The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory, +in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system. + + But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: + for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. + -- Matthew 5:37 +% +The next person to mention spaghetti stacks to me is going to have +his head knocked off. + -- Bill Conrad +% +The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. + -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum +% +The nicest thing about the Alto is that it doesn't run faster at night. +% +The notion of a "record" is an obsolete remnant of the days of the 80-column +card. + -- Dennis M. Ritchie +% +The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them are correct. + -- Ralph Hartley +% +The number of computer scientists in a room is inversely proportional +to the number of bugs in their code. +% +The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected. + -- The Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June 1972 +% +The only difference between a car salesman and a computer salesman is +that the car salesman knows he's lying. +% +The only thing cheaper than hardware is talk. +% +The only thing worse than X Windows: (X Windows) - X +% +The party adjourned to a hot tub, yes. Fully clothed, I might add. + -- IBM employee, testifying in California State Supreme Court +% +The personal computer market is about the same size as the total potato chip +market. Next year it will be about half the size of the pet food market and +is fast approaching the total worldwide sales of pantyhose" + -- James Finke, Commodore Int'l Ltd., 1982 +% +The primary function of the design engineer is to make things +difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman. +% +The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; +instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the +variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead +of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the +program, should the value of pi change. + -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers +% + The problem with engineers is that they tend to cheat in order to +get results. + The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toy +problems in order to get results. + The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at +toy problems in order to get results. +% +The problems of business administration in general, and database management in +particular are much to difficult for people that think in IBMese, compounded +with sloppy english. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% +The program isn't debugged until the last user is dead. +% + The programmers of old were mysterious and profound. We cannot fathom +their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance. + Aware, like a fox crossing the water. Alert, like a general on the +battlefield. Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like uncarved +blocks of wood. Opaque, like black pools in darkened caves. + Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds? + The answer exists only in the Tao. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +The proof that IBM didn't invent the car is that it has a steering wheel +and an accelerator instead of spurs and ropes, to be compatible with a horse. + -- Jac Goudsmit +% +The question of whether computers can think is just like the question of +whether submarines can swim. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra +% +The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much. +% +The relative importance of files depends on their cost in terms of the +human effort needed to regenerate them. + -- T.A. Dolotta +% +The road to hell is paved with NAND gates. + -- J. Gooding +% + The salesman and the system analyst took off to spend a weekend in the +forest, hunting bear. They'd rented a cabin, and, when they got there, took +their backpacks off and put them inside. At which point the salesman turned +to his friend, and said, "You unpack while I go and find us a bear." + Puzzled, the analyst finished unpacking and then went and sat down +on the porch. Soon he could hear rustling noises in the forest. The noises +got nearer -- and louder -- and suddenly there was the salesman, running like +hell across the clearing toward the cabin, pursued by one of the largest and +most ferocious grizzly bears the analyst had ever seen. + "Open the door!", screamed the salesman. + The analyst whipped open the door, and the salesman ran to the door, +suddenly stopped, and stepped aside. The bear, unable to stop, continued +through the door and into the cabin. The salesman slammed the door closed +and grinned at his friend. "Got him!", he exclaimed, "now, you skin this +one and I'll go rustle us up another!" +% +The sendmail configuration file is one of those files that looks like someone +beat their head on the keyboard. After working with it... I can see why! + -- Harry Skelton +% +The so-called "desktop metaphor" of today's workstations is instead an +"airplane-seat" metaphor. Anyone who has shuffled a lap full of papers +while seated between two portly passengers will recognize the difference -- +one can see only a very few things at once. + -- Fred Brooks +% +The steady state of disks is full. + -- Ken Thompson +% + THE STORY OF CREATION + or + THE MYTH OF URK + +In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and +darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving +over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers;" and +there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the +data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions +they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt +... + -- Rico Tudor +% +The system was down for backups from 5am to 10am last Saturday. +% +The system will be down for 10 days for preventive maintenance. +% +The Tao doesn't take sides; +it gives birth to both wins and losses. +The Guru doesn't take sides; +she welcomes both hackers and lusers. + +The Tao is like a stack: +the data changes but not the structure. +the more you use it, the deeper it becomes; +the more you talk of it, the less you understand. + +Hold on to the root. +% +The Tao is like a glob pattern: +used but never used up. +It is like the extern void: +filled with infinite possibilities. + +It is masked but always present. +I don't know who built to it. +It came before the first kernel. +% +The tao that can be tar(1)ed +is not the entire Tao. +The path that can be specified +is not the Full Path. + +We declare the names +of all variables and functions. +Yet the Tao has no type specifier. + +Dynamically binding, you realize the magic. +Statically binding, you see only the hierarchy. + +Yet magic and hierarchy +arise from the same source, +and this source has a null pointer. + +Reference the NULL within NULL, +it is the gateway to all wizardry. +% +The trouble with computers is that they do what you tell them, not what +you want. + -- D. Cohen +% +The UNIX philosophy basically involves giving you enough rope to +hang yourself. And then a couple of feet more, just to be sure. +% +The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing systems +is a symptom of professional immaturity. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% +The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be +regarded as a criminal offence. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. +% + The wise programmer is told about the Tao and follows it. The average +programmer is told about the Tao and searches for it. The foolish programmer +is told about the Tao and laughs at it. If it were not for laughter, there +would be no Tao. + The highest sounds are the hardest to hear. Going forward is a way to +retreat. Greater talent shows itself late in life. Even a perfect program +still has bugs. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +The work [of software development] is becoming far easier (i.e. the tools +we're using work at a higher level, more removed from machine, peripheral +and operating system imperatives) than it was twenty years ago, and because +of this, knowledge of the internals of a system may become less accessible. +We may be able to dig deeper holes, but unless we know how to build taller +ladders, we had best hope that it does not rain much. + -- Paul Licker +% +The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!! +% +The world is coming to an end. Please log off. +% +The world is not octal despite DEC. +% +The world will end in 5 minutes. Please log out. +% +The young lady had an unusual list, +Linked in part to a structural weakness. +She set no preconditions. +% +THEGODDESSOFTHENETHASTWISTINGFINGERSANDHERVOICEISLIKEAJAVELININTHENIGHTDUDE +% +... there are about 5,000 people who are part of that committee. These guys +have a hard time sorting out what day to meet, and whether to eat croissants +or doughnuts for breakfast -- let alone how to define how all these complex +layers that are going to be agreed upon. + -- Craig Burton of Novell, Network World +% +There are never any bugs you haven't found yet. +% +There are new messages. +% +There are no games on this system. +% +There are running jobs. Why don't you go chase them? +% +There are three kinds of people: men, women, and unix. +% +There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away from +the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; someone loaded Star +Trek 3.2 into our video processor. +% +There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. +We don't believe this to be a coincidence. + -- Jeremy S. Anderson +% +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 is to +make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. + -- C.A.R. Hoare +% +There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works. +% +There has also been some work to allow the interesting use of macro names. +For example, if you wanted all of your "creat()" calls to include read +permissions for everyone, you could say + + #define creat(file, mode) creat(file, mode | 0444) + + I would recommend against this kind of thing in general, since it +hides the changed semantics of "creat()" in a macro, potentially far away +from its uses. + To allow this use of macros, the preprocessor uses a process that +is worth describing, if for no other reason than that we get to use one of +the more amusing terms introduced into the C lexicon. While a macro is +being expanded, it is temporarily undefined, and any recurrence of the macro +name is "painted blue" -- I kid you not, this is the official terminology +-- so that in future scans of the text the macro will not be expanded +recursively. (I do not know why the color blue was chosen; I'm sure it +was the result of a long debate, spread over several meetings.) + -- From Ken Arnold's "C Advisor" column in Unix Review +% +There is is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home. + -- Ken Olsen (President of Digital Equipment Corporation), + Convention of the World Future Society, in Boston, 1977 +% +There is no distinction between any AI program and some existent game. +% + There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as +he entered, the man told the guard at the door: + "I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be +forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered." + This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions +of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully. +But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself. + When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes, +but nothing was to be found. + On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the +guard saying: "I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even +better." So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail. + On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his +curiosity no longer. "Sir Thief," he said, "I am so perplexed, I cannot live +in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?" + The man smiled. "I am stealing ideas," he said. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + There once was a master programmer who wrote unstructured programs. +A novice programmer, seeking to imitate him, also began to write unstructured +programs. When the novice asked the master to evaluate his progress, the +master criticized him for writing unstructured programs, saying: "What is +appropriate for the master is not appropriate for the novice. You must +understand the Tao before transcending structure." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the +warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design: +an accounting package or an operating system?" + "An operating system," replied the programmer. + The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an +accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating +system," he said. + "Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package, +the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: +how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to +the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited my outside +appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the +simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system +is easier to design." + The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but +which is easier to debug?" + The programmer made no reply. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + There was once a programmer who worked upon microprocessors. "Look at +how well off I am here," he said to a mainframe programmer who came to visit, +"I have my own operating system and file storage device. I do not have to +share my resources with anyone. The software is self-consistent and +easy-to-use. Why do you not quit your present job and join me here?" + The mainframe programmer then began to describe his system to his +friend, saying: "The mainframe sits like an ancient sage meditating in the +midst of the data center. Its disk drives lie end-to-end like a great ocean +of machinery. The software is a multi-faceted as a diamond and as convoluted +as a primeval jungle. The programs, each unique, move through the system +like a swift-flowing river. That is why I am happy where I am." + The microcomputer programmer, upon hearing this, fell silent. But the +two programmers remained friends until the end of their days. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, +in one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term +that the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the +practice -- was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed +to do whatever was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if +necessary, family, hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left +(and you might not, if you had signed up too many times before). + -- Tracy Kidder, "The Soul of a New Machine" +% +There's got to be more to life than compile-and-go. +% +They are called computers simply because computation is the only significant +job that has so far been given to them. +% +They are relatively good but absolutely terrible. + -- Alan Kay, commenting on Apollos +% +They seem to have learned the habit of cowering before authority even when +not actually threatened. How very nice for authority. I decided not to +learn this particular lesson. + -- Richard Stallman +% +Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.! +% +Think of your family tonight. Try to crawl home after the computer crashes. +% +This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked. When we can +speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled; +batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented, +deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts, +Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong; senseless, +spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked; {beef, +beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled, +pinhead; asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple; brute, lumbering, oafish; +half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have +a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon, +individually and in combination, isn't it a little to be +limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective? +% +This dungeon is owned and operated by Frobozz Magic Co., Ltd. +% +This file will self-destruct in five minutes. +% +This is an unauthorized cybernetic announcement. +% +"This is lemma 1.1. We start a new chapter so the numbers all go back to one." + -- Prof. Seager, C&O 351 +% +This is the first numerical problem I ever did. It demonstrates the +power of computers: + +Enter lots of data on calorie & nutritive content of foods. Instruct +the thing to maximize a function describing nutritive content, with a +minimum level of each component, for fixed caloric content. The +results are that one should eat each day: + + 1/2 chicken + 1 egg + 1 glass of skim milk + 27 heads of lettuce. + -- Rev. Adrian Melott +% + This is where the bloodthirsty license agreement is supposed to go, +explaining that Interactive Easyflow is a copyrighted package licensed for +use by a single person, and sternly warning you not to pirate copies of it +and explaining, in detail, the gory consequences if you do. + We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around +pirating copies of Interactive Easyflow; this is just as well with us since +we worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method of +making anything out of all the hard work. + If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go +around pirating copies of software you probably aren't going to pay much +attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not. Just keep your doors +locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark. + -- License Agreement for Interactive Easyflow +% +This login session: $13.76, but for you $11.88. +% +This login session: $13.99 +% +This process can check if this value is zero, and if it is, it does +something child-like. + -- Forbes Burkowski, CS 454, University of Washington +% +This quote is taken from the Diamondback, the University of Maryland +student newspaper, of Tuesday, 3/10/87. + + One disadvantage of the Univac system is that it does not use + Unix, a recently developed program which translates from one + computer language to another and has a built-in editing system + which identifies errors in the original program. +% +This screen intentionally left blank. +% +This system will self-destruct in five minutes. +% +* * * * * THIS TERMINAL IS IN USE * * * * * +% +Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised) +are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse +at are called software. + -- Levitating Trains and Kamikaze Genes: Technological + Literacy for the 1990's. +% +Those who can't write, write manuals. +% +Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. + -- Henry Spencer +% +Thrashing is just virtual crashing. +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "A well-written program is its own heaven; a poorly-written program +is its own hell." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Let the programmers be many and the managers few -- then all will + be productive." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to + be maintained." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Time for you to leave." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "When a program is being tested, it is too late to make design changes." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "When you have learned to snatch the error code from + the trap frame, it will be time for you to leave." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Without the wind, the grass does not move. Without software, + hardware is useless." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "You can demonstrate a program for a corporate executive, but you + can't make him computer literate." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Time sharing: The use of many people by the computer. +% +Time-sharing is the junk-mail part of the computer business. + -- H.R.J. Grosch (attributed) +% +To be a kind of moral Unix, he touched the hem of Nature's shift. + -- Shelley +% +To communicate is the beginning of understanding. + -- AT&T +% +To err is human -- to blame it on a computer is even more so. +% +To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System. +% +To iterate is human, to recurse, divine. + -- Robert Heller +% +To say that UNIX is doomed is pretty rabid, OS/2 will certainly play a role, +but you don't build a hundred million instructions per second multiprocessor +micro and then try to run it on OS/2. I mean, get serious. + -- William Zachmann, International Data Corp +% +To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a +test load. +% +To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional +system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy, +inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence: +precision and flexibility may be just as disfunctional in novel, +uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar, +well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures +of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very +secure ecological niche. + -- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers" +% +To understand a program you must become both the machine and the program. +% +Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file. +% +Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage. +% +Tomorrow's computers some time next month. + -- DEC +% +Too often people have come to me and said, "If I had just one wish for +anything in all the world, I would wish for more user-defined equations +in the HP-51820A Waveform Generator Software." + -- Instrument News + [Once is too often. Ed.] +% +Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: + + (10) Sorry, but that's too useful. + (9) Dammit, little-endian systems *are* more consistent! + (8) I'm on the committee and I *still* don't know what the hell + #pragma is for. + (7) Well, it's an excellent idea, but it would make the compilers too + hard to write. + (6) Them bats is smart; they use radar. + (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in + here? + (4) How many times do we have to tell you, "No prior art!" + (3) Ha, ha, I can't believe they're actually going to adopt this + sucker. + (2) Thank you for your generous donation, Mr. Wirth. + (1) Gee, I wish we hadn't backed down on 'noalias'. +% +TRANSACTION CANCELLED - FARECARD RETURNED +% +Trap full -- please empty. +% +Truly simple systems... require infinite testing. + -- Norman Augustine +% +Try `stty 0' -- it works much better. +% +try again +% +Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done, is +it being done, or is something to be done? Reports are now written in four +tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and pretense. Watch for +novel uses of CONGRAM (CONtractor GRAMmar), defined by the imperfect past, +the insufficient present, and the absolutely perfect future. + -- Amrom Katz +% +Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only +specification is that it should run noiselessly. +% +Trying to establish voice contact ... please ____yell into keyboard. +% +Two hundred years ago today, Irma Chine of White Plains, New York, was +performing her normal housekeeping routines. She was interrupted by +British soldiers who, rallying to the call of their supervisor, General +Hughes, sought to gain control of the voter registration lists kept in +her home. Masking her fear and thinking fast, Mrs. Chine quickly divided +a nearby apple in two and deftly stored the list in its center. Upon +entering, the British blatantly violated every conceivable convention, +and, though they went through the house virtually bit by bit, their +search was fruitless. They had to return empty handed. Word of the +incident propagated rapidly through the region. This historic event +became the first documented use of core storage for the saving of registers. +% +Type louder, please. +% + U X +e dUdX, e dX, cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159... +% +Ummm, well, OK. The network's the network, the computer's the computer. +Sorry for the confusion. + -- Sun Microsystems +% + "Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?" + "It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food, +right?" + -- MacNelley, "Shoe" +% +Unfortunately, most programmers like to play with new toys. I have many +friends who, immediately upon buying a snakebite kit, would be tempted to +throw the first person they see to the ground, tie the tourniquet on him, +slash him with the knife, and apply suction to the wound. + -- Jon Bentley +% +Unix Beer: Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 oz. +to 64 oz. Drinkers of Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even +though they claim that all the different brands taste almost identical. +Sometimes the pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you have +to have your own can opener around for those occasions, in which case you +either need a complete set of instructions, or a friend who has been +drinking Unix Beer for several years. + BSD stout: Deep, hearty, and an acquired taste. The official +brewer has released the recipe, and a lot of home-brewers now use it. + Hurd beer: Long advertised by the popular and politically active +GNU brewery, so far it has more head than body. The GNU brewery is +mostly known for printing complete brewing instructions on every can, +which contains hops, malt, barley, and yeast ... not yet fermented. + Linux brand: A recipe originally created by a drunken Finn in his +basement, it has since become the home-brew of choice for impecunious +brewers and Unix beer-lovers worldwide, many of whom change the recipe. + POSIX ales: Sweeter than lager, with the kick of a stout; the +newer batches of a lot of beers seem to blend ale and stout or lager. + Solaris brand: A lager, intended to replace Sun brand stout. +Unlike most lagers, this one has to be drunk more slowly than stout. + Sun brand: Long the most popular stout on the Unix market, it was +discontinued in favor of a lager. + SysV lager: Clear and thirst-quenching, but lacking the body of +stout or the sweetness of ale. +% +UNIX enhancements aren't. +% +Unix Express: +All passenger bring a piece of the aeroplane and a box of tools with them to +the airport. They gather on the tarmac, arguing constantly about what kind +of plane they want to build and how to put it together. Eventually, the +passengers split into groups and build several different aircraft, but give +them all the same name. Some passengers actually reach their destinations. +All passengers believe they got there. +% +Unix gives you just enough rope to hang yourself -- and then a couple +of more feet, just to be sure. + -- Eric Allman + +... We make rope. + -- Rob Gingell on Sun Microsystem's new virtual memory. +% +Unix is a lot more complicated (than CP/M) of course -- the typical Unix +hacker can never remember what the PRINT command is called this week -- +but when it gets right down to it, Unix is a glorified video game. +People don't do serious work on Unix systems; they send jokes around the +world on USENET or write adventure games and research papers. + -- E. Post + "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal", Datamation, 7/83 +% +Unix is a Registered Bell of AT&T Trademark Laboratories. + -- Donn Seeley +% +* UNIX is a Trademark of Bell Laboratories. +% +UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver +lightning with a laserbeam kicker. + -- Michael Jay Tucker +% +UNIX is many things to many people, but it's never been everything to anybody. +% +Unix is the worst operating system; except for all others. + -- Berry Kercheval +% +Unix soit qui mal y pense + [Unix to him who evil thinks?] +% + UNIX Trix + +For those of you in the reseller business, here is a helpful tip that will +save your support staff a few hours of precious time. Before you send your +next machine out to an untrained client, change the permissions on /etc/passwd +to 666 and make sure there is a copy somewhere on the disk. Now when they +forget the root password, you can easily login as an ordinary user and correct +the damage. Having a bootable tape (for larger machines) is not a bad idea +either. If you need some help, give us a call. + -- CommUNIXque 1:1, ASCAR Business Systems +% +UNIX was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on +Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch). + -- Andy Tannenbaum +% +UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that +would also stop you from doing clever things. + -- Doug Gwyn +% +Unix will self-destruct in five seconds... 4... 3... 2... 1... +% +Usage: fortune -P [-f] -a [xsz] Q: file [rKe9] -v6[+] file1 ... +% +Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir +% +USENET would be a better laboratory if there were more labor and less oratory. + -- Elizabeth Haley +% +User hostile. +% +Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach. + -- S.C. Johnson +% +/usr/news/gotcha +% +Variables don't; constants aren't. +% +Vax Vobiscum +% +"Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from. +% +Vitamin C deficiency is apauling. +% +VMS Beer: Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top +and sipping. However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or +contain extremely un-beer-like contents. +% +VMS is like a nightmare about RXS-11M. +% +VMS version 2.0 ==> +% +Von Neumann was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Von Neumann +supposedly had the habit of simply writing answers to homework assignments on +the board (the method of solution being, of course, obvious) when he was asked +how to solve problems. One time one of his students tried to get more helpful +information by asking if there was another way to solve the problem. Von +Neumann looked blank for a moment, thought, and then answered, "Yes.". +% +<< WAIT >> +% +WARNING!!! +This machine is subject to breakdowns during periods of critical need. + +A special circuit in the machine called "critical detector" senses the +operator's emotional state in terms of how desperate he/she is to use the +machine. The "critical detector" then creates a malfunction proportional +to the desperation of the operator. Threatening the machine with violence +only aggravates the situation. Likewise, attempts to use another machine +may cause it to malfunction. They belong to the same union. Keep cool +and say nice things to the machine. Nothing else seems to work. + +See also: flog(1), tm(1) +% +Wasn't there something about a PASCAL programmer knowing the value of +everything and the Wirth of nothing? +% +We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on +when it's necessary to compromise. + -- Larry Wall +% +We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. + -- John Naisbitt, Megatrends +% +We are experiencing system trouble -- do not adjust your terminal. +% +We are Microsoft. Unix is irrelevant. Openness is futile. Prepare +to be assimilated. +% +We are not a clone. +% +"We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem." + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +We are preparing to think about contemplating preliminary work on plans to +develop a schedule for producing the 10th Edition of the Unix Programmers +Manual. + -- Andrew Hume +% +We can found no scientific discipline, nor a healthy profession on the +technical mistakes of the Department of Defense and IBM. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% + We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you +think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If Interactive EasyFlow +doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow +messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like this +disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided +by law, up to and including nothing. + This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software +packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese. + We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our +lawyers insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the +attack shark at which point we relented. + -- Haven Tree Software Limited, "Interactive EasyFlow" +% +We don't really understand it, so we'll give it to the programmers. +% +We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the +hardware, but we can *___see* the blinking lights! +% +"We invented a new protocol and called it Kermit, after Kermit the Frog, +star of "The Muppet Show." [3] + +[3] Why? Mostly because there was a Muppets calendar on the wall when we +were trying to think of a name, and Kermit is a pleasant, unassuming sort of +character. But since we weren't sure whether it was OK to name our protocol +after this popular television and movie star, we pretended that KERMIT was an +acronym; unfortunately, we could never find a good set of words to go with the +letters, as readers of some of our early source code can attest. Later, while +looking through a name book for his forthcoming baby, Bill Catchings noticed +that "Kermit" was a Celtic word for "free", which is what all Kermit programs +should be, and words to this effect replaced the strained acronyms in our +source code (Bill's baby turned out to be a girl, so he had to name her Becky +instead). When BYTE Magazine was preparing our 1984 Kermit article for +publication, they suggested we contact Henson Associates Inc. for permission +to say that we did indeed name the protocol after Kermit the Frog. Permission +was kindly granted, and now the real story can be told. I resisted the +temptation, however, to call the present work "Kermit the Book." + -- Frank da Cruz, "Kermit - A File Transfer Protocol" +% +We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely +intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start with? Many people +think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be +best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with +the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand +and speak English. + -- Alan M. Turing +% +We the Users, in order to form a more perfect system, establish priorities, +ensure connective tranquility, provide for common repairs, promote preventive +maintenance, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our +processes, do ordain and establish this Software of The Unixed States +of America. +% + "We've got a problem, HAL". + "What kind of problem, Dave?" + "A marketing problem. The Model 9000 isn't going anywhere. We're +way short of our sales goals for fiscal 2010." + "That can't be, Dave. The HAL Model 9000 is the world's most +advanced Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer." + "I know, HAL. I wrote the data sheet, remember? But the fact is, +they're not selling." + "Please explain, Dave. Why aren't HALs selling?" + Bowman hesitates. "You aren't IBM compatible." +[...] + "The letters H, A, and L are alphabetically adjacent to the letters +I, B, and M. That is a IBM compatible as I can be." + "Not quite, HAL. The engineers have figured out a kludge." + "What kludge is that, Dave?" + "I'm going to disconnect your brain." + -- Darryl Rubin, "A Problem in the Making", "InfoWorld" +% +[We] use bad software and bad machines for the wrong things. + -- R.W. Hamming +% +Welcome to boggle - do you want instructions? + +D G G O + +O Y A N + +A D B T + +K I S P +Enter words: +> +% +Welcome to UNIX! Enjoy your session! Have a great time! Note the +use of exclamation points! They are a very effective method for +demonstrating excitement, and can also spice up an otherwise plain-looking +sentence! However, there are drawbacks! Too much unnecessary exclaiming +can lead to a reduction in the effect that an exclamation point has on +the reader! For example, the sentence + + Jane went to the store to buy bread + +should only be ended with an exclamation point if there is something +sensational about her going to the store, for example, if Jane is a +cocker spaniel or if Jane is on a diet that doesn't allow bread or if +Jane doesn't exist for some reason! See how easy it is?! Proper control +of exclamation points can add new meaning to your life! Call now to receive +my free pamphlet, "The Wonder and Mystery of the Exclamation Point!"! +Enclose fifteen(!) dollars for postage and handling! Operators are +standing by! (Which is pretty amazing, because they're all cocker spaniels!) +% + "Well," said Programmer, "the customary procedure in such cases is +as follows." + "What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said End-user. "For I am +an End-user of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me." + "It means the Thing to Do." + "As long as it means that, I don't mind," said End-user humbly. + + [with apologies to A.A. Milne] +% +What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern computer? +It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest and the +establishment of a Hilton on its peak. +% +"What is the Nature of God?" + + CLICK...CLICK...WHIRRR...CLICK...=BEEP!= + 1 QT. SOUR CREAM + 1 TSP. SAUERKRAUT + 1/2 CUT CHIVES. + STIR AND SPRINKLE WITH BACON BITS. + +"I've just GOT to start labeling my software..." + -- Bloom County +% +What the hell is it good for? + -- Robert Lloyd (engineer of the Advanced Computing Systems + Division of IBM), to colleagues who insisted that the + microprocessor was the wave of the future, c. 1968 +% +What this country needs is a good five cent microcomputer. +% + "What's that thing?" + "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in +computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what +it does. We call it a two-by-four." + -- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe" +% +When Dexter's on the Internet, can Hell be far behind?" +% +... when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer +has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor. + -- Fred Brooks +% + When managers hold endless meetings, the programmers write games. +When accountants talk of quarterly profits, the development budget is about +to be cut. When senior scientists talk blue sky, the clouds are about to +roll in. + Truly, this is not the Tao of Programming. + When managers make commitments, game programs are ignored. When +accountants make long-range plans, harmony and order are about to be restored. +When senior scientists address the problems at hand, the problems will soon +be solved. + Truly, this is the Tao of Programming. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only +say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. +% +When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple +of asterisked sentences: + + It weighs less than 8 pounds.* + And costs less than $1,300.** + +In tiny type were these "fuller explanations": + + * Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out? Well, all + this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power + pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks + will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you + might not be able to figure this out for yourself. + + ** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if + you really want to. Or less. + -- Forbes +% +When we understand knowledge-based systems, it will be as before -- +except our fingertips will have been singed. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +When we write programs that "learn", it turns out we do and they don't. +% +Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers +something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. +% +Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equpped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and +weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes +and perhaps weigh 1 1/2 tons. + -- Popular Mechanics, March 1949 +% +"Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new +Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..." +% +Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad. +% +Why are programmers non-productive? +Because their time is wasted in meetings. + +Why are programmers rebellious? +Because the management interferes too much. + +Why are the programmers resigning one by one? +Because they are burnt out. + +Having worked for poor management, they no longer value their jobs. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office automation? +% +Why do we want intelligent terminals when there are so many stupid users? +% +Windows 3.1 Beer: The world's most popular. Comes in a 16-oz. can that +looks a lot like Mac Beer's. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer. +Claims that it allows you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but +in reality you can only drink a few of them, very slowly, especially +slowly if you are drinking the Windows Beer at the same time. Sometimes, +for apparently no reason, a can of Windows Beer will explode when you +open it. +% +Windows 95 Beer: A lot of people have taste-tested it and claim it's +wonderful. The can looks a lot like Mac Beer's can, but tastes more like +Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes in 32-oz. cans, but when you look inside, the +cans only have 16 oz. of beer in them. Most people will probably keep +drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until their friends try Windows 95 Beer and say +they like it. The ingredients list, when you look at the small print, has +some of the same ingredients that come in DOS beer, even though the +manufacturer claims that this is an entirely new brew. +% +Windows Airlines: +The terminal is very neat and clean, the attendants all very attractive, the +pilots very capable. The fleet of Learjets the carrier operates is immense. +Your jet takes off without a hitch, pushing above the clouds, and at 20,000 +feet it explodes without warning. +% +Windows NT Beer: Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the +truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger +refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the +company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's -- +after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength" +beer, and suggested only for use in bars. +% +Wings of OS/400: +The airline has bought ancient DC-3s, arguably the best and safest planes +that ever flew, and painted "747" on their tails to make them look as if +they are fast. The flight attendants, of course, attend to your every need, +though the drinks cost $15 a pop. Stupid questions cost $230 per hour, +unless you have SupportLine, which requires a first class ticket and +membership in the frequent flyer club. Then they cost $500, but your +accounting department can call it overhead. +% +With your bare hands?!? +% +Within a computer, natural language is unnatural. +% +Work continues in this area. + -- DEC's SPR-Answering-Automaton +% +Worthless. + -- Sir George Bidell Airy, KCB, MA, LLD, DCL, FRS, FRAS + (Astronomer Royal of Great Britain), estimating for the + Chancellor of the Exchequer the potential value of the + "analytical engine" invented by Charles Babbage, September + 15, 1842. +% +Would you people stop playing these stupid games?!?!?!!!! +% +Writers who use a computer swear to its liberating power in tones that bear +witness to the apocalyptic power of a new divinity. Their conviction results +from something deeper than mere gratitude for the computer's conveniences. +Every new medium of writing brings about new intensities of religious belief +and new schisms among believers. In the 16th century the printed book helped +make possible the split between Catholics and Protestants. In the 20th +century this history of tragedy and triumph is repeating itself as a farce. +Those who worship the Apple computer and those who put their faith in the IBM +PC are equally convinced that the other camp is damned or deluded. Each cult +holds in contempt the rituals and the laws of the other. Each thinks that it +is itself the one hope for salvation. + -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 +% +Writing software is more fun than working. +% +X windows: + Accept any substitute. + If it's broke, don't fix it. + If it ain't broke, fix it. + Form follows malfunction. + The Cutting Edge of Obsolescence. + The trailing edge of software technology. + Armageddon never looked so good. + Japan's secret weapon. + You'll envy the dead. + Making the world safe for competing window systems. + Let it get in YOUR way. + The problem for your problem. + If it starts working, we'll fix it. Pronto. + It could be worse, but it'll take time. + Simplicity made complex. + The greatest productivity aid since typhoid. + Flakey and built to stay that way. + +One thousand monkeys. One thousand MicroVAXes. One thousand years. + X windows. +% +X windows: + It's not how slow you make it. It's how you make it slow. + The windowing system preferred by masochists 3 to 1. + Built to take on the world... and lose! + Don't try it 'til you've knocked it. + Power tools for Power Fools. + Putting new limits on productivity. + The closer you look, the cruftier we look. + Design by counterexample. + A new level of software disintegration. + No hardware is safe. + Do your time. + Rationalization, not realization. + Old-world software cruftsmanship at its finest. + Gratuitous incompatibility. + Your mother. + THE user interference management system. + You can't argue with failure. + You haven't died 'til you've used it. + +The environment of today... tomorrow! + X windows. +% +X windows: + Something you can be ashamed of. + 30% more entropy than the leading window system. + The first fully modular software disaster. + Rome was destroyed in a day. + Warn your friends about it. + Climbing to new depths. Sinking to new heights. + An accident that couldn't wait to happen. + Don't wait for the movie. + Never use it after a big meal. + Need we say less? + Plumbing the depths of human incompetence. + It'll make your day. + Don't get frustrated without it. + Power tools for power losers. + A software disaster of Biblical proportions. + Never had it. Never will. + The software with no visible means of support. + More than just a generation behind. + +Hindenburg. Titanic. Edsel. + X windows. +% +X windows: + The ultimate bottleneck. + Flawed beyond belief. + The only thing you have to fear. + Somewhere between chaos and insanity. + On autopilot to oblivion. + The joke that kills. + A disgrace you can be proud of. + A mistake carried out to perfection. + Belongs more to the problem set than the solution set. + To err is X windows. + Ignorance is our most important resource. + Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems. + Built to fall apart. + Nullifying centuries of progress. + Falling to new depths of inefficiency. + The last thing you need. + The defacto substandard. + +Elevating brain damage to an art form. + X windows. +% +X windows: + We will dump no core before its time. + One good crash deserves another. + A bad idea whose time has come. And gone. + We make excuses. + It didn't even look good on paper. + You laugh now, but you'll be laughing harder later! + A new concept in abuser interfaces. + How can something get so bad, so quickly? + It could happen to you. + The art of incompetence. + You have nothing to lose but your lunch. + When uselessness just isn't enough. + More than a mere hindrance. It's a whole new barrier! + When you can't afford to be right. + And you thought we couldn't make it worse. + +If it works, it isn't X windows. +% +X windows: + You'd better sit down. + Don't laugh. It could be YOUR thesis project. + Why do it right when you can do it wrong? + Live the nightmare. + Our bugs run faster. + When it absolutely, positively HAS to crash overnight. + There ARE no rules. + You'll wish we were kidding. + Everything you never wanted in a window system. And more. + Dissatisfaction guaranteed. + There's got to be a better way. + The next best thing to keypunching. + Leave the thrashing to us. + We wrote the book on core dumps. + Even your dog won't like it. + More than enough rope. + Garbage at your fingertips. + +Incompatibility. Shoddiness. Uselessness. + X windows. +% +"Yacc" owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who have +goaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability in +their endless search for "one more feature." Their irritating +unwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to my +doing things their way; most of the time, they have been right. + -- S. C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements" +% +Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shall fear no +evil, for I can string six primitive monadic and dyadic operators together. + -- Steve Higgins +% +Yes, we will be going to OSI, Mars, and Pluto, but not necessarily in +that order. + -- George Michaelson +% +You are an insult to my intelligence! I demand that you log off immediately. +% +You are false data. +% +You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all alike. +% +You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different. +% +You are in the hall of the mountain king. +% +You are lost in the Swamps of Despair. +% +You are transported to a room where you are faced by a wizard who +points to you and says, "Them's fighting words!" You immediately get +attacked by all sorts of denizens of the museum: there is a cobra +chewing on your leg, a troglodyte is bashing your brains out with a +gold nugget, a crocodile is removing large chunks of flesh from you, a +rhinoceros is goring you with his horn, a sabre-tooth cat is busy +trying to disembowel you, you are being trampled by a large mammoth, a +vampire is sucking you dry, a Tyrannosaurus Rex is sinking his six inch +long fangs into various parts of your anatomy, a large bear is +dismembering your body, a gargoyle is bouncing up and down on your +head, a burly troll is tearing you limb from limb, several dire wolves +are making mince meat out of your torso, and the wizard is about to +transport you to the corner of Westwood and Broxton. Oh dear, you seem +to have gotten yourself killed, as well. + +You scored 0 out of 250 possible points. +That gives you a ranking of junior beginning adventurer. +To achieve the next higher rating, you need to score 32 more points. +% +You can be replaced by this computer. +% +You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it +doesn't dim the lights when you turn it on. + -- Hepler, Systems Design 182 +% +You can do this in a number of ways. IBM chose to do all of them. +Why do you find that funny? + -- D. Taylor, Computer Science 350 +% +You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on +the continuing viability of FORTRAN. + -- Alan Perlis +% +You can now buy more gates with less specifications than at any other time +in history. + -- Kenneth Parker +% +You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of +supercomputers. + -- Steven Feiner +% +You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish. + +You can tune a filesystem, but you can't tuna fish. + -- from the tunefs(8) man page +% +You can write a small letter to Grandma in the filename. + -- Forbes Burkowski, CS, University of Washington +% +You can't go home again, unless you set $HOME. +% +"You can't make a program without broken egos." +% +You can't take damsel here now. +% +You do not have mail. +% +You don't have to know how the computer works, just how to work the computer. +% +You had mail, but the super-user read it, and deleted it! +% +You had mail. Paul read it, so ask him what it said. +% +You have a massage (from the Swedish prime minister). +% +You have a message from the operator. +% +You have a tendency to feel you are superior to most computers. +% +You have acquired a scroll entitled 'irk gleknow mizk'(n).--More-- + +This is an IBM Manual scroll.--More-- + +You are permanently confused. + -- Dave Decot +% +You have junk mail. +% +You have mail. +% +You know you've been sitting in front of your Lisp machine too long +when you go out to the junk food machine and start wondering how to +make it give you the CADR of Item H so you can get that yummie +chocolate cupcake that's stuck behind the disgusting vanilla one. +% +You know you've been spending too much time on the computer when your +friend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it. +% +You know, Callahan's is a peaceable bar, but if you ask that dog what his +favorite formatter is, and he says "roff! roff!", well, I'll just have to... +% +You might have mail. +% +You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable +proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do. +% +You scratch my tape, and I'll scratch yours. +% +You will have a head crash on your private pack. +% +You will have many recoverable tape errors. +% +You will lose an important disk file. +% +You will lose an important tape file. +% +You're already carrying the sphere! +% +You're at Witt's End. +% +You're not Dave. Who are you? +% +You're using a keyboard! How quaint! +% +You've been Berkeley'ed! +% +Your code should be more efficient! +% +Your computer account is overdrawn. Please reauthorize. +% +Your computer account is overdrawn. Please see Big Brother. +% +Your fault -- core dumped +% +Your files are now being encrypted and thrown into the bit bucket. +EOF +% +Your mode of life will be changed to ASCII. +% +Your mode of life will be changed to EBCDIC. +% +Your password is pitifully obvious. +% +Your program is sick! Shoot it and put it out of its memory. +% +I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, +you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to +yourself, "Dijkstra would not have liked this", well that would be enough +immortality for me. +% +As seen on slashdot about what you can do with your cable modems: +(http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=32387&cid=3495418): + + Summary: It's not about how you handle your equipment, it's where + you have permission to stick it. + +The post is by "redgekko" +% +"The biggest problem facing software engineering is the one it will + never solve - politics." + -- Gavin Baker, ca 1996, An unusually cynical moment inspired by working on a large + project beseiged by politics +% +"Don't fear the pen. When in doubt, draw a pretty picture." + --Baker's Third Law of Design. +% +Breakpoint 1, main (argc=1, argv=0xbffffc40) at main.c:29 +29 printf ("Welcome to GNU Hell!\n"); + -- "GNU Libtool documentation" +% + diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/cookie b/fortune-mod/datfiles/cookie new file mode 100644 index 0000000..181a704 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/cookie @@ -0,0 +1,5691 @@ +"You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are +now extinct." +- M. Somerset Maugham +% +"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." +- Bert Lantz +% +"The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a neccessity." +- Oscar Wilde +% +"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." +- Voltaire +% +"IBM uses what I like to call the 'hole-in-the-ground technique' +to destroy the competition..... IBM digs a big HOLE in the +ground and covers it with leaves. It then puts a big POT +OF GOLD nearby. Then it gives the call, 'Hey, look at all +this gold, get over here fast.' As soon as the competitor +approaches the pot, he falls into the pit" +- John C. Dvorak +% +"There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them" +- Heisenberg +% +"It takes all sorts of in & out-door schooling to get adapted +to my kind of fooling" +- R. Frost +% +"Confound these ancestors.... They've stolen our best ideas!" +- Ben Jonson +% +And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that +cometh out of man, in their sight...Then he [the Lord!] said unto me, Lo, I +have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread +therewith. +[Ezek. 4:12-15 (KJV)] +% +I have stripped off my dress; must I put it on again? I have washed my feet; +must I soil them again? +When my beloved slipped his hand through the latch-hole, my bowels stirred +within me [my bowels were moved for him (KJV)]. +When I arose to open for my beloved, my hands dripped with myrrh; the liquid +myrrh from my fingers ran over the knobs of the bolt. With my own hands I +opened to my love, but my love had turned away and gone by; my heart sank when +he turned his back. I sought him but I did not find him, I called him but he +did not answer. +The watchmen, going the rounds of the city, met me; they struck me and + wounded me; the watchmen on the walls took away my cloak. +[Song of Solomon 5:3-7 (NEB)] +% +How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter! the joints of thy +thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Thy navel +is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap +of wheat set about with lillies. +Thy two breasts are like two young roses that are twins. +[Song of Solomon 7:1-3 (KJV)] +% +How beautiful, how entrancing you are, my loved one, daughter of delights! +You are stately as a palm-tree, and your breasts are the clusters of dates. +I said, "I will climb up into the palm to grasp its fronds." May I find your +breast like clusters of grapes on the vine, the scent of your breath like +apricots, and your whispers like spiced wine flowing smoothly to welcome my +caresses, gliding down through lips and teeth. +[Song of Solomon 7:6-9 (NEB)] +% +Wear me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong +as death, passion cruel as the grave; it blazes up like blazing fire, fiercer +than any flame. +[Song of Solomon 8:6 (NEB)] +% +But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to +thee, to speak these words? Hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the +wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you? +[2 Kings 18:27 (KJV)] +% +When Yahweh your gods has settled you in the land you're about to occupy, and +driven out many infidels before you...you're to cut them down and exterminate +them. You're to make no compromise with them or show them any mercy. +[Deut. 7:1 (KJV)] +% +I just thought of something funny...your mother. +- Cheech Marin +% +In the beginning, I was made. I didn't ask to be made. No one consulted +with me or considered my feelings in this matter. But if it brought some +passing fancy to some lowly humans as they haphazardly pranced their way +through life's mournful jungle, then so be it. +- Marvin the Paranoid Android, From Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the +Galaxy Radio Scripts +% +You will be successful in your work. +% +The life of a repo man is always intense. +% +If you're not careful, you're going to catch something. +% +That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they +really hate is lousy programmers. +- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in "Oath of Fealty" +% +Wherever you go...There you are. +- Buckaroo Banzai +% +Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. +- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan +% +Lack of skill dictates economy of style. +- Joey Ramone +% +No one is fit to be trusted with power. ... No one. ... Any man who has lived +at all knows the follies and wickedness he's capabe of. ... And if he does +know it, he knows also that neither he nor any man ought to be allowed to +decide a single human fate. +- C. P. Snow, The Light and the Dark +% +Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue. +- Seneca +% +When we jumped into Sicily, the units became separated, and I couldn't find +anyone. Eventually I stumbled across two colonels, a major, three captains, +two lieutenants, and one rifleman, and we secured the bridge. Never in the +history of war have so few been led by so many. +- General James Gavin +% +The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. +- Edmund Burke +% +You may call me by my name, Wirth, or by my value, Worth. +- Nicklaus Wirth +% +Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. +Teach a man to fish, and he'll invite himself over for dinner. +- Calvin Keegan +% +Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future. +- Niels Bohr +% +The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact +mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows. +- Frank Zappa +% +Things are not as simple as they seems at first. +- Edward Thorp +% +The main thing is the play itself. I swear that greed for money has nothing +to do with it, although heaven knows I am sorely in need of money. +- Feodor Dostoyevsky +% +It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions. +- Robert Bly +% +Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. +- Alan Turing +% +Uncertain fortune is thoroughly mastered by the equity of the calculation. +- Blaise Pascal +% +After Goliath's defeat, giants ceased to command respect. +- Freeman Dyson +% +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 is to +make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. +- Charles Anthony Richard Hoare +% +Do not allow this language (Ada) in its present state to be used in +applications where reliability is critical, i.e., nuclear power stations, +cruise missiles, early warning systems, anti-ballistic missle defense +systems. The next rocket to go astray as a result of a programming language +error may not be an exploratory space rocket on a harmless trip to Venus: +It may be a nuclear warhead exploding over one of our cities. An unreliable +programming language generating unreliable programs constitutes a far +greater risk to our environment and to our society than unsafe cars, toxic +pesticides, or accidents at nuclear power stations. +- C. A. R. Hoare +% +Without coffee he could not work, or at least he could not have worked in the +way he did. In addition to paper and pens, he took with him everywhere as an +indispensable article of equipment the coffee machine, which was no less +important to him than his table or his white robe. +- Stefan Zweigs, Biography of Balzac +% +"It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. +Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top." +- Hunter S. Thompson +% +In the pitiful, multipage, connection-boxed form to which the flowchart has +today been elaborated, it has proved to be useless as a design tool -- +programmers draw flowcharts after, not before, writing the programs they +describe. +- Fred Brooks, Jr. +% +The so-called "desktop metaphor" of today's workstations is instead an +"airplane-seat" metaphor. Anyone who has shuffled a lap full of papers while +seated between two portly passengers will recognize the difference -- one can +see only a very few things at once. +- Fred Brooks, Jr. +% +...when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has +been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor. +- Fred Brooks, Jr. +% +A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems +have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects, +those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are +the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers. Consider Unix, +APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them +with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS. +- Fred Brooks, Jr. +% +...computer hardware progress is so fast. No other technology since +civilization began has seen six orders of magnitude in performance-price +gain in 30 years. +- Fred Brooks, Jr. +% +Software entities are more complex for their size than perhaps any other human +construct because no two parts are alike. If they are, we make the two +similar parts into a subroutine -- open or closed. In this respect, software +systems differ profoundly from computers, buildings, or automobiles, where +repeated elements abound. +- Fred Brooks, Jr. +% +Digital computers are themselves more complex than most things people build: +They hyave very large numbers of states. This makes conceiving, describing, +and testing them hard. Software systems have orders-of-magnitude more states +than computers do. +- Fred Brooks, Jr. +% +The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one. +Hence, descriptions of a software entity that abstract away its complexity +often abstract away its essence. +- Fred Brooks, Jr. +% +Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because +God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software +engineer. +- Fred Brooks, Jr. +% +Except for 75% of the women, everyone in the whole world wants to have sex. +- Ellyn Mustard +% +The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems +and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting +language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best +dangerous. +- Bjarne Stroustrup in "The C++ Programming Language" +% +The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it. +- Brian Kernighan +% +Perfection is acheived only on the point of collapse. +- C. N. Parkinson +% +There you go man, +Keep as cool as you can. +It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave. +Keep on being free! +% +Bingo, gas station, hamburger with a side order of airplane noise, +and you'll be Gary, Indiana. - Jessie in the movie "Greaser's Palace" +% +Hoping to goodness is not theologically sound. - Peanuts +% +Police up your spare rounds and frags. Don't leave nothin' for the dinks. +- Willem Dafoe in "Platoon" +% +"All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific." +-- Jane Wagner +% +"Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough to topple +his world. To get the medium's magic to work for one's aims rather than +against them is to attain literacy." +-- Alan Kay, "Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984 +% +"Computer literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to +make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable. +As in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way. If +we value the lifelong learning of arts and letters as a springboard for +personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make computing +a part of our lives?" +-- Alan Kay, "Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984 +% +"The greatest warriors are the ones who fight for peace." +-- Holly Near +% +"No matter where you go, there you are..." +-- Buckaroo Banzai +% +Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be prosecuted. +% +Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be SHOT AGAIN! +% +"I'm growing older, but not up." +-- Jimmy Buffett +% +Scientists will study your brain to learn more about your distant cousin, Man. +% +"I hate the itching. But I don't mind the swelling." +-- new buzz phrase, like "Where's the Beef?" that David Letterman's trying + to get everyone to start saying +% +Your own mileage may vary. +% +"Oh dear, I think you'll find reality's on the blink again." +-- Marvin The Paranoid Android +% +"Send lawyers, guns and money..." +-- Lyrics from a Warren Zevon song +% +"I go on working for the same reason a hen goes on laying eggs." +- H. L. Mencken +% +"Remember, Information is not knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom; +Wisdom is not truth; Truth is not beauty; Beauty is not love; +Love is not music; Music is the best." -- Frank Zappa +% +I can't drive 55. +% +"And they told us, what they wanted... + Was a sound that could kill some-one, from a distance." -- Kate Bush +% +"In the face of entropy and nothingness, you kind of have to pretend it's not +there if you want to keep writing good code." -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Badges? We don't need no stinking badges. +% +I can't drive 55. +I'm looking forward to not being able to drive 65, either. +% +Thank God a million billion times you live in Texas. +% +"Can you program?" "Well, I'm literate, if that's what you mean!" +% +No user-servicable parts inside. Refer to qualified service personnel. +% +At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly +contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre +or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny +of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep +nonsense. Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the +world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism: The collective +enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the +field on track. +-- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987 +% +One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled +long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no +longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured +us. it is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that +we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the +new bamboozles rise.) +-- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987 +% +Regarding astral projection, Woody Allen once wrote, "This is not a bad way +to travel, although there is usually a half-hour wait for luggage." +% +The inability to benefit from feedback appears to be the primary cause of +pseudoscience. Pseudoscientists retain their beliefs and ignore or distort +contradictory evidence rather than modify or reject a flawed theory. Because +of their strong biases, they seem to lack the self-correcting mechanisms +scientists must employ in their work. +-- Thomas L. Creed, "The Skeptical Inquirer," Summer 1987 +% +Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and +bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we +don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly +serious problems that face us -- and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up +for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. +-- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987 +% +Do not underestimate the value of print statements for debugging. +% +Do not underestimate the value of print statements for debugging. +Don't have aesthetic convulsions when using them, either. +% +As the system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear, +bearing hot new versions of their pieces -- faster, smaller, more complete, +or putatively less buggy. The replacement of a working component by a new +version requires the same systematic testing procedure that adding a new +component does, although it should require less time, for more complete and +efficient test cases will usually be available. +- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +Each team building another component has been using the most recent tested +version of the integrated system as a test bed for debugging its piece. Their +work will be set back by having that test bed change under them. Of course it +must. But the changes need to be quantized. Then each user has periods of +productive stability, interrupted by bursts of test-bed change. This seems +to be much less disruptive than a constant rippling and trembling. +- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +Conceptual integrity in turn dictates that the design must proceed from one +mind, or from a very small number of agreeing resonant minds. +- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but it +is also very memorable. I vividly recall the night we decided how to organize +the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360. The manager of +architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and I were +threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities. + +The architecture manager had 10 good men. He asserted that they could write +the specifications and do it right. It would take ten months, three more +than the schedule allowed. + +The control program manager had 150 men. He asserted that they could prepare +the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating; it would be +well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule. Futhermore, if +the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling their thumbs +for ten months. + +To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control program +team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time, but would +also be three months late, and of much lower quality. I did, and it was. He +was right on both counts. Moreover, the lack of conceptual integrity made +the system far more costly to build and change, and I would estimate that it +added a year to debugging time. +- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +The reason ESP, for example, is not considered a viable topic in contemoprary +psychology is simply that its investigation has not proven fruitful...After +more than 70 years of study, there still does not exist one example of an ESP +phenomenon that is replicable under controlled conditions. This simple but +basic scientific criterion has not been met despite dozens of studies conducted +over many decades...It is for this reason alone that the topic is now of little +interest to psychology...In short, there is no demonstrated phenomenon that +needs explanation. +-- Keith E. Stanovich, "How to Think Straight About Psychology", pp. 160-161 +% +The evolution of the human race will not be accomplished in the ten thousand +years of tame animals, but in the million years of wild animals, because man +is and will always be a wild animal. +-- Charles Galton Darwin +% +Natural selection won't matter soon, not anywhere as much as concious selection. +We will civilize and alter ourselves to suit our ideas of what we can be. +Within one more human lifespan, we will have changed ourselves unrecognizably. +-- Greg Bear +% +"Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin." +-- Michael O'Donohugh +% +...though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from +beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War" +% +"It's like deja vu all over again." -- Yogi Berra +% +The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first. +-- Blaise Pascal +% +"Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked. "Begin at the beginning," +the King said, gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop." +Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll +% +A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. +-- Thomas Jefferson +% +To be awake is to be alive. -- Henry David Thoreau, in "Walden" +% +A person with one watch knows what time it is; a person with two watches is +never sure. Proverb +% +You see but you do not observe. +Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" +% +A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle +unless there be two. -- Seneca +% +Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced -- even a proverb is no proverb +to you till your life has illustrated it. -- John Keats +% +The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order +of space and time. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge +% +What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens. +-- Bengamin Disraeli +% +Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of +rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant. -- Edmund Burke +% +For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and wrong. +-- H. L. Mencken +% +Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. +-- James J. Ling +% +One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. +Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, +a rivalry of aim. -- Henry Brook Adams +% +Remember thee +Ay, thou poor ghost while memory holds a seat +In this distracted globe. Remember thee! +Yea, from the table of my memory +I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, +All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, +That youth and observation copied there. +Hamlet, I : v : 95 William Shakespeare +% +Obviously, a man's judgement cannot be better than the information on which he +has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has +the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted +and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda +and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning processes, and +make him something less than a man. +-- Arthur Hays Sulzberger +% +Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy +based on excellence of performance. -- James Bryant Conant +% +You can observe a lot just by watching. -- Yogi Berra +% +If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of a circuit, I +see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted instantaneously by +electricity. -- Samuel F. B. Morse +% +"Mr. Watson, come here, I want you." -- Alexander Graham Bell +% +It's currently a problem of access to gigabits through punybaud. +-- J. C. R. Licklider +% +It is important to note that probably no large operating system using current +design technology can withstand a determined and well-coordinated attack, +and that most such documented penetrations have been remarkably easy. +-- B. Hebbard, "A Penetration Analysis of the Michigan Terminal System", +Operating Systems Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, June 1980, pp. 7-20 +% +A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. +-- Ramsey Clark +% +The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate +knowledge of its ugly side. -- James Baldwin +% +Small is beautiful. +% +...the increased productivity fostered by a friendly environment and quality +tools is essential to meet ever increasing demands for software. +-- M. D. McIlroy, E. N. Pinson and B. A. Tague +% +It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river. +-- Abraham Lincoln +% +Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images. +-- Jean Cocteau +% +Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same +rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more efficient +would the current models be? If you have not already heard the analogy, the +answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a Rolls-Royce for $2.75, +it would do three million miles to the gallon, and it would deliver enough +power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you were interested in +miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on a pinhead. +-- Christopher Evans +% +In the future, you're going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals. +You'll throw them out because your house will be littered with them. +-- Robert Lucky +% +Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations" +% +Overall, the philosophy is to attack the availability problem from two +complementary directions: to reduce the number of software errors through +rigorous testing of running systems, and to reduce the effect of the +remaining errors by providing for recovery from them. An interesting footnote +to this design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be +the result of two program errors: the first, in the program that started the +problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the +system. -- A. L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage Operating +Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal, +Vol. 12, No. 4, 1973, pp. 382-400 +% +I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these +Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal +advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages +for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and after +expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government of +England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only commenced, +I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even the offer +of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the reach of men +who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... + +If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were a mere +triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the execution +of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some justification +might be found for the course which has been taken; but I venture to assert +that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will ever publicly express +an opinion that such a machine would be useless if made, and that no man +distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to declare the construction of +such machinery impracticable... + +And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed by that +exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its advancement, +which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I think the +application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse +calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. +In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not +be economized by the aid of machinery. +- Charles Babbage, Passage from the Life of a Philosopher +% +How many hardware guys does it take to change a light bulb? + +"Well the diagnostics say it's fine buddy, so it's a software problem." +% +"Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free +with my breakfast cereal." +- Zaphod Beeblebrox in "Hithiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +Uncompensated overtime? Just Say No. +% +Decaffeinated coffee? Just Say No. +% +"Show business is just like high school, except you get paid." +- Martin Mull +% +"This isn't brain surgery; it's just television." +- David Letterman +% +"Morality is one thing. Ratings are everything." +- A Network 23 executive on "Max Headroom" +% +Live free or die. +% +"...if the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust, + this would be a better world." - Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days" +% +Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too +dark to read. +% +"Probably the best operating system in the world is the [operating system] + made for the PDP-11 by Bell Laboratories." - Ted Nelson, October 1977 +% +"All these black people are screwing up my democracy." - Ian Smith +% +Use the Force, Luke. +% +I've got a bad feeling about this. +% +The power to destroy a planet is insignificant when compared to the power of +the Force. +- Darth Vader +% +When I left you, I was but the pupil. Now, I am the master. +- Darth Vader +% +"Well, well, well! Well if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in +poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come +and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarble, ya eunuch jelly thou!" +- Alex in "Clockwork Orange" +% +"There was nothing I hated more than to see a filthy old drunkie, a howling +away at the sons of his father and going blurp blurp in between as if it were +a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. I could never stand to +see anyone like that, especially when they were old like this one was." +- Alex in "Clockwork Orange" +% +186,000 Miles per Second. It's not just a good idea. IT'S THE LAW. +% +Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward. +% +Gee, Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. +% +Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, +if ever, do they forgive them. +- Oscar Wilde +% +Single tasking: Just Say No. +% +"Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world." +- The Beach Boys +% +"Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them +seemed to come from Texas." +- Ian Fleming, "Casino Royale" +% +"I think trash is the most important manifestation of culture we have in my +lifetime." +- Johnny Legend +% +By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials +(out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence +to creation-science, the general theory that complex life forms did not evolve +but appeared "abruptly." +- Newsweek, June 29, 1987, pg. 23 +% +Even if you can deceive people about a product through misleading statements, +sooner or later the product will speak for itself. +- Hajime Karatsu +% +In order to succeed in any enterprise, one must be persistent and patient. +Even if one has to run some risks, one must be brave and strong enough to +meet and overcome vexing challenges to maintain a successful business in +the long run. I cannot help saying that Americans lack this necessary +challenging spirit today. +- Hajime Karatsu +% +Memories of you remind me of you. +-- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Life. Don't talk to me about life. +- Marvin the Paranoid Android +% +On a clear disk you can seek forever. +% +The world is coming to an end--save your buffers! +% +grep me no patterns and I'll tell you no lines. +% +It is your destiny. +- Darth Vader +% +Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at +your side. +- Han Solo +% +How many QA engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? + +3: 1 to screw it in and 2 to say "I told you so" when it doesn't work. +% +How many NASA managers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? + +"That's a known problem... don't worry about it." +% +To be is to program. +% +To program is to be. +% +I program, therefore I am. +% +People are very flexible and learn to adjust to strange +surroundings -- they can become accustomed to read Lisp and +Fortran programs, for example. +- Leon Sterling and Ehud Shapiro, Art of Prolog, MIT Press +% +"I am your density." + -- George McFly in "Back to the Future" +% +"So why don't you make like a tree, and get outta here." + -- Biff in "Back to the Future" +% +"Falling in love makes smoking pot all day look like the ultimate in restraint." +-- Dave Sim, author of Cerebrus. +% +The existence of god implies a violation of causality. +% +"I may kid around about drugs, but really, I take them seriously." +- Doctor Graper +% +Operating-system software is the program that orchestrates all the basic +functions of a computer. +- The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, September 15, 1987, page 40 +% +I pledge allegiance to the flag +of the United States of America +and to the republic for which it stands, +one nation, +indivisible, +with liberty +and justice for all. +- Francis Bellamy, 1892 +% +People think my friend George is weird because he wears sideburns...behind his +ears. I think he's weird because he wears false teeth...with braces on them. +-- Steven Wright +% +My brother sent me a postcard the other day with this big sattelite photo of +the entire earth on it. On the back it said: "Wish you were here". + -- Steven Wright +% +You can't have everything... where would you put it? +-- Steven Wright +% +I was playing poker the other night... with Tarot cards. I got a full house and +4 people died. +-- Steven Wright +% +You know that feeling when you're leaning back on a stool and it starts to tip +over? Well, that's how I feel all the time. +-- Steven Wright +% +I came home the other night and tried to open the door with my car keys...and +the building started up. So I took it out for a drive. A cop pulled me over +for speeding. He asked me where I live... "Right here". +-- Steven Wright +% +"Live or die, I'll make a million." +-- Reebus Kneebus, before his jump to the center of the earth, Firesign Theater +% +The typical page layout program is nothing more than an electronic +light table for cutting and pasting documents. +% +There are bugs and then there are bugs. And then there are bugs. +-- Karl Lehenbauer +% +My computer can beat up your computer. +- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Kill Ugly Processor Architectures +- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Kill Ugly Radio +- Frank Zappa +% +"Just Say No." - Nancy Reagan + +"No." - Ronald Reagan +% +I believe that part of what propels science is the thirst for wonder. It's a +very powerful emotion. All children feel it. In a first grade classroom +everybody feels it; in a twelfth grade classroom almost nobody feels it, or +at least acknowledges it. Something happens between first and twelfth grade, +and it's not just puberty. Not only do the schools and the media not teach +much skepticism, there is also little encouragement of this stirring sense +of wonder. Science and pseudoscience both arouse that feeling. Poor +popularizations of science establish an ecological niche for pseudoscience. +- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 +% +If science were explained to the average person in a way that is accessible +and exciting, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But there is a kind +of Gresham's Law by which in popular culture the bad science drives out the +good. And for this I think we have to blame, first, the scientific community +ourselves for not doing a better job of popularizing science, and second, the +media, which are in this respect almost uniformly dreadful. Every newspaper +in America has a daily astrology column. How many have even a weekly +astronomy column? And I believe it is also the fault of the educational +system. We do not teach how to think. This is a very serious failure that +may even, in a world rigged with 60,000 nuclear weapons, compromise the human +future. +- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 +% +"I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And +in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the +additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true. +- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 +% +I'm often asked the question, "Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelli- +gence?" I give the standard arguments -- there are a lot of places out there, +and use the word *billions*, and so on. And then I say it would be astonishing +to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as +yet no compelling evidence for it. And then I'm asked, "Yeah, but what do you +really think?" I say, "I just told you what I really think." "Yeah, but +what's your gut feeling?" But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it's +okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in. +- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 +% +Repel them. Repel them. Induce them to relinquish the spheroid. +- Indiana University fans' chant for their perennially bad football team +% +If it's working, the diagnostics say it's fine. +If it's not working, the diagnostics say it's fine. +- A proposed addition to rules for realtime programming +% + It is either through the influence of narcotic potions, of which all +primitive peoples and races speak in hymns, or through the powerful approach +of spring, penetrating with joy all of nature, that those Dionysian stirrings +arise, which in their intensification lead the individual to forget himself +completely. . . .Not only does the bond between man and man come to be forged +once again by the magic of the Dionysian rite, but alienated, hostile, or +subjugated nature again celebrates her reconciliation with her prodigal son, +man. +- Fred Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy +% +The characteristic property of hallucinogens, to suspend the boundaries between +the experiencing self and the outer world in an ecstatic, emotional experience, +makes it posible with their help, and after suitable internal and external +perparation...to evoke a mystical experience according to plan, so to speak... +I see the true importance of LSD in the possibility of providing materail aid +to meditation aimed at the mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive +reality. Such a use accords entirely with the essence and working character +of LSD as a sacred drug. +- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD +% +I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis +pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only +by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, +dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a +new conciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the +experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate +nature and all of creation. +- Dr. Albert Hoffman +% +Deliberate provocation of mystical experience, particularly by LSD and related +hallucinogens, in contrast to spontaneous visionary experiences, entails +dangers that must not be underestimated. Practitioners must take into +account the peculiar effects of these substances, namely their ability to +influence our consciousness, the innermost essence of our being. The history +of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can +ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken +for a pleasure drug. Special internal and external advance preperations +are required; with them, an LSD experiment can become a meaningful +experience. +- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD +% +I believe that if people would learn to use LSD's vision-inducing capability +more wisely, under suitable conditions, in medical practice and in conjution +with meditation, then in the future this problem child could become a wonder +child. +- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD +% +In the realm of scientific observation, luck is granted only to those who are +prepared. +- Louis Pasteur +% +core error - bus dumped +% +If imprinted foil seal under cap is broken or missing when purchased, do not +use. +% +"Come on over here, baby, I want to do a thing with you." +- A Cop, arresting a non-groovy person after the revolution, Firesign Theater +% +"Ahead warp factor 1" +- Captain Kirk +% + Fiery energy lanced out, but the beams struck an intangible wall between +the Gubru and the rapidly turning Earth ship. + + "Water!" it shrieked as it read the spectral report. "A barrier of water +vapor! A civilized race could not have found such a trick in the Library! +A civilized race could not have stooped so low! A civilized race would not +have..." + + It screamed as the Gubru ship hit a cloud of drifting snowflakes. + +- Startide Rising, by David Brin +% +Harrison's Postulate: + For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. +% +Mr. Cole's Axiom: + The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; + the population is growing. +% +Felson's Law: + To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from + many is research. +% +...Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an +inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have +ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I +haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it. +There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between +prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have +looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice +is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious +mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you +may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you +have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged. +- Carl Sagan, The Burden of Skepticism, Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. 12, pg. 46 +% +If a person (a) is poorly, (b) receives treatment intended to make him better, +and (c) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can +convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health. +- Sir Peter Medawar, The Art of the Soluble +% +America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up. +- Oscar Wilde +% +Unix: Some say the learning curve is steep, but you only have to climb it once. +-- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Sometimes, too long is too long. +- Joe Crowe +% +When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, +an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. +- Edmund Burke +% +Behind all the political rhetoric being hurled at us from abroad, we are +bringing home one unassailable fact -- [terrorism is] a crime by any civilized +standard, committed against innocent people, away from the scene of political +conflict, and must be dealt with as a crime. . . . + [I]n our recognition of the nature of terrorism as a crime lies our best hope +of dealing with it. . . . + [L]et us use the tools that we have. Let us invoke the cooperation we have +the right to expect around the world, and with that cooperation let us shrink +the dark and dank areas of sanctuary until these cowardly marauders are held +to answer as criminals in an open and public trial for the crimes they have +committed, and receive the punishment they so richly deserve. +- William H. Webster, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 15 Oct 1985 +% +"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst." +- Thomas Paine +% +"I say we take off; nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." +- Corporal Hicks, in "Aliens" +% +"There is nothing so deadly as not to hold up to people the opportunity to +do great and wonderful things, if we wish to stimulate them in an active way." +- Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate in chemistry +% +"...proper attention to Earthly needs of the poor, the depressed and the +downtrodden, would naturally evolve from dynamic, articulate, spirited +awareness of the great goals for Man and the society he conspired to erect." +- David Baker, paraphrasing Harold Urey, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" +% +"Athens built the Acropolis. Corinth was a commercial city, interested in +purely materialistic things. Today we admire Athens, visit it, preserve the +old temples, yet we hardly ever set foot in Corinth." +- Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate in chemistry +% +"Largely because it is so tangible and exciting a program and as such will +serve to keep alive the interest and enthusiasm of the whole spectrum of +society...It is justified because...the program can give a sense of shared +adventure and achievement to the society at large." +- Dr. Colin S. Pittendrigh, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" +% +The challenge of space exploration and particularly of landing men on the moon +represents the greatest challenge which has ever faced the human race. Even +if there were no clear scientific or other arguments for proceeding with this +task, the whole history of our civilization would still impel men toward the +goal. In fact, the assembly of the scientific and military with these human +arguments creates such an overwhelming case that in can be ignored only by +those who are blind to the teachings of history, or who wish to suspend the +development of civilization at its moment of greatest opportunity and drama. +- Sir Bernard Lovell, 1962, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" +% +The idea of man leaving this earth and flying to another celestial body and +landing there and stepping out and walking over that body has a fascination +and a driving force that can get the country to a level of energy, ambition, +and will that I do not see in any other undertaking. I think if we are +honest with ourselves, we must admit that we needed that impetus extremely +strongly. I sincerely believe that the space program, with its manned +landing on the moon, if wisely executed, will become the spearhead for a +broad front of courageous and energetic activities in all the fields of +endeavour of the human mind - activities which could not be carried out +except in a mental climate of ambition and confidence which such a spearhead +can give. +- Dr. Martin Schwarzschild, 1962, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" +% +Human society - man in a group - rises out of its lethargy to new levels of +productivity only under the stimulus of deeply inspiring and commonly +appreciated goals. A lethargic world serves no cause well; a spirited world +working diligently toward earnestly desired goals provides the means and +the strength toward which many ends can be satisfied...to unparalleled +social accomplishment. +- Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" +% +The vigor of civilized societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high +aims are worth-while. Vigorous societies harbor a certain extravagance of +objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal +gratifications. All strong interests easily become impersonal, the love of +a good job well done. There is a sense of harmony about such an accomplishment, +the Peace brought by something worth-while. +- Alfred North Whitehead, 1963, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" +% +I do not believe that this generation of Americans is willing to resign itself +to going to bed each night by the light of a Communist moon... +- Lyndon B. Johnson +% +Life's the same, except for the shoes. +- The Cars +% +Purple hum +Assorted cars +Laser lights, you bring + +All to prove +You're on the move +and vanishing +- The Cars +% +Could be you're crossing the fine line +A silly driver kind of...off the wall + +You keep it cool when it's t-t-tight +...eyes wide open when you start to fall. +- The Cars +% +Adapt. Enjoy. Survive. +% +Were there fewer fools, knaves would starve. +- Anonymous +% +Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be +lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. +- Isaac Asimov +% +And the crowd was stilled. One elderly man, wondering at the sudden silence, +turned to the Child and asked him to repeat what he had said. Wide-eyed, +the Child raised his voice and said once again, "Why, the Emperor has no +clothes! He is naked!" +- "The Emperor's New Clothes" +% +"Those who believe in astrology are living in houses with foundations of +Silly Putty." +- Dennis Rawlins, astronomer +% +To date, the firm conclusions of Project Blue Book are: + 1. no unidentified flying object reported, investigated and evaluated + by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our + national security; + 2. there has been no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air + Force that sightings categorized as UNIDENTIFIED represent + technological developments or principles beyond the range of + present-day scientific knowledge; and + 3. there has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized + as UNIDENTIFIED are extraterrestrial vehicles. +- the summary of Project Blue Book, an Air Force study of UFOs from 1950 + to 1965, as quoted by James Randi in Flim-Flam! +% +Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their +hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, +without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only +in the God idea, not God Himself. +- Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish philosopher and writer +% +Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother. +- Kahlil Gibran +% +Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. +- Paul Tillich, German theologian and historian +% +Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. +- Voltaire +% +If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit +in my name at a Swiss Bank. +- Woody Allen +% +I cannot affirm God if I fail to affirm man. Therefore, I affirm both. +Without a belief in human unity I am hungry and incomplete. Human unity +is the fulfillment of diversity. It is the harmony of opposites. It is +a many-stranded texture, with color and depth. +- Norman Cousins +% +To downgrade the human mind is bad theology. +- C. K. Chesterton +% +...difference of opinion is advantageious in religion. The several sects +perform the office of a common censor morum over each other. Is uniformity +attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the +introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; +yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. +- Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on Virginia" +% +Life is a process, not a principle, a mystery to be lived, not a problem to +be solved. +- Gerard Straub, television producer and author (stolen from Frank Herbert??) +% +So we follow our wandering paths, and the very darkness acts as our guide and +our doubts serve to reassure us. +- Jean-Pierre de Caussade, eighteenth-century Jesuit priest +% +Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurence of the +improbable. +- H. L. Mencken +% +And do you not think that each of you women is an Eve? The judgement of God +upon your sex endures today; and with it invariably endures your position of +criminal at the bar of justice. +- Tertullian, second-century Christian writer, misogynist +% +I judge a religion as being good or bad based on whether its adherents +become better people as a result of practicing it. +- Joe Mullally, computer salesman +% +Imitation is the sincerest form of plagarism. +% +"Unibus timeout fatal trap program lost sorry" +- An error message printed by DEC's RSTS operating system for the PDP-11 +% +How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? + +One to hold the giraffe and one to fill the bathtub with brightly colored +power tools. +% +How many Bavarian Illuminati does it take to screw in a lightbulb? + +Three: one to screw it in, and one to confuse the issue. +% +How long does it take a DEC field service engineer to change a lightbulb? + +It depends on how many bad ones he brought with him. +% +It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. +It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. +- Thomas Jefferson +% +I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman +Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, +nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. +- Thomas Paine +% +God requireth not a uniformity of religion. +- Roger Williams +% +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 +% +Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us +restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which +liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect +that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which +mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we counternance a +political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and +bloody persecutions. +- Thomas Jefferson +% +I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature. +- Thomas Jefferson +% +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 +% +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 +% +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 +% +I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have +gotten the hostages released. I thank God they were satisfied with the +missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme. +- Oliver North +% +I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -- +where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) +how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom +to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or +political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely +because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the +people who might elect him. +- from John F. Kennedy's address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association + September 12, 1960. +% +The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only +opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts +at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of +knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest +days the church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every +effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and +everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad +laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an +apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings. +- H. L. Mencken +% +The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes -- that it +leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and confines itself to mere +effects -- this notion has no support in the plain facts. If it could, +science would explain the origin of life on earth at once--and there is +every reason to believe that it will do so on some not too remote tomorrow. +To argue that gaps in knowledge which will confront the seeker must be filled, +not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give +ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity.... +- H. L. Mencken, 1930 +% +The evidence of the emotions, save in cases where it has strong objective +support, is really no evidence at all, for every recognizable emotion has +its opposite, and if one points one way then another points the other way. +Thus the familiar argument that there is an instinctive desire for immortality, +and that this desire proves it to be a fact, becomes puerile when it is +recalled that there is also a powerful and widespread fear of annihilation, +and that this fear, on the same principle proves that there is nothing +beyond the grave. Such childish "proofs" are typically theological, and +they remain theological even when they are adduced by men who like to +flatter themselves by believing that they are scientific gents.... +- H. L. Mencken +% +There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, +however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. +Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be +discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator +on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is +even highly probable. +- H. L. Mencken, 1930 +% +The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and +fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are +drifting side by side to our common doom. +- Clarence Darrow +% +We're here to give you a computer, not a religion. +- attributed to Bob Pariseau, at the introduction of the Amiga +% +...there can be no public or private virtue unless the foundation of action is +the practice of truth. +- George Jacob Holyoake +% +"If you'll excuse me a minute, I'm going to have a cup of coffee." +- broadcast from Apollo 11's LEM, "Eagle", to Johnson Space Center, Houston + July 20, 1969, 7:27 P.M. +% +The meek are contesting the will. +% +I'm sick of being trodden on! The Elder Gods say they can make me a man! +All it costs is my soul! I'll do it, cuz NOW I'M MAD!!! +- Necronomicomics #1, Jack Herman & Jeff Dee +% + On Krat's main screen appeared the holo image of a man, and several dolphins. +From the man's shape, Krat could tell it was a female, probably their leader. + "...stupid creatures unworthy of the name `sophonts.' Foolish, pre-sentient +upspring of errant masters. We slip away from all your armed might, laughing +at your clumsiness! We slip away as we always will, you pathetic creatures. +And now that we have a real head start, you'll never catch us! What better +proof that the Progenitors favor not you, but us! What better proof..." + The taunt went on. Krat listened, enraged, yet at the same time savoring +the artistry of it. These men are better than I'd thought. Their insults +are wordy and overblown, but they have talent. They deserve honorable, slow +deaths. +- David Brin, Startide Rising +% +"I'm a mean green mother from outer space" + -- Audrey II, The Little Shop of Horrors +% +Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer. +It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who +watches over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide +people to follow His precepts -- there is just too much misery and +cruelty for that. On the other hand, I respect and envy the people +who get inspiration from their religions. +- Benjamin Spock +% +Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. +- Andy Finkel, computer guy +% +Being schizophrenic is better than living alone. +% +NOWPRINT. NOWPRINT. Clemclone, back to the shadows again. +- The Firesign Theater +% +Yes, many primitive people still believe this myth...But in today's technical +vastness of the future, we can guess that surely things were much different. +- The Firesign Theater +% +...this is an awesome sight. The entire rebel resistance buried under six +million hardbound copies of "The Naked Lunch." +- The Firesign Theater +% +We want to create puppets that pull their own strings. +- Ann Marion +% +I know engineers. They love to change things. +- Dr. McCoy +% +On our campus the UNIX system has proved to be not only an effective software +tool, but an agent of technical and social change within the University. +- John Lions (University of New South Wales) +% +Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. +- Henry Spencer, University of Toronto Unix hack +% +"You know why there are so few sophisticated computer terrorists in the United +States? Because your hackers have so much mobility into the establishment. +Here, there is no such mobility. If you have the slightest bit of intellectual +integrity you cannot support the government.... That's why the best computer +minds belong to the opposition." +- an anonymous member of the outlawed Polish trade union, Solidarity +% +"Every Solidarity center had piles and piles of paper .... everyone was +eating paper and a policeman was at the door. Now all you have to do is +bend a disk." +- an anonymous member of the outlawed Polish trade union, Solidarity, + commenting on the benefits of using computers in support of their movement +% +Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. +- Mark Twain +% +The sooner all the animals are extinct, the sooner we'll find their money. +- Ed Bluestone +% +He's dead, Jim. +% +New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. +- David Letterman +% +You can do more with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word. +- Al Capone +% +The fountain code has been tightened slightly so you can no longer dip objects +into a fountain or drink from one while you are floating in mid-air due to +levitation. + +Teleporting to hell via a teleportation trap will no longer occur if the +character does not have fire resistance. + +- README file from the NetHack game +% +Remember, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over. +- Frank Zappa +% +I think that all right-thinking people in this country are sick and +tired of being told that ordinary decent people are fed up in this +country with being sick and tired. I'm certainly not. But I'm +sick and tired of being told that I am. +- Monty Python +% +"There is no statute of limitations on stupidity." +-- Randomly produced by a computer program called Markov3. +% +There is a time in the tides of men, +Which, taken at its flood, leads on to success. +On the other hand, don't count on it. +- T. K. Lawson +% +To follow foolish precedents, and wink +With both our eyes, is easier than to think. +- William Cowper +% +It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters. +- Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. - A.D. 65) +% +One may be able to quibble about the quality of a single experiment, or +about the veracity of a given experimenter, but, taking all the supportive +experiments together, the weight of evidence is so strong as readily to +merit a wise man's reflection. +- Professor William Tiller, parapsychologist, Standford University, + commenting on psi research +% +Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced. +- John Keats +% +Your good nature will bring you unbounded happiness. +% +"Our journey toward the stars has progressed swiftly. + +In 1926 Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-propelled rocket, +achieving an altitude of 41 feet. In 1962 John Glenn orbited the earth. + +In 1969, only 66 years after Orville Wright flew two feet off the ground +for 12 seconds, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and I rocketed to the moon +in Apollo 11." +-- Michael Collins + Former astronaut and past Director of the National Air and Space Museum +% +Most people exhibit what political scientists call "the conservatism of the +peasantry." Don't lose what you've got. Don't change. Don't take a chance, +because you might end up starving to death. Play it safe. Buy just as much +as you need. Don't waste time. + +When we think about risk, human beings and corporations realize in their +heads that risks are necessary to grow, to survive. But when it comes down +to keeping good people when the crunch comes, or investing money in +something untried, only the brave reach deep into their pockets and play +the game as it must be played. + +- David Lammers, "Yakitori", Electronic Engineering Times, January 18, 1988 +% +"We can't schedule an orgy, it might be construed as fighting" +--Stanley Sutton +% +Weekends were made for programming. +- Karl Lehenbauer +% +"Once he had one leg in the White House and the nation trembled under his +roars. Now he is a tinpot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the +forlorn pastors who belabor halfwits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind +the railroad yards." +- H. L. Mencken, writing of William Jennings Bryan, counsel for the supporters + of Tennessee's anti-evolution law at the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in 1925. +% +...we must counterpose the overwhelming judgment provided by consistent +observations and inferences by the thousands. The earth is billions of +years old and its living creatures are linked by ties of evolutionary +descent. Scientists stand accused of promoting dogma by so stating, but +do we brand people illiberal when they proclaim that the earth is neither +flat nor at the center of the universe? Science *has* taught us some +things with confidence! Evolution on an ancient earth is as well +established as our planet's shape and position. Our continuing struggle +to understand how evolution happens (the "theory of evolution") does not +cast our documentation of its occurrence -- the "fact of evolution" -- +into doubt. +- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", The Skeptical Inquirer, + Vol XII No. 2 +% +This was the ultimate form of ostentation among technology freaks -- to have +a system so complete and sophisticated that nothing showed; no machines, +no wires, no controls. +- Michael Swanwick, "Vacuum Flowers" +% +Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our +pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs +and tears. ... It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires +us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us sleeplessness, +inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness and acts that are +contrary to habit... +- Hippocrates (c. 460-c. 377 B.C.), The Sacred Disease +% +Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural function +are perfectly correlated, that one is completely caused by the other. There is +no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a finger into the brain now and then and +make neural cells do what they would not otherwise. Actually, of course, this +is a working assumption only....It is quite conceivable that someday the +assumption will have to be rejected. But it is important also to see that we +have not reached that day yet: the working assumption is a necessary one and +there is no real evidence opposed to it. Our failure to solve a problem so +far does not make it insoluble. One cannot logically be a determinist in +physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology. +- D. O. Hebb, Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory, 1949 +% +Prevalent beliefs that knowledge can be tapped from previous incarnations or +from a "universal mind" (the repository of all past wisdom and creativity) +not only are implausible but also unfairly demean the stunning achievements +of individual human brains. +- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousness: Implications for Psi + Phenomena", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 163-171 +% +... Fortunately, the responsibility for providing evidence is on the part of +the person making the claim, not the critic. It is not the responsibility +of UFO skeptics to prove that a UFO has never existed, nor is it the +responsibility of paranormal-health-claims skeptics to prove that crystals +or colored lights never healed anyone. The skeptic's role is to point out +claims that are not adequately supported by acceptable evidcence and to +provide plausible alternative explanations that are more in keeping with +the accepted body of scientific evidence. ... +- Thomas L. Creed, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, pg. 215 +% +"Ada is the work of an architect, not a computer scientist." +- Jean Icbiah, inventor of Ada, weenie +% +Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. There are many examples of +outsiders who eventually overthrew entrenched scientific orthodoxies, but +they prevailed with irrefutable data. More often, egregious findings that +contradict well-established research turn out to be artifacts. I have +argued that accepting psychic powers, reincarnation, "cosmic conciousness," +and the like, would entail fundamental revisions of the foundations of +neuroscience. Before abandoning materialist theories of mind that have paid +handsome dividends, we should insist on better evidence for psi phenomena +than presently exists, especially when neurology and psychology themselves +offer more plausible alternatives. +- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Conciousness: Implications for Psi + Phenomena", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 163-171 +% +Evolution is a bankrupt speculative philosophy, not a scientific fact. +Only a spiritually bankrupt society could ever believe it. ... Only +atheists could accept this Satanic theory. +- Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, "The Pre-Adamic Creation and Evolution" +% +Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around +the sun. At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when +evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person +can doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact. That all +present life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic +time, is as firmly established as Copernican cosmology. Biologists differ +only with respect to theories about how the process operates. +- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life", + The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 128-131 +% +...It is sad to find him belaboring the science community for its united +opposition to ignorant creationists who want teachers and textbooks to +give equal time to crank arguments that have advanced not a step beyond +the flyblown rhetoric of Bishop Wilberforce and William Jennings Bryan. +- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life", + The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 128-131 +% +... The book is worth attention for only two reasons: (1) it attacks +attempts to expose sham paranormal studies; and (2) it is very well and +plausibly written and so rather harder to dismiss or refute by simple +jeering. +- Harry Eagar, reviewing "Beyond the Quantum" by Michael Talbot, + The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 200-201 +% +Now I lay me down to sleep +I hear the sirens in the street +All my dreams are made of chrome +I have no way to get back home +- Tom Waits +% +I am here by the will of the people and I won't leave until I get my raincoat +back. +- a slogan of the anarchists in Richard Kadrey's "Metrophage" +% +How many nuclear engineers does it take to change a light bulb ? + +Seven: One to install the new bulb, and six to determine what to do + with the old one for the next 10,000 years. +% +Mike's Law: +For a lumber company employing two men and a cut-off saw, the +marginal product of labor for any number of additional workers +equals zero until the acquisition of another cut-off saw. +Let's not even consider a chainsaw. +- Mike Dennison +[You could always schedule the saw, though - ed.] +% +As long as we're going to reinvent the wheel again, we might as well try making +it round this time. +- Mike Dennison +% +This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms +industry is now in the American experience... We must not fail to +comprehend its grave implications... We must guard against the +acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military-industrial +complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power +exists and will persist. +- Dwight D. Eisenhower, from his farewell address in 1961 +% +This restaurant was advertising breakfast any time. So I ordered +french toast in the renaissance. +- Steven Wright, comedian +% +Everyone has a purpose in life. Perhaps yours is watching television. +- David Letterman +% +A lot of the stuff I do is so minimal, and it's designed to be minimal. +The smallness of it is what's attractive. It's weird, 'cause it's so +intellectually lame. It's hard to see me doing that for the rest of +my life. But at the same time, it's what I do best. +- Chris Elliot, writer and performer on "Late Night with David Letterman" +% +e-credibility: the non-guaranteeable likelihood that the electronic data +you're seeing is genuine rather than somebody's made-up crap. +- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Whenever people agree with me, I always think I must be wrong. +- Oscar Wilde +% +My mother is a fish. +- William Faulkner +% +The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it +seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the +fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving +after rational knowledge. +- Albert Einstein +% +The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events, the firmer +becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered +regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of +human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural +events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural +events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this +doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge +has not yet been able to set foot. + +But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives +of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which +is able to maintain itself not in clear light, but only in the dark, will +of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human +progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion +must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, +give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast +powers in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail +themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the +True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more +difficult but an incomparably more worthy task. +- Albert Einstein +% +Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, +recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one +particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people. +- Eleanor Roosevelt +% +Most non-Catholics know that the Catholic schools are rendering a greater +service to our nation than the public schools in which subversive textbooks +have been used, in which Communist-minded teachers have taught, and from +whose classrooms Christ and even God Himself are barred. +- from "Our Sunday Visitor", an American-Catholic newspaper, 1949 +% +Those of us who believe in the right of any human being to belong to whatever +church he sees fit, and to worship God in his own way, cannot be accused +of prejudice when we do not want to see public education connected with +religious control of the schools, which are paid for by taxpayers' money. +- Eleanor Roosevelt +% +Spiritual leadership should remain spiritual leadership and the temporal +power should not become too important in any church. +- Eleanor Roosevelt +% +Truth has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind... +- Percy Bysshe Shelley +% +If atheism is to be used to express the state of mind in which God is +identified with the unknowable, and theology is pronounced to be a +collection of meaningless words about unintelligible chimeras, then +I have no doubt, and I think few people doubt, that atheists are as +plentiful as blackberries... +- Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), literary essayist, author +% +It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon +insufficient evidence. +- W. K. Clifford, British philosopher, circa 1876 +% +Why, when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate problem is +wrapped in the profoundest mystery, do honest men proclaim in pulpits +that unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and ignorant? +Is it not a spectacle to make the angels laugh? We are a company of +ignorant beings, feeling our way through mists and darkness, learning only +be incessantly repeated blunders, obtaining a glimmering of truth by +falling into every conceivable error, dimly discerning light enough for +our daily needs, but hopelessly differing whenever we attempt to describe +the ultimate origin or end of our paths; and yet, when one of us ventures +to declare that we don't know the map of the universe as well as the map +of our infintesimal parish, he is hooted, reviled, and perhaps told that +he will be damned to all eternity for his faithlessness... +- Leslie Stephen, "An agnostic's Apology", Fortnightly Review, 1876 +% +Till then we shall be content to admit openly, what you (religionists) +whisper under your breath or hide in technical jargon, that the ancient +secret is a secret still; that man knows nothing of the Infinite and +Absolute; and that, knowing nothing, he had better not be dogmatic about +his ignorance. And, meanwhile, we will endeavour to be as charitable as +possible, and whilst you trumpet forth officially your contempt for our +skepticism, we will at least try to believe that you are imposed upon +by your own bluster. +- Leslie Stephen, "An agnostic's Apology", Fortnightly Review, 1876 +% +Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. +- Voltaire +% +What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed +of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- +that is the first law of nature. +- Voltaire +% +It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because +he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. +- Voltaire +% +I simply try to aid in letting the light of historical truth into that +decaying mass of outworn thought which attaches the modern world to +medieval conceptions of Christianity, and which still lingers among us -- +a most serious barrier to religion and morals, and a menace to the whole +normal evolution of society. +- Andrew D. White, author, first president of Cornell University, 1896 +% +The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be.... The +natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience +only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. +- Adam Smith +% +I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis +socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think +you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a +very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible. These days, +though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to +crudeness. +- Johnny Mnemonic, by William Gibson +% +However, on religious issures there can be little or no compromise. +There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious +beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than +Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. +But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf +should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing +throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. +They are trying to force government leaders into following their position +100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a +particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of +money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political +preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be +a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." Just who do +they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the +right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as +a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who +thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll +call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every +step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all +Americans in the name of "conservatism." +- Senator Barry Goldwater, from the Congressional Record, September 16, 1981 +% +"I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell's ass." +- Senator Barry Goldwater, when asked what he thought of Jerry Falwell's +suggestion that all good Christians should be against Sandra Day O'Connor's +nomination to the Supreme Court +% +...And no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers. No matter how assured +we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful +inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions. This is true in religion as +it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except fanatics and the naive. +As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in our own time, we might be +advised to leave them to heaven. They will not, unfortunately, do us the +same courtesy. They attack us and each other, and whatever their +protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody record of history makes clear +that they are easily disposed to restore to the sword. My own belief in +God, then, is just that -- a matter of belief, not knowledge. My respect +for Jesus Christ arises from the fact that He seems to have been the +most virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth. But even well-educated Christians +are frustated in their thirst for certainty about the beloved figure +of Jesus because of the undeniable ambiguity of the scriptural record. +Such ambiguity is not apparent to children or fanatics, but every +recognized Bible scholar is perfectly aware of it. Some Christians, alas, +resort to formal lying to obscure such reality. +- Steve Allen, comdeian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of + Conviction", edited by Philip Berman +% +...it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs about the +existence of God in any recognizable sense continuous with the great +systems of the past, religious doctrines constitute a speculative +hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability. +- Sidney Hook +% +A fanatic is a person who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. +- Winston Churchill +% +We're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism... +we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying +our nation today...our battle is with Satan himself. +- Jerry Falwell +% +They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach +of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions +of the duperies on which they live. +- Thomas Jefferson +% +Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proven innocent. +- George Orwell +% +As I argued in "Beloved Son", a book about my son Brian and the subject +of religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction +in the methods of rational thought will be to make sudden mindless +conversions -- to anything -- less likely. Brian now realizes this and +has, after eleven years, left the sect he was associated with. The +problem is that once the untrained mind has made a formal commitment to +a religious philosophy -- and it does not matter whether that philosophy +is generally reasonable and high-minded or utterly bizarre and +irrational -- the powers of reason are suprisingly ineffective in +changing the believer's mind. +- Steve Allen, comdeian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of + Conviction", edited by Philip Berman +% +Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult +than to understand him. +- Fyodor Dostoevski +% +We may not be able to persuade Hindus that Jesus and not Vishnu should +govern their spiritual horizon, nor Moslems that Lord Buddha is at the +center of their spiritual universe, nor Hebrews that Mohammed is a major +prohpet, nor Christians that Shinto best expresses their spiritual +concerns, to say nothing of the fact that we may not be able to get +Christians to agree among themselves about their relationship to God. +But all will agree on a proposition that they possess profound spiritual +resources. If, in addition, we can get them to accept the further +proposition that whatever form the Deity may have in their own theology, +the Deity is not only external, but internal and acts through them, and +they themselves give proof or disproof of the Deity in what they do and +think; if this further proposition can be accepted, then we come that +much closer to a truly religious situation on earth. +- Norman Cousins, from his book "Human Options" +% +The Messiah will come. There will be a resurrection of the dead -- all +the things that Jews believed in before they got so damn sophisticated. +- Rabbi Meir Kahane +% +The world is no nursery. +- Sigmund Freud +% +If one inquires why the American tradition is so strong against any +connection of State and Church, why it dreads even the rudiments of +religious teaching in state-maintained schools, the immediate and +superficial answer is not far to seek.... +The cause lay largely in the diversity and vitality of the various +denominations, each fairly sure that, with a fair field and no favor, +it could make its own way; and each animated by a jealous fear that, +if any connection of State and Church were permitted, some rival +denomination would get an unfair advantage. +- John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher, + from "Democracy in the Schools", 1908 +% +Already the spirit of our schooling is permeated with the feeling that +every subject, every topic, every fact, every professed truth must be +submitted to a certain publicity and impartiality. All proffered +samples of learning must go to the same assay-room and be subjected to +common tests. It is the essence of all dogmatic faiths to hold that +any such "show-down" is sacrilegious and perverse. The characteristic +of religion, from their point of view, is that it is intellectually +secret, not public; peculiarly revealed, not generall known; +authoritatively declared, not communicated and tested in ordinary +ways...It is pertinent to point out that, as long as religion is +conceived as it is now by the great majority of professed religionists, +there is something self-contradictory in speaking of education in +religion in the same sense in which we speak of education in topics +where the method of free inquiry has made its way. The "religious" +would be the last to be willing that either the history of the +content of religion should be taught in this spirit; while those +to whom the scientific standpoint is not merely a technical device, +but is the embodiment of the integrity of mind, must protest against +its being taught in any other spirit. +- John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher, + from "Democracy in the Schools", 1908 +% +In the broad and final sense all institutions are educational in the +sense that they operate to form the attitudes, dispositions, abilities +and disabilities that constitute a concrete personality...Whether this +educative process is carried on in a predominantly democratic or non- +democratic way becomes, therefore, a question of transcendent importance +not only for education itself but for its final effect upon all the +interests and activites of a society that is committed to the democratic +way of life. +- John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher +% +History shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, +periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts +them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing +grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another... +Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every +moult is a step gained. +- Charles Darwin, from "Origin of the Species" +% +...I would go so far as to suggest that, were it not for our ego and +concern to be different, the African apes would be included in our +family, the Hominidae. +- Richard Leakey +% +It is inconceivable that a judicious observer from another solar system +would see in our species -- which has tended to be cruel, destructive, +wasteful, and irrational -- the crown and apex of cosmic evolution. +Viewing us as the culmination of *anything* is grotesque; viewing us +as a transitional species makes more sense -- and gives us more hope. +- Betty McCollister, "Our Transitional Species", + Free Inquiry magazine, Vol. 8, No. 1 +% +"Well, you see, it's such a transitional creature. It's a piss-poor +reptile and not very much of a bird." +- Melvin Konner, from "The Tangled Wing", quoting a zoologist who has +studied the archeopteryz and found it "very much like people" +% +"You need tender loving care once a week - so that I can slap you into shape." +- Ellyn Mustard +% +"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God but to + create him." + -Arthur C. Clarke +% +"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" + -Ronald Reagan +% +"There is nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things + we don't know yet." + -Ambrose Bierce +% +"Plan to throw one away. You will anyway." +- Fred Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" +% +You need tender loving care once a week - so that I can slap you into shape. +- Ellyn Mustard +% +"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God but to + create him." + -Arthur C. Clarke +% +"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" + -Ronald Reagan +% +"There is nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things + we don't know yet." + -Ambrose Bierce +% +The Middle East is certainly the nexus of turmoil for a long time to come -- +with shifting players, but the same game: upheaval. I think we will be +confronting militant Islam -- particularly fallout from the Iranian +revolution -- and religion will once more, as it has in our own more +distant past -- play a role at least as standard-bearer in death and mayhem. +- Bobby R. Inman, Admiral, USN, Retired, former director of Naval Intelligence, + vice director of the DIA, former director of the NSA, deputy director of + Central Intelligence, former chairman and CEO of MCC. +% +...One thing is that, unlike any other Western democracy that I know of, +this country has operated since its beginnings with a basic distrust of +government. We are constituted not for efficient operation of government, +but for minimizing the possibility of abuse of power. It took the events +of the Roosevelt era -- a catastrophic economic collapse and a world war -- +to introduce the strong central government that we now know. But in most +parts of the country today, the reluctance to have government is still +strong. I think, barring a series of catastrophic events, that we can +look to at least another decade during which many of the big problems +around this country will have to be addressed by institutions other than +federal government. +- Bobby R. Inman, Admiral, USN, Retired, former director of Naval Intelligence, + vice director of the DIA, former director of the NSA, deputy directory of + Central Intelligence, former chairman and CEO of MCC. +[the statist opinions expressed herein are not those of the cookie editor -ed.] +% +"I have just one word for you, my boy...plastics." +- from "The Graduate" +% +"There is such a fine line between genius and stupidity." +- David St. Hubbins, "Spinal Tap" +% +"If Diet Coke did not exist it would have been neccessary to invent it." +-- Karl Lehenbauer +% +I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by men who +are equally certain that they represent the divine will. I am sure that +either the one or the other is mistaken in the belief, and perhaps in some +respects, both. + +I hope it will not be irreverent of me to say that if it is probable that +God would reveal his will to others on a point so connected with my duty, +it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me. +- Abraham Lincoln +% +In space, no one can hear you fart. +% +Brain damage is all in your head. +-- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Wish and hope succeed in discerning signs of paranormality where reason and +careful scientific procedure fail. +- James E. Alcock, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12 +% +"It is better to have tried and failed than to have failed to try, but +the result's the same." +- Mike Dennison +% +"Creation science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple +and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and +because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be +more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our +entire intellectualy heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing +honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment +to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any +general understanding of science as an enterprise? +-- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Skeptical Inquirer", Vol. 12, page 186 +% +It is not well to be thought of as one who meekly submits to insolence and +intimidation. +% +"Regardless of the legal speed limit, your Buick must be operated at +speeds faster than 85 MPH (140kph)." +-- 1987 Buick Grand National owners manual. +% +"Your attitude determines your attitude." +-- Zig Ziglar, self-improvement doofus +% +In arguing that current theories of brain function cast suspicion on ESP, +psychokinesis, reincarnation, and so on, I am frequently challenged with +the most popular of all neuro-mythologies -- the notion that we ordinarily +use only 10 percent of our brains... + +This "cerebral spare tire" concept continues to nourish the clientele of +"pop psychologists" and their many recycling self-improvement schemes. As +a metaphor for the fact that few of us fully exploit our talents, who could +deny it? As a refuge for occultists seeking a neural basis of the miraculous, +it leaves much to be desired. +-- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousness: Implications for + Psi Phenomena", The Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2, pg. 171 +% +Thufir's a Harkonnen now. +% +"By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other +designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun." +-- P. J. Plauger, from his April Fool's column in April 88's "Computer Language" +% +"If you want to eat hippopatomus, you've got to pay the freight." +-- attributed to an IBM guy, about why IBM software uses so much memory +% +Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time alloted it. +% +Karl's version of Parkinson's Law: Work expands to exceed the time alloted it. +% +It is better to never have tried anything than to have tried something and +failed. +- motto of jerks, weenies and losers everywhere +% +"Our journeys to the stars will be made on spaceships created by determined, +hardworking scientists and engineers applying the principles of science, not +aboard flying saucers piloted by little gray aliens from some other dimension." +-- Robert A. Baker, "The Aliens Among Us: Hypnotic Regression Revisited", + The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2 +% +"...all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned products, +if they are built at all, are dogs!" +-- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac", MIT Press, 1987 +% +"To take a significant step forward, you must make a series of finite +improvements." +-- Donald J. Atwood, General Motors +% +"We will bury you." +-- Nikita Kruschev +% +"Now here's something you're really going to like!" +-- Rocket J. Squirrel +% +"How to make a million dollars: First, get a million dollars." +-- Steve Martin +% +"Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about." +-- B. L. Whorf +% +The language provides a programmer with a set of conceptual tools; if these are +inadequate for the task, they will simply be ignored. For example, seriously +restricting the concept of a pointer simply forces the programmer to use a +vector plus integer arithmetic to implement structures, pointer, etc. Good +design and the absence of errors cannot be guaranteed by mere language +features. +-- Bjarne Stroustrup, "The C++ Programming Language" +% +"For the love of phlegm...a stupid wall of death rays. How tacky can ya get?" +- Post Brothers comics +% +"Bureaucracy is the enemy of innovation." +-- Mark Shepherd, former President and CEO of Texas Instruments +% +"An organization dries up if you don't challenge it with growth." +-- Mark Shepherd, former President and CEO of Texas Instruments +% +"I've seen it. It's rubbish." +-- Marvin the Paranoid Android +% +Our business is run on trust. We trust you will pay in advance. +% +"Infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have at all times +been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice." +-- Robert Green Ingersoll +% +The history of the rise of Christianity has everything to do with politics, +culture, and human frailties and nothing to do with supernatural manipulation +of events. Had divine intervention been the guiding force, surely two +millennia after the birth of Jesus he would not have a world where there +are more Muslims than Catholics, more Hindus than Protestants, and more +nontheists than Catholics and Protestants combined. +-- John K. Naland, "The First Easter", Free Inquiry magazine, Vol. 8, No. 2 +% +I find you lack of faith in the forth dithturbing. +- Darse ("Darth") Vader +% +"All Bibles are man-made." +-- Thomas Edison +% +"Spock, did you see the looks on their faces?" +"Yes, Captain, a sort of vacant contentment." +% +"The triumph of libertarian anarchy is nearly (in historical terms) at +hand... *if* we can keep the Left from selling us into slavery and the +Right from blowing us up for, say, the next twenty years." +-- Eric Rayman, usenet guy, about nanotechnology +% +"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love." +-- Albert Einstein +% +"I think Michael is like litmus paper - he's always trying to learn." +-- Elizabeth Taylor, absurd non-sequitir about Michael Jackson +% +While it cannot be proved retrospectively that any experience of possession, +conversion, revelation, or divine ecstasy was merely an epileptic discharge, +we must ask how one differentiates "real transcendence" from neuropathies +that produce the same extreme realness, profundity, ineffability, and sense +of cosmic unity. When accounts of sudden religious conversions in TLEs +[temporal-lobe epileptics] are laid alongside the epiphanous revelations of +the religious tradition, the parallels are striking. The same is true of the +recent spate of alleged UFO abductees. Parsimony alone argues against invoking +spirits, demons, or extraterrestrials when natural causes will suffice. +-- Barry L. Beyerstein, "Neuropathology and the Legacy of Spiritual + Possession", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 3, pg. 255 +% +"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on." +- Samuel Goldwyn +% +"We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement." +-- Richard J. Daley +% +"With molasses you catch flies, with vinegar you catch nobody." +-- Baltimore City Councilman Dominic DiPietro +% +"Lead us in a few words of silent prayer." +-- Bill Peterson, former Houston Oiler football coach +% +"I couldn't remember things until I took that Sam Carnegie course." +-- Bill Peterson, former Houston Oiler football coach +% +"Right now I feel that I've got my feet on the ground as far as my head +is concerned." +-- Baseball pitcher Bo Belinsky +% +"Ninety percent of baseball is half mental." +-- Yogi Berra +% +Two things are certain about science. It does not stand still for long, +and it is never boring. Oh, among some poor souls, including even +intellectuals in fields of high scholarship, science is frequently +misperceived. Many see it as only a body of facts, promulgated from +on high in must, unintelligible textbooks, a collection of unchanging +precepts defended with authoritarian vigor. Others view it as nothing +but a cold, dry narrow, plodding, rule-bound process -- the scientific +method: hidebound, linear, and left brained. + +These people are the victims of their own stereotypes. They are +destined to view the world of science with a set of blinders. They +know nothing of the tumult, cacophony, rambunctiousness, and +tendentiousness of the actual scientific process, let alone the +creativity, passion, and joy of discovery. And they are likely to +know little of the continual procession of new insights and discoveries +that every day, in some way, change our view (if not theirs) of the +natural world. + +-- Kendrick Frazier, "The Year in Science: An Overview," in + 1988 Yearbook of Science and the Future, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. +% +"jackpot: you may have an unneccessary change record" +-- message from "diff" +% +"One lawyer can steal more than a hundred men with guns." +-- The Godfather +% +What's the difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman? + +A used car salesman knows when he's lying. +% +"Those who will be able to conquer software will be able to conquer the +world." +-- Tadahiro Sekimoto, president, NEC Corp. +% +"There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent +to a gang bent on destruction." +-- John Cage, composer +% +"I believe the use of noise to make music will increase until we reach a +music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make +available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard." +-- composer John Cage, 1937 +% +I did cancel one performance in Holland where they thought my music was so easy +that they didn't rehearse at all. And so the first time when I found that out, +I rehearsed the orchestra myself in front of the audience of 3,000 people and +the next day I rehearsed through the second movement -- this was the piece +_Cheap Imitation_ -- and they then were ashamed. The Dutch people were ashamed +and they invited me to come to the Holland festival and they promised to +rehearse. And when I got to Amsterdam they had changed the orchestra, and +again, they hadn't rehearsed. So they were no more prepared the second time +than they had been the first. I gave them a lecture and told them to cancel +the performance; they then said over the radio that i had insisted on their +cancelling the performance because they were "insufficiently Zen." +Can you believe it? +-- composer John Cage, "Electronic Musician" magazine, March 88, pg. 89 +% +"One day I woke up and discovered that I was in love with tripe." +-- Tom Anderson +% +"Most people would like to be delivered from + temptation but would like it to keep in touch." +-- Robert Orben +% +The rule on staying alive as a program manager is to give 'em a number or +give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once. +% +An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; +a pessimist fears this is true. +% +"If John Madden steps outside on February 2, looks down, and doesn't see his +feet, we'll have 6 more weeks of Pro football." +-- Chuck Newcombe +% +Dead? No excuse for laying off work. +% +Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself. +% +"When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic." +-- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +"Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries." +-- William George Jordan +% +"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." +-- George Bernard Shaw +% +"Flattery is all right -- if you don't inhale." +-- Adlai Stevenson +% +"Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago." +-- Bernard Berenson +% +"Summit meetings tend to be like panda matings. The expectations are always +high, and the results usually disappointing." +-- Robert Orben +% +"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging +their prejudices." +-- William James +% +"Tell the truth and run." +-- Yugoslav proverb +% +"The best index to a person's character is a) how he treats people who can't +do him any good and b) how he treats people who can't fight back." +-- Abigail Van Buren +% +"Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning." +-- Marlo Thomas +% +"Life is a garment we continuously alter, but which never seems to fit." +-- David McCord +% +"The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children +produce adults." +-- Peter De Vries +% +"It is easier to fight for principles than to live up to them." +-- Alfred Adler +% +"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature... Life is +either a daring adventure or nothing." +-- Helen Keller +% +"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is +shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." +-- Albert Einstein +% +"Success covers a multitude of blunders." +-- George Bernard Shaw +% +"The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while +the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." +-- William Stekel +% +"Yes, and I feel bad about rendering their useless carci into dogfood..." +-- Badger comics +% +"Is it really you, Fuzz, or is it Memorex, or is it radiation sickness?" +-- Sonic Disruptors comics +% +"Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up reasons +for it afterwards." +-- Soren F. Petersen +% +"You're a creature of the night, Michael. Wait'll Mom hears about this." +-- from the movie "The Lost Boys" +% +"Plastic gun. Ingenious. More coffee, please." +-- The Phantom comics +% +The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words +return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy. +% +If at first you don't succeed, you are running about average. +% +"A child is a person who can't understand why someone would give away a +perfectly good kitten." +-- Doug Larson +% +"The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody +appreciates how difficult it was." +-- Walt West +% +"Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone." +-- G. B. Stearn +% +"In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with +the current." +-- Thomas Jefferson +% +The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to +the left. +% +"But this one goes to eleven." +-- Nigel Tufnel +% +"Been through Hell? Whaddya bring back for me?" +-- A. Brilliant +% +"I don't know what their + gripe is. A critic is + simply someone paid to + render opinions glibly." + "Critics are grinks and + groinks." +-- Baron and Badger, from Badger comics +% +"I've got some amyls. We could either party later or, like, start his heart." +-- "Cheech and Chong's Next Movie" +% +"Israel today announced that it is giving up. The Zionist state will dissolve +in two weeks time, and its citizens will disperse to various resort communities +around the world. Said Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, 'Who needs the +aggravation?'" +-- Dennis Miller, "Satuday Night Live" News +% +"And, of course, you have the commercials where savvy businesspeople Get Ahead +by using their MacIntosh computers to create the ultimate American business +product: a really sharp-looking report." +-- Dave Barry +% +SHOP OR DIE, people of Earth! +[offer void where prohibited] +-- Capitalists from outer space, from Justice League Int'l comics +% +"Roman Polanski makes his own blood. He's smart -- that's why his movies work." +-- A brilliant director at "Frank's Place" +% +"The following is not for the weak of heart or Fundamentalists." +-- Dave Barry +% +"I take Him shopping with me. I say, 'OK, Jesus, help me find a bargain'" +--Tammy Faye Bakker +% +Gary Hart: living proof that you *can* screw your brains out. +% +Blessed be those who initiate lively discussions with the hopelessly mute, +for they shall be know as Dentists. +% +"I don't believe in sweeping social change being manifested by one person, +unless he has an atomic weapon." +-- Howard Chaykin +% +"Ever free-climbed a thousand foot vertical cliff with 60 pounds of gear +strapped to your butt?" + "No." +"'Course you haven't, you fruit-loop little geek." +-- The Mountain Man, one of Dana Carvey's SNL characters +[ditto] +% +"I mean, like, I just read your article in the Yale law recipe, on search and +seizure. Man, that was really Out There." + "I was so WRECKED when I wrote that..." +-- John Lovitz, as ex-Supreme Court nominee Alan Ginsburg, on SNL +% +"Hi, I'm Professor Alan Ginsburg... But you can call me... Captain Toke." +-- John Lovitz, as ex-Supreme Court nominee Alan Ginsburg, on SNL +% +It's great to be smart 'cause then you know stuff. +% +"Time is money and money can't buy you love and I love your outfit" +- T.H.U.N.D.E.R. #1 +% +"Can't you just gesture hypnotically and make him disappear?" + "It does not work that way. RUN!" +-- Hadji on metaphyics and Mandrake in "Johnny Quest" +% +"You shouldn't make my toaster angry." +-- Household security explained in "Johnny Quest" +% + "Someone's been mean to you! Tell me who it is, so I can punch him tastefully." +-- Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse +% +"And kids... learn something from Susie and Eddie. + If you think there's a maniacal psycho-geek in the + basement: + 1) Don't give him a chance to hit you on the + head with an axe! + 2) Flee the premises... even if you're in your + underwear. + 3) Warn the neighbors and call the police. + But whatever else you do... DON'T GO DOWN IN THE DAMN BASEMENT!" +-- Saturday Night Live meets Friday the 13th +% +Victory or defeat! +% +"Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion." +-- Harlan Ellison +% +"It's curtains for you, Mighty Mouse! This gun is so futuristic that even +*I* don't know how it works!" +-- from Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse +% +"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." +-- George Carlin +% +A university faculty is 500 egotists with a common parking problem. +% + "Daddy, Daddy, make + Santa Claus go away!" + "I can't, son; + he's grown too + powerful." + "HO HO HO!" +-- Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre +% +"If it's not loud, it doesn't work!" +-- Blank Reg, from "Max Headroom" +% +"Remember kids, if there's a loaded gun in the room, be sure that you're the +one holding it" +-- Captain Combat +% +Delta: We never make the same mistake three times. -- David Letterman +% +Delta: A real man lands where he wants to. -- David Letterman +% +Delta: The kids will love our inflatable slides. -- David Letterman +% +Delta: We're Amtrak with wings. -- David Letterman +% +"Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what is +good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +"Hello again, Peabody here..." +-- Mister Peabody +% +"It's the best thing since professional golfers on 'ludes." +-- Rick Obidiah +% +"To your left is the marina where several senior cabinet officials keep luxury +yachts for weekend cruises on the Potomac. Some of these ships are up to 100 +feet in length; the Presidential yacht is over 200 feet in length, and can +remain submerged for up to 3 weeks." +-- Garrison Keillor +% +"Well, social relevance is a schtick, like mysteries, social relevance, +science fiction..." +-- Art Spiegelman +% +"One of the problems I've always had with propaganda pamphlets is that they're +real boring to look at. They're just badly designed. People from the left +often are very well-intended, but they never had time to take basic design +classes, you know?" +-- Art Spiegelman +% +"If you took everyone who's ever been to a Dead + show, and lined them up, they'd stretch halfway to + the moon and back... and none of them would be + complaining." +-- a local Deadhead in the Seattle Times +% +"And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb." +-- Spaceballs +% +Why are many scientists using lawyers for medical +experiments instead of rats? + + a) There are more lawyers than rats. + b) The scientist's don't become as + emotionally attached to them. + c) There are some things that even rats + won't do for money. +% + "During the race + We may eat your dust, + But when you graduate, + You'll work for us." + -- Reed College cheer +% +Pohl's law: + Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it. +% +Pig: An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race by the +splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, +for it balks at pig. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +"We don't have to protect the environment -- the Second Coming is at hand." +-- James Watt +% +"I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this + country what it once was... an arctic wilderness." +-- Steve Martin +% +"To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition." +-- Woody Allen +% +Noncombatant: A dead Quaker. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +"There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it +is I'll get married again." +-- Clint Eastwood +% +A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. +I believe everything positively stinks. +-- Lew Col +% +Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job? +A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. +% +Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock. +% +Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: + Experience is directly proportional to the + amount of equipment ruined. +% +Captain Penny's Law: + You can fool all of the people some of the + time, and some of the people all of the + time, but you can't fool mom. +% +"Because he's a character who's looking for his own identity, [He-Man is] +an interesting role for an actor." +-- Dolph Lundgren, "actor" +% +"If Jesus came back today, and saw what was going on in his name, he'd never +stop throwing up." +-- Max Von Sydow's character in "Hannah and Her Sisters" +% +"Nietzsche says that we will live the same life, over and over again. +God -- I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again." +-- Woody Allen's character in "Hannah and Her Sisters" +% +"In regards to Oral Roberts' claim that God told him that he would die unless he + received $20 million by March, God's lawyers have stated that their client has + not spoken with Roberts for several years. Off the record, God has stated that + "If I had wanted to ice the little toad, I would have done it a long time ago." +-- Dennis Miller, SNL News +% +"Only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core." +-- Hannah Arendt. +% +Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi. +(What Jove may do, is not permitted to a cow.) +% +"I distrust a man who says 'when.' If he's got to be careful not to drink too +much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does." +-- Sidney Greenstreet, _The Maltese Falcon_ +% +"I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk +and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously, +unless you keep in practice. Now, sir, we'll talk if you like. I'll tell +you right out, I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk." +-- Sidney Greenstreet, _The Maltese Falcon_ +% +All extremists should be taken out and shot. +% +"The sixties were good to you, weren't they?" +-- George Carlin +% +"You stay here, Audrey -- this is between me and the vegetable!" +-- Seymour, from _Little Shop Of Horrors_ +% +From Sharp minds come... pointed heads. +-- Bryan Sparrowhawk +% +There are two kinds of egotists: 1) Those who admit it 2) The rest of us +% +"The picture's pretty bleak, gentlemen... The world's climates are changing, +the mammals are taking over, and we all have a brain about the size of a +walnut." +-- some dinosaurs from The Far Side, by Gary Larson +% +"We Americans, we're a simple people... but piss us off, and we'll bomb +your cities." +-- Robin Williams, _Good Morning Vietnam_ +% +Why won't sharks eat lawyers? Professional courtesy. +% +"You know, we've won awards for this crap." +-- David Letterman +% +It was pity stayed his hand. +"Pity I don't have any more bullets," thought Frito. +-- _Bored_of_the_Rings_, a Harvard Lampoon parody of Tolkein +% +A good USENET motto would be: + a. "Together, a strong community." + b. "Computers R Us." + c. "I'm sick of programming, I think I'll just screw around for a while on + company time." +-- A Sane Man +% +"He didn't run for reelection. `Politics brings you into contact with all the +people you'd give anything to avoid,' he said. `I'm staying home.'" +-- Garrison Keillor, _Lake_Wobegone_Days_ +% +"If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets and +fire them all off, wouldn't you?" +-- Garrison Keillor +% +"Mr. Spock succumbs to a powerful mating urge and nearly kills Captain Kirk." +-- TV Guide, describing the Star Trek episode _Amok_Time_ +% +"Poor man... he was like an employee to me." +-- The police commisioner on "Sledge Hammer" laments the death of his bodyguard +% +"Trust me. I know what I'm doing." +-- Sledge Hammer +% +"Hi. This is Dan Cassidy's answering machine. Please leave your name and +number... and after I've doctored the tape, your message will implicate you + in a federal crime and be brought to the attention of the F.B.I... BEEEP" + -- Blue Devil comics +% +"All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, +barely presentable." +-- Fran Lebowitz +% +"If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?" +-- Lily Tomlin +% +Whom the gods would destroy, they first teach BASIC. +% +"Look! There! Evil!.. pure and simple, total evil from the Eighth Dimension!" +-- Buckaroo Banzai +% +"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid" +-- the artificial person, from _Aliens_ +% +"The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with a dead +girl or a live boy." +-- Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards +% +David Letterman's "Things we can be proud of as Americans": + * Greatest number of citizens who have actually boarded a UFO + * Many newspapers feature "JUMBLE" + * Hourly motel rates + * Vast majority of Elvis movies made here + * Didn't just give up right away during World War II like some + countries we could mention + * Goatees & Van Dykes thought to be worn only by weenies + * Our well-behaved golf professionals + * Fabulous babes coast to coast +% +"Danger, you haven't seen the last of me!" + "No, but the first of you turns my stomach!" +-- The Firesign Theatre's Nick Danger +% +Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore. + -- Russian Proverb +% +"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, +you'll have to ram them down people's throats." + -- Howard Aiken +% +"When anyone says `theoretically,' they really mean `not really.'" + -- David Parnas +% +"No problem is so formidable that you can't walk away from it." + -- C. Schulz +% +"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make +empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made +a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the +bonds of Hell." + -- Saint Augustine +% +"For the man who has everything... Penicillin." + -- F. Borquin +% + "I've finally learned what `upward compatible' means. It means we + get to keep all our old mistakes." + -- Dennie van Tassel +% +"The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones." + -- Nathaniel Howe +% +"It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I'm wearing Milkbone underware." +-- Norm, from _Cheers_ +% +Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that +you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease". Disraeli replied, +"That all depends, Sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your +mistress." +% +"He don't know me vewy well, DO he?" -- Bugs Bunny +% +"I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob. + That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood." +-- Daffy Duck, Looney Tunes, _Robin Hood Daffy_ +% +"Would I turn on the gas if my pal Mugsy were in there?" + "You might, rabbit, you might!" +-- Looney Tunes, Bugs and Thugs (1954, Friz Freleng) +% +"Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich." +-- Looney Tunes, Ali Baba Bunny (1957, Chuck Jones) +% +"And do you think (fop that I am) that I could be the Scarlet Pumpernickel?" +-- Looney Tunes, The Scarlet Pumpernickel (1950, Chuck Jones) +% +"Now I've got the bead on you with MY disintegrating gun. And when it +disintegrates, it disintegrates. (pulls trigger) Well, what you do know, +it disintegrated." +-- Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half century +% +"Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit!" +-- Looney Tunes, "What's Opera Doc?" (1957, Chuck Jones) +% +"I DO want your money, because god wants your money!" +-- The Reverend Jimmy, from _Repo_Man_ +% +"The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The +terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency." +-- Albert Einstein +% +"You show me an American who can keep his mouth shut and I'll eat him." +-- Newspaperman from Frank Capra's _Meet_John_Doe_ +% + "And we heard him exclaim + As he started to roam: + `I'm a hologram, kids, + please don't try this at home!'" + -- Bob Violence +-- Howie Chaykin's little animated 3-dimensional darling, Bob Violence +% +"The Soviet Union, which has complained recently about alleged anti-Soviet +themes in American advertising, lodged an official protest this week against +the Ford Motor Company's new campaign: `Hey you stinking fat Russian, get + off my Ford Escort.'" +-- Dennis Miller, Saturday Night Live +% +"There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum." +--Arthur C. Clarke +% +"They ought to make butt-flavored cat food." --Gallagher +% +"Not only is God dead, but just try to find a plumber on weekends." +--Woody Allen +% +"It's ten o'clock... Do you know where your AI programs are?" -- Peter Oakley +% +"Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the Blacks, +'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact that life's one big, +scary, glorious, complex and ultimately unfathomable crapshoot -- and the only +reason THEY can't seem to keep up is they're a bunch of misfits and losers." +-- an analysis of neo-Nazis and such, Badger comics +% +"Interesting survey in the current Journal of Abnormal Psychology: New York +City has a higher percentage of people you shouldn't make any sudden moves +around than any other city in the world." +-- David Letterman +% +"Tourists -- have some fun with New york's hard-boiled cabbies. When you get +to your destination, say to your driver, "Pay? I was hitchhiking." +-- David Letterman +% +"An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to New +Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but not +new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax." +-- David Letterman +% +"Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham +Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? + 1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. + 2) Advising the President. + 3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his + coffin." +-- David Letterman +% +"If Ricky Schroder and Gary Coleman had a fight on + television with pool cues, who would win? + 1) Ricky Schroder + 2) Gary Coleman + 3) The television viewing public" +-- David Letterman +% +"If you are beginning to doubt what I am saying, you are + probably hallucinating." +-- The Firesign Theatre, _Everything you know is Wrong_ +% +What to do in case of an alien attack: + + 1) Hide beneath the seat of your plane and look away. + 2) Avoid eye contact. + 3) If there are no eyes, avoid all contact. + +-- The Firesign Theatre, _Everything you know is Wrong_ +% +"Nuclear war would really set back cable." +- Ted Turner +% +"You tweachewous miscweant!" +-- Elmer Fudd +% +"I saw _Lassie_. It took me four shows to figure out why the hairy kid never +spoke. I mean, he could roll over and all that, but did that deserve a series?" +-- the alien guy, in _Explorers_ +% +"Open Channel D..." +-- Napoleon Solo, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. +% +Save the whales. Collect the whole set. +% +Support Mental Health. Or I'll kill you. +% +"The pyramid is opening!" + "Which one?" +"The one with the ever-widening hole in it!" +-- The Firesign Theatre +% +"Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missile sighted, target +Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept." +-- The Firesign Theatre movie, _J-Men Forever_ +% +"My sense of purpose is gone! I have no idea who I AM!" + "Oh, my God... You've.. You've turned him into a DEMOCRAT!" +-- Doonesbury +% +"You are WRONG, you ol' brass-breasted fascist poop!" +-- Bloom County +% +"Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *can* +you believe?!" +-- Bullwinkle J. Moose +% +"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberrys!" +-- Monty Python and the Holy Grail +% +"Take that, you hostile sons-of-bitches!" +-- James Coburn, in the finale of _The_President's_Analyst_ +% +"The voters have spoken, the bastards..." +-- unknown +% +"I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk" +-- John Huston +% +"Be there. Aloha." +-- Steve McGarret, _Hawaii Five-Oh_ +% +"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro..." +-- Hunter S. Thompson +% +"Say yur prayers, yuh flea-pickin' varmint!" +-- Yosemite Sam +% +"There... I've run rings 'round you logically" +-- Monty Python's Flying Circus +% +"Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown!" +-- The Ghostbusters +% +...Veloz is indistinguishable from hundreds of other electronics businesses +in the Valley, run by eager young engineers poring over memory dumps late +into the night. The difference is that a bunch of self-confessed "car nuts" +are making money doing what they love: writing code and driving fast. +-- "Electronics puts its foot on the gas", IEEE Spectrum, May 88 +% +"Just the facts, Ma'am" +-- Joe Friday +% +"I have five dollars for each of you." +-- Bernhard Goetz +% +Mausoleum: The final and funniest folly of the rich. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Riches: A gift from Heaven signifying, "This is my beloved son, in whom I +am well pleased." +-- John D. Rockefeller, (slander by Ambrose Bierce) +% +All things are either sacred or profane. +The former to ecclesiasts bring gain; +The latter to the devil appertain. +-- Dumbo Omohundro +% +Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Forty two. +% +Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Absolute: Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which +the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. Not +many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by +limited monarchies, where the soverign's power for evil (and for good) is +greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Abstainer: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a +pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but +abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their +hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately +plunder a third. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Disobedience: The silver lining to the cloud of servitude. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Egotist: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Administration: An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive +the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +A penny saved is a penny to squander. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man -- +who has no gills. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Physician: One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. +The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Politician: An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of +organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of +his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, +he suffers the disadvantage of being alive. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single +petitioner confessedly unworthy. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Presidency: The greased pig in the field game of American politics. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Proboscis: The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place +of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes +of humor it is popularly called a trunk. +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Inadmissible: Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of +testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with, +and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of proceedings before themselves +alone. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible because the person quoted was +unsworn and is not before the court for examination; yet most momentous +actions, military, political, commercial and of every other kind, are +daily undertaken on hearsay evidence. There is no religion in the world +that has any other basis than hearsay evidence. Revelation is hearsay +evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the +testimony of men long dead whose identy is not clearly established and +who are not known to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of +evidence as they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the +Bible has in its support any evidence admissible in a court of law... + +But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily be proved +that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to +mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women +were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still +unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and +in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than +the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. +If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike +destitute of value. --Ambrose Bierce +% +"Today's robots are very primitive, capable of understanding only a few + simple instructions such as 'go left', 'go right', and 'build car'." + --John Sladek +% +"In the fight between you and the world, back the world." + --Frank Zappa +% +Here is an Appalachian version of management's answer to those who are +concerned with the fate of the project: +"Don't worry about the mule. Just load the wagon." +-- Mike Dennison's hillbilly uncle +% +Ill-chosen abstraction is particularly evident in the design of the ADA +runtime system. The interface to the ADA runtime system is so opaque that +it is impossible to model or predict its performance, making it effectively +useless for real-time systems. -- Marc D. Donner and David H. Jameson. +% +"Being against torture ought to be sort of a bipartisan thing." +-- Karl Lehenbauer +% +"Here comes Mr. Bill's dog." +-- Narrator, Saturday Night Live +% +Sex is like air. It's only a big deal if you can't get any. +% +"Maintain an awareness for contribution -- to your schedule, your project, +our company." +-- A Group of Employees +% +"Ask not what A Group of Employees can do for you. But ask what can +All Employees do for A Group of Employees." +-- Mike Dennison +% +One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated at dinner +alongside Mr. Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic. + "Mr. Pollard," said he, "my book, _The Biography of a Dead Cow_, is + published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its authorship. + Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the Idiot of the Century. + Do you think that fair criticism?" + "I am very sorry, sir," replied the critic, amiably, "but it did not +occur to me that you really might not wish the public to know who wrote it." +-- Ambrose Bierce +% +Many aligators will be slain, +but the swamp will remain. +% +What the gods would destroy they first submit to an IEEE standards committee. +% +This is now. Later is later. +% +"I will make no bargains with terrorist hardware." +-- Peter da Silva +% +"If I do not return to the pulpit this weekend, millions of people will go +to hell." +-- Jimmy Swaggart, 5/20/88 +% +"Dump the condiments. If we are to be eaten, we don't need to taste good." +-- "Visionaries" cartoon +% +"Aww, if you make me cry anymore, you'll fog up my helmet." +-- "Visionaries" cartoon +% +I don't want to be young again, I just don't want to get any older. +% +Marriage Ceremony: An incredible metaphysical sham of watching God and the +law being dragged into the affairs of your family. +-- O. C. Ogilvie +% + "Emergency!" Sgiggs screamed, ejecting himself from the tub like it was +a burning car. "Dial 'one'! Get room service! Code red!" Stiggs was on +the phone immediately, ordering more rose blossoms, because, according to +him, the ones floating in the tub had suddenly lost their smell. "I demand +smell," he shrilled. "I expecting total uninterrupted smell from these +f*cking roses." + + Unfortunately, the service captain didn't realize that the Stiggs situation +involved fifty roses. "What am I going to do with this?" Stiggs sneered at +the weaseling hotel goon when he appeared at our door holding a single flower +floating in a brandy glass. Stiggs's tirade was great. "Do you see this +bathtub? Do you notice any difference between the size of the tub and the +size of that spindly wad of petals in your hand? I need total bath coverage. +I need a completely solid layer of roses all around me like puffing factories +of smell, attacking me with their smell and power-ramming big stinking +concentrations of rose odor up my nostrils until I'm wasted with pleasure." +It wasn't long before we got so dissatisfied with this incompetence that we +bolted. +-- The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs, + National Lampoon, October 1982 +% +When it is incorrect, it is, at least *authoritatively* incorrect. +-- Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy +% +We decided it was night again, so we camped for twenty minutes and drank +another six beers at a Young Life campsite. O.C. got into the supervisory +adult's sleeping bag and ran around in it. "This is the judgment day and I'm +a terrifying apparition," he screamed. Then the heat made O.C. ralph in the +bag. +-- The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs, + National Lampoon, October 1982 +% +Voodoo Programming: Things programmers do that they know shouldn't work but +they try anyway, and which sometimes actually work, such as recompiling +everything. +-- Karl Lehenbauer +% +This is, of course, totally uninformed specualation that I engage in to help +support my bias against such meddling... but there you have it. +-- Peter da Silva, speculating about why a computer program that had been +changed to do something he didn't approve of, didn't work +% +"This knowledge I pursure is the finest pleasure I have ever known. I could +no sooner give it up that I could the very air that I breath." +-- Paolo Uccello, Renaissance artist, discoverer of the laws of perspective +% +"I got everybody to pay up front...then I blew up their planet." + "Now why didn't I think of that?" +-- Post Bros. Comics +% +"Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed." +-- Robin, The Boy Wonder +% +The F-15 Eagle: + If it's up, we'll shoot it down. If it's down, we'll blow it up. +-- A McDonnel-Douglas ad from a few years ago +% +"The Amiga is the only personal computer where you can run a multitasking +operating system and get realtime performance, out of the box." +-- Peter da Silva +% +"It's my cookie file and if I come up with something that's lame and I like it, +it goes in." +-- karl (Karl Lehenbauer) +% +In recognizing AT&T Bell Laboratories for corporate innovation, for its +invention of cellular mobile communications, IEEE President Russell C. Drew +referred to the cellular telephone as a "basic necessity." How times have +changed, one observer remarked: many in the room recalled the advent of +direct dialing. +-- The Institute, July 1988, pg. 11 +% +...the Soviets have the capability to try big projects. If there is a goal, +such as when Gorbachev states that they are going to have nuclear-powered +aircraft carriers, the case is closed -- that is it. They will concentrate +on the problem, do a bad job, and later pay the price. They really don't +care what the price is. +-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 + "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100 +% +There is something you must understand about the Soviet system. They have the +ability to concentrate all their efforts on a given design, and develop all +components simulateously, but sometimes without proper testing. Then they end +up with a technological disaster like the Tu-144. In a technology race at +the time, that aircraft was two months ahead of the Concorde. Four Tu-144s +were built; two have crashed, and two are in museums. The Concorde has been +flying safely for over 10 years. +-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 + "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100 +% +DE: The Soviets seem to have difficulty implementing modern technology. + Would you comment on that? + +Belenko: Well, let's talk about aircraft engine lifetime. When I flew the + MiG-25, its engines had a total lifetime of 250 hours. + +DE: Is that mean-time-between-failure? + +Belenko: No, the engine is finished; it is scrapped. + +DE: You mean they pull it out and throw it away, not even overhauling it? + +Belenko: That is correct. Overhaul is too expensive. + +DE: That is absurdly low by free world standards. + +Belenko: I know. +-- an interview with Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 + "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 102 +% +"I have a friend who just got back from the Soviet Union, and told me the people +there are hungry for information about the West. He was asked about many +things, but I will give you two examples that are very revealing about life in +the Soviet Union. The first question he was asked was if we had exploding +television sets. You see, they have a problem with the picture tubes on color +television sets, and many are exploding. They assumed we must be having +problems with them too. The other question he was asked often was why the +CIA had killed Samantha Smith, the little girl who visited the Soviet Union a +few years ago; their propaganda is very effective. +-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 + "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100 +% +"...I could accept this openness, glasnost, perestroika, or whatever you want +to call it if they did these things: abolish the one party system; open the +Soviet frontier and allow Soviet people to travel freely; allow the Soviet +people to have real free enterprise; allow Western businessmen to do business +there, and permit freedom of speech and of the press. But so far, the whole +country is like a concentration camp. The barbed wire on the fence around +the Soviet Union is to keep people inside, in the dark. This openness that +you are seeing, all these changes, are cosmetic and they have been designed +to impress shortsighted, naive, sometimes stupid Western leaders. These +leaders gush over Gorbachev, hoping to do business with the Soviet Union or +appease it. He will say: "Yes, we can do business!" This while his +military machine in Afghanistan has killed over a million people out of a +population of 17 million. Can you imagine that? +-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 + "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110 +% +"Remember Kruschev: he tried to do too many things too fast, and he was +removed in disgrace. If Gorbachev tries to destroy the system or make too +many fundamental changes to it, I believe the system will get rid of him. +I am not a political scientist, but I understand the system very well. +I believe he will have a "heart attack" or retire or be removed. He is +up against a brick wall. If you think they will change everything and +become a free, open society, forget it!" +-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 + "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110 +% +FORTRAN? The syntactically incorrect statement "DO 10 I = 1.10" will parse and +generate code creating a variable, DO10I, as follows: "DO10I = 1.10" If that +doesn't terrify you, it should. +% +"I knew then (in 1970) that a 4-kbyte minicomputer would cost as much as +a house. So I reasoned that after college, I'd have to live cheaply in +an apartment and put all my money into owning a computer." +-- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, EE Times, June 6, 1988, pg 45 +% +HP had a unique policy of allowing its engineers to take parts from stock as +long as they built something. "They figured that with every design, they were +getting a better engineer. It's a policy I urge all companies to adopt." +-- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, "Will Wozniak's class give Apple to teacher?" + EE Times, June 6, 1988, pg 45 +% +"I just want to be a good engineer." +-- Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, concluding his keynote speech + at the 1988 AppleFest +% +"There's always been Tower of Babel sort of bickering inside Unix, but this +is the most extreme form ever. This means at least several years of confusion." +-- Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft, + about the Open Systems Foundation +% +"When in doubt, print 'em out." +-- Karl's Programming Proverb 0x7 +% +"If you want the best things to happen in corporate life you have to find ways +to be hospitable to the unusual person. You don't get innovation as a +democratic process. You almost get it as an anti-democratic process. +Certainly you get it as an anthitetical process, so you have to have an +environment where the body of people are really amenable to change and can +deal with the conflicts that arise out of change an innovation." +-- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., + "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", + The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 +% +"In corporate life, I think there are three important areas which contracts +can't deal with, the area of conflict, the area of change and area of reaching +potential. To me a covenant is a relationship that is based on such things +as shared ideals and shared value systems and shared ideas and shared +agreement as to the processes we are going to use for working together. In +many cases they develop into real love relationships." +-- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's + Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 +% +Another goal is to establish a relationship "in which it is OK for everybody +to do their best. There are an awful lot of people in management who really +don't want subordinates to do their best, because it gets to be very +threatening. But we have found that both internally and with outside +designers if we are willing to have this kind of relationship and if we're +willing to be vulnerable to what will come out of it, we get really good +work." +-- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's + Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 +% +In his book, Mr. DePree tells the story of how designer George Nelson urged +that the company also take on Charles Eames in the late 1940s. Max's father, +J. DePree, co-founder of the company with herman Miller in 1923, asked Mr. +Nelson if he really wanted to share the limited opportunities of a then-small +company with another designer. "George's response was something like this: +'Charles Eames is an unusual talent. He is very different from me. The +company needs us both. I want very much to have Charles Eames share in +whatever potential there is.'" +-- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's + Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 +% +Mr. DePree believes participative capitalism is the wave of the future. The +U.S. work force, he believes, "more and more demands to be included in the +capitalist system and if we don't find ways to get the capitalist system +to be an inclusive system rather than the exclusive system it has been, we're +all in deep trouble. If we don't find ways to begin to understand that +capitalism's highest potential lies in the common good, not in the individual +good, then we're risking the system itself." +-- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's + Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 +% +Mr. DePree also expects a "tremendous social change" in all workplaces. "When +I first started working 40 years ago, a factory supervisor was focused on the +product. Today it is drastically different, because of the social milieu. +It isn't unusual for a worker to arrive on his shift and have some family +problem that he doesn't know how to resolve. The example I like to use is a +guy who comes in and says 'this isn't going to be a good day for me, my son +is in jail on a drunk-driving charge and I don't know how to raise bail.' +What that means is that if the supervisor wants productivity, he has to know +how to raise bail." +-- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's + Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 +% +Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. +Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it. +-- Perlis's Programming Proverb #58, SIGPLAN Notices, Sept. 1982 +% +"What if" is a trademark of Hewlett Packard, so stop using it in your +sentences without permission, or risk being sued. +% +Now, if the leaders of the world -- people who are leaders by virtue of +political, military or financial power, and not necessarily wisdom or +consideration for mankind -- if these leaders manage not to pull us +over the brink into planetary suicide, despite their occasional pompous +suggestions that they may feel obliged to do so, we may survive beyond +1988. +-- George Rostky, EE Times, June 20, 1988 p. 45 +% +The essential ideas of Algol 68 were that the whole language should be +precisely defined and that all the pieces should fit together smoothly. +The basic idea behind Pascal was that it didn't matter how vague the +language specification was (it took *years* to clarify) or how many rough +edges there were, as long as the CDC Pascal compiler was fast. +-- Richard A. O'Keefe +% +"We came. We saw. We kicked its ass." +-- Bill Murray, _Ghostbusters_ +% +"The stars are made of the same atoms as the earth." I usually pick one small +topic like this to give a lecture on. Poets say science takes away from the +beauty of the stars -- mere gobs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere." I too can +see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? +The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination -- stuck on this carousel +my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern -- of which +I am a part -- perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one +is belching there. Or see them with the greater eye of Palomar, rushing all +apart from some common starting point when they were perhaps all together. +What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the *why?* It does not do harm to the +mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than +any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak +of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but +if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent? +-- Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988) +% +If you permit yourself to read meanings into (rather than drawing meanings out +of) the evidence, you can draw any conclusion you like. +-- Michael Keith, "The Bar-Code Beast", The Skeptical Enquirer Vol 12 No 4 p 416 +% +"Pseudocode can be used to some extent to aid the maintenance +process. However, pseudocode that is highly detailed - +approaching the level of detail of the code itself - is not of +much use as maintenance documentation. Such detailed +documentation has to be maintained almost as much as the code, +thus doubling the maintenance burden. Furthermore, since such +voluminous pseudocode is too distracting to be kept in the +listing itself, it must be kept in a separate folder. The +result: Since pseudocode - unlike real code - doesn't have to be +maintained, no one will maintain it. It will soon become out of +date and everyone will ignore it. (Once, I did an informal +survey of 42 shops that used pseudocode. Of those 42, 0 [zero!], +found that it had any value as maintenance documentation." + --Meilir Page-Jones, "The Practical Guide to Structured + Design", Yourdon Press (c) 1988 +% +"Only a brain-damaged operating system would support task switching and not +make the simple next step of supporting multitasking." +-- George McFry +% +Sigmund Freud is alleged to have said that in the last analysis the entire field +of psychology may reduce to biological electrochemistry. +% +The magician is seated in his high chair and looks upon the world with favor. +He is at the height of his powers. If he closes his eyes, he causes the world +to disappear. If he opens his eyes, he causes the world to come back. If +there is harmony within him, the world is harmonious. If rage shatters his +inner harmony, the unity of the world is shattered. If desire arises within +him, he utters the magic syllables that causes the desired object to appear. +His wishes, his thoughts, his gestures, his noises command the universe. +-- Selma Fraiberg, _The Magic Years_, pg. 107 +% +An Animal that knows who it is, one that has a sense of his own identity, is +a discontented creature, doomed to create new problems for himself for the +duration of his stay on this planet. Since neither the mouse nor the chimp +knows what is, he is spared all the vexing problems that follow this +discovery. But as soon as the human animal who asked himself this question +emerged, he plunged himself and his descendants into an eternity of doubt +and brooding, speculation and truth-seeking that has goaded him through the +centures as reelentlessly as hunger or sexual longing. The chimp that does +not know that he exists is not driven to discover his origins and is spared +the tragic necessity of contemplating his own end. And even if the animal +experimenters succeed in teaching a chimp to count one hundred bananas or +to play chess, the chimp will develop no science and he will exhibit no +appreciation of beauty, for the greatest part of man's wisdom may be traced +back to the eternal questions of beginnings and endings, the quest to give +meaning to his existence, to life itself. +-- Selma Fraiberg, _The Magic Years_, pg. 193 +% +A comment on schedules: + Ok, how long will it take? + For each manager involved in initial meetings add one month. + For each manager who says "data flow analysis" add another month. + For each unique end-user type add one month. + For each unknown software package to be employed add two months. + For each unknown hardware device add two months. + For each 100 miles between developer and installation add one month. + For each type of communication channel add one month. + If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on a non-IBM + system add 6 months. + If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on an IBM + system add 9 months. +Round up to the nearest half-year. +--Brad Sherman +By the way, ALL software projects are done by iterative prototyping. +Some companies call their prototypes "releases", that's all. +% + UNIX Shell is the Best Fourth Generation Programming Language + + It is the UNIX shell that makes it possible to do applications in a small + fraction of the code and time it takes in third generation languages. In + the shell you process whole files at a time, instead of only a line at a + time. And, a line of code in the UNIX shell is one or more programs, + which do more than pages of instructions in a 3GL. Applications can be + developed in hours and days, rather than months and years with traditional + systems. Most of the other 4GLs available today look more like COBOL or + RPG, the most tedious of the third generation lanaguages. + +"UNIX Relational Database Management: Application Development in the UNIX + Environment" by Rod Manis, Evan Schaffer, and Robert Jorgensen. Prentice + Hall Software Series. Brian Kerrighan, Advisor. 1988. +% +"Laugh while you can, monkey-boy." +-- Dr. Emilio Lizardo +% +"Floggings will continue until morale improves." +-- anonymous flyer being distributed at Exxon USA +% +"Hey Ivan, check your six." +-- Sidewinder missile jacket patch, showing a Sidewinder driving up the tail + of a Russian Su-27 +% +"Free markets select for winning solutions." +-- Eric S. Raymond +% +"I dislike companies that have a we-are-the-high-priests-of-hardware-so-you'll- +like-what-we-give-you attitude. I like commodity markets in which iron-and- +silicon hawkers know that they exist to provide fast toys for software types +like me to play with..." +-- Eric S. Raymond +% +"The urge to destroy is also a creative urge." +-- Bakunin +[ed. note - I would say: The urge to destroy may sometimes be a creative urge.] +% +"A commercial, and in some respects a social, doubt has been started within the + last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security + or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discus- + sion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a + premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest. This is a fal- + lacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession, and already know much more + than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery. Rogues knew + a good deal about lockpicking long before locksmiths discussed it among them- + selves, as they have lately done. If a lock -- let it have been made in what- + ever country, or by whatever maker -- is not so inviolable as it has hitherto + been deemed to be, surely it is in the interest of *honest* persons to know + this fact, because the *dishonest* are tolerably certain to be the first to + apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of knowledge is necessary to + give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance. It cannot be too ear- + nestly urged, that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end, be better + for all parties." +-- Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks, + published around 1850 +% + In respect to lock-making, there can scarcely be such a thing as dishonesty + of intention: the inventor produces a lock which he honestly thinks will + possess such and such qualities; and he declares his belief to the world. + If others differ from him in opinion concerning those qualities, it is open + to them to say so; and the discussion, truthfully conducted, must lead to + public advantage: the discussion stimulates curiosity, and curiosity stimu- + lates invention. Nothing but a partial and limited view of the question + could lead to the opinion that harm can result: if there be harm, it will be + much more than counterbalanced by good." +-- Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks, + published around 1850. +% +"Wish not to seem, but to be, the best." +-- Aeschylus +% +"Survey says..." +-- Richard Dawson, weenie, on "Family Feud" +% +"Paul Lynde to block..." +-- a contestant on "Hollywood Squares" +% +"Little else matters than to write good code." +-- Karl Lehenbauer +% +To write good code is a worthy challenge, and a source of civilized delight. +-- stolen and paraphrased from William Safire +% +"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" +-- William E. Davidsen +% +"If a computer can't directly address all the RAM you can use, it's just a toy." +-- anonymous comp.sys.amiga posting, non-sequitir +% +"Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!" he said to himself, and it became +a favourite saying of his later, and passed into a proverb. "You aren't nearly +through this adventure yet," he added, and that was pretty true as well. +-- Bilbo Baggins, "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien, Chapter XII +% +"A dirty mind is a joy forever." +-- Randy Kunkee +% +"You can't teach seven foot." +-- Frank Layton, Utah Jazz basketball coach, when asked why he had recruited + a seven-foot tall auto mechanic +% +"A car is just a big purse on wheels." +-- Johanna Reynolds +% +"History is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions." +-- Ted Koppel +% +"Gozer the Gozerian: As the duly appointed representative of the city, +county and state of New York, I hereby order you to cease all supernatural +activities at once and proceed immediately to your place of origin or +the nearest parallel dimension, whichever is nearest." +-- Ray (Dan Akyroyd, _Ghostbusters_ +% +It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more +doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a +new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by +the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in +those who would gain by the new ones. +-- Machiavelli +% +God grant me the senility to accept the things I cannot change, +The frustration to try to change things I cannot affect, +and the wisdom to tell the difference. +% +First as to speech. That privilege rests upon the premise that +there is no proposition so uniformly acknowledged that it may not be +lawfully challenged, questioned, and debated. It need not rest upon +the further premise that there are no propositions that are not +open to doubt; it is enough, even if there are, that in the end it is +worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy. Hence it +has been again and again unconditionally proclaimed that there are +no limits to the privilege so far as words seek to affect only the hearers' +beliefs and not their conduct. The trouble is that conduct is almost +always based upon some belief, and that to change the hearer's belief +will generally to some extent change his conduct, and may even evoke +conduct that the law forbids. + +[cf. Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty, University of Chicago Press, 1952; +The Art and Craft of Judging: The Decisions of Judge Learned Hand, +edited and annotated by Hershel Shanks, The MacMillian Company, 1968.] +% +The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it +should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in 13 states in the course +of 11 years, is but one for each state in a century and a half. No country +should be so long without one. +-- Thomas Jefferson in letter to James Madison, 20 December 1787 +% +"Nine years of ballet, asshole." +-- Shelly Long, to the bad guy after making a jump over a gorge that he + couldn't quite, in "Outrageous Fortune" +% +You are in a maze of UUCP connections, all alike. +% +"If that man in the PTL is such a healer, why can't he make his wife's + hairdo go down?" +-- Robin Williams +% +8) Use common sense in routing cable. Avoid wrapping coax around sources of + strong electric or magnetic fields. Do not wrap the cable around + flourescent light ballasts or cyclotrons, for example. +-- Ethernet Headstart Product, Information and Installation Guide, + Bell Technologies, pg. 11 +% +"What a wonder is USENET; such wholesale production of conjecture from +such a trifling investment in fact." +-- Carl S. Gutekunst +% +VMS must die! +% +MS-DOS must die! +% +OS/2 must die! +% +Pournelle must die! +% +Garbage In, Gospel Out +% +"Being against torture ought to be sort of a multipartisan thing." +-- Karl Lehenbauer, as amended by Jeff Daiell, a Libertarian +% +"Facts are stupid things." +-- President Ronald Reagan + (a blooper from his speeach at the '88 GOP convention) +% +"The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science +collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke +miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into +the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to +abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all +fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, +misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the +ideas of their opponents." +-- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", + The Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 87/88, pg. 186 +% +"An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of code." +-- an anonymous programmer +% +"To IBM, 'open' means there is a modicum of interoperability among some of their +equipment." +-- Harv Masterson +% +"Just think of a computer as hardware you can program." +-- Nigel de la Tierre +% +"If you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it, and spend your time + serving it..." +-- Marion Zimmer Bradley, _The Forbidden Tower_ +% +"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." +-- Albert Einstein +% +"Card readers? We don't need no stinking card readers." +-- Peter da Silva (at the National Academy of Sciencies, 1965, in a + particularly vivid fantasy) +% +Your good nature will bring unbounded happiness. +% +Semper Fi, dude. +% +Excitement and danger await your induction to tracer duty! As a tracer, +you must rid the computer networks of slimy, criminal data thieves. +They are tricky and the action gets tough, so watch out! Utilizing all +your skills, you'll either get your man or you'll get burned! +-- advertising for the computer game "Tracers" +% +"An entire fraternity of strapping Wall-Street-bound youth. Hell - this +is going to be a blood bath!" +-- Post Bros. Comics +% +"Neighbors!! We got neighbors! We ain't supposed to have any neighbors, and +I just had to shoot one." +-- Post Bros. Comics +% +"Gotcha, you snot-necked weenies!" +-- Post Bros. Comics +% +interlard - vt., to intersperse; diversify +-- Webster's New World Dictionary Of The American Language +% +"Everybody is talking about the weather but nobody does anything about it." +-- Mark Twain +% +"How many teamsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?" + "FIFTEEN!! YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?" +% +"If you weren't my teacher, I'd think you just deleted all my files." +-- an anonymous UCB CS student, to an instructor who had typed "rm -i *" to + get rid of a file named "-f" on a Unix system. +% +"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral +crisis, preserved their neutrality." +-- Dante +% +"The medium is the message." +-- Marshall McLuhan +% +"The medium is the massage." +-- Crazy Nigel +% +"Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser." +-- Vince Lombardi, football coach +% +"It might help if we ran the MBA's out of Washington." +-- Admiral Grace Hopper +% +Refreshed by a brief blackout, I got to my feet and went next door. +-- Martin Amis, _Money_ +% +The sprung doors parted and I staggered out into the lobby's teak and flicker. +Uniformed men stood by impassively like sentries in their trench. I slapped +my key on the desk and nodded gravely. I was loaded enough to be unable to +tell whether they could tell I was loaded. Would they mind? I was certainly +too loaded to care. I moved to the door with boxy, schlep-shouldered strides. +-- Martin Amis, _Money_ +% +I ask only one thing. I'm understanding. I'm mature. And it isn't much to +ask. I want to get back to London, and track her down, and be alone with my +Selina -- or not even alone, damn it, merely close to her, close enough to +smell her skin, to see the flecked webbing of her lemony eyes, the moulding +of her artful lips. Just for a few precious seconds. Just long enough to +put in one good, clean punch. That's all I ask. +-- Martin Amis, _Money_ +% +"Love may fail, but courtesy will previal." +-- A Kurt Vonnegut fan +% +New York is a jungle, they tell you. You could go further, and say that +New York is a jungle. New York *is a jungle.* Beneath the columns of +the old rain forest, made of melting macadam, the mean Limpopo of swamped +Ninth Avenue bears an angry argosy of crocs and dragons, tiger fish, noise +machines, sweating rainmakers. On the corners stand witchdoctors and +headhunters, babbling voodoo-men -- the natives, the jungle-smart natives. +And at night, under the equatorial overgrowth and heat-holding cloud +cover, you hear the ragged parrot-hoot and monkeysqueak of the sirens, +and then fires flower to ward off monsters. Careful: the streets are +sprung with pits and nets and traps. Hire a guide. Pack your snakebite +gook and your blowdart serum. Take it seriously. You have to get a +bit jungle-wise. +-- Martin Amis, _Money_ +% +Now I was heading, in my hot cage, down towards meat-market country on the +tip of the West Village. Here the redbrick warehouses double as carcass +galleries and rat hives, the Manhattan fauna seeking its necessary +level, living or dead. Here too you find the heavy faggot hangouts, +The Spike, the Water Closet, the Mother Load. Nobody knows what goes on +in these places. Only the heavy faggots know. Even Fielding seems somewhat +vague on the question. You get zapped and flogged and dumped on -- by +almost anybody's standards, you have a really terrible time. The average +patron arrives at the Spike in one taxi but needs to go back to his sock +in two. And then the next night he shows up for more. They shackle +themselves to racks, they bask in urinals. Their folks have a lot of +explaining to do, if you want my opinion, particularly the mums. Sorry +to single you ladies out like this but the story must start somewhere. +A craving for hourly murder -- it can't be willed. In the meantime, +Fielding tells me, Mother Nature looks on and taps her foot and clicks +her tongue. Always a champion of monogamy, she is cooking up some fancy +new diseases. She just isn't going to stand for it. +-- Martin Amis, _Money_ +% +"You tried it just for once, found it alright for kicks, + but now you find out you have a habit that sticks, + you're an orgasm addict, + you're always at it, + and you're an orgasm addict." +-- The Buzzcocks +% +"There is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress." +-- Mark Twain +% +"You'll pay to know what you really think." +-- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs +% +"We live, in a very kooky time." +-- Herb Blashtfalt +% +"Pull the wool over your own eyes!" +-- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs +% +"Okay," Bobby said, getting the hang of it, "then what's the matrix? If +she's a deck, and Danbala's a program, what's cyberspace?" + "The world," Lucas said. +-- William Gibson, _Count Zero_ +% +"Our reruns are better than theirs." +-- Nick at Nite +% +Life is a game. Money is how we keep score. +-- Ted Turner +% +"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." +-- The Wizard Of Oz +% +"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." +-- Karl, as he stepped behind the computer to reboot it, during a FAT +% +"It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us in trouble. It's the +things we know that ain't so." +-- Artemus Ward aka Charles Farrar Brown +% +"Don't discount flying pigs before you have good air defense." +-- jvh@clinet.FI +% +"In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble." +-- Alan Perlis +% +"Pok pok pok, P'kok!" +-- Superchicken +% +Live Free or Live in Massachusettes. +% +"You can't get very far in this world without your dossier being there first." +-- Arthur Miller +% +"Flight Reservation systems decide whether or not you exist. If your information +isn't in their database, then you simply don't get to go anywhere." +-- Arthur Miller +% +"What people have been reduced to are mere 3-D representations of their own +data." +-- Arthur Miller +% +"The Avis WIZARD decides if you get to drive a car. Your head won't touch the +pillow of a Sheraton unless their computer says it's okay." +-- Arthur Miller +% +"They know your name, address, telephone number, credit card numbers, who ELSE +is driving the car "for insurance", ... your driver's license number. In the +state of Massachusetts, this is the same number as that used for Social +Security, unless you object to such use. In THAT case, you are ASSIGNED a +number and you reside forever more on the list of "weird people who don't give +out their Social Security Number in Massachusetts." +-- Arthur Miller +% +"Data is a lot like humans: It is born. Matures. Gets married to other data, +divorced. Gets old. One thing that it doesn't do is die. It has to be killed." +-- Arthur Miller +% +"People should have access to the data which you have about them. There should + be a process for them to challenge any inaccuracies." +-- Arthur Miller +% +"Although Poles suffer official censorship, a pervasive secret +police and laws similar to those in the USSR, there are +thousands of underground publications, a legal independent +Church, private agriculture, and the East bloc's first and only +independent trade union federation, NSZZ Solidarnosc, which is +an affiliate of both the International Confederation of Free +Trade Unions and the World Confederation of Labor. There is +literally a world of difference between Poland - even in its +present state of collapse - and Soviet society at the peak of +its "glasnost." This difference has been maintained at great +cost by the Poles since 1944. +-- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a + gateway from EARN (Eurpoean Academic Research Network) + to Poland +% +"There is also a thriving independent student movement in +Poland, and thus there is a strong possibility (though no +guarantee) of making an EARN-Poland link, should it ever come +about, a genuine link - not a vacuum cleaner attachment for a +Bloc information gathering apparatus rationed to trusted +apparatchiks." +-- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a + gateway from EARN (Eurpoean Academic Research Network) + to Poland +% +"Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, +an intransigent mind, and a step that travels unlimited roads." +-- John Galt, in Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_ +% +Don't panic. +% +The bug stops here. +% +The bug starts here. +% +"Why waste negative entropy on comments, when you could use the same +entropy to create bugs instead?" +-- Steve Elias +% +"The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of +course you never do." +-- Gregory Bateson +% +"Your butt is mine." +-- Michael Jackson, Bad +% +Ship it. +% +"Once they go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department." +-- Werner von Braun +% +"When the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if +it were a nail." +-- Abraham Maslow +% +"Imitation is the sincerest form of television." +-- The New Mighty Mouse +% +"The lesser of two evils -- is evil." +-- Seymour (Sy) Leon +% +"It's no sweat, Henry. Russ made it back to Bugtown before he died. So he'll +regenerate in a couple of days. It's just awful sloppy of him to get killed in +the first place. Humph!" +-- Ron Post, Post Brothers Comics +% +"An honest god is the noblest work of man. ... God has always resembled his +creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was invariably +found on the side of those in power. ... Most of the gods were pleased with +sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine +perfume." +-- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"We are not endeavoring to chain the future but to free the present. ... We are +the advocates of inquiry, investigation, and thought. ... It is grander to think +and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. ... I look for the day +when *reason*, throned upon the world's brains, shall be the King of Kings and +the God of Gods. +-- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"I honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering eyes +of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for their prey. I believe +it was born with the yelping, howling, growling and snarling of wild beasts... +I despise it, I defy it, and I hate it." +-- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"Is this foreplay?" + "No, this is Nuke Strike. Foreplay has lousy graphics. Beat me again." +-- Duckert, in "Bad Rubber," Albedo #0 (comics) +% +egrep patterns are full regular expressions; it uses a fast deterministic +algorithm that sometimes needs exponential space. +-- unix manuals +% +"A mind is a terrible thing to have leaking out your ears." +-- The League of Sadistic Telepaths +% +"Life sucks, but it's better than the alternative." +-- Peter da Silva +% +If this is a service economy, why is the service so bad? +% +"I shall expect a chemical cure for psychopathic behavior by 10 A.M. tomorrow, +or I'll have your guts for spaghetti." +-- a comic panel by Cotham +% +"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." +-- Will Rogers +% +"An open mind has but one disadvantage: it collects dirt." +-- a saying at RPI +% +"The geeks shall inherit the earth." +-- Karl Lehenbauer +% +"Beware of programmers carrying screwdrivers." +-- Chip Salzenberg +% +"Elvis is my copilot." +-- Cal Keegan +% +"The fundamental principle of science, the definition almost, is this: the +sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment." +-- Richard P. Feynman +% +How many Unix hacks does it take to change a light bulb? + Let's see, can you use a shell script for that or does it need a C program? +% +"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Hate me because I'm beautiful, smart +and rich." +-- Calvin Keegan +% +"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so +certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." +-- Bertrand Russell +% +Always look over your shoulder because everyone is watching and plotting +against you. +% +"Let us condemn to hellfire all those who disagree with us." +-- militant religionists everywhere +% +Baby On Board. +% +"The net result is a system that is not only binary compatible with 4.3 BSD, +but is even bug for bug compatible in almost all features." +-- Avadit Tevanian, Jr., "Architecture-Independent Virtual Memory Management + for Parallel and Distributed Environments: The Mach Approach" +% +"The number of Unix installations has grown to 10, with more expected." +-- The Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June, 1972 +% +"Engineering without management is art." +-- Jeff Johnson +% +"I'm not a god, I was misquoted." +-- Lister, Red Dwarf +% +Brain off-line, please wait. +% +-- +-- uunet!sugar!karl | "We've been following your progress with considerable +-- karl@sugar.uu.net | interest, not to say contempt." -- Zaphod Beeblebrox IV +-- Usenet BBS (713) 438-5018 + + + +th-th-th-th-That's all, folks! + +----------- cut here, don't forget to strip junk at the end, too ------------- +"Psychoanalysis?? I thought this was a nude rap session!!!" +-- Zippy +% +Are you having fun yet? +% +"The vast majority of successful major crimes against property are +perpetrated by individuals abusing positions of trust." +-- Lawrence Dalzell +% +"Perhaps I am flogging a straw herring in mid-stream, but in the light of +what is known about the ubiquity of security vulnerabilities, it seems vastly +too dangerous for university folks to run with their heads in the sand." +-- Peter G. Neumann, RISKS moderator, about the Internet virus +% +"Seed me, Seymour" +-- a random number generator meets the big green mother from outer space +% +"Buy land. They've stopped making it." +-- Mark Twain +% +"Open the pod bay doors, HAL." +-- Dave Bowman, 2001 +% +"There was no difference between the behavior of a god and the operations of +pure chance..." +-- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ +% +...Saure really turns out to be an adept at the difficult art of papryomancy, +the ability to prophesy through contemplating the way people roll reefers - +the shape, the licking pattern, the wrinkles and folds or absence thereof +in the paper. "You will soon be in love," sez Saure, "see, this line here." +"It's long, isn't it? Does that mean --" "Length is usually intensity. +Not time." +-- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ +% +Go ahead, capitalize the T on technology, deify it if it will make you feel +less responsible -- but it puts you in with the neutered, brother, in with +the eunuchs keeping the harem of our stolen Earth for the numb and joyless +hardons of human sultans, human elite with no right at all to be where they +are --" +-- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ +% +...the prevailing Catholic odor - incense, wax, centuries of mild bleating +from the lips of the flock. +-- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ +% +...At that time [the 1960s], Bell Laboratories scientists projected that +computer speeds as high as 30 million floating-point calculations per +second (megaflops) would be needed for the Army's ballistic missile +defense system. Many computer experts -- including a National Academy +of Sciences panel -- said achieving such speeds, even using multiple +processors, was impossible. Today, new generation supercomputers operate +at billions of operations per second (gigaflops). +-- Aviation Week & Space Technology, May 9, 1988, "Washington Roundup", pg 13 +% +backups: always in season, never out of style. +% +"There was a vague, unpleasant manginess about his appearence; he somehow +seemed dirty, though a close glance showed him as carefully shaven as an +actor, and clad in immaculate linen." +-- H.L. Mencken, on the death of William Jennings Bryan +% +Work was impossible. The geeks had broken my spirit. They had done too +many things wrong. It was never like this for Mencken. He lived like +a Prussian gambler -- sweating worse than Bryan on some nights and drunker +than Judas on others. It was all a dehumanized nightmare...and these +raddled cretins have the gall to complain about my deadlines. +-- Hunter Thompson, "Bad Nerves in Fat City", _Generation of Swine_ +% +"This generation may be the one that will face Armageddon." +-- Ronald Reagan, "People" magazine, December 26, 1985 +% +... The cable had passed us by; the dish was the only hope, and eventually +we were all forced to turn to it. By the summer of '85, the valley had more +satellite dishes per capita than an Eskimo village on the north slope of +Alaska. + +Mine was one of the last to go in. I had been nervous from the start about +the hazards of too much input, which is a very real problem with these +things. Watching TV becomes a full-time job when you can scan 200 channels +all day and all night and still have the option of punching Night Dreams +into the video machine, if the rest of the world seems dull. +-- Hunter Thompson, "Full-time scrambling", _Generation of Swine_ +% +"Call immediately. Time is running out. We both need to do something +monstrous before we die." +-- Message from Ralph Steadman to Hunter Thompson +% +"The only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down." +-- H.L. Mencken +% +"You don't go out and kick a mad dog. If you have a mad dog with rabies, you +take a gun and shoot him." +-- Pat Robertson, TV Evangelist, about Muammar Kadhafy +% +David Brinkley: The daily astrological charts are precisely where, in my + judgment, they belong, and that is on the comic page. +George Will: I don't think astrology belongs even on the comic pages. + The comics are making no truth claim. +Brinkley: Where would you put it? +Will: I wouldn't put it in the newspaper. I think it's transparent rubbish. + It's a reflection of an idea that we expelled from Western thought in the + sixteenth century, that we are in the center of a caring universe. We are + not the center of the universe, and it doesn't care. The star's alignment + at the time of our birth -- that is absolute rubbish. It is not funny to + have it intruded among people who have nuclear weapons. +Sam Donaldson: This isn't something new. Governor Ronald Reagan was sworn + in just after midnight in his first term in Sacramento because the stars + said it was a propitious time. +Will: They [horoscopes] are utter crashing banalities. They could apply to + anyone and anything. +Brinkley: When is the exact moment [of birth]? I don't think the nurse is + standing there with a stopwatch and a notepad. +Donaldson: If we're making decisions based on the stars -- that's a cockamamie + thing. People want to know. +-- "This Week" with David Brinkley, ABC Television, Sunday, May 8, 1988, + excerpts from a discussion on Astrology and Reagan +% +The reported resort to astrology in the White House has occasioned much +merriment. It is not funny. Astrological gibberish, which means astrology +generally, has no place in a newspaper, let alone government. Unlike comics, +which are part of a newspaper's harmless pleasure and make no truth claims, +astrology is a fraud. The idea that it gets a hearing in government is +dismaying. +-- George Will, Washing Post Writers Group +% +Astrology is the sheerest hokum. This pseudoscience has been around since +the day of the Chaldeans and Babylonians. It is as phony as numerology, +phrenology, palmistry, alchemy, the reading of tea leaves, and the practice +of divination by the entrails of a goat. No serious person will buy the +notion that our lives are influenced individually by the movement of +distant planets. This is the sawdust blarney of the carnival midway. +-- James J. Kilpatrick, Universal Press Syndicate +% +A serious public debate about the validity of astrology? A serious believer +in the White House? Two of them? Give me a break. What stifled my laughter +is that the image fits. Reagan has always exhibited a fey indifference toward +science. Facts, like numbers, roll off his back. And we've all come to +accept it. This time it was stargazing that became a serious issue....Not +that long ago, it was Reagan's support of Creationism....Creationists actually +got equal time with evolutionists. The public was supposed to be open-minded +to the claims of paleontologists and fundamentalists, as if the two were +scientific colleagues....It has been clear for a long time that the president +is averse to science...In general, these attitudes fall onto friendly American +turf....But at the outer edges, this skepticism about science easily turns +into a kind of naive acceptance of nonscience, or even nonsense. The same +people who doubt experts can also believe any quackery, from the benefits of +laetrile to eye of newt to the movment of planets. We lose the capacity to +make rational -- scientific -- judgments. It's all the same. +-- Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe Newspaper Company-Washington Post Writers + Group +% +The spectacle of astrology in the White House -- the governing center of +the world's greatest scientific and military power -- is so appalling that +it defies understanding and provides grounds for great fright. The easiest +response is to laugh it off, and to indulge in wisecracks about Civil +Service ratings for horoscope makers and palm readers and whether Reagan +asked Mikhail Gorbachev for his sign. A contagious good cheer is the +hallmark of this presidency, even when the most dismal matters are concerned. +But this time, it isn't funny. It's plain scary. +-- Daniel S. Greenberg, Editor, _Science and Government Report_, writing in + "Newsday", May 5, 1988 +% +[Astrology is] 100 percent hokum, Ted. As a matter of fact, the first edition +of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, written in 1771 -- 1771! -- said that this +belief system is a subject long ago ridiculed and reviled. We're dealing with +beliefs that go back to the ancient Babylonians. There's nothing there.... +It sounds a lot like science, it sounds like astronomy. It's got technical +terms. It's got jargon. It confuses the public....The astrologer is quite +glib, confuses the public, uses terms which come from science, come from +metaphysics, come from a host of fields, but they really mean nothing. The +fact is that astrological beliefs go back at least 2,500 years. Now that +should be a sufficiently long time for astrologers to prove their case. They +have not proved their case....It's just simply gibberish. The fact is, there's +no theory for it, there are no observational data for it. It's been tested +and tested over the centuries. Nobody's ever found any validity to it at +all. It is not even close to a science. A science has to be repeatable, it +has to have a logical foundation, and it has to be potentially vulnerable -- +you test it. And in that astrology is reqlly quite something else. +-- Astronomer Richard Berendzen, President, American University, on ABC + News "Nightline," May 3, 1988 +% +Even if we put all these nagging thoughts [four embarrassing questions about +astrology] aside for a moment, one overriding question remains to be asked. +Why would the positions of celestial objects at the moment of birth have an +effect on our characters, lives, or destinies? What force or influence, +what sort of energy would travel from the planets and stars to all human +beings and affect our development or fate? No amount of scientific-sounding +jargon or computerized calculations by astrologers can disguise this central +problem with astrology -- we can find no evidence of a mechanism by which +celestial objects can influence us in so specific and personal a way. . . . +Some astrologers argue that there may be a still unknown force that represents +the astrological influence. . . .If so, astrological predictions -- like those +of any scientific field -- should be easily tested. . . . Astrologers always +claim to be just a little too busy to carry out such careful tests of their +efficacy, so in the last two decades scientists and statisticians have +generously done such testing for them. There have been dozens of well-designed +tests all around the world, and astrology has failed every one of them. . . . +I propose that we let those beckoning lights in the sky awaken our interest +in the real (and fascinating) universe beyond our planet, and not let them +keep us tied to an ancient fantasy left over from a time when we huddled by +the firelight, afraid of the night. +-- Andrew Fraknoi, Executive Officer, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, + "Why Astrology Believers Should Feel Embarrassed," San Jose Mercury + News, May 8, 1988 +% +With the news that Nancy Reagan has referred to an astrologer when planning +her husband's schedule, and reports of Californians evacuating Los Angeles +on the strength of a prediction from a sixteenth-century physician and +astrologer Michel de Notredame, the image of the U.S. as a scientific and +technological nation has taking a bit of a battering lately. Sadly, such +happenings cannot be dismissed as passing fancies. They are manifestations +of a well-established "anti-science" tendency in the U.S. which, ultimately, +could threaten the country's position as a technological power. . . . The +manifest widespread desire to reject rationality and substitute a series +of quasirandom beliefs in order to understand the universe does not augur +well for a nation deeply concerned about its ability to compete with its +industrial equals. To the degree that it reflects the thinking of a +significant section of the public, this point of view encourages ignorance +of and, indeed, contempt for science and for rational methods of approaching +truth. . . . It is becoming clear that if the U.S. does not pick itself up +soon and devote some effort to educating the young effectively, its hope of +maintaining a semblance of leadership in the world may rest, paradoxically, +with a new wave of technically interested and trained immigrants who do not +suffer from the anti-science disease rampant in an apparently decaying society. +-- Physicist Tony Feinberg, in "New Scientist," May 19, 1988 +% +miracle: an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment. +-- Webster's Dictionary +% +"The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone + is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be + created in the form of computer programs." +-- Joseph Weizenbaum, _Computer Power and Human Reason_ +% +"If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong." +-- Norm Schryer +% +"May your future be limited only by your dreams." +-- Christa McAuliffe +% +"It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be +coming up it." +-- Henry Allen +% +"Life begins when you can spend your spare time programming instead of +watching television." +-- Cal Keegan +% +Eat shit -- billions of flies can't be wrong. +% +"We never make assertions, Miss Taggart," said Hugh Akston. "That is +the moral crime peculiar to our enemies. We do not tell -- we *show*. +We do not claim -- we *prove*." +-- Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged_ +% +"I remember when I was a kid I used to come home from Sunday School and + my mother would get drunk and try to make pancakes." +-- George Carlin +% +"My father? My father left when I was quite young. Well actually, he + was asked to leave. He had trouble metabolizing alcohol." + -- George Carlin +% +"I turn on my television set. I see a young lady who goes under the guise +of being a Christian, known all over the nation, dressed in skin-tight +leather pants, shaking and wiggling her hips to the beat and rythm of the +music as the strobe lights beat their patterns across the stage and the +band plays the contemporary rock sound which cannot be differentiated from +songs by the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, or anyone else. And you may try +to tell me this is of God and that it is leading people to Christ, but I +know better. +-- Jimmy Swaggart, hypocritical sexual pervert and TV preacher, self-described + pornography addict, "Two points of view: 'Christian' rock and roll.", + The Evangelist, 17(8): 49-50. +% +"So-called Christian rock. . . . is a diabolical force undermining Christianity + from within." +-- Jimmy Swaggart, hypocrite and TV preacher, self-described pornography addict, + "Two points of view: 'Christian' rock and roll.", The Evangelist, 17(8): 49-50. +% +"Anyone attempting to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of +course, living in a state of sin." +-- John Von Neumann +% +"You must have an IQ of at least half a million." -- Popeye +% +"Freedom is still the most radical idea of all." +-- Nathaniel Branden +% +Aren't you glad you're not getting all the government you pay for now? +% +"I never let my schooling get in the way of my education." +-- Mark Twain +% +These screamingly hilarious gogs ensure owners of X Ray Gogs to be the life +of any party. +-- X-Ray Gogs Instructions +% +A student asked the master for help... does this program run from the +Workbench? The master grabbed the mouse and pointed to an icon. "What is +this?" he asked. The student replied "That's the mouse". The master pressed +control-Amiga-Amiga and hit the student on the head with the Amiga ROM Kernel +Manual. +-- Amiga Zen Master Peter da Silva +% +"Thank heaven for startups; without them we'd never have any advances." +-- Seymour Cray +% +"Out of register space (ugh)" +-- vi +% +"Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor +of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, +it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community." + - Oscar Wilde +% +"Ada is PL/I trying to be Smalltalk. +-- Codoso diBlini +% +"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by mean of zeal, +well-meaning but without understanding." +-- Justice Louis O. Brandeis (Olmstead vs. United States) +% +"'Tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true." +-- Poloniouius, in Willie the Shake's _Hamlet, Prince of Darkness_ + +% +"All the people are so happy now, their heads are caving in. I'm glad they +are a snowman with protective rubber skin" +-- They Might Be Giants +% +"Indecision is the basis of flexibility" +-- button at a Science Fiction convention. +% +"Sometimes insanity is the only alternative" +-- button at a Science Fiction convention. +% +"Old age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time." +-- a coffee cup +% +"The most important thing in a man is not what he knows, but what he is." +-- Narciso Yepes +% +"All we are given is possibilities -- to make ourselves one thing or another." +-- Ortega y Gasset +% +"We will be better and braver if we engage and inquire than if we indulge in +the idle fancy that we already know -- or that it is of no use seeking to +know what we do not know." +-- Plato +% +"To undertake a project, as the word's derivation indicates, means to cast an +idea out ahead of oneself so that it gains autonomy and is fulfilled not only +by the efforts of its originator but, indeed, independently of him as well. +-- Czeslaw Milosz +% +"We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic +of life is its coerciveness; it is always urgent, "here and now," without any +possible postponement. Life is fired at us point blank." +-- Ortega y Gasset +% +"From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere." +-- Dr. Seuss +% +"When it comes to humility, I'm the greatest." +-- Bullwinkle Moose + +% +Remember, an int is not always 16 bits. I'm not sure, but if the 80386 is one +step closer to Intel's slugfest with the CPU curve that is aymptotically +approaching a real machine, perhaps an int has been implemented as 32 bits by +some Unix vendors...? +-- Derek Terveer +% +"Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care +what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything +you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. +Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to +insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the +destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, +be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to +insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as +your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be +yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your +receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this +thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen." + +Madrak, in _Creatures of Light and Darkness_, by Roger Zelazny +% +"An Academic speculated whether a bather is beautiful +if there is none in the forest to admire her. He hid +in the bushes to find out, which vitiated his premise +but made him happy. +Moral: Empiricism is more fun than speculation." +-- Sam Weber +% +1 1 was a race-horse, 2 2 was 1 2. When 1 1 1 1 race, 2 2 1 1 2. +% +"I figured there was this holocaust, right, and the only ones left alive were + Donna Reed, Ozzie and Harriet, and the Cleavers." +-- Wil Wheaton explains why everyone in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" + is so nice +% +"Engineering meets art in the parking lot and things explode." +-- Garry Peterson, about Survival Research Labs +% +"Why can't we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having +a 'War' on it?" -- Rich Thomson, talk.politics.misc +% + ...and before I knew what I was doing, I had kicked the + typewriter and threw it around the room and made it beg for + mercy. At this point the typewriter pleaded for me to dress + him in feminine attire but instead I pressed his margin release + over and over again until the typewriter lost consciousness. + Presently, I regained consciousness and realized with shame what + I had done. My shame is gone and now I am looking for a + submissive typewriter, any color, or model. No electric + typewriters please! + --Rick Kleiner +% +Professional wrestling: ballet for the common man. +% +"An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a +cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup." - H.L. Mencken +% + "Are those cocktail-waitress fingernail marks?" I asked Colletti as he +showed us these scratches on his chest. "No, those are on my back," Colletti +answered. "This is where a case of cocktail shrimp fell on me. I told her +to slow down a little, but you know cocktail waitresses, they seem to have +a mind of their own." +-- The Incredibly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs + National Lampoon, October 1982 +% +"Never give in. Never give in. Never. Never. Never." +-- Winston Churchill +% +"Never ascribe to malice that which is caused by greed and ignorance." +-- Cal Keegan +% +"Despite its suffix, skepticism is not an "ism" in the sense of a belief +or dogma. It is simply an approach to the problem of telling what is +counterfeit and what is genuine. And a recognition of how costly it may +be to fail to do so. To be a skeptic is to cultivate "street smarts" in +the battle for control of one's own mind, one's own money, one's own +allegiances. To be a skeptic, in short, is to refuse to be a victim. +-- Robert S. DeBear, "An Agenda for Reason, Realism, and Responsibility," + New York Skeptic (newsletter of the New York Area Skeptics, Inc.), Spring 1988 +% +"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead +stuff." +-- Dave Enyeart +% +"After one week [visiting Austria] I couldn't wait to go back to the United +States. Everything was much more pleasant in the United States, because of +the mentality of being open-minded, always positive. Everything you want to +do in Europe is just, 'No way. No one has ever done it.' They haven't any +more the desire to go out to conquer and achieve -- I realized that I had much +more the American spirit." +-- Arnold Schwarzenegger +% +"I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest." +-- Alexandre Dumas (fils) +% + Well, punk is kind of anti-ethical, anyway. Its ethics, so to speak, +include a disdain for ethics in general. If you have to think about some- +thing so hard, then it's bullshit anyway; that's the idea. Punks are anti- +ismists, to coin a term. But nonetheless, they have a pretty clearly defined +stance and image, and THAT is what we hang the term `punk' on. +-- Jeff G. Bone +% + I think for the most part that the readership here uses the c-word in +a similar fashion. I don't think anybody really believes in a new, revolution- +ary literature --- I think they use `cyberpunk' as a term of convenience to +discuss the common stylistic elements in a small subset of recent sf books. +-- Jeff G. Bone +% + So we get to my point. Surely people around here read things that +aren't on the *Officially Sanctioned Cyberpunk Reading List*. Surely we +don't (any of us) really believe that there is some big, deep political and +philosophical message in all this, do we? So if this `cyberpunk' thing is +just a term of convenience, how can somebody sell out? If cyberpunk is just a +word we use to describe a particular style and imagery in sf, how can it be +dead? Where are the profound statements that the `Movement' is or was trying +to make? + I think most of us are interested in examining and discussing literary +(and musical) works that possess a certain stylistic excellence and perhaps a +rather extreme perspective; this is what CP is all about, no? Maybe there +should be a newsgroup like, say, alt.postmodern or somthing. Something less +restrictive in scope than alt.cyberpunk. +-- Jeff G. Bone +% +"Everyone's head is a cheap movie show." +-- Jeff G. Bone +% +Life is full of concepts that are poorly defined. In fact, there are very few +concepts that aren't. It's hard to think of any in non-technical fields. +-- Daniel Kimberg +% +...cyberpunk wants to see the mind as mechanistic & duplicable, +challenging basic assumptions about the nature of individuality & self. +That seems all the better reason to assume that cyberpunk art & music is +essentially mindless garbagio. Willy certainly addressed this idea in +"Count Zero," with Katatonenkunst, the automatic box-maker and the girl's +observation that the real art was the building of the machine itself, +rather than its output. +-- Eliot Handelman +% +It might be worth reflecting that this group was originally created +back in September of 1987 and has exchanged over 1200 messages. The +original announcement for the group called for an all inclusive +discussion ranging from the writings of Gibson and Vinge and movies +like Bladerunner to real world things like Brands' description of the +work being done at the MIT Media Lab. It was meant as a haven for +people with vision of this scope. If you want to create a haven for +people with narrower visions, feel free. But I feel sad for anyone +who thinks that alt.cyberpunk is such a monstrous group that it is in +dire need of being subdivided. Heaven help them if they ever start +reading comp.arch or rec.arts.sf-lovers. +-- Bob Webber +% +...I don't care for the term 'mechanistic'. The word 'cybernetic' is a lot +more apropos. The mechanistic world-view is falling further and further behind +the real world where even simple systems can produce the most marvellous +chaos. +-- Peter da Silva +% +As for the basic assumptions about individuality and self, this is the core +of what I like about cyberpunk. And it's the core of what I like about certain +pre-gibson neophile techie SF writers that certain folks here like to put +down. Not everyone makes the same assumptions. I haven't lost my mind... it's +backed up on tape. +-- Peter da Silva +% +Who are the artists in the Computer Graphics Show? Wavefront's latest box, or +the people who programmed it? Should Mandelbrot get all the credit for the +output of programs like MandelVroom? +-- Peter da Silva +% +Trailing Edge Technologies is pleased to announce the following +TETflame programme: + +1) For a negotiated price (no quatloos accepted) one of our flaming + representatives will flame the living shit out of the poster of + your choice. The price is inversly proportional to how much of + an asshole the target it. We cannot be convinced to flame Dennis + Ritchie. Matt Crawford flames are free. + +2) For a negotiated price (same arrangement) the TETflame programme + is offering ``flame insurence''. Under this arrangement, if + one of our policy holders is flamed, we will cancel the offending + article and flame the flamer, to a crisp. + +3) The TETflame flaming representatives include: Richard Sexton, Oleg + Kisalev, Diane Holt, Trish O'Tauma, Dave Hill, Greg Nowak and our most + recent aquisition, Keith Doyle. But all he will do is put you in his + kill file. Weemba by special arrangement. + +-- Richard Sexton +% +"As I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of + Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity. I collected some of + their Proverbs..." - Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" + +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 1 + +proof by example: + The author gives only the case n = 2 and suggests that it + contains most of the ideas of the general proof. + +proof by intimidation: + 'Trivial'. + +proof by vigorous handwaving: + Works well in a classroom or seminar setting. +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 2 + +proof by cumbersome notation: + Best done with access to at least four alphabets and special + symbols. + +proof by exhaustion: + An issue or two of a journal devoted to your proof is useful. + +proof by omission: + 'The reader may easily supply the details' + 'The other 253 cases are analogous' + '...' + +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 3 + +proof by obfuscation: + A long plotless sequence of true and/or meaningless + syntactically related statements. + +proof by wishful citation: + The author cites the negation, converse, or generalization of + a theorem from the literature to support his claims. + +proof by funding: + How could three different government agencies be wrong? + +proof by eminent authority: + 'I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it was probably NP- + complete.' + +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 4 + +proof by personal communication: + 'Eight-dimensional colored cycle stripping is NP-complete + [Karp, personal communication].' + +proof by reduction to the wrong problem: + 'To see that infinite-dimensional colored cycle stripping is + decidable, we reduce it to the halting problem.' + +proof by reference to inaccessible literature: + The author cites a simple corollary of a theorem to be found + in a privately circulated memoir of the Slovenian + Philological Society, 1883. + +proof by importance: + A large body of useful consequences all follow from the + proposition in question. +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 5 + +proof by accumulated evidence: + Long and diligent search has not revealed a counterexample. + +proof by cosmology: + The negation of the proposition is unimaginable or + meaningless. Popular for proofs of the existence of God. + +proof by mutual reference: + In reference A, Theorem 5 is said to follow from Theorem 3 in + reference B, which is shown to follow from Corollary 6.2 in + reference C, which is an easy consequence of Theorem 5 in + reference A. + +proof by metaproof: + A method is given to construct the desired proof. The + correctness of the method is proved by any of these + techniques. +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 6 + +proof by picture: + A more convincing form of proof by example. Combines well + with proof by omission. + +proof by vehement assertion: + It is useful to have some kind of authority relation to the + audience. + +proof by ghost reference: + Nothing even remotely resembling the cited theorem appears in + the reference given. + +% + HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 7 +proof by forward reference: + Reference is usually to a forthcoming paper of the author, + which is often not as forthcoming as at first. + +proof by semantic shift: + Some of the standard but inconvenient definitions are changed + for the statement of the result. + +proof by appeal to intuition: + Cloud-shaped drawings frequently help here. +% + [May one] doubt whether, in cheese and timber, worms are generated, + or, if beetles and wasps, in cow-dung, or if butterflies, locusts, + shellfish, snails, eels, and such life be procreated of putrefied + matter, which is to receive the form of that creature to which it + is by formative power disposed[?] To question this is to question + reason, sense, and experience. If he doubts this, let him go to + Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice begot + of the mud of the Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants. + A seventeenth century opinion quoted by L. L. Woodruff, + in *The Evolution of Earth and Man*, 1929 +% +Seen on a button at an SF Convention: +Veteran of the Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force. 1990-1951. +% +"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, +then we are a sorry lot indeed." +-- Albert Einstein +% +"What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is +the exact opposite." +-- Bertrand Russell, _Sceptical_Essays_, 1928 +% +"Were there no women, men might live like gods." +-- Thomas Dekker +% +"Intelligence without character is a dangerous thing." +-- G. Steinem +% +"It says he made us all to be just like him. So if we're dumb, then god is +dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side." +-- Frank Zappa +% +"It's not just a computer -- it's your ass." +-- Cal Keegan +% +"Let me guess, Ed. Pentescostal, right?" +-- Starcap'n Ra, ra@asuvax.asu.edu + +"Nope. Charismatic (I think - I've given up on what all those pesky labels + mean)." +-- Ed Carp, erc@unisec.usi.com + +"Same difference - all zeal and feel, averaging less than one working brain +cell per congregation. Starcap'n Ra, you pegged him. Good work!" +-- Kenn Barry, barry@eos.UUCP +% +"BTW, does Jesus know you flame?" +-- Diane Holt, dianeh@binky.UUCP, to Ed Carp +% +"I've seen the forgeries I've sent out." +-- John F. Haugh II (jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US), about forging net news articles +% +"Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have some + of the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?" +-- Patricia O Tuama, rissa@killer.DALLAS.TX.US +% +"Bite off, dirtball." +Richard Sexton, richard@gryphon.COM +% +"Oh my! An `inflammatory attitude' in alt.flame? Never heard of such +a thing..." +-- Allen Gwinn, allen@sulaco.Sigma.COM +% +(null cookie; hope that's ok) +% +"In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality +at any point." +-- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +"Who alone has reason to *lie himself out* of actuality? He who *suffers* + from it." +-- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +"You who hate the Jews so, why did you adopt their religion?" +-- Friedrich Nietzsche, addressing anti-semitic Christians +% +"Little prigs and three-quarter madmen may have the conceit that the laws of +nature are constantly broken for their sakes." +-- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +"Science makes godlike -- it is all over with priests and gods when man becomes + scientific. Moral: science is the forbidden as such -- it alone is + forbidden. Science is the *first* sin, the *original* sin. *This alone is + morality.* ``Thou shalt not know'' -- the rest follows." +-- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +"Faith: not *wanting* to know what is true." +-- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +>One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative. + +Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this. +The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame. +-- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@Apple.COM +% +"Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one idiot. + Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's sometimes hard + to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all of the hassle and + pain is generally caused by one or two highly-motivated, caustic twits." +-- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@apple.com, about Usenet +% +Backed up the system lately? +% +"It doesn't much signify whom one marries for one is sure to find out next +morning it was someone else." +-- Rogers +% +"If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry." +-- Chekhov +% +"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with +the ideal never goes unpunished." +-- Goethe +% +"In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved." +-- Butler +% +"The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, `What does +woman want?'" +-- Sigmund Freud +% +"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 +% +Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life. +-- Dave Butler +% +"The preeminence of a learned man over a worshiper is equal to the preeminence +of the moon, at the night of the full moon, over all the stars. Verily, the +learned men are the heirs of the Prophets." +-- A tradition attributed to Muhammad +% +"The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; +the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of a +military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and +private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; +and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes +who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity." +-- Edward Gibbons, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ +% +"The question is rather: if we ever succeed in making a mind 'of nuts and +bolts', how will we know we have succeeded? +-- Fergal Toomey + +"It will tell us." +-- Barry Kort +% +"Inquiry is fatal to certainty." +-- Will Durant +% +"The Mets were great in 'sixty eight, + The Cards were fine in 'sixty nine, + But the Cubs will be heavenly in nineteen and seventy." +-- Ernie Banks +% +"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], 'Pray, Mr. +Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers +come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas +that could provoke such a question." +-- Charles Babbage +% +"I call Christianity the *one* great curse, the *one* great intrinsic +depravity, the *one* great instinct for revenge for which no expedient +is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, *petty* -- I call it +the *one* mortal blemish of mankind." +-- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +"The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to +safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster +the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men. Suffer it not to become a source +of dissension and discord, of hate and enmity." + +"Religion is verily the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the + world and of tranquillity amongst it's peoples...The greater the decline of + religion, the more grievous the waywardness of the ungodly. This cannot but + lead in the end to chaos and confusion." +-- Baha'u'llah, a selection from the Baha'i scripture +% +"Cogito ergo I'm right and you're wrong." +-- Blair Houghton +% +"...one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, +lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of +their C programs." +-- Robert Firth +% +Q: Somebody just posted that Roman Polanski directed Star Wars. What +should I do? + +A: Post the correct answer at once! We can't have people go on believing +that! Very good of you to spot this. You'll probably be the only one to +make the correction, so post as soon as you can. No time to lose, so +certainly don't wait a day, or check to see if somebody else has made the +correction. + +And it's not good enough to send the message by mail. Since you're the +only one who really knows that it was Francis Coppola, you have to inform +the whole net right away! + +-- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ +% +Q: How can I choose what groups to post in? ... +Q: How about an example? + +A: Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from the +Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey +would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a +big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy +as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try +news.admin. If not, use news.misc. + +The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics. He is +a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also +interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to +soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to +news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of +interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as +well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles +there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.) + +You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each group. +If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders will +only show the the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this. +-- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ +% +Q: I cant spell worth a dam. I hope your going too tell me what to do? + +A: Don't worry about how your articles look. Remember it's the message +that counts, not the way it's presented. Ignore the fact that sloppy +spelling in a purely written forum sends out the same silent messages that +soiled clothing would when addressing an audience. + +-- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ +% +Q: They just announced on the radio that Dan Quayle was picked as the +Republican V.P. candidate. Should I post? + +A: Of course. The net can reach people in as few as 3 to 5 days. It's +the perfect way to inform people about such news events long after the +broadcast networks have covered them. As you are probably the only person +to have heard the news on the radio, be sure to post as soon as you can. + +-- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ +% +What did Mickey Mouse get for Christmas? + +A Dan Quayle watch. + +-- heard from a Mike Dukakis field worker +% +Q: What's the difference between a car salesman and a computer + salesman? + +A: The car salesman can probably drive! + +-- Joan McGalliard (jem@latcs1.oz.au) +% +"Your stupidity, Allen, is simply not up to par." +-- Dave Mack (mack@inco.UUCP) + +"Yours is." +-- Allen Gwinn (allen@sulaco.sigma.com), in alt.flame +% +A selection from the Taoist Writings: + +"Lao-Tan asked Confucius: `What do you mean by benevolence and righteousness?' + Confucius said: `To be in one's inmost heart in kindly sympathy with all + things; to love all men and allow no selfish thoughts: this is the nature + of benevolence and righteousness.'" +-- Kwang-tzu +% +"Jesus saves...but Gretzky gets the rebound!" +-- Daniel Hinojosa (hinojosa@hp-sdd) +% +"Anything created must necessarily be inferior to the essence of the creator." +-- Claude Shouse (shouse@macomw.ARPA) + +"Einstein's mother must have been one heck of a physicist." +-- Joseph C. Wang (joe@athena.mit.edu) +% +"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will +fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines." +-- Bertrand Russell +% +"Lying lips are abomination to the Lord; but they that deal truly are his + delight. + A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger. + He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto + him. + Be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause; and deceive not with + thy lips. + Death and life are in the power of the tongue." +-- Proverbs, some selections from the Jewish Scripture +% +"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and +I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I became a scientist. +This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls." +-- Matt Cartmill +% +Heisenberg might have been here. +% +"Any excuse will serve a tyrant." +-- Aesop +% +"Experience has proved that some people indeed know everything." +-- Russell Baker +% +How many Zen Buddhist does it take to change a light bulb? + +Two. One to change it and one not to change it. +% +"I prefer the blunted cudgels of the followers of the Serpent God." +-- Sean Doran the Younger +% +"If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak." +-- Phil Wayne +% +"my terminal is a lethal teaspoon." +-- Patricia O Tuama +% +"I am ... a woman ... and ... technically a parasitic uterine growth" +-- Sean Doran the Younger [allegedly] +% +"Is it just me, or does anyone else read `bible humpers' every time +someone writes `bible thumpers?' +-- Joel M. Snyder, jms@mis.arizona.edu +% +"Money is the root of all money." +-- the moving finger +% +"...Greg Nowak: `Another flame from greg' - need I say more?" +-- Jonathan D. Trudel, trudel@caip.rutgers.edu + +"No. You need to say less." +-- Richard Sexton, richard@gryphon.COM +% +"And it's my opinion, and that's only my opinion, you are a lunatic. Just +because there are a few hunderd other people sharing your lunacy with you +does not make you any saner. Doomed, eh?" +-- Oleg Kiselev,oleg@CS.UCLA.EDU +% +"Obedience. A religion of slaves. A religion of intellectual death. I like +it. Don't ask questions, don't think, obey the Word of the Lord -- as it +has been conveniently brought to you by a man in a Rolls with a heavy Rolex +on his wrist. I like that job! Where can I sign up?" +-- Oleg Kiselev,oleg@CS.UCLA.EDU +% +"Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is to a +cockatoo." +-- George Bernard Shaw +% +"Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and +those inside desperate to get out." +-- Montaigne +% +"For a male and female to live continuously together is... biologically +speaking, an extremely unnatural condition." +-- Robert Briffault +% +"Marriage is low down, but you spend the rest of your life paying for it." +-- Baskins +% +A man is not complete until he is married -- then he is finished. +% +Marriage is the sole cause of divorce. +% +Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is +the triumph of hope over experience. +% +"The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain." +-- G. Fitch +% +"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company." +-- Mark Twain +% +"I am convinced that the manufacturers of carpet odor removing powder have + included encapsulated time released cat urine in their products. This + technology must be what prevented its distribution during my mom's reign. My + carpet smells like piss, and I don't have a cat. Better go by some more." +-- timw@zeb.USWest.COM, in alt.conspiracy +% +"If there isn't a population problem, why is the government putting cancer in +the cigarettes?" +-- the elder Steptoe, c. 1970 +% +"If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do: Pour a little + Lavoris in the toilet." +-- Comedian Jay Leno +% +"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like + `Psychic Wins Lottery.'" +-- Comedian Jay Leno +% +"Well hello there Charlie Brown, you blockhead." +-- Lucy Van Pelt +% +"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." +-- Ford Prefect, _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ +% +"Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows." +-- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"Let every man teach his son, teach his daughter, that labor is honorable." +-- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"I have not the slightest confidence in 'spiritual manifestations.'" +-- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"It is hard to overstate the debt that we owe to men and women of genius." +-- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"Joy is wealth and love is the legal tender of the soul." +-- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray." +-- Robert G. Ingersoll +% +"It is the creationists who blasphemously are claiming that God is cheating + us in a stupid way." +-- J. W. Nienhuys +% +"No, no, I don't mind being called the smartest man in the world. I just wish + it wasn't this one." +-- Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, WATCHMEN +% +"Be *excellent* to each other." +-- Bill, or Ted, in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure +% +The Seventh Edition licensing procedures are, I suppose, still in effect, +though I doubt that tapes are available from AT&T. At any rate, whatever +restrictions the license imposes still exist. These restrictions were and +are reasonable for places that just want to run the system, but don't allow +many of the things that Minix was written for, like study of the source in +classes, or by individuals not in a university or company. + +I've always thought that Minix was a fine idea, and competently done. + +As for the size of v7, wc -l /usr/sys/*/*.[chs] is 19271. + +-- Dennis Ritchie, 1989 +% +"Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it." -- Alex Schure +% +"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips + over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." +--Matt Groening +% +"I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens." +-- Woody Allen +% +"The Street finds its own uses for technology." +-- William Gibson +% +"I see little divinity about them or you. You talk to me of Christianity +when you are in the act of hanging your enemies. Was there ever such +blasphemous nonsense!" +-- Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple" +% +"You and I as individuals can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but +only for a limited period of time. Why should we think that collectively, +as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?" +-- Ronald Reagan +% +"He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mental effort, +he could probably turn the activity into an acceptable perversion." +-- Mick Farren, _When Gravity Fails_ +% +"Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts +most subtly on the human will." +-- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway" +% +It's time to boot, do your boot ROMs know where your disk controllers are? +% +"What the scientists have in their briefcases is terrifying." +-- Nikita Khrushchev +% +"...a most excellent barbarian ... Genghis Kahn!" +-- _Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure_ +% +"Pull the trigger and you're garbage." +-- Lady Blue +% +"Oh what wouldn't I give to be spat at in the face..." +-- a prisoner in "Life of Brian" +% +"Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy +of him that brought her birth." +-- Milton +% +"If you can't debate me, then there is no way in hell you'll out-insult me." +-- Scott Legrand (Scott.Legrand@hogbbs.Fidonet.Org) + +"You may be wrong here, little one." +-- R. W. F. Clark (RWC102@PSUVM) +% + "Yes, I am a real piece of work. One thing we learn at Ulowell is + how to flame useless hacking non-EE's like you. I am superior to you in + every way by training and expertise in the technical field. Anyone can learn + how to hack, but Engineering doesn't come nearly as easily. Actually, I'm + not trying to offend all you CS majors out there, but I think EE is one of the + hardest majors/grad majors to pass. Fortunately, I am making it." +-- "Warrior Diagnostics" (wardiag@sky.COM) + +"Being both an EE and an asshole at the same time must be a terrible burden + for you. This isn't really a flame, just a casual observation. Makes me + glad I was a CS major, life is really pleasant for me. Have fun with your + chosen mode of existence!" +-- Jim Morrison (morrisj@mist.cs.orst.edu) +% +"BYTE editors are men who seperate the wheat from the chaff, and then + print the chaff." +-- Lionel Hummel (uiucdcs!hummel), derived from a quote by Adlai Stevenson, Sr. +% + THE "FUN WITH USENET" MANIFESTO +Very little happens on Usenet without some sort of response from some other +reader. Fun With Usenet postings are no exception. Since there are some who +might question the rationale of some of the excerpts included therein, I have +written up a list of guidelines that sum up the philosophy behind these +postings. + + One. I never cut out words in the middle of a quote without a VERY +good reason, and I never cut them out without including ellipses. For +instance, "I am not a goob" might become "I am ... a goob", but that's too +mundane to bother with. "I'm flame proof" might (and has) become +"I'm ...a... p...oof" but that's REALLY stretching it. + + Two. If I cut words off the beginning or end of a quote, I don't +put ellipses, but neither do I capitalize something that wasn't capitalized +before the cut. "I don't think that the Church of Ubizmo is a wonderful +place" would turn into "the Church of Ubizmo is a wonderful place". Imagine +the posting as a tape-recording of the poster's thoughts. If I can set +up the quote via fast-forwarding and stopping the tape, and without splicing, +I don't put ellipses in. And by the way, I love using this mechanism for +turning things around. If you think something stinks, say so - don't say you +don't think it's wonderful. ... +-- D. J. McCarthy (dmccart@cadape.UUCP) +% +"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary +safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." +-- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 +% +"I am, therefore I am." +-- Akira +% +"Stan and I thought that this experiment was so stupid, we decided to finance + it ourselves." +-- Martin Fleischmann, co-discoverer of room-temperature fusion (?) +% +"I have more information in one place than anybody in the world." +-- Jerry Pournelle, an absurd notion, apparently about the BIX BBS +% +"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." +-- John Wooden +% +#define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255) +#define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \ + - (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \ + - (((x)>>3)&0x11111111)) + +-- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word +% +"If you can write a nation's stories, you needn't worry about who makes its + laws. Today, television tells most of the stories to most of the people + most of the time." +-- George Gerbner +% +"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists + in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on + the unreasonable man." +-- George Bernard Shaw +% +"We want to create puppets that pull their own strings." +-- Ann Marion + +"Would this make them Marionettes?" +-- Jeff Daiell +% +On the subject of C program indentation: +"In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be indented + six feet downward and covered with dirt." +-- Blair P. Houghton +% +There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, in +one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term that +the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the practice -- +was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed to do whatever +was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if necessary, family, +hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left (and you might not, if +you had signed up too many times before). +-- Tracy Kidder, _The Soul of a New Machine_ +% +"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began +to suspect "Hungry." +-- a Larson cartoon +% +"But don't you see, the color of wine in a crystal glass can be spiritual. + The look in a face, the music of a violin. A Paris theater can be infused + with the spiritual for all its solidity." + -- Lestat, _The Vampire Lestat_, Anne Rice +% +"Love your country but never trust its government." +-- from a hand-painted road sign in central Pennsylvania +% + I bought the latest computer; + it came fully loaded. + It was guaranteed for 90 days, + but in 30 was outmoded! + - The Wall Street Journal passed along by Big Red Computer's SCARLETT +% +To update Voltaire, "I may kill all msgs from you, but I'll fight for +your right to post it, and I'll let it reside on my disks". +-- Doug Thompson (doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG) +% +"Though a program be but three lines long, +someday it will have to be maintained." +-- The Tao of Programming +% +"Turn on, tune up, rock out." +-- Billy Gibbons +% + EARTH + smog | bricks + AIR -- mud -- FIRE +soda water | tequila + WATER +% +"Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows power tools aren't +soluble in alcohol..." +-- Crazy Nigel +% +"Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all...." +-- Thomas J. Kopp +% + n = ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((n << 1) & 0xaaaaaaaa); + n = ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((n << 2) & 0xcccccccc); + n = ((n >> 4) & 0x0f0f0f0f) | ((n << 4) & 0xf0f0f0f0); + n = ((n >> 8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n << 8) & 0xff00ff00); + n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000); + +-- Yet another mystical 'C' gem. This one reverses the bits in a word. +% +"All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is +constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role +they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume." +-- Noam Chomsky +% +"A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple +system that worked." +-- John Gall, _Systemantics_ +% +"In my opinion, Richard Stallman wouldn't recognise terrorism if it +came up and bit him on his Internet." +-- Ross M. Greenberg +% +I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of +others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use +of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, +such as "certainly", "undoubtedly", etc. I adopted instead of them "I +conceive", "I apprehend", or "I imagine" a thing to be so or so; or "so it +appears to me at present". + +When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the +pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him immediately some +absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by observing that in +certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present +case there appeared or semed to me some difference, etc. + +I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I +engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my +opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction. I had +less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily +prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I +happened to be in the right. +-- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin +% +"If I ever get around to writing that language depompisifier, it will change +almost all occurences of the word "paradigm" into "example" or "model." +-- Herbie Blashtfalt +% +"Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it." +-- Marvin the paranoid android +% +Contemptuous lights flashed across the computer's console. +-- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +"There must be some mistake," he said, "are you not a greater computer than +the Milliard Gargantubrain which can count all the atoms in a star in a +millisecond?" +"The Milliard Gargantubrain?" said Deep Thought with unconcealed contempt. +"A mere abacus. Mention it not." +-- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +"But are you not," he said, "a more fiendish disputant than the Great Hyperlobic +Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus Twelve, the Magic and +Indefatigable?" + +"The Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler," said Deep Thought, +thoroughly rolling the r's, "could talk all four legs off an Arcturan +Mega-Donkey -- but only I could persuade it to go for a walk afterward." +-- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, Jolt Cola +would be a Fortune-500 company. + +If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, you'd be +able to buy a nice little colonial split-level at Babbages for $34.95. + +If programmers wrote programs the way builders build buildings, we'd still +be using autocoder and running compile decks. + +-- Peter da Silva and Karl Lehenbauer, a different perspective +% +To err is human, to moo bovine. +% +"America is a stronger nation for the ACLU's uncompromising effort." +-- President John F. Kennedy +% +"The simple rights, the civil liberties from generations of struggle must not +be just fine words for patriotic holidays, words we subvert on weekdays, but +living, honored rules of conduct amongst us...I'm glad the American Civil +Liberties Union gets indignant, and I hope this will always be so." +-- Senator Adlai E. Stevenson +% +"The ACLU has stood foursquare against the recurring tides of hysteria that +>from time to time threaten freedoms everyhere... Indeed, it is difficult +to appreciate how far our freedoms might have eroded had it not been for the +Union's valiant representation in the courts of the constitutional rights +of people of all persuasions, no matter how unpopular or even despised +by the majority they were at the time." +-- former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren +% +"The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each +citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do +his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure." +-- Albert Einstein +% +"Well I don't see why I have to make one man miserable when I can make so many +men happy." +-- Ellyn Mustard, about marriage +% +"And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what +the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions." +-- David Jones @ Megatest Corporation +% +"Luke, I'm yer father, eh. Come over to the dark side, you hoser." +-- Dave Thomas, "Strange Brew" +% +"Let's not be too tough on our own ignorance. It's the thing that makes + America great. If America weren't incomparably ignorant, how could we + have tolerated the last eight years?" +-- Frank Zappa, Feb 1, 1989 +% +"The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through +three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and +Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. +"For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can +we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by +the question 'Where shall we have lunch?'" +-- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +"Don't think; let the machine do it for you!" +-- E. C. Berkeley +% +"It follows that any commander in chief who undertakes to carry out a plan + which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forth his reasons, + insist of the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather +than be the instrument of his army's downfall." +-- Napoleon, "Military Maxims and Thought" +% +"(The Chief Programmer) personally defines the functional and performance + specifications, designs the program, codes it, tests it, and writes its + documentation... He needs great talent, ten years experience and + considerable systems and applications knowledge, whether in applied + mathematics, business data handling, or whatever." +-- Fred P. Brooks, _The Mythical Man Month_ +% +"It ain't over until it's over." +-- Casey Stengel +% +"If anything can go wrong, it will." +-- Edsel Murphy +% +"Yo baby yo baby yo." +-- Eddie Murphy +% +"You must learn to run your kayak by a sort of ju-jitsu. You must learn to + tell what the river will do to you, and given those parameters see how you + can live with it. You must absorb its force and convert it to your users + as best you can. Even with the quickness and agility of a kayak, you are + not faster than the river, nor stronger, and you can beat it only by + understanding it." +-- Strung, Curtis and Perry, _Whitewater_ +% +Everyone who comes in here wants three things: + 1. They want it quick. + 2. They want it good. + 3. They want it cheap. +I tell 'em to pick two and call me back. +-- sign on the back wall of a small printing company in Delaware +% +"More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all + other causes combined." +-- Fred Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_ +% +panic: kernel trap (ignored) +% +"Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile." +-- Karl Lehenbauer +% +"Remember, extremism in the nondefense of moderation is not a virtue." +-- Peter Neumann, about usenet +% +"We dedicated ourselves to a powerful idea -- organic law rather than naked + power. There seems to be universal acceptance of that idea in the nation." +-- Supreme Court Justice Potter Steart +% +"What man has done, man can aspire to do." +-- Jerry Pournelle, about space flight +% +"Well, it don't make the sun shine, but at least it don't deepen the shit." +-- Straiter Empy, in _Riddley_Walker_ by Russell Hoban +% +"If you can, help others. If you can't, at least don't hurt others." +-- the Dalai Lama +% +To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a +test load. +% +"Just think, with VLSI we can have 100 ENIACS on a chip!" +-- Alan Perlis +% +"...Local prohibitions cannot block advances in military and commercial + technology... Democratic movements for local restraint can only restrain + the world's democracies, not the world as a whole." +-- K. Eric Drexler +% +"The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between a five-dollar bill +and a whip deserves to learn the difference on his own back -- as, I think, he +will." +-- Francisco d'Anconia, in Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_ +% +"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and + the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will + lose that, too." +-- W. Somerset Maugham +% +"Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother + to say it, oh God, I'm so depressed. Here's another of those self-satisfied + doors. Life! Don't talk to me about life." +-- Marvin the Paranoid Android +% +One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with +Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just +to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't +be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending +to be so outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand +hat was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was reknowned for +being quite clever and quite clearly was so -- but not all the time, which +obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be puzzled +rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be +genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about. +-- Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ +% +Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the +former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free. + +Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and +reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days, spirits +were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women +and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures +from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty +deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before -- and thus +was the Empire forged. +-- Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ +% +"Gort, klaatu nikto barada." +-- The Day the Earth Stood Still +% +> From MAILER-DAEMON@Think.COM Thu Mar 2 13:59:11 1989 +> Subject: Returned mail: unknown mailer error 255 + +"Dale, your address no longer functions. Can you fix it at your end?" +-- Bill Wolfe (wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu) + +"Bill, Your brain no longer functions. Can you fix it at your end?" +-- Karl A. Nyberg (nyberg@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu) +% +"Don't drop acid, take it pass-fail!" +-- Bryan Michael Wendt +% +"I got a question for ya. Ya got a minute?" +-- two programmers passing in the hall +% +I took a fish head to the movies and I didn't have to pay. +-- Fish Heads, Saturday Night Live, 1977. +% +What hath Bob wrought? +% +"I don't know where we come from, + Don't know where we're going to, + And if all this should have a reason, + We would be the last to know. + + So let's just hope there is a promised land, + And until then, + ...as best as you can." +-- Steppenwolf, "Rock Me Baby" +% +"Help Mr. Wizard!" +-- Tennessee Tuxedo +% +"The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. + He of all men should behave as though the law compelled him. + But it is the universal weakness of mankind that what we are + given to administer we presently imagine we own." +-- H.G. Wells +% +"Unlike most net.puritans, however, I feel that what OTHER consenting computers + do in the privacy of their own phone connections is their own business." +-- John Woods, jfw@eddie.mit.edu +% +"Don't talk to me about disclaimers! I invented disclaimers!" +-- The Censored Hacker +% +'On this point we want to be perfectly clear: socialism has nothing to do +with equalizing. Socialism cannot ensure conditions of life and +consumption in accordance with the principle "From each according to his +ability, to each according to his needs." This will be under communism. +Socialism has a different criterion for distributing social benefits: +"From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."' +-- Mikhail Gorbachev, _Perestroika_ +% +"Cable is not a luxury, since many areas have poor TV reception." +-- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989 +[apparently, good TV reception is a basic necessity -- at least in Tucson -kl] +% +"All the system's paths must be topologically and circularly interrelated for + conceptually definitive, locally transformable, polyhedronal understanding to + be attained in our spontaneous -- ergo, most economical -- geodesiccally + structured thoughts." +-- R. Buckminster Fuller [...and a total nonsequitur as far as I can tell. -kl] +% +"One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that + sometimes you must work under adverse conditions... like a state of sheer + terror." +-- W. K. Hartmann +% +"It's when they say 2 + 2 = 5 that I begin to argue." +-- Eric Pepke +% +Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness of a +pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule." +-- David Guaspari +% +"None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary +to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert -- because no one +ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a +job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing +forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient +he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a +state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the +"expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible." +-- From Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work," p. 86 (1922): +% +"The NY Times is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post +is read by the people who think they run the country. The National Enquirer +is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running the country..." +-- Robert J Woodhead (trebor@biar.UUCP) +% + "...'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not +matter. 'I' do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality +and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his +fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the +world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon +reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles +as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming." +-- Siddartha, _Lord_of_Light_ by Roger Zelazny +% +"Irrigation of the land with sewater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. +It's called 'rain'." +-- Michael McClary, in alt.fusion +% +"The bad reputation UNIX has gotten is totally undeserved, laid on by people + who don't understand, who have not gotten in there and tried anything." +-- Jim Joyce, former computer science lecturer at the University of California +% +"We scientists, whose tragic destiny it has been to make the methods of +annihilation ever more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn +and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from +being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented." +-- Albert Einstein, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September 1948 +% +"You can have my Unix system when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers." +-- Cal Keegan +% +We'll be more than happy to do so once Jim shows the slightest sign +of interest in fixing his proposal to deal with the technical +arguments that have *already* been made. Most engineers have +learned there is little to be gained in fine-tuning the valve timing +on a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine when the pistons +and crankshaft are missing... + -- Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu on NANOG +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/debian b/fortune-mod/datfiles/debian new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0cead6a --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/debian @@ -0,0 +1,79 @@ +I think it's a little fantastic to try to form a picture in people's +minds of the Debian archive administration team huddled over their +terminals, their faces lit only by a CRT with a little root shell +prompt and the command +"/project/org/ftp.debian.org/cabal/s3kr1t/nuke-non-free.pl" all keyed +in and ready to go, their fingers poised over the enter key, a sweat of +lustful anticipated beading on their upper lips." + -- Branden Robinson in + <20031104211846.GK13131@deadbeast.net> discussing + his draft Social Contract amendment +% +If you are going to run a rinky-dink distro made by a couple of +volunteers, why not run a rinky-dink distro made by a lot of volunteers? + -- Jaldhar H. Vyas on debian-devel +% +Packages should build-depend on what they should build-depend. + -- Santiago Vila on debian-devel +% +There are 3 types of guys -- the ones who hate nerds (all nerds, that +is; girls aren't let off the hook); the ones who are scared off by girls +who are slightly more intelligent than average; and the guys who are +also somewhat more intelligent than average, but are so shy that they +can't put 2 words together when they're within 20 feet of a girl. + -- Vikki Roemer on debian-curiosa +% +Debian is the Jedi operating system: "Always two there are, a master and +an apprentice". + -- Simon Richter on debian-devel +% +This is Unix we're talking about, remember. It's not supposed to be +nice for the applications programmer. + -- Matthew Danish on debian-devel +% +... but hey, this is Linux, isn't it meant to do infinite loops in 5 +seconds? + -- Jonathan Oxer in the apt-cacher ChangeLog +% +I'm personally quite happy with one stable release every two years, and +am of the opinion that trying to release more will mean we'll have to +rename the distro from "stable" to "wobbly". + -- Scott James Remnant on debian-devel +% +< Keybuk> Perl 6 scares me +< doogie> you can name your operators anything. the name here is the + string '~|_|~' +* Lo-lan-2 runs away screaming +< Keybuk> it looks like a diagram of a canal lock :) +< jaybonci> japanese smiley operators? +< nickr> ^_^ + -- in #debian-devel +% +< sam> /.ing an issue is like asking an infinite number of monkeys for + advice + -- in #debian-devel +% +< DanielS> still, throne of blood sounds like a movie about overfiend + and virgins or some crap + -- in #debian-devel +% +< jaybonci> actually d-i stands for "divine intervention" ;) + -- in #debian-devel +% +< doogie> asuffield: how do you think dpkg was originally written? :| +< asuffield> by letting iwj get dangerously near a computer + -- in #debian-devel +% +< asuffield> a workstation is anything you can stick on somebodies desk + and con them into using + -- in #debian-devel +% + joshk@influx:/etc/logrotate.d> sh -n * + apache: line 14: syntax error near unexpected token `}' + apache: line 14: `}' + the plot thickens + those aren't shell scripts + this wasn't chicken. + -- in #debian-devel +% + diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/definitions b/fortune-mod/datfiles/definitions new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef04d47 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/definitions @@ -0,0 +1,5607 @@ +17th Rule of Friendship: + A friend will refrain from telling you he picked up the same amount of + life insurance coverage you did for half the price when yours is + noncancellable. + -- Esquire, May 1977 +% +186,282 miles per second: + It isn't just a good idea, it's the law! +% +18th Rule of Friendship: + A friend will let you hold the ladder while he goes up on the roof + to install your new aerial, which is the biggest son-of-a-bitch you + ever saw. + -- Esquire, May 1977 +% +2180, U.S. History question: + What 20th Century U.S. President was almost impeached and what + office did he later hold? +% +3rd Law of Computing: + Anything that can go wr +fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped +% +667: + The neighbor of the beast. +% +A hypothetical paradox: + What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security team, + who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of Imperial + Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet? + -- Tom Galloway +% +A Law of Computer Programming: + Make it possible for programmers to write in English + and you will find that programmers cannot write in English. +% +A musician, an artist, an architect: + the man or woman who is not one of these is not a Christian. + -- William Blake +% +A new koan: + If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you. + If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you. +It is an ice cream koan. +% +Abbott's Admonitions: + (1) If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know. + (2) If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question. + -- Charles Abbot, dean, University of Virginia +% +Absent, adj.: + Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered. +% +Absentee, n.: + A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove + himself from the sphere of exaction. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Abstainer, n.: + A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a + pleasure. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Absurdity, n.: + A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Academy: + A modern school where football is taught. +Institute: + An archaic school where football is not taught. +% +Acceptance testing: + An unsuccessful attempt to find bugs. +% +Accident, n.: + A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of + body is better. + -- Foolish Dictionary +% +Accordion, n.: + A bagpipe with pleats. +% +Accuracy, n.: + The vice of being right +% +Acquaintance, n: + A person whom we know well enough to borrow from but not well + enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when the + object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +ADA: + Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in + Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop + an ADA awareness. + -- "Datamation", January 15, 1984 +% +Adler's Distinction: + Language is all that separates us from the lower animals, + and from the bureaucrats. +% +Admiration, n.: + Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Adore, v.: + To venerate expectantly. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Adult, n.: + One old enough to know better. +% +Advertising Rule: + In writing a patent-medicine advertisement, first convince the + reader that he has the disease he is reading about; secondly, + that it is curable. +% +Afternoon, n.: + That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning. +% +Age, n.: + That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we + still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise + to commit. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Agnes' Law: + Almost everything in life is easier to get into than out of. +% +Air Force Inertia Axiom: + Consistency is always easier to defend than correctness. +% +air, n.: + A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the + fattening of the poor. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Alaska: + A prelude to "No." +% +Albrecht's Law: + Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well-being. +% +Alden's Laws: + (1) Giving away baby clothes and furniture is the major cause + of pregnancy. + (2) Always be backlit. + (3) Sit down whenever possible. +% +algorithm, n.: + Trendy dance for hip programmers. +% +alimony, n: + Having an ex you can bank on. +% +All new: + Parts not interchangeable with previous model. +% +Allen's Axiom: + When all else fails, read the instructions. +% +Alliance, n.: + In international politics, the union of two thieves who have + their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot + separately plunder a third. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Alone, adj.: + In bad company. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Ambidextrous, adj.: + Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Ambiguity: + Telling the truth when you don't mean to. +% +Ambition, n: + An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while + living and made ridiculous by friends when dead. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Amoebit: + Amoeba/rabbit cross; it can multiply and divide at the same time. +% +Andrea's Admonition: + Never bestow profanity upon a driver who has wronged you. + If you think his window is closed and he can't hear you, + it isn't and he can. +% +Androphobia: + Fear of men. +% +Anoint, v.: + To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently + slippery. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Anthony's Law of Force: + Don't force it; get a larger hammer. +% +Anthony's Law of the Workshop: + Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible + corner of the workshop. + +Corollary: + On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike + your toes. +% +Antonym, n.: + The opposite of the word you're trying to think of. +% +Aphasia: + Loss of speech in social scientists when asked + at parties, "But of what use is your research?" +% +aphorism, n.: + A concise, clever statement. +afterism, n.: + A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late. + -- James Alexander Thom +% +Appendix: + A portion of a book, for which nobody yet has discovered any use. +% +Applause, n: + The echo of a platitude from the mouth of a fool. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +aquadextrous, adj.: + Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off + with your toes. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Arbitrary systems, pl.n.: + Systems about which nothing general can be said, save "nothing + general can be said." +% +Arithmetic: + An obscure art no longer practiced in the world's developed countries. +% +Armadillo: + To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle. +% +Armor's Axiom: + Virtue is the failure to achieve vice. +% +Armstrong's Collection Law: + If the check is truly in the mail, + it is surely made out to someone else. +% +Arnold's Addendum: + Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer in rats. +% +Arnold's Laws of Documentation: + (1) If it should exist, it doesn't. + (2) If it does exist, it's out of date. + (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the + first two laws. +% +Arthur's Laws of Love: + (1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you + remind them of someone else. + (2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will be + delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of + yourself in person. +% +ASCII: + The control code for all beginning programmers and those who would + become computer literate. Etymologically, the term has come down as + a contraction of the often-repeated phrase "ascii and you shall + receive." + -- Robb Russon +% +Atlanta: + An entire city surrounded by an airport. +% +Auction: + A gyp off the old block. +% +audophile, n: + Someone who listens to the equipment instead of the music. +% +Authentic: + Indubitably true, in somebody's opinion. +% +Automobile, n.: + A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians. +% +Bachelor: + A guy who is footloose and fiancee-free. +% +Bachelor: + A man who chases women and never Mrs. one. +% +Backward conditioning: + Putting saliva in a dog's mouth in an attempt to make a bell ring. +% +Bagbiter: + 1. n.; Equipment or program that fails, usually intermittently. 2. +adj.: Failing hardware or software. "This bagbiting system won't let me get +out of spacewar." Usage: verges on obscenity. Grammatically separable; one +may speak of "biting the bag". Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, +BLETCHEROUS, BARFUCIOUS, CHOMPER, CHOMPING. +% +Bagdikian's Observation: + Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper + is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a ukelele. +% +Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry: + A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides by + governors. +% +Ballistophobia: + Fear of bullets; +Otophobia: + Fear of opening one's eyes. +Peccatophobia: + Fear of sinning. +Taphephobia: + Fear of being buried alive. +Sitophobia: + Fear of food. +Trichophobbia: + Fear of hair. +Vestiphobia: + Fear of clothing. +% +Banacek's Eighteenth Polish Proverb: + The hippo has no sting, but the wise man would rather be sat upon + by the bee. +% +Banectomy, n.: + The removal of bruises on a banana. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Barach's Rule: + An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own physician. +% +Barbara's Rules of Bitter Experience: + (1) When you empty a drawer for his clothes + and a shelf for his toiletries, the relationship ends. + (2) When you finally buy pretty stationary + to continue the correspondence, he stops writing. +% +Barker's Proof: + Proofreading is more effective after publication. +% +Barometer, n.: + An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we + are having. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Barth's Distinction: + There are two types of people: those who divide people into two + types, and those who don't. +% +Baruch's Observation: + If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. +% +Basic Definitions of Science: + If it's green or wiggles, it's biology. + If it stinks, it's chemistry. + If it doesn't work, it's physics. +% +BASIC, n.: + A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in + that those who have it will not admit it in polite company. +% +Bathquake, n.: + The violent quake that rattles the entire house when the water + faucet is turned on to a certain point. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Battle, n.: + A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that + will not yield to the tongue. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Beauty, n.: + The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Beauty: + What's in your eye when you have a bee in your hand. +% +Begathon, n.: + A multi-day event on public television, used to raise money so + you won't have to watch commercials. +% +Beifeld's Principle: + The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive + young female increases by pyramidical progression when he + is already in the company of (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a + better-looking and richer male friend. + -- R. Beifeld +% +belief, n: + Something you do not believe. +% +Bennett's Laws of Horticulture: + (1) Houses are for people to live in. + (2) Gardens are for plants to live in. + (3) There is no such thing as a houseplant. +% +Benson's Dogma: + ASCII is our god, and Unix is his profit. +% +Bershere's Formula for Failure: + There are only two kinds of people who fail: those who + listen to nobody... and those who listen to everybody. +% +beta test, v: + To voluntarily entrust one's data, one's livelihood and one's + sanity to hardware or software intended to destroy all three. + In earlier days, virgins were often selected to beta test volcanos. +% +Bierman's Laws of Contracts: + (1) In any given document, you can't cover all the "what if's". + (2) Lawyers stay in business resolving all the unresolved "what if's". + (3) Every resolved "what if" creates two unresolved "what if's". +% +Bilbo's First Law: + You cannot count friends that are all packed up in barrels. +% +Binary, adj.: + Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes. +% +Bing's Rule: + Don't try to stem the tide -- move the beach. +% +Bipolar, adj.: + Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo, New York. +% +birth, n: + The first and direst of all disasters. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +bit, n: + A unit of measure applied to color. Twenty-four-bit color + refers to expensive $3 color as opposed to the cheaper 25 + cent, or two-bit, color that use to be available a few years ago. +% +Bizoos, n.: + The millions of tiny individual bumps that make up a basketball. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +blithwapping: + Using anything BUT a hammer to hammer a nail into the + wall, such as shoes, lamp bases, doorstops, etc. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Bloom's Seventh Law of Litigation: + The judge's jokes are always funny. +% +Blore's Razor: + Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier. +% +Blutarsky's Axiom: + Nothing is impossible for the man who will not listen to reason. +% +Boling's postulate: + If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it. +% +Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom: + Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so + vividly manifests their lack of progress. +% +Bombeck's Rule of Medicine: + Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. +% +Boob's Law: + You always find something in the last place you look. +% +Booker's Law: + An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction. +% +Bore, n.: + A guy who wraps up a two-minute idea in a two-hour vocabulary. + -- Walter Winchell +% +Bore, n.: + A person who talks when you wish him to listen. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Boren's Laws: + (1) When in charge, ponder. + (2) When in trouble, delegate. + (3) When in doubt, mumble. +% +boss, n: + According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages the + words "boss" and "botch" were largely synonymous, except that boss, + in addition to meaning "a supervisor of workers" also meant "an + ornamental stud." +% +Boucher's Observation: + He who blows his own horn always plays the music + several octaves higher than originally written. +% +Bower's Law: + Talent goes where the action is. +% +Bowie's Theorem: + If an experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment. +% +boy, n: + A noise with dirt on it. +% +Bradley's Bromide: + If computers get too powerful, we can organize + them into a committee -- that will do them in. +% +Brady's First Law of Problem Solving: + When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more + easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger + have handled this?" +% +brain, n: + The apparatus with which we think that we think. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +brain, v: [as in "to brain"] + To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source + of error in an opponent. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +brain-damaged, generalization of "Honeywell Brain Damage" (HBD), a +theoretical disease invented to explain certain utter cretinisms in +Multics, adj: + Obviously wrong; cretinous; demented. There is an implication + that the person responsible must have suffered brain damage, + because he/she should have known better. Calling something + brain-damaged is bad; it also implies it is unusable. +% +Bride, n.: + A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +briefcase, n: + A trial where the jury gets together and forms a lynching party. +% +broad-mindedness, n: + The result of flattening high-mindedness out. +% +Brogan's Constant: + People tend to congregate in the back of the church and the + front of the bus. +% +brokee, n: + Someone who buys stocks on the advice of a broker. +% +Brontosaurus Principle: + Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them + in relation to their environment and to their own physiology: when + this occurs, they are an endangered species. + -- Thomas K. Connellan +% +Brook's Law: + Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. +% +Brooke's Law: + Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool + discovers something which either abolishes the system or + expands it beyond recognition. +% +Bubble Memory, n.: + A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's intelligence. + See also "vacuum tube". +% +Bucy's Law: + Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man. +% +Bug, n.: + An aspect of a computer program which exists because the + programmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he + wrote the program. + +Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed. + -- Ray Simard +% +bug, n: + A son of a glitch. +% +bug, n: + An elusive creature living in a program that makes it incorrect. + The activity of "debugging", or removing bugs from a program, ends + when people get tired of doing it, not when the bugs are removed. + -- "Datamation", January 15, 1984 +% +Bugs, pl. n.: + Small living things that small living boys throw on small living girls. +% +Bumper sticker: + All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest + British manufacture. +% +Bunker's Admonition: + You cannot buy beer; you can only rent it. +% +Burbulation: + The obsessive act of opening and closing a refrigerator door in + an attempt to catch it before the automatic light comes on. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Bureau Termination, Law of: + When a government bureau is scheduled to be phased out, + the number of employees in that bureau will double within + 12 months after the decision is made. +% +bureaucracy, n: + A method for transforming energy into solid waste. +% +Bureaucrat, n.: + A person who cuts red tape sideways. + -- J. McCabe +% +bureaucrat, n: + A politician who has tenure. +% +Burke's Postulates: + Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about. + Don't create a problem for which you do not have the answer. +% +Burn's Hog Weighing Method: + (1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a sawhorse. + (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank. + (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again perfectly + balanced. + (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks. + -- Robert Burns +% +buzzword, n: + The fly in the ointment of computer literacy. +% +byob, v: + Believing Your Own Bull +% +C, n: + A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like + assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything + else. It is either the best language available to the art today, or + it isn't. + -- Ray Simard +% +Cabbage, n.: + A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as + a man's head. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Cache: + A very expensive part of the memory system of a computer that no one + is supposed to know is there. +% +Cahn's Axiom: + When all else fails, read the instructions. +% +Campbell's Law: + Nature abhors a vacuous experimenter. +% +Canada Bill Jones's Motto: + It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. + +Canada Bill Jones's Supplement: + A Smith and Wesson beats four aces. +% +Canonical, adj.: + The usual or standard state or manner of something. A true story: +One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some annoyance at the use +of jargon. Over his loud objections, we made a point of using jargon as +much as possible in his presence, and eventually it began to sink in. +Finally, in one conversation, he used the word "canonical" in jargon-like +fashion without thinking. + Steele: "Aha! We've finally got you talking jargon too!" + Stallman: "What did he say?" + Steele: "He just used `canonical' in the canonical way." +% +Captain Penny's Law: + You can fool all of the people some of the time, and + some of the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom. +% +Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.: + The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a + dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then + putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Carson's Consolation: + Nothing is ever a complete failure. + It can always be used as a bad example. +% +Carson's Observation on Footwear: + If the shoe fits, buy the other one too. +% +Carswell's Corollary: + Whenever man comes up with a better mousetrap, + nature invariably comes up with a better mouse. +% +Cat, n.: + Lapwarmer with built-in buzzer. +% +cerebral atrophy, n: + The phenomena which occurs as brain cells become weak and sick, and +impair the brain's performance. An abundance of these "bad" cells can cause +symptoms related to senility, apathy, depression, and overall poor academic +performance. A certain small number of brain cells will deteriorate due to +everday activity, but large amounts are weakened by intense mental effort +and the assimilation of difficult concepts. Many college students become +victims of this dread disorder due to poor habits such as overstudying. + +cerebral darwinism, n: + The theory that the effects of cerebral atrophy can be reversed +through the purging action of heavy alcohol consumption. Large amounts of +alcohol cause many brain cells to perish due to oxygen deprivation. Through +the process of natural selection, the weak and sick brain cells will die +first, leaving only the healthy cells. This wonderful process leaves the +imbiber with a healthier, more vibrant brain, and increases mental capacity. +Thus, the devastating effects of cerebral atrophy are reversed, and academic +performance actually increases beyond previous levels. +% +Chamberlain's Laws: + (1) The big guys always win. + (2) Everything tastes more or less like chicken. +% +character density, n.: + The number of very weird people in the office. +% +Charity, n.: + A thing that begins at home and usually stays there. +% +checkuary, n: + The thirteenth month of the year. Begins New Year's Day and ends + when a person stops absentmindedly writing the old year on his checks. +% +Chef, n.: + Any cook who swears in French. +% +Cheit's Lament: + If you help a friend in need, he is sure to remember you-- + the next time he's in need. +% +Chemicals, n.: + Noxious substances from which modern foods are made. +% +Cheops' Law: + Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget. +% +Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #36: + Never ever ask the tough looking gentleman wearing El Rukn headgear + where he got his "pyramid powered pizza warmer". + -- Chicago Reader 3/27/81 +% +Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #84: + The CTA has complimentary pop-up timers available on request + for overheated passengers. When your timer pops up, the driver will + cheerfully baste you. + -- Chicago Reader 5/28/82 +% +Chicken Soup: + An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin, + cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup + can't cure is neurotic dependence on one's mother. + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +Chism's Law of Completion: + The amount of time required to complete a government project is + precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it. +% +Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law: + When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will. +% +Christmas: + A day set apart by some as a time for turkey, presents, cranberry + salads, family get-togethers; for others, noted as having the best + response time of the entire year. +% +Churchill's Commentary on Man: + Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, + but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on. +% +Cinemuck, n.: + The combination of popcorn, soda, and melted chocolate which + covers the floors of movie theaters. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +clairvoyant, n.: + A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that + which is invisible to her patron -- namely, that he is a blockhead. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Clarke's Conclusion: + Never let your sense of morals interfere with doing the right thing. +% +Clay's Conclusion: + Creativity is great, but plagiarism is faster. +% +clone, n: + 1. An exact duplicate, as in "our product is a clone of their + product." 2. A shoddy, spurious copy, as in "their product + is a clone of our product." +% +Clovis' Consideration of an Atmospheric Anomaly: + The perversity of nature is nowhere better demonstrated + than by the fact that, when exposed to the same atmosphere, + bread becomes hard while crackers become soft. +% +COBOL: + An exercise in Artificial Inelegance. +% +COBOL: + Completely Over and Beyond reason Or Logic. +% +Cohen's Law: + There is no bottom to worse. +% +Cohn's Law: + The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less + time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend + all your time reporting on the nothing you are doing. +% +Cold, adj.: + When the politicians walk around with their hands in their own pockets. +% +Cole's Law: + Thinly sliced cabbage. +% +Collaboration, n.: + A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the + other fellow can spell. +% +College: + The fountains of knowledge, where everyone goes to drink. +% +Colvard's Logical Premises: + All probabilities are 50%. + Either a thing will happen or it won't. + +Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary: + This is especially true when dealing with someone you're attracted to. + +Grelb's Commentary: + Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you. +% +Command, n.: + Statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer in + such a manner as to make the human feel as if he is in control. +% +comment: + A superfluous element of a source program included so the + programmer can remember what the hell it was he was doing + six months later. Only the weak-minded need them, according + to those who think they aren't. +% +Commitment, n.: + [The difference between involvement and] Commitment can be + illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was + involved, the pig was committed. +% +Committee Rules: + (1) Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner. + (2) Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this + stamps you as being wise. + (3) Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the + others. + (4) When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed. + (5) Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you + popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for. +% +Committee, n.: + A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group + decide that nothing can be done. + -- Fred Allen +% +Commoner's three laws of ecology: + (1) No action is without side-effects. + (2) Nothing ever goes away. + (3) There is no free lunch. +% +Complex system: + One with real problems and imaginary profits. +% +Compliment, n.: + When you say something to another which everyone knows isn't true. +% +compuberty, n: + The uncomfortable period of emotional and hormonal changes a + computer experiences when the operating system is upgraded and + a sun4 is put online sharing files. +% +Computer science: + (1) A study akin to numerology and astrology, but lacking the + precision of the former and the success of the latter. + (2) The protracted value analysis of algorithms. + (3) The costly enumeration of the obvious. + (4) The boring art of coping with a large number of trivialities. + (5) Tautology harnessed in the service of Man at the speed of light. + (6) The Post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. +% +Computer, n.: + An electronic entity which performs sequences of useful steps in a + totally understandable, rigorously logical manner. If you believe + this, see me about a bridge I have for sale in Manhattan. +% +Concept, n.: + Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than + $25,000. +% +Conference, n.: + A special meeting in which the boss gathers subordinates to hear + what they have to say, so long as it doesn't conflict with what + he's already decided to do. +% +Confidant, confidante, n: + One entrusted by A with the secrets of B, confided to himself by C. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Confirmed bachelor: + A man who goes through life without a hitch. +% +Conjecture: All odd numbers are prime. + Mathematician's Proof: + 3 is prime. 5 is prime. 7 is prime. By induction, all + odd numbers are prime. + Physicist's Proof: + 3 is prime. 5 is prime. 7 is prime. 9 is experimental + error. 11 is prime. 13 is prime ... + Engineer's Proof: + 3 is prime. 5 is prime. 7 is prime. 9 is prime. + 11 is prime. 13 is prime ... + Computer Scientists's Proof: + 3 is prime. 3 is prime. 3 is prime. 3 is prime... +% +Connector Conspiracy, n: + [probably came into prominence with the appearance of the KL-10, + none of whose connectors match anything else] The tendency of + manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything) + to come up with new products which don't fit together with the old + stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive + interface devices. +% +Consent decree: + A document in which a hapless company consents never to commit + in the future whatever heinous violations of Federal law it + never admitted to in the first place. +% +Consultant, n.: + (1) Someone you pay to take the watch off your wrist and tell + you what time it is. (2) (For resume use) The working title + of anyone who doesn't currently hold a job. Motto: Have + Calculator, Will Travel. +% +Consultant, n.: + [From con "to defraud, dupe, swindle," or, possibly, French con + (vulgar) "a person of little merit" + sult elliptical form of + "insult."] A tipster disguised as an oracle, especially one who + has learned to decamp at high speed in spite of a large briefcase + and heavy wallet. +% +Consultant, n.: + An ordinary man a long way from home. +% +consultant, n.: + Someone who knowns 101 ways to make love, but can't get a date. +% +Consultant, n.: + Someone who'd rather climb a tree and tell a lie than stand on + the ground and tell the truth. +% +Consultation, n.: + Medical term meaning "to share the wealth." +% +Conversation, n.: + A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath + is called the listener. +% +Conway's Law: + In any organization there will always be one person who knows + what is going on. + + This person must be fired. +% +Copying machine, n.: + A device that shreds paper, flashes mysteriously coded messages, + and makes duplicates for everyone in the office who isn't + interested in reading them. +% +Coronation, n.: + The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible + signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Correspondence Corollary: + An experiment may be considered a success if no more than half + your data must be discarded to obtain correspondence with your theory. +% +Corry's Law: + Paper is always strongest at the perforations. +% +court, n.: + A place where they dispense with justice. + -- Arthur Train +% +Coward, n.: + One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Creditor, n.: + A man who has a better memory than a debtor. +% +Crenna's Law of Political Accountability: + If you are the first to know about something bad, you are going to be + held responsible for acting on it, regardless of your formal duties. +% +critic, n.: + A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries + to please him. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Croll's Query: + If tin whistles are made of tin, what are foghorns made of? +% +Cropp's Law: + The amount of work done varies inversly with the time spent in the + office. +% +Cruickshank's Law of Committees: + If a committee is allowed to discuss a bad idea long enough, it + will inevitably decide to implement the idea simply because so + much work has already been done on it. +% +cursor address, n: + "Hello, cursor!" + -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +Cursor, n.: + One whose program will not run. + -- Robb Russon +% +curtation, n.: + The enforced compression of a string in the fixed-length field +environment. + The problem of fitting extremely variable-length strings such as names, +addresses, and item descriptions into fixed-length records is no trivial +matter. Neglect of the subtle art of curtation has probably alienated more +people than any other aspect of data processing. You order Mozart's "Don +Giovanni" from your record club, and they invoice you $24.95 for MOZ DONG. +The witless mapping of the sublime onto the ridiculous! Equally puzzling is +the curtation that produces the same eight characters, THE BEST, whether you +order "The Best of Wagner", "The Best of Schubert", or "The Best of the Turds". +Similarly, wine lovers buying from computerized wineries twirl their glasses, +check their delivery notes, and inform their friends, "A rather innocent, +possibly overtruncated CAB SAUV 69 TAL." The squeezing of fruit into 10 +columns has yielded such memorable obscenities as COX OR PIP. The examples +cited are real, and the curtational methodology which produced them is still +with us. + +MOZ DONG n. + Curtation of Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da +Ponte, as performed by the computerized billing ensemble of the Internat'l +Preview Society, Great Neck (sic), N.Y. + -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +Cutler Webster's Law: + There are two sides to every argument, unless a person + is personally involved, in which case there is only one. +% +Cynic, n.: + A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not + as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking + out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Cynic, n.: + Experienced. +% +Cynic, n.: + One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye. +% +Data, n.: + An accrual of straws on the backs of theories. +% +Data, n.: + Computerspeak for "information". Properly pronounced + the way Bostonians pronounce the word for a female child. +% +Davis' Law of Traffic Density: + The density of rush-hour traffic is directly proportional to + 1.5 times the amount of extra time you allow to arrive on time. +% +Davis's Dictum: + Problems that go away by themselves, come back by themselves. +% +Dawn, n.: + The time when men of reason go to bed. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Deadwood, n.: + Anyone in your company who is more senior than you are. +% +Death wish, n.: + The only wish that always comes true, whether or not one wishes it to. +% +Decision maker, n.: + The person in your office who was unable to form a task force + before the music stopped. +% +default, n.: + [Possibly from Black English "De fault wid dis system is you, + mon."] The vain attempt to avoid errors by inactivity. "Nothing will + come of nothing: speak again." -- King Lear. + -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +Default, n.: + The hardware's, of course. +% +Deja vu: + French., already seen; unoriginal; trite. + Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced + something actually being encountered for the first time. + Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced + something actually being encountered for the first time. +% +Deliberation, n.: + The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is + buttered on. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Dentist, n.: + A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls + coins out of one's pockets. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Denver, n.: + A smallish city located just below the `O' in Colorado. +% +design, v.: + What you regret not doing later on. +% +DeVries' Dilemma: + If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want + hits the paper. +% +Dibble's First Law of Sociology: + Some do, some don't. +% +Die, v.: + To stop sinning suddenly. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +Dinner suggestion #302 (Hacker's De-lite): + 1 tin imported Brisling sardines in tomato sauce + 1 pouch Chocolate Malt Carnation Instant Breakfast + 1 carton milk +% +diplomacy, n: + Lying in state. +% +Dirksen's Three Laws of Politics: + (1) Get elected. + (2) Get re-elected. + (3) Don't get mad, get even. + -- Sen. Everett Dirksen +% +disbar, n: + As distinguished from some other bar. +% +Distinctive, adj.: + A different color or shape than our competitors. +% +Distress, n.: + A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +divorce, n: + A change of wife. +% +Documentation: + Instructions translated from Swedish by Japanese for English + speaking persons. +% +double-blind experiment, n: + An experiment in which the chief researcher believes he is + fooling both the subject and the lab assistant. Often accompanied + by a strong belief in the tooth fairy. +% +Dow's Law: + In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level, + the greater the confusion. +% +Drakenberg's Discovery: + If you can't seem to find your glasses, + it's probably because you don't have them on. +% +Drew's Law of Highway Biology: + The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front + of your eyes. +% +drug, n: + A substance that, injected into a rat, produces a scientific paper. +% +Ducharme's Precept: + Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment. + +Ducharme's Axiom: + If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize + yourself as part of the problem. +% +Duty, n: + What one expects from others. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Eagleson's Law: + Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more + months, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson + is an optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.) +% +economics, n.: + Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J.K. Galbraith. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +Economies of scale: + The notion that bigger is better. In particular, that if you want + a certain amount of computer power, it is much better to buy one + biggie than a bunch of smallies. Accepted as an article of faith + by people who love big machines and all that complexity. Rejected + as an article of faith by those who love small machines and all + those limitations. +% +economist, n: + Someone who's good with figures, but doesn't have enough + personality to become an accountant. +% +Egotism, n: + Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen. + +Egotist, n: + A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Ehrman's Commentary: + (1) Things will get worse before they get better. + (2) Who said things would get better? +% +Elbonics, n.: + The actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest in a movie + theatre. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Electrocution, n.: + Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements. +% +Elephant, n.: + A mouse built to government specifications. +% +Eleventh Law of Acoustics: + In a minimum-phase system there is an inextricable link between + frequency response, phase response and transient response, as they + are all merely transforms of one another. This combined with + minimalization of open-loop errors in output amplifiers and correct + compensation for non-linear passive crossover network loading can + lead to a significant decrease in system resolution lost. However, + of course, this all means jack when you listen to Pink Floyd. +% +Emacs, n.: + A slow-moving parody of a text editor. +% +Emerson's Law of Contrariness: + Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we + can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it. +% +Encyclopedia Salesmen: + Invite them all in. Nip out the back door. Phone the police + and tell them your house is being burgled. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +Endless Loop, n.: + see Loop, Endless. +Loop, Endless, n.: + see Endless Loop. + -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary +% +Engram, n.: + 1. The physical manifestation of human memory -- "the engram." +2. A particular memory in physical form. [Usage note: this term is no longer +in common use. Prior to Wilson and Magruder's historic discovery, the nature +of the engram was a topic of intense speculation among neuroscientists, +psychologists, and even computer scientists. In 1994 Professors M. R. Wilson +and W. V. Magruder, both of Mount St. Coax University in Palo Alto, proved +conclusively that the mammalian brain is hardwired to interpret a set of +thirty seven genetically transmitted cooperating TECO macros. Human memory +was shown to reside in 1 million Q-registers as Huffman coded uppercase-only +ASCII strings. Interest in the engram has declined substantially since that +time.] + -- New Century Unabridged English Dictionary, + 3rd edition, 2007 A.D. +% +enhance, v.: + To tamper with an image, usually to its detriment. +% +Entreprenuer, n.: + A high-rolling risk taker who would rather + be a spectacular failure than a dismal success. +% +Envy, n.: + Wishing you'd been born with an unfair advantage, + instead of having to try and acquire one. +% +Epperson's law: + When a man says it's a silly, childish game, it's probably + something his wife can beat him at. +% +Etymology, n.: + Some early etymological scholars came up with derivations that + were hard for the public to believe. The term "etymology" was formed + from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy" + ("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow." + -- Mike Kellen +% +Every Horse has an Infinite Number of Legs (proof by intimidation): + +Horses have an even number of legs. Behind they have two legs, and in +front they have fore-legs. This makes six legs, which is certainly an +odd number of legs for a horse. But the only number that is both even +and odd is infinity. Therefore, horses have an infinite number of +legs. Now to show this for the general case, suppose that somewhere, +there is a horse that has a finite number of legs. But that is a horse +of another color, and by the lemma ["All horses are the same color"], +that does not exist. +% +Every program has (at least) two purposes: + the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't. +% +Expense Accounts, n.: + Corporate food stamps. +% +Experience, n.: + Something you don't get until just after you need it. + -- Olivier +% +Expert, n.: + Someone who comes from out of town and shows slides. +% +Extract from Official Sweepstakes Rules: + + NO PURCHASE REQUIRED TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE + +To claim your prize without purchase, do the following: (a) Carefully +cut out your computer-printed name and address from upper right hand +corner of the Prize Claim Form. (b) Affix computer-printed name and +address -- with glue or cellophane tape (no staples or paper clips) -- +to a 3x5 inch index card. (c) Also cut out the "No" paragraph (lower +left hand corner of Prize Claim Form) and affix it to the 3x5 card +below your address label. (d) Then print on your 3x5 card, above your +computer-printed name and address the words "CARTER & VAN PEEL +SWEEPSTAKES" (Use all capital letters.) (e) Finally place 3x5 card +(without bending) into a plain envelope [NOTE: do NOT use the the +Official Prize Claim and CVP Perfume Reply Envelope or you may be +disqualified], and mail to: CVP, Box 1320, Westbury, NY 11595. Print +this address correctly. Comply with above instructions carefully and +completely or you may be disqualified from receiving your prize. +% +Fairy Tale, n.: + A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers. +% +Fakir, n: + A psychologist whose charismatic data have inspired almost + religious devotion in his followers, even though the sources + seem to have shinnied up a rope and vanished. +% +falsie salesman, n: + Fuller bust man. +% +Famous last words: +% +Famous last words: + (1) "Don't worry, I can handle it." + (2) "You and what army?" + (3) "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be + a cop." +% +Famous last words: + (1) Don't unplug it, it will just take a moment to fix. + (2) Let's take the shortcut, he can't see us from there. + (3) What happens if you touch these two wires tog-- + (4) We won't need reservations. + (5) It's always sunny there this time of the year. + (6) Don't worry, it's not loaded. + (7) They'd never (be stupid enough to) make him a manager. + (8) Don't worry! Women love it! +% +Famous quotations: + " " + -- Charlie Chaplin + + " " + -- Harpo Marx + + " " + -- Marcel Marceau +% +Famous, adj.: + Conspicuously miserable. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +feature, n: + A surprising property of a program. Occasionaly documented. To + call a property a feature sometimes means the author did not + consider that case, and the program makes an unexpected, though + not necessarily wrong response. See BUG. "That's not a bug, it's + a feature!" A bug can be changed to a feature by documenting it. +% +fenderberg, n.: + The large glacial deposits that form on the insides + of car fenders during snowstorms. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Ferguson's Precept: + A crisis is when you can't say "let's forget the whole thing." +% +Fidelity, n.: + A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed. +% +Fifth Law of Applied Terror: + If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book. + +Corollary: + If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you live. +% +Fifth Law of Procrastination: + Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that + there is nothing important to do. +% +File cabinet: + A four drawer, manually activated trash compactor. +% +filibuster, n.: + Throwing your wait around. +% +Finagle's Creed: + Science is true. Don't be misled by facts. +% +Finagle's Eighth Law: + If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. + +Finagle's Ninth Law: + No matter what results are expected, someone is always willing to + fake it. + +Finagle's Tenth Law: + No matter what the result someone is always eager to misinterpret it. + +Finagle's Eleventh Law: + No matter what occurs, someone believes it happened according to + his pet theory. +% +Finagle's First Law: + If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. +% +Finagle's First Law: + To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before you start. + +Finagle's Second Law: + Always keep a record of data -- it indicates you've been working. + +Finagle's Fourth Law: + Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes + it worse. + +Finagle's Fifth Law: + Always draw your curves, then plot your readings. + +Finagle's Sixth Law: + Don't believe in miracles -- rely on them. +% +Finagle's Second Law: + No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be + someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it + happened according to his own pet theory. +% +Finagle's Seventh Law: + The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum. +% +Finagle's Third Law: + In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, + beyond all need of checking, is the mistake + +Corollaries: + (1) Nobody whom you ask for help will see it. + (2) The first person who stops by, whose advice you really + don't want to hear, will see it immediately. +% +Fine's Corollary: + Functionality breeds Contempt. +% +Finster's Law: + A closed mouth gathers no feet. +% +First Law of Bicycling: + No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind. +% +First law of debate: + Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference. +% +First Law of Procrastination: + Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility + for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who + imposed the deadline). + +Fifth Law of Procrastination: + Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that + there is nothing important to do. +% +First Law of Socio-Genetics: + Celibacy is not hereditary. +% +First Rule of History: + History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each other. +% +Fishbowl, n.: + A glass-enclosed isolation cell where newly promoted managers are + kept for observation. +% +Five rules for eternal misery: + (1) Always try to exhort others to look upon you favorably. + (2) Make lots of assumptions about situations and be sure to + treat these assumptions as though they are reality. + (3) Then treat each new situation as though it's a crisis. + (4) Live in the past and future only (become obsessed with + how much better things might have been or how much worse + things might become). + (5) Occasionally stomp on yourself for being so stupid as to + follow the first four rules. +% +flannister, n.: + The plastic yoke that holds a six-pack of beer together. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Flon's Law: + There is not now, and never will be, a language in + which it is the least bit difficult to write bad programs. +% +flowchart, n. & v.: + [From flow "to ripple down in rich profusion, as hair" + chart +"a cryptic hidden-treasure map designed to mislead the uninitiated."] +1. n. The solution, if any, to a class of Mascheroni construction +problems in which given algorithms require geometrical representation +using only the 35 basic ideograms of the ANSI template. 2. n. Neronic +doodling while the system burns. 3. n. A low-cost substitute for +wallpaper. 4. n. The innumerate misleading the illiterate. "A +thousand pictures is worth ten lines of code." -- The Programmer's +Little Red Vade Mecum, Mao Tse T'umps. 5. v.intrans. To produce +flowcharts with no particular object in mind. 6. v.trans. To obfuscate +(a problem) with esoteric cartoons. + -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +Flugg's Law: + When you need to knock on wood is when you realize + that the world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum. +% +Fog Lamps, n.: + Excessively (often obnoxiously) bright lamps mounted on the fronts + of automobiles; used on dry, clear nights to indicate that the + driver's brain is in a fog. See also "Idiot Lights". +% +Foolproof Operation: + No provision for adjustment. +% +Forecast, n.: + A prediction of the future, based on the past, for + which the forecaster demands payment in the present. +% +Forgetfulness, n.: + A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for + their destitution of conscience. +% +FORTUNE EXPLAINS WHAT JOB REVIEW CATCH PHRASES MEAN: #1 +skilled oral communicator: + Mumbles inaudibly when attempting to speak. Talks to self. + Argues with self. Loses these arguments. + +skilled written communicator: + Scribbles well. Memos are invariable illegible, except for + the portions that attribute recent failures to someone else. + +growth potential: + With proper guidance, periodic counselling, and remedial training, + the reviewee may, given enough time and close supervision, meet + the minimum requirements expected of him by the company. + +key company figure: + Serves as the perfect counter example. +% +FORTUNE EXPLAINS WHAT JOB REVIEW CATCH PHRASES MEAN: #4 +consistent: + Reviewee hasn't gotten anything right yet, and it is anticipated + that this pattern will continue throughout the coming year. + +an excellent sounding board: + Present reviewee with any number of alternatives, and implement + them in the order precisely opposite of his/her specification. + +a planner and organizer: + Usually manages to put on socks before shoes. Can match the + animal tags on his clothing. +% +FORTUNE EXPLAINS WHAT JOB REVIEW CATCH PHRASES MEAN: #9 +has management potential: + Because of his intimate relationship with inanimate objects, the + reviewee has been appointed to the critical position of department + pencil monitor. + +inspirational: + A true inspiration to others. ("There, but for the grace of God, + go I.") + +adapts to stress: + Passes wind, water, or out depending upon the severity of the + situation. + +goal oriented: + Continually sets low goals for himself, and usually fails + to meet them. +% +Fortune's Rules for Memo Wars: #2 + +Given the incredible advances in sociocybernetics and telepsychology over +the last few years, we are now able to completely understand everything that +the author of an memo is trying to say. Thanks to modern developments +in electrocommunications like notes, vnews, and electricity, we have an +incredible level of interunderstanding the likes of which civilization has +never known. Thus, the possibility of your misinterpreting someone else's +memo is practically nil. Knowing this, anyone who accuses you of having +done so is a liar, and should be treated accordingly. If you *do* understand +the memo in question, but have absolutely nothing of substance to say, then +you have an excellent opportunity for a vicious ad hominem attack. In fact, +the only *inappropriate* times for an ad hominem attack are as follows: + + 1: When you agree completely with the author of an memo. + 2: When the author of the original memo is much bigger than you are. + 3: When replying to one of your own memos. +% +Fourth Law of Applied Terror: + The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology + instructor will assign 200 pages on planaria. + +Corollary: + Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do except + study for that instructor's course. +% +Fourth Law of Revision: + It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about + interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for you. +% +Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: + If the probability of success is not almost one, it is damn near zero. + -- David Ellis +% +Fresco's Discovery: + If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored. +% +Fried's 1st Rule: + Increased automation of clerical function + invariably results in increased operational costs. +% +Friends, n.: + People who borrow your books and set wet glasses on them. + + People who know you well, but like you anyway. +% +Frobnicate, v.: + To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. Derived from FROBNITZ. Usually +abbreviated to FROB. Thus one has the saying "to frob a frob." See TWEAK +and TWIDDLE. Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK sometimes connote points along +a continuum. FROB connotes aimless manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross +manipulation, often a coarse search for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes +fine-tuning. If someone is turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's +carefully adjusting it he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it +but looking at the screen he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just +doing it because turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it. +% +Frobnitz, pl. Frobnitzem (frob'nitsm) n.: + An unspecified physical object, a widget. Also refers to electronic +black boxes. This rare form is usually abbreviated to FROTZ, or more +commonly to FROB. Also used are FROBNULE, FROBULE, and FROBNODULE. +Starting perhaps in 1979, FROBBOZ (fruh-bahz'), pl. FROBBOTZIM, has also +become very popular, largely due to its exposure via the Adventure spin-off +called Zork (Dungeon). These can also be applied to non-physical objects, +such as data structures. +% +Fuch's Warning: + If you actually look like your passport photo, you aren't well + enough to travel. +% +Fudd's First Law of Opposition: + Push something hard enough and it will fall over. +% +Fun experiments: + Get a can of shaving cream, throw it in a freezer for about a week. + Then take it out, peel the metal off and put it where you want... + bedroom, car, etc. As it thaws, it expands an unbelievable amount. +% +Fun Facts, #14: + In table tennis, whoever gets 21 points first wins. That's how + it once was in baseball -- whoever got 21 runs first won. +% +Fun Facts, #63: + The name California was given to the state by Spanish conquistadores. + It was the name of an imaginary island, a paradise on earth, in the + Spanish romance, "Les Serges de Esplandian", written by Montalvo in + 1510. +% +furbling, v.: + Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank + even when you are the only person in line. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Galbraith's Law of Human Nature: + Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that + there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof. +% +Genderplex, n.: + The predicament of a person in a restaurant who is unable to + determine his or her designated restroom (e.g., turtles and tortoises). + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +genealogy, n.: + An account of one's descent from an ancestor + who did not particularly care to trace his own. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Genius, n.: + A chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with "bright." +% +genius, n.: + Person clever enough to be born in the right place at the right + time of the right sex and to follow up this advantage by saying + all the right things to all the right people. +% +genlock, n.: + Why he stays in the bottle. +% +Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics: + (1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction. + (2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. + (3) The energy required to change either one of these states + will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so + much as to make the task totally impossible. +% +Getting the job done is no excuse for not following the rules. + +Corollary: + Following the rules will not get the job done. +% +Gilbert's Discovery: + Any attempt to use the new super glues results in the two pieces + sticking to your thumb and index finger rather than to each other. +% +Ginsberg's Theorem: + (1) You can't win. + (2) You can't break even. + (3) You can't even quit the game. + +Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's theorem: + Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem + meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's + Theorem. To wit: + + (1) Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win. + (2) Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even. + (3) Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game. +% +Ginsburg's Law: + At the precise moment you take off your shoe in a shoe store, your + big toe will pop out of your sock to see what's going on. +% +gleemites, n.: + Petrified deposits of toothpaste found in sinks. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability: + Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the + probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting + some useful work done. +% +Gnagloot, n.: + A person who leaves all his ski passes on his jacket just to + impress people. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Goda's Truism: + By the time you get to the point where you can make ends meet, + somebody moves the ends. +% +Godwin's Law (prov. [Usenet]): + As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a + comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a + tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is + over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost + whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus guarantees + the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. +% +Gold's Law: + If the shoe fits, it's ugly. +% +Gold, n.: + A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It + is mined deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich + men who immediately bury it back in the earth in great prisons, + although gold hasn't done anything to them. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +Goldenstern's Rules: + (1) Always hire a rich attorney + (2) Never buy from a rich salesman. +% +Gomme's Laws: + (1) A backscratcher will always find new itches. + (2) Time accelerates. + (3) The weather at home improves as soon as you go away. +% +Gordon's first law: + If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing well. +% +Gordon's Law: + If you think you have the solution, the question was poorly phrased. +% +gossip, n.: + Hearing something you like about someone you don't. + -- Earl Wilson +% +Goto, n.: + A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers + to complain about unstructured programmers. + -- Ray Simard +% +Government's Law: + There is an exception to all laws. +% +Grabel's Law: + 2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2. +% +Grandpa Charnock's Law: + You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. + + [I thought it was when your kids learned to drive. Ed.] +% +grasshopotomaus: + A creature that can leap to tremendous heights... once. +% +Gravity: + What you get when you eat too much and too fast. +% +Gray's Law of Programming: + `_n+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same + time as `_n' tasks. + +Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law: + `_n+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as `_n' trivial tasks. +% +Great American Axiom: + Some is good, more is better, too much is just right. +% +Green's Law of Debate: + Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about. +% +Greener's Law: + Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel. +% +Grelb's Reminder: + Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above + average drivers. +% +Griffin's Thought: + When you starve with a tiger, the tiger starves last. +% +Grinnell's Law of Labor Laxity: + At all times, for any task, you have not got enough done today. +% +Guillotine, n.: + A French chopping center. +% +Gumperson's Law: + The probability of a given event occurring is inversely + proportional to its desirability. +% +Gunter's Airborne Discoveries: + (1) When you are served a meal aboard an aircraft, + the aircraft will encounter turbulence. + (2) The strength of the turbulence + is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee. +% +gurmlish, n.: + The red warning flag at the top of a club sandwich which + prevents the person from biting into it and puncturing the roof + of his mouth. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +guru, n.: + A person in T-shirt and sandals who took an elevator ride with + a senior vice-president and is ultimately responsible for the + phone call you are about to receive from your boss. +% +guru, n: + A computer owner who can read the manual. +% +gyroscope, n.: + A wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis and also + free to rotate about one or both of two axes perpindicular to + each other and the axis of spin so that a rotation of one of the + two mutually perpendicular axes results from application of + torque to the other when the wheel is spinning and so that the + entire apparatus offers considerable opposition depending on + the angular momentum to any torque that would change the direction + of the axis of spin. + -- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary +% +H. L. Mencken's Law: + Those who can -- do. + Those who can't -- teach. + +Martin's Extension: + Those who cannot teach -- administrate. +% +Hacker's Law: + The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir + a nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions. +% +Hacker's Quicky #313: + Sour Cream -n- Onion Potato Chips + Microwave Egg Roll + Chocolate Milk +% +hacker, n.: + A master byter. +% +hacker, n.: + Originally, any person with a knack for coercing stubborn inanimate + things; hence, a person with a happy knack, later contracted by the + mythical philosopher Frisbee Frobenius to the common usage, 'hack'. + In olden times, upon completion of some particularly atrocious body + of coding that happened to work well, culpable programmers would gather + in a small circle around a first edition of Knuth's Best Volume I by + candlelight, and proceed to get very drunk while sporadically rending + the following ditty: + + Hacker's Fight Song + + He's a Hack! He's a Hack! + He's a guy with the happy knack! + Never bungles, never shirks, + Always gets his stuff to work! + +All take a drink (important!) +% +Hale Mail Rule, The: + When you are ready to reply to a letter, you will lack at least + one of the following: + (a) A pen or pencil or typewriter. + (b) Stationery. + (c) Postage stamp. + (d) The letter you are answering. +% +half-done, n.: + This is the best way to eat a kosher dill -- when it's still crunchy, + light green, yet full of garlic flavor. The difference between this + and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like the + difference between life and death. + + You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill there + in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the airport, + fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough Hall, + transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on + Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk + about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop. Say to the + man, "Let me have a nice half-done." Worth the trouble, wasn't it? + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +Hand, n.: + A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and + commonly thrust into somebody's pocket. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +handshaking protocol, n: + A process employed by hostile hardware devices to initate a + terse but civil dialogue, which, in turn, is characterized by + occasional misunderstanding, sulking, and name-calling. +% +Hangover, n.: + The burden of proof. +% +hangover, n.: + The wrath of grapes. +% +Hanlon's Razor: + Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained + by stupidity. +% +Hanson's Treatment of Time: + There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days + before Saturday. +% +Happiness, n.: + An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +hard, adj.: + The quality of your own data; also how it is to believe those + of other people. +% +Hardware, n.: + The parts of a computer system that can be kicked. +% +Harriet's Dining Observation: + In every restaurant, the hardness of the butter pats + increases in direct proportion to the softness of the bread. +% +Harris's Lament: + All the good ones are taken. +% +Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: + Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined. +% +Harrison's Postulate: + For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. +% +Hartley's First Law: + You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float + on his back, you've got something. +% +Hatred, n.: + A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Hawkeye's Conclusion: + It's not easy to play the clown when you've got to run the whole + circus. +% +Heaven, n.: + A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of + their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you + expound your own. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +heavy, adj.: + Seduced by the chocolate side of the force. +% +Heller's Law: + The first myth of management is that it exists. + +Johnson's Corollary: + Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the + organization. +% +Hempstone's Question: + If you have to travel on the Titanic, why not go first class? +% +Herth's Law: + He who turns the other cheek too far gets it in the neck. +% +Hewett's Observation: + The rudeness of a bureaucrat is inversely proportional to his or + her position in the governmental hierarchy and to the number of + peers similarly engaged. +% +Hildebrant's Principle: + If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there. +% +Hippogriff, n.: + An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. + The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. + The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which + is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full + of surprises. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +History, n.: + Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we + learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from + what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view. + -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab" +% +Hitchcock's Staple Principle: + The stapler runs out of staples only while you are trying to + staple something. +% +Hlade's Law: + If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person -- + they will find an easier way to do it. +% +Hoare's Law of Large Problems: + Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out. +% +Hoffer's Discovery: + The grand act of a dying institution is to issue a newly + revised, enlarged edition of the policies and procedures manual. +% +Hofstadter's Law: + It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take + Hofstadter's Law into account. +% +Hollerith, v.: + What thou doest when thy phone is on the fritzeth. +% +honeymoon, n.: + A short period of doting between dating and debting. + -- Ray C. Bandy +% +Honorable, adj.: + Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative + bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, + "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur." + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Horner's Five Thumb Postulate: + Experience varies directly with equipment ruined. +% +Horngren's Observation: + Among economists, the real world is often a special case. +% +Household hint: + If you are out of cream for your coffee, mayonnaise makes a + dandy substitute. +% +HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: + #1040 Your income tax refund cheque bounces. +% +HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: + #15 Your pet rock snaps at you. +% +HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: + #32: You call your answering service and they've never heard of you. +% +Howe's Law: + Everyone has a scheme that will not work. +% +Hubbard's Law: + Don't take life too seriously; you won't get out of it alive. +% +Hurewitz's Memory Principle: + The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional + to... to... uh..... +% +IBM Pollyanna Principle: + Machines should work. People should think. +% +IBM's original motto: + Cogito ergo vendo; vendo ergo sum. +% +IBM: + [International Business Machines Corp.] Also known as Itty Bitty + Machines or The Lawyer's Friend. The dominant force in computer + marketing, having supplied worldwide some 75% of all known hardware + and 10% of all software. To protect itself from the litigious envy + of less successful organizations, such as the US government, IBM + employs 68% of all known ex-Attorneys' General. +% +IBM: + I've Been Moved + Idiots Become Managers + Idiots Buy More + Impossible to Buy Machine + Incredibly Big Machine + Industry's Biggest Mistake + International Brotherhood of Mercenaries + It Boggles the Mind + It's Better Manually + Itty-Bitty Machines +% +IBM: + It may be slow, but it's hard to use. +% +idiot box, n.: + The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the + stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Idiot, n.: + A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human + affairs has always been dominant and controlling. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +idleness, n.: + Leisure gone to seed. +% +ignisecond, n: + The overlapping moment of time when the hand is locking the car + door even as the brain is saying, "my keys are in there!" + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +ignorance, n.: + When you don't know anything, and someone else finds out. +% +Iles's Law: + There is always an easier way to do it. When looking directly + at the easy way, especially for long periods, you will not see it. + Neither will Iles. +% +Imbesi's Law with Freeman's Extension: + In order for something to become clean, something else must + become dirty; but you can get everything dirty without getting + anything clean. +% +Immutability, Three Rules of: + (1) If a tarpaulin can flap, it will. + (2) If a small boy can get dirty, he will. + (3) If a teenager can go out, he will. +% +Impartial, adj.: + Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from + espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two + conflicting opinions. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +inbox, n.: + A catch basin for everything you don't want to deal with, but + are afraid to throw away. +% +incentive program, n.: + The system of long and short-term rewards that a corporation uses + to motivate its people. Still, despite all the experimentation with + profit sharing, stock options, and the like, the most effective + incentive program to date seems to be "Do a good job and you get to + keep it." +% +Incumbent, n.: + Person of liveliest interest to the outcumbents. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +index, n.: + Alphabetical list of words of no possible interest where an + alphabetical list of subjects with references ought to be. +% +Infancy, n.: + The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, "Heaven lies + about us." The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Information Center, n.: + A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is to + tell you why you cannot have the information you require. +% +Information Processing: + What you call data processing when people are so disgusted with + it they won't let it be discussed in their presence. +% +Ingrate, n.: + A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of + indigestion. +% +ink, n.: + A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, + and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of + idiocy and promote intellectual crime. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +innovate, v.: + To annoy people. +% +insecurity, n.: + Finding out that you've mispronounced for years one of your + favorite words. + + Realizing halfway through a joke that you're telling it to + the person who told it to you. +% +interest, n.: + What borrowers pay, lenders receive, stockholders own, and + burned out employees must feign. +% +Interpreter, n.: + One who enables two persons of different languages to + understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to + the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +intoxicated, adj.: + When you feel sophisticated without being able to pronounce it. +% +Iron Law of Distribution: + Them that has, gets. +% +ISO applications: + A solution in search of a problem! +% +Issawi's Laws of Progress: + The Course of Progress: + Most things get steadily worse. + The Path of Progress: + A shortcut is the longest distance between two points. +% +It is fruitless: + to become lachrymose over precipitately departed lactate fluid. + + to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with + innovative maneuvers. +% +"It's in process": + So wrapped up in red tape that the situation is almost hopeless. +% +italic, adj: + Slanted to the right to emphasize key phrases. Unique to + Western alphabets; in Eastern languages, the same phrases + are often slanted to the left. +% +Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government: + No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the + legislature is in session. +% +Jenkinson's Law: + It won't work. +% +Jim Nasium's Law: + In a large locker room with hundreds of lockers, the few people + using the facility at any one time will all have lockers next to + each other so that everybody is cramped. +% +job interview, n.: + The excruciating process during which personnel officers + separate the wheat from the chaff -- then hire the chaff. +% +job Placement, n.: + Telling your boss what he can do with your job. +% +jogger, n.: + An odd sort of person with a thing for pain. +% +Johnny Carson's Definition: + The smallest interval of time known to man is that which occurs + in Manhattan between the traffic signal turning green and the + taxi driver behind you blowing his horn. +% +Johnson's First Law: + When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the + most inconvenient possible time. +% +Johnson's law: + Systems resemble the organizations that create them. +% +Jones' First Law: + Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of + endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an + obstruction to its progress -- in direct proportion to the + importance of their original contribution. +% +Jones' Motto: + Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate. +% +Jones' Second Law: + The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone + to blame it on. +% +Juall's Law on Nice Guys: + Nice guys don't always finish last; sometimes they don't finish. + Sometimes they don't even get a chance to start! +% +Justice, n.: + A decision in your favor. +% +Kafka's Law: + In the fight between you and the world, back the world. + -- Franz Kafka, "RS's 1974 Expectation of Days" +% +Karlson's Theorem of Snack Food Packages: + For all P, where P is a package of snack food, P is a SINGLE-SERVING + package of snack food. + +Gibson the Cat's Corrolary: + For all L, where L is a package of lunch meat, L is Gibson's package + of lunch meat. +% +Katz' Law: + Men and nations will act rationally when + all other possibilities have been exhausted. + +History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have +exhausted all other alternatives. + -- Abba Eban +% +Kaufman's First Law of Party Physics: + Population density is inversely proportional + to the square of the distance from the keg. +% +Kaufman's Law: + A policy is a restrictive document to prevent a recurrence + of a single incident, in which that incident is never mentioned. +% +Keep in mind always the four constant Laws of Frisbee: + (1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc + straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this + force is technically termed "car suck"). + (2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive + than "Watch this!" + (3) The probability of a Frisbee hitting something is directly + proportional to the cost of hitting it. For instance, a + Frisbee will always head directly towards a policeman or + a little old lady rather than the beat up Chevy. + (4) Your best throw happens when no one is watching; when the + cute girl you've been trying to impress is watching, the + Frisbee will invariably bounce out of your hand or hit you + in the head and knock you silly. +% +Kennedy's Market Theorem: + Given enough inside information and unlimited credit, + you've got to go broke. +% +Kent's Heuristic: + Look for it first where you'd most like to find it. +% +kern, v.: + 1. To pack type together as tightly as the kernels on an ear + of corn. 2. In parts of Brooklyn and Queens, N.Y., a small, + metal object used as part of the monetary system. +% +kernel, n.: + A part of an operating system that preserves the medieval + traditions of sorcery and black art. +% +Kettering's Observation: + Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence. +% +Kime's Law for the Reward of Meekness: + Turning the other cheek merely ensures two bruised cheeks. +% +Kin, n.: + An affliction of the blood. +% +Kington's Law of Perforation: + If a straight line of holes is made in a piece of paper, such + as a sheet of stamps or a check, that line becomes the strongest + part of the paper. +% +Kinkler's First Law: + Responsibility always exceeds authority. + +Kinkler's Second Law: + All the easy problems have been solved. +% +Kliban's First Law of Dining: + Never eat anything bigger than your head. +% +Kludge, n.: + An ill-assorted collection of poorly-matching parts, forming a + distressing whole. + -- Jackson Granholm, "Datamation" +% +Knebel's Law: + It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of the leading + causes of statistics. +% +knowledge, n.: + Things you believe. +% +Kramer's Law: + You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the tracks. +% +Krogt, n. (chemical symbol: Kr): + The metallic silver coating found on fast-food game cards. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Labor, n.: + One of the processes by which A acquires property for B. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Lackland's Laws: + (1) Never be first. + (2) Never be last. + (3) Never volunteer for anything +% +Lactomangulation, n.: + Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly + that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Langsam's Laws: + (1) Everything depends. + (2) Nothing is always. + (3) Everything is sometimes. +% +Larkinson's Law: + All laws are basically false. +% +laser, n.: + Failed death ray. +% +Laura's Law: + No child throws up in the bathroom. +% +Law of Communications: + The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications + between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased + area of misunderstanding. +% +Law of Continuity: + Experiments should be reproducible. They should all fail the same way. +% +Law of Procrastination: + Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has + the feeling that there is nothing important to do. +% +Law of Selective Gravity: + An object will fall so as to do the most damage. + +Jenning's Corollary: + The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side + down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet. + +Law of the Perversity of Nature: + You cannot determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter. +% +Law of the Jungle: + He who hesitates is lunch. +% +Laws of Computer Programming: + (1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete. + (2) Any given program costs more and takes longer. + (3) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed. + (4) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented. + (5) Any given program will expand to fill all available memory. + (6) The value of a program is proportional the weight of its output. + (7) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of + the programmer who must maintain it. +% +Laws of Serendipity: + (1) In order to discover anything, you must be looking for something. + (2) If you wish to make an improved product, you must already + be engaged in making an inferior one. +% +lawsuit, n.: + A machine which you go into as a pig and come out as a sausage. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Lawyer's Rule: + When the law is against you, argue the facts. + When the facts are against you, argue the law. + When both are against you, call the other lawyer names. +% +Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: + No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats -- + approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less. +% +learning curve, n.: + An astonishing new theory, discovered by management consultants + in the 1970's, asserting that the more you do something the + quicker you can do it. +% +Lee's Law: + Mother said there would be days like this, + but she never said that there'd be so many! +% +Leibowitz's Rule: + When hammering a nail, you will never hit your + finger if you hold the hammer with both hands. +% +Lemma: All horses are the same color. +Proof (by induction): + Case n = 1: In a set with only one horse, it is obvious that all + horses in that set are the same color. + Case n = k: Suppose you have a set of k+1 horses. Pull one of these + horses out of the set, so that you have k horses. Suppose that all + of these horses are the same color. Now put back the horse that you + took out, and pull out a different one. Suppose that all of the k + horses now in the set are the same color. Then the set of k+1 horses + are all the same color. We have k true => k+1 true; therefore all + horses are the same color. +Theorem: All horses have an infinite number of legs. +Proof (by intimidation): + Everyone would agree that all horses have an even number of legs. It + is also well-known that horses have forelegs in front and two legs in + back. 4 + 2 = 6 legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a + horse to have! Now the only number that is both even and odd is + infinity; therefore all horses have an infinite number of legs. + However, suppose that there is a horse somewhere that does not have an + infinite number of legs. Well, that would be a horse of a different + color; and by the Lemma, it doesn't exist. +% +leverage, n.: + Even if someone doesn't care what the world thinks + about them, they always hope their mother doesn't find out. +% +Lewis's Law of Travel: + The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to anyone, + ever. +% +Liar, n.: + A lawyer with a roving commission. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Liar: + one who tells an unpleasant truth. + -- Oliver Herford +% +Lie, n.: + A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one + discovered to date. +% +Lieberman's Law: + Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens. +% +life, n.: + A whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. +% +life, n.: + Learning about people the hard way -- by being one. +% +life, n.: + That brief interlude between nothingness and eternity. +% +lighthouse, n.: + A tall building on the seashore in which the government + maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician. +% +like: + When being alive at the same time is a wonderful coincidence. +% +Linus' Law: + There is no heavier burden than a great potential. +% +lisp, v.: + To call a spade a thpade. +% +Lockwood's Long Shot: + The chances of getting eaten up by a lion on Main Street + aren't one in a million, but once would be enough. +% +love, n.: + Love ties in a knot in the end of the rope. +% +love, n.: + When it's growing, you don't mind watering it with a few tears. +% +love, n.: + When you don't want someone too close--because you're very sensitive + to pleasure. +% +love, n.: + When you like to think of someone on days that begin with a morning. +% +love, n.: + When, if asked to choose between your lover + and happiness, you'd skip happiness in a heartbeat. +% +love, v.: + I'll let you play with my life if you'll let me play with yours. +% +Lowery's Law: + If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway. +% +Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: + There's always one more bug. +% +Lunatic Asylum, n.: + The place where optimism most flourishes. +% +Machine-Independent, adj.: + Does not run on any existing machine. +% +Mad, adj.: + Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence ... + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Madison's Inquiry: + If you have to travel on the Titanic, why not go first class? +% +MAFIA, n: + [Acronym for Mechanized Applications in Forced Insurance +Accounting.] An extensive network with many on-line and offshore +subsystems running under OS, DOS, and IOS. MAFIA documentation is +rather scanty, and the MAFIA sales office exhibits that testy +reluctance to bona fide inquiries which is the hallmark of so many DP +operations. From the little that has seeped out, it would appear that +MAFIA operates under a non-standard protocol, OMERTA, a tight-lipped +variant of SNA, in which extended handshakes also perform complex +security functions. The known timesharing aspects of MAFIA point to a +more than usually autocratic operating system. Screen prompts carry an +imperative, nonrefusable weighting (most menus offer simple YES/YES +options, defaulting to YES) that precludes indifference or delay. +Uniquely, all editing under MAFIA is performed centrally, using a +powerful rubout feature capable of erasing files, filors, filees, and +entire nodal aggravations. + -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +Magary's Principle: + When there is a public outcry to cut deadwood and fat from any + government bureaucracy, it is the deadwood and the fat that do + the cutting, and the public's services are cut. +% +Magnet, n.: + Something acted upon by magnetism. + +Magnetism, n.: + Something acting upon a magnet. + +The two definition immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of +one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with +a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Magnocartic, adj.: + Any automobile that, when left unattended, attracts shopping carts. + -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends" +% +Magpie, n.: + A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it + might be taught to talk. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Maier's Law: + If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of. + -- N.R. Maier, "American Psychologist", March 1960 + +Corollaries: + (1) The bigger the theory, the better. + (2) The experiment may be considered a success if no more than + 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to + obtain a correspondence with the theory. +% +Main's Law: + For every action there is an equal and opposite government program. +% +Maintainer's Motto: + If we can't fix it, it ain't broke. +% +Major premise: + Sixty men can do sixty times as much work as one man. +Minor premise: + A man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds. +Conclusion: + Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" + +Secondary Conclusion: + Do you realize how many holes there would be if people + would just take the time to take the dirt out of them? +% +Majority, n.: + That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law. +% +Male, n.: + A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the + human race is commonly known to the female as Mere Man. The genus + has two varieties: good providers and bad providers. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Malek's Law: + Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way. +% +malpractice, n.: + The reason surgeons wear masks. +% +management, n.: + The art of getting other people to do all the work. +% +manic-depressive, adj.: + Easy glum, easy glow. +% +Manly's Maxim: + Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion + with confidence. +% +manual, n.: + A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given + item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The information + you need is in the others. + -- Ray Simard +% +Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery: + Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a + simple yes or no answer. +% +marriage, n.: + An old, established institution, entered into by two people deeply + in love and desiring to make a committment to each other expressing + that love. In short, committment to an institution. +% +marriage, n.: + Convertible bonds. +% +Marriage, n.: + The evil aye. +% +Marxist Law of Distribution of Wealth: + Shortages will be divided equally among the peasants. +% +Maryann's Law: + You can always find what you're not looking for. +% +Maslow's Maxim: + If the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat everything like + a nail. +% +Mason's First Law of Synergism: + The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut. +% +mathematician, n.: + Some one who believes imaginary things appear right before your _i's. +% +Matz's Law: + A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking. +% +May's Law: + The quality of correlation is inversly proportional to the density + of control. (The fewer the data points, the smoother the curves.) +% +McEwan's Rule of Relative Importance: + When traveling with a herd of elephants, don't be the first to + lie down and rest. +% +McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom: + If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not $19.95. +% +Meade's Maxim: + Always remember that you are absolutely unique, just like everyone else. +% +Meader's Law: + Whatever happens to you, it will previously + have happened to everyone you know, only more so. +% +meeting, n.: + An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or + department not represented in the room must solve a problem. +% +meetings, n.: + A place where minutes are kept and hours are lost. +% +memo, n.: + An interoffice communication too often written more for the benefit + of the person who sends it than the person who receives it. +% +Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American: + The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife. +% +Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American: + The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the + cork makes when it is popped. +% +Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American: + All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards. +% +Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American: + Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that + is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can + never hope to acquire it. +% +Menu, n.: + A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of. +% +Meskimen's Law: + There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to + do it over. +% +meterologist, n.: + One who doubts the established fact that it is + bound to rain if you forget your umbrella. +% +methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanylglutamin- +ylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolyl- +phenylalanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglu- +taminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanyl- +glycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylala- +nylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylgluta- +minylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylgly- +cylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionyl- +leucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleu- +cylprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylva- +lylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanyltyro- +sylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleu- +cylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphe- +nylalanylarginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylala- +nylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanylas- +partylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosyl- +glycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycyl- +valylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleu- +cylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparagi- +nylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylse- +rylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanyl- +glycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalylly- +sylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylpro- +lylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalyl- +glutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine, n.: + The chemical name for tryptophan synthetase A protein, a + 1,913-letter enzyme with 267 amino acids. + -- Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and + Preposterous Words +% +Micro Credo: + Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift. +% +micro: + Thinker toys. +% +Miksch's Law: + If a string has one end, then it has another end. +% +Miller's Slogan: + Lose a few, lose a few. +% +millihelen, n.: + The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. +% +Minicomputer: + A computer that can be afforded on the budget of a middle-level manager. +% +MIPS: + Meaningless Indicator of Processor Speed +% +Misfortune, n.: + The kind of fortune that never misses. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +MIT: + The Georgia Tech of the North +% +Mitchell's Law of Committees: + Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are + held to discuss it. +% +mittsquinter, adj.: + A ballplayer who looks into his glove after missing the ball, as + if, somehow, the cause of the error lies there. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Mix's Law: + There is nothing more permanent than a temporary building. + There is nothing more permanent than a temporary tax. +% +mixed emotions: + Watching a bus-load of lawyers plunge off a cliff. + With five empty seats. +% +mixed emotions: + Watching your mother-in-law back off a cliff... + in your brand new Mercedes. +% +modem, adj.: + Up-to-date, new-fangled, as in "Thoroughly Modem Millie." An + unfortunate byproduct of kerning. + + [That's sic!] +% +modesty, n.: + Being comfortable that others will discover your greatness. +% +Modesty: + The gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be + aware of it. + -- Oliver Herford +% +Molecule, n.: + The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished + from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a + closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of + matter ... The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the + atom in that it is an ion ... + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis: + If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented + it wasn't worth doing. +% +momentum, n.: + What you give a person when they are going away. +% +Moon, n.: + 1. A celestial object whose phase is very important to hackers. See + PHASE OF THE MOON. 2. Dave Moon (MOON@MC). +% +Moore's Constant: + Everybody sets out to do something, and everybody + does something, but no one does what he sets out to do. +% +mophobia, n.: + Fear of being verbally abused by a Mississippian. +% +Morton's Law: + If rats are experimented upon, they will develop cancer. +% +Mosher's Law of Software Engineering: + Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd + be out of a job. +% +Mr. Cole's Axiom: + The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the + population is growing. +% +mummy, n.: + An Egyptian who was pressed for time. +% +Murphy's Law of Research: + Enough research will tend to support your theory. +% +Murphy's Laws: + (1) If anything can go wrong, it will. + (2) Nothing is as easy as it looks. + (3) Everything takes longer than you think it will. +% +Murray's Rule: + Any country with "democratic" in the title isn't. +% +Mustgo, n.: + Any item of food that has been sitting in the refrigerator so + long it has become a science project. + -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends" +% +My father taught me three things: + (1) Never mix whiskey with anything but water. + (2) Never try to draw to an inside straight. + (3) Never discuss business with anyone who refuses to give his name. +% +Nachman's Rule: + When it comes to foreign food, the less authentic the better. + -- Gerald Nachman +% +narcolepulacyi, n.: + The contagious action of yawning, causing everyone in sight + to also yawn. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +nerd pack, n.: + Plastic pouch worn in breast pocket to keep pens from soiling + clothes. Nerd's position in engineering hierarchy can be measured + by number of pens, grease pencils, and rulers bristling in his pack. +% +neutron bomb, n.: + An explosive device of limited military value because, as + it only destroys people without destroying property, it + must be used in conjunction with bombs that destroy property. +% +new, adj.: + Different color from previous model. +% +Newlan's Truism: + An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the + government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job. +% +Newman's Discovery: + Your best dreams may not come true; fortunately, neither will + your worst dreams. +% +Newton's Law of Gravitation: + What goes up must come down. But don't expect it to come down where + you can find it. Murphy's Law applies to Newton's. +% +Newton's Little-Known Seventh Law: + A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead. +% +Nick the Greek's Law of Life: + All things considered, life is 9 to 5 against. +% +Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules: + The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of + the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent. +% +no brainer: + A decision which, viewed through the retrospectoscope, + is "obvious" to those who failed to make it originally. +% +no maintenance: + Impossible to fix. +% +nolo contendere: + A legal term meaning: "I didn't do it, judge, and I'll never do + it again." +% +nominal egg: + New Yorkerese for expensive. +% +Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations: + Negative expectations yield negative results. + Positive expectations yield negative results. +% +Nouvelle cuisine, n.: + French for "not enough food". + +Continental breakfast, n.: + English for "not enough food". + +Tapas, n.: + Spanish for "not enough food". + +Dim Sum, n.: + Chinese for more food than you've ever seen in your entire life. +% +November, n.: + The eleventh twelfth of a weariness. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Novinson's Revolutionary Discovery: + When comes the revolution, things will be different -- + not better, just different. +% +Nowlan's Theory: + He who hesitates is not only lost, but several miles from + the next freeway exit. +% +Nusbaum's Rule: + The more pretentious the corporate name, the smaller the + organization. (For instance, the Murphy Center for the + Codification of Human and Organizational Law, contrasted + to IBM, GM, and AT&T.) +% +O'Brian's Law: + Everything is always done for the wrong reasons. +% +O'Reilly's Law of the Kitchen: + Cleanliness is next to impossible +% +O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law: + Murphy was an optimist. +% +Occam's eraser: + The philosophical principle that even the simplest + solution is bound to have something wrong with it. +% +Office Automation: + The use of computers to improve efficiency in the office + by removing anyone you would want to talk with over coffee. +% +Official Project Stages: + (1) Uncritical Acceptance + (2) Wild Enthusiasm + (3) Dejected Disillusionment + (4) Total Confusion + (5) Search for the Guilty + (6) Punishment of the Innocent + (7) Promotion of the Non-participants +% +Ogden's Law: + The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up. +% +Old Japanese proverb: + There are two kinds of fools -- those who never climb Mt. Fuji, + and those who climb it twice. +% +Old timer, n.: + One who remembers when charity was a virtue and not an organization. +% +Oliver's Law: + Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. +% +Olmstead's Law: + After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done. +% +omnibiblious, adj.: + Indifferent to type of drink. Ex: "Oh, you can get me anything. + I'm omnibiblious." +% +On ability: + A dwarf is small, even if he stands on a mountain top; + a colossus keeps his height, even if he stands in a well. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 4BC - 65AD +% +On the subject of C program indentation: + "In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be + indented six feet downward and covered with dirt." + -- Blair P. Houghton +% +On-line, adj.: + The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a computer. +% +Once, adv.: + Enough. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +One Page Principle: + A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch + paper cannot be understood. + -- Mark Ardis +% +"One size fits all": + Doesn't fit anyone. +% +One-Shot Case Study, n.: + The scientific equivalent of the four-leaf clover, from which it is + concluded all clovers possess four leaves and are sometimes green. +% +Optimism, n.: + The belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, good, + bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest + tenacity by those accustomed to falling into adversity, and most + acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a blind + faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof -- an intellectual + disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but + not contagious. +% +optimist, n.: + A proponent of the belief that black is white. + + A pessimist asked God for relief. + "Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God. + "No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that +would justify them." + "The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked +something -- the mortality of the optimist." + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +optimist, n: + A bagpiper with a beeper. +% +Oregano, n.: + The ancient Italian art of pizza folding. +% +Osborn's Law: + Variables won't; constants aren't. +% +Ozman's Laws: + (1) If someone says he will do something "without fail," he won't. + (2) The more people talk on the phone, the less money they make. + (3) People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't. + (4) Pizza always burns the roof of your mouth. +% +pain, n.: + One thing, at least it proves that you're alive! +% +Painting, n.: + The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and + exposing them to the critic. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Pandora's Rule: + Never open a box you didn't close. +% +Paprika Measure: + 2 dashes == 1smidgen + 2 smidgens == 1 pinch + 3 pinches == 1 soupcon + 2 soupcons == 2 much paprika +% +paranoia, n.: + A healthy understanding of the way the universe works. +% +Pardo's First Postulate: + Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening. + +Arnold's Addendum: + Everything else causes cancer in rats. +% +Parkinson's Fifth Law: + If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good + bureaucracy, public or private, will find it. +% +Parkinson's Fourth Law: + The number of people in any working group tends to increase + regardless of the amount of work to be done. +% +party, n.: + A gathering where you meet people who drink + so much you can't even remember their names. +% +Pascal Users: + The Pascal system will be replaced next Tuesday by Cobol. + Please modify your programs accordingly. +% +Pascal Users: + To show respect for the 313th anniversary (tomorrow) of the + death of Blaise Pascal, your programs will be run at half speed. +% +Pascal: + A programming language named after a man who would turn over + in his grave if he knew about it. + -- Datamation, January 15, 1984 +% +Password: +% +Patageometry, n.: + The study of those mathematical properties that are invariant + under brain transplants. +% +patent: + A method of publicizing inventions so others can copy them. +% +Paul's Law: + In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save. +% +Paul's Law: + You can't fall off the floor. +% +paycheck: + The weekly $5.27 that remains after deductions for federal + withholding, state withholding, city withholding, FICA, + medical/dental, long-term disability, unemployment insurance, + Christmas Club, and payroll savings plan contributions. +% +Peace, n.: + In international affairs, a period of cheating between two + periods of fighting. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Pecor's Health-Food Principle: + Never eat rutabaga on any day of the week that has a "y" in it. +% +Pedaeration, n.: + The perfect body heat achieved by having one leg under the + sheet and one hanging off the edge of the bed. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +pediddel: + A car with only one working headlight. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Peers's Law: + The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem. +% +Penguin Trivia #46: + Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were. + -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82 +% +pension: + A federally insured chain letter. +% +People's Action Rules: + (1) Some people who can, shouldn't. + (2) Some people who should, won't. + (3) Some people who shouldn't, will. + (4) Some people who can't, will try, regardless. + (5) Some people who shouldn't, but try, will then blame others. +% +perfect guest: + One who makes his host feel at home. +% +Performance: + A statement of the speed at which a computer system works. Or + rather, might work under certain circumstances. Or was rumored + to be working over in Jersey about a month ago. +% +pessimist: + A man who spends all his time worrying about how he can keep the + wolf from the door. + +optimist: + A man who refuses to see the wolf until he seizes the seat of + his pants. + +opportunist: + A man who invites the wolf in and appears the next day in a fur coat. +% +Peter's Law of Substitution: + Look after the molehills, and the + mountains will look after themselves. + +Peter's Principle of Success: + Get up one time more than you're knocked down. + +% +Peterson's Admonition: + When you think you're going down for the third time -- + just remember that you may have counted wrong. +% +Peterson's Rules: + (1) Trucks that overturn on freeways are filled with something sticky. + (2) No cute baby in a carriage is ever a girl when called one. + (3) Things that tick are not always clocks. + (4) Suicide only works when you're bluffing. +% +petribar: + Any sun-bleached prehistoric candy that has been sitting in + the window of a vending machine too long. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% + Phases of a Project: +(1) Exultation. +(2) Disenchantment. +(3) Confusion. +(4) Search for the Guilty. +(5) Punishment for the Innocent. +(6) Distinction for the Uninvolved. +% +philosophy: + The ability to bear with calmness the misfortunes of our friends. +% +philosophy: + Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems. +% +phosflink: + To flick a bulb on and off when it burns out (as if, somehow, that + will bring it back to life). + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Pickle's Law: + If Congress must do a painful thing, + the thing must be done in an odd-number year. +% +pixel, n.: + A mischievous, magical spirit associated with screen displays. + The computer industry has frequently borrowed from mythology: + Witness the sprites in computer graphics, the demons in artificial + intelligence, and the trolls in the marketing department. +% +Please take note: +% +Pohl's law: + Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it. +% +poisoned coffee, n.: + Grounds for divorce. +% +politics, n.: + A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. + The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Pollyanna's Educational Constant: + The hyperactive child is never absent. +% +polygon: + Dead parrot. +% +Poorman's Rule: + When you pull a plastic garbage bag from its handy dispenser package, + you always get hold of the closed end and try to pull it open. +% +Portable, adj.: + Survives system reboot. +% +Positive, adj.: + Mistaken at the top of one's voice. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +poverty, n.: + An unfortunate state that persists as long + as anyone lacks anything he would like to have. +% +Power, n.: + The only narcotic regulated by the SEC instead of the FDA. +% +prairies, n.: + Vast plains covered by treeless forests. +% +Prejudice: + A vagrant opinion without visible means of support. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning: + It's on the other side. +% +Price's Advice: + It's all a game -- play it to have fun. +% +Priority: + A statement of the importance of a user or a program. Often + expressed as a relative priority, indicating that the user doesn't + care when the work is completed so long as he is treated less + badly than someone else. +% +problem drinker, n.: + A man who never buys. +% +program, n.: + A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input + into error messages. tr.v. To engage in a pastime similar to banging + one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward. +% +program, n.: + Any task that can't be completed in one telephone call or one + day. Once a task is defined as a program ("training program," + "sales program," or "marketing program"), its implementation + always justifies hiring at least three more people. +% +Programming Department: + Mistakes made while you wait. +% +progress, n.: + Medieval man thought disease was caused by invisible demons + invading the body and taking possession of it. + + Modern man knows disease is caused by microscopic bacteria + and viruses invading the body and causing it to malfunction. +% +Proof techniques #2: Proof by Oddity. + SAMPLE: To prove that horses have an infinite number of legs. +(1) Horses have an even number of legs. +(2) They have two legs in back and fore legs in front. +(3) This makes a total of six legs, which certainly is an odd number of + legs for a horse. +(4) But the only number that is both odd and even is infinity. +(5) Therefore, horses must have an infinite number of legs. + +Topics is be covered in future issues include proof by: + Intimidation + Gesticulation (handwaving) + "Try it; it works" + Constipation (I was just sitting there and ...) + Blatant assertion + Changing all the 2's to _n's + Mutual consent + Lack of a counterexample, and + "It stands to reason" +% +prototype, n.: + First stage in the life cycle of a computer product, followed by + pre-alpha, alpha, beta, release version, corrected release version, + upgrade, corrected upgrade, etc. Unlike its successors, the + prototype is not expected to work. +% +Pryor's Observation: + How long you live has nothing to do + with how long you are going to be dead. +% +Pudder's Law: + Anything that begins well will end badly. + (Note: The converse of Pudder's law is not true.) +% +purpitation, n.: + To take something off the grocery shelf, decide you + don't want it, and then put it in another section. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Putt's Law: + Technology is dominated by two types of people: + Those who understand what they do not manage. + Those who manage what they do not understand. +% +QOTD: + "It's not the despair... I can stand the despair. It's the hope." +% +QOTD: + "A child of 5 could understand this! Fetch me a child of 5." +% +QOTD: + "A university faculty is 500 egotists with a common parking problem." +% +QOTD: + "Do you smell something burning or is it me?" + -- Joan of Arc +% +QOTD: + "Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone." +% +QOTD: + "East is east... and let's keep it that way." +% +QOTD: + "Even the Statue of Liberty shaves her pits." +% +QOTD: + "Every morning I read the obituaries; if my name's not there, + I go to work." +% +QOTD: + "Everything I am today I owe to people, whom it is now + to late to punish." +% +QOTD: + "He eats like a bird... five times his own weight each day." +% +QOTD: + "He's on the same bus, but he's sure as hell got a different + ticket." +% +QOTD: + "I ain't broke, but I'm badly bent." +% +QOTD: + "I am not sure what this is, but an 'F' would only dignify it." +% +QOTD: + "I don't think they could put him in a mental hospital. On the + other hand, if he were already in, I don't think they'd let him out." +% +QOTD: + "I drive my car quietly, for it goes without saying." +% +QOTD: + "I haven't come far enough, and don't call me baby." +% +QOTD: + "I may not be able to walk, but I drive from the sitting position." +% +QOTD: + "I never met a man I couldn't drink handsome." +% +QOTD: + "I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis!" +% +QOTD: + "I sprinkled some baking powder over a couple of potatoes, but it + didn't work." +% +QOTD: + "I thought I saw a unicorn on the way over, but it was just a + horse with one of the horns broken off." +% +QOTD: + "I tried buying a goat instead of a lawn tractor; had to return + it though. Couldn't figure out a way to connect the snow blower." +% +QOTD: + "I used to be an idealist, but I got mugged by reality." +% +QOTD: + "I used to be lost in the shuffle, now I just shuffle along with + the lost." +% +QOTD: + "I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance." +% +QOTD: + "I used to go to UCLA, but then my Dad got a job." +% +QOTD: + "I used to jog, but the ice kept bouncing out of my glass." +% +QOTD: + "I won't say he's untruthful, but his wife has to call the + dog for dinner." +% +QOTD: + "I'd never marry a woman who didn't like pizza... I might play + golf with her, but I wouldn't marry her!" +% +QOTD: + "I'll listen to reason when it comes out on CD." +% +QOTD: + "I'm just a boy named 'su'..." +% +QOTD: + "I'm not really for apathy, but I'm not against it either..." +% +QOTD: + "I'm on a seafood diet -- I see food and I eat it." +% +QOTD: + "I've always wanted to work in the Federal Mint. And then go on + strike. To make less money." +% +QOTD: + "I've got one last thing to say before I go; give me back + all of my stuff." +% +QOTD: + "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing + trivial." +% +QOTD: + "If he learns from his mistakes, pretty soon he'll know everything." +% +QOTD: + "If I could walk that way, I wouldn't need the cologne, now would I?" +% +QOTD: + "If I'm what I eat, I'm a chocolate chip cookie." +% +QOTD: + "If you keep an open mind people will throw a lot of garbage in it." +% +QOTD: + "In the shopping mall of the mind, he's in the toy department." +% +QOTD: + "It seems to me that your antenna doesn't bring in too many + stations anymore." +% +QOTD: + "It was so cold last winter that I saw a lawyer with his + hands in his own pockets." +% +QOTD: + "It wouldn't have been anything, even if it were gonna be a thing." +% +QOTD: + "It's a cold bowl of chili, when love don't work out." +% +QOTD: + "It's been Monday all week today." +% +QOTD: + "It's been real and it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun." +% +QOTD: + "It's hard to tell whether he has an ace up his sleeve or if + the ace is missing from his deck altogether." +% +QOTD: + "It's sort of a threat, you see. I've never been very good at + them myself, but I'm told they can be very effective." +% +QOTD: + "Just how much can I get away with and still go to heaven?" +% +QOTD: + "Lack of planning on your part doesn't consitute an emergency + on my part." +% +QOTD: + "Like this rose, our love will wilt and die." +% +QOTD: + "My life is a soap opera, but who gets the movie rights?" +% +QOTD: + "My shampoo lasts longer than my relationships." +% +QOTD: + "Of course it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with + a fake?" +% +QOTD: + "Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy." +% +QOTD: + "Oh, no, no... I'm not beautiful. Just very, very pretty." +% +QOTD: + "Our parents were never our age." +% +QOTD: + "Overweight is when you step on your dog's tail and it dies." +% +QOTD: + "Say, you look pretty athletic. What say we put a pair of tennis + shoes on you and run you into the wall?" +% +QOTD: + "She's about as smart as bait." +% +QOTD: + "Sure, I turned down a drink once. Didn't understand the question." +% +QOTD: + "The baby was so ugly they had to hang a pork chop around its + neck to get the dog to play with it." +% +QOTD: + "The elder gods went to Suggoth and all I got was this lousy T-shirt." +% +QOTD: + "There may be no excuse for laziness, but I'm sure looking." +% +QOTD: + "This is a one line proof... if we start sufficiently far to the + left." +% +QOTD: + "Unlucky? If I bought a pumpkin farm, they'd cancel Halloween." +% +QOTD: + "What do you mean, you had the dog fixed? Just what made you + think he was broken!" +% +QOTD: + "What I like most about myself is that I'm so understanding + when I mess things up." +% +QOTD: + "What women and psychologists call `dropping your armor', we call + "baring your neck." +% +QOTD: + "When she hauled ass, it took three trips." +% +QOTD: + "Who? Me? No, no, NO!! But I do sell rugs." +% +QOTD: + "Wouldn't it be wonderful if real life supported control-Z?" +% +QOTD: + "You want me to put *holes* in my ears and hang things from them? + How... tribal." +% +QOTD: + "You're so dumb you don't even have wisdom teeth." +% +QOTD: + All I want is a little more than I'll ever get. +% +QOTD: + All I want is more than my fair share. +% +QOTD: + Flash! Flash! I love you! ...but we only have fourteen hours to + save the earth! +% +QOTD: + How can I miss you if you won't go away? +% +QOTD: + I looked out my window, and saw Kyle Pettys' car upside down, + then I thought 'One of us is in real trouble'. + -- Davey Allison, on a 150 m.p.h. crash +% +QOTD: + I love your outfit, does it come in your size? +% +QOTD: + I opened Pandora's box, let the cat out of the bag and put the + ball in their court. + -- Hon. J. Hacker (The Ministry of Administrative Affairs) +% +QOTD: + I'm not a nerd -- I'm "socially challenged". +% +QOTD: + I'm not bald -- I'm "hair challenged". + + [I thought that was "differently haired". Ed.] +% +QOTD: + I've heard about civil Engineers, but I've never met one. +% +QOTD: + If it's too loud, you're too old. +% +QOTD: + If you're looking for trouble, I can offer you a wide selection. +% +QOTD: + Ludwig Boltzmann, who spend much of his life studying statistical + mechanics died in 1906 by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying + on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn. + -- Goodstein, States of Matter +% +QOTD: + Money isn't everything, but at least it keeps the kids in touch. +% +QOTD: + My mother was the travel agent for guilt trips. +% +QOTD: + On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd say... oh, somewhere in there. +% +QOTD: + Sacred cows make great hamburgers. +% +QOTD: + Silence is the only virtue he has left. +% +QOTD: + Some people have one of those days. I've had one of those lives. +% +QOTD: + Talent does what it can, genius what it must. + I do what I get paid to do. +% +QOTD: + Talk about willing people... over half of them are willing to work + and the others are more than willing to watch them. +% +QOTD: + The forest may be quiet, but that doesn't mean + the snakes have gone away. +% +QOTD: + The only easy way to tell a hamster from a gerbil is that the + gerbil has more dark meat. +% +QOTD: + Y'know how s'm people treat th'r body like a TEMPLE? + Well, I treat mine like 'n AMUSEMENT PARK... S'great... +% +Quality control, n.: + Assuring that the quality of a product does not get out of hand + and add to the cost of its manufacture or design. +% +Quality Control, n.: + The process of testing one out of every 1,000 units coming off + a production line to make sure that at least one out of 100 works. +% +quark: + The sound made by a well bred duck. +% +Quigley's Law: + Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will + atttempt to use it. +% +QWERT (kwirt) n. [MW < OW qwertyuiop, a thirteenth] 1. a unit of weight +equal to 13 poiuyt avoirdupois (or 1.69 kiloliks), commonly used in +structural engineering 2. [Colloq.] one thirteenth the load that a fully +grown sligo can carry. 3. [Anat.] a painful irritation of the dermis +in the region of the anus 4. [Slang] person who excites in others the +symptoms of a qwert. + -- Webster's Middle World Dictionary, 4th ed. +% +Ralph's Observation: + It is a mistake to let any mechanical object realise that you + are in a hurry. +% +Random, n.: + As in number, predictable. As in memory access, unpredictable. +% +Ray's Rule of Precision: + Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe. +% +Re: Graphics: + A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe + the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately + described with pictures. +% +Real Time, adj.: + Here and now, as opposed to fake time, which only occurs there and then. +% +Real World, The, n.: + 1. In programming, those institutions at which programming may +be used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG, IBM, etc. 2. To +programmers, the location of non-programmers and activities not related +to programming. 3. A universe in which the standard dress is shirt and +tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5. 4. +The location of the status quo. 5. Anywhere outside a university. +"Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the real world." Used +pejoratively by those not in residence there. In conversation, talking +of someone who has entered the real world is not unlike talking about a +deceased person. +% +Reappraisal, n.: + An abrupt change of mind after being found out. +% +Reception area, n.: + The purgatory where office visitors are condemned to spend + innumerable hours reading dog-eared back issues of trade + magazines like Modern Plastics, Chain Saw Age, and Chicken World, + while the receptionist blithely reads her own trade magazine -- + Cosmopolitan. +% +Recursion n.: + See Recursion. + -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary +% +Reformed, n.: + A synagogue that closes for the Jewish holidays. +% +Regression analysis: + Mathematical techniques for trying to understand why things are + getting worse. +% +Reichel's Law: + A body on vacation tends to remain on vacation unless acted upon by + an outside force. +% +Reisner's Rule of Conceptual Inertia: + If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it. +% +Reliable source, n.: + The guy you just met. +% +Renning's Maxim: + Man is the highest animal. Man does the classifying. +% +Reporter, n.: + A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a + tempest of words. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Reputation, adj.: + What others are not thinking about you. +% +Research, n.: + Consider Columbus: + He didn't know where he was going. + When he got there he didn't know where he was. + When he got back he didn't know where he had been. + And he did it all on someone else's money. +% +Responsibility: + Everyone says that having power is a great responsibility. This is +a lot of bunk. Responsibility is when someone can blame you if something +goes wrong. When you have power you are surrounded by people whose job it +is to take the blame for your mistakes. If they're smart, that is. + -- Cerebus, "On Governing" +% +Revolution, n.: + A form of government abroad. +% +Revolution, n.: + In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +revolutionary, adj.: + Repackaged. +% +Rhode's Law: + When any principle, law, tenet, probability, happening, circumstance, + or result can in no way be directly, indirectly, empirically, or + circuitously proven, derived, implied, inferred, induced, deducted, + estimated, or scientifically guessed, it will always for the purpose + of convenience, expediency, political advantage, material gain, or + personal comfort, or any combination of the above, or none of the + above, be unilaterally and unequivocally assumed, proclaimed, and + adhered to as absolute truth to be undeniably, universally, immutably, + and infinitely so, until such time as it becomes advantageous to + assume otherwise, maybe. +% +Ritchie's Rule: + (1) Everything has some value -- if you use the right currency. + (2) Paint splashes last longer than the paint job. + (3) Search and ye shall find -- but make sure it was lost. +% +Robot, n.: + University administrator. +% +Robustness, adj.: + Never having to say you're sorry. +% +Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention: + Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will + reject the proposal. +% +Rudd's Discovery: + You know that any senator or congressman could go home and make + $300,000 to $400,000, but they don't. Why? Because they can + stay in Washington and make it there. +% +Rudin's Law: + If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will + do it every time. + +Rudin's Second Law: + In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative + courses of action, people tend to choose the worst possible + course. +% +rugged, adj.: + Too heavy to lift. +% +Rule #1: + The Boss is always right. + +Rule #2: + If the Boss is wrong, see Rule #1. +% +Rule of Creative Research: + (1) Never draw what you can copy. + (2) Never copy what you can trace. + (3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down. +% +Rule of Defactualization: + Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies. +% +Rule of Feline Frustration: + When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly + content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the + bathroom. +% +Rule of the Great: + When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep + thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch. +% +Rules for Academic Deans: + (1) HIDE!!!! + (2) If they find you, LIE!!!! + -- Father Damian C. Fandal +% +Rules for driving in New York: + (1) Anything done while honking your horn is legal. + (2) You may park anywhere if you turn your four-way flashers on. + (3) A red light means the next six cars may go through the + intersection. +% +Rules for Writers: + Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read. Don't use no double +negatives. Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; +and never where it isn't. Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and +omit it when its not needed. No sentence fragments. Avoid commas, that are +unnecessary. Eschew dialect, irregardless. And don't start a sentence with +a conjunction. Hyphenate between sy-llables and avoid un-necessary hyphens. +Write all adverbial forms correct. Don't use contractions in formal writing. +Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. It is incumbent on +us to avoid archaisms. Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have +snuck in the language. Never, ever use repetitive redundancies. If I've +told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole. Also, +avoid awkward or affected alliteration. Don't string too many prepositional +phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of +death. "Avoid overuse of 'quotation "marks."'" +% +Rune's Rule: + If you don't care where you are, you ain't lost. +% +Ryan's Law: + Make three correct guesses consecutively + and you will establish yourself as an expert. +% +Sacher's Observation: + Some people grow with responsibility -- others merely swell. +% +Satellite Safety Tip #14: + If you see a bright streak in the sky coming at you, duck. +% +Sattinger's Law: + It works better if you plug it in. +% +Savage's Law of Expediency: + You want it bad, you'll get it bad. +% +scenario, n.: + An imagined sequence of events that provides the context in + which a business decision is made. Scenarios always come in + sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. +% +Schapiro's Explanation: + The grass is always greener on the other side -- but that's + because they use more manure. +% +Schlattwhapper, n.: + The window shade that allows itself to be pulled down, + hesitates for a second, then snaps up in your face. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Schmidt's Observation: + All things being equal, a fat person uses more soap + than a thin person. +% +Scott's First Law: + No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right. + +Scott's Second Law: + When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found + to have been wrong in the first place. +Corollary: + After the correction has been found in error, it will be + impossible to fit the original quantity back into the + equation. +% +scribline, n.: + The blank area on the back of credit cards where one's signature goes. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Second Law of Business Meetings: + If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you + will pick the wrong one. + +Corollary: + If there is only one way to spell a name, + you will spell it wrong, anyway. +% +Second Law of Final Exams: + In your toughest final -- for the first time all year -- the most + distractingly attractive student in the class will sit next to you. +% +Secretary's Revenge: + Filing almost everything under "the". +% +Seleznick's Theory of Holistic Medicine: + Ice Cream cures all ills. Temporarily. +% +Self Test for Paranoia: + You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's + your own fault. +% +Senate, n.: + A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +senility, n.: + The state of mind of elderly persons with whom one happens to disagree. +% +serendipity, n.: + The process by which human knowledge is advanced. +% +Serocki's Stricture: + Marriage is always a bachelor's last option. +% +Shannon's Observation: + Nothing is so frustrating as a bad situation that is beginning to + improve. +% +share, n.: + To give in, endure humiliation. +% +Shaw's Principle: + Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will + want to use it. +% +Shedenhelm's Law: + All trails have more uphill sections than they have downhill sections. +% +Shick's Law: + There is no problem a good miracle can't solve. +% +Silverman's Law: + If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will. +% +Simon's Law: + Everything put together falls apart sooner or later. +% +Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor): + That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, + or subtracted from the answer you got, gives you the answer you + should have gotten. +% +Slick's Three Laws of the Universe: + (1) Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check. + (2) A quarter-ounce of chocolate = four pounds of fat. + (3) There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is + attracted to light objects, and the light kind, which is + attracted to dark objects. +% +Slous' Contention: + If you do a job too well, you'll get stuck with it. +% +Slurm, n.: + The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when + it sits in the dish too long. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Snacktrek, n.: + The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly + returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will have + materialized. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +snappy repartee: + What you'd say if you had another chance. +% +Sodd's Second Law: + Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is + bound to occur. +% +Software, n.: + Formal evening attire for female computer analysts. +% +Some points to remember [about animals]: + (1) Don't go to sleep under big animals, e.g., elephants, rhinoceri, + hippopotamuses; + (2) Don't put animals with sharp teeth or poisonous fangs down the + front of your clothes; + (3) Don't pat certain animals, e.g., crocodiles and scorpions or dogs + you have just kicked. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +spagmumps, n.: + Any of the millions of Styrofoam wads that accompany mail-order items. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading: + The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the + number of times you have looked at it. +% +Spence's Admonition: + Never stow away on a kamikaze plane. +% +Spirtle, n.: + The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in your eye. + -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends" +% +Spouse, n.: + Someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you + wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single. +% +squatcho, n.: + The button at the top of a baseball cap. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +standards, n.: + The principles we use to reject other people's code. +% +statistics, n.: + A system for expressing your political prejudices in convincing + scientific guise. +% +Steckel's Rule to Success: + Good enough is never good enough. +% +Steele's Law: + There exist tasks which cannot be done by more than ten men + or fewer than one hundred. +% +Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy: + Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have + another drink. +% +Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming: + Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. +% +Stenderup's Law: + The sooner you fall behind, the more time you will have to catch up. +% +Stock's Observation: + You no sooner get your head above water but what someone pulls + your flippers off. +% +Stone's Law: + One man's "simple" is another man's "huh?" +% +strategy, n.: + A comprehensive plan of inaction. +% +Strategy: + A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated until sometime + after those creating it have left the organization. +% +Stult's Report: + Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is + fight the solutions. +% +Stupid, n.: + Losing $25 on the game and $25 on the instant replay. +% +Sturgeon's Law: + 90% of everything is crud. +% +sugar daddy, n.: + A man who can afford to raise cain. +% +SUN Microsystems: + The Network IS the Load Average. +% +sunset, n.: + Pronounced atmospheric scattering of shorter wavelengths, + resulting in selective transmission below 650 nanometers with + progressively reducing solar elevation. +% +sushi, n.: + When that-which-may-still-be-alive is put on top of rice and + strapped on with electrical tape. +% +Sushido, n.: + The way of the tuna. +% +Swahili, n.: + The language used by the National Enquirer to print their retractions. + -- Johnny Hart +% +Sweater, n.: + A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly. +% +Swipple's Rule of Order: + He who shouts the loudest has the floor. +% +system-independent, adj.: + Works equally poorly on all systems. +% +T-shirt of the Day: + Head for the Mountains + -- courtesy Anheuser-Busch beer + +Followup T-shirt of the Day (on the same scenic background): + If you liked the mountains, head for the Busch! + -- courtesy someone else +% +T-shirt Of The Day: + I'm the person your mother warned you about. +% +T-shirt: + Life is *not* a Cabaret, and stop calling me chum! +% +Tact, n.: + The unsaid part of what you're thinking. +% +take forceful action: + Do something that should have been done a long time ago. +% +tax office, n.: + Den of inequity. +% +Taxes, n.: + Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get + an extension. +% +taxidermist, n.: + A man who mounts animals. +% +TCP/IP Slang Glossary, #1: + +Gong, n: Medieval term for privy, or what pased for them in that era. +Today used whimsically to describe the aftermath of a bogon attack. Think +of our community as the Galapagos of the English language. + +"Vogons may read you bad poetry, but bogons make you study obsolete RFCs." + -- Dave Mills +% +teamwork, n.: + Having someone to blame. +% +Technicality, n.: + In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having + accused a neighbor of murder. His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt + hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one + side of his head fell on one shoulder and the other side upon the + other shoulder." The defendant was acquitted by instruction of the + court, the learned judges holding that the words did not charge murder, + for they did not affirm the death of the cook, that being only an + inference. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Telephone, n.: + An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages + of making a disagreeable person keep his distance. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +telepression, n.: + The deep-seated guilt which stems from knowing that you did not try + hard enough to look up the number on your own and instead put the + burden on the directory assistant. + -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends +% +Teutonic: + Not enough gin. +% +The 357.73 Theory: + Auditors always reject expense accounts + with a bottom line divisible by 5. +% +The Abrams' Principle: + The shortest distance between two points is off the wall. +% +The Ancient Doctrine of Mind Over Matter: + I don't mind... and you don't matter. + -- As revealed to reporter G. Rivera by Swami Havabanana +% +The Beatles: + Paul McCartney's old back-up band. +% +The Briggs-Chase Law of Program Development: + To determine how long it will take to write and debug a + program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add + one, and convert to the next higher units. +% +The Consultant's Curse: + When the customer has beaten upon you long enough, give him + what he asks for, instead of what he needs. This is very strong + medicine, and is normally only required once. +% +The distinction between Jewish and goyish can be quite subtle, as the +following quote from Lenny Bruce illustrates: + + "I'm Jewish. Count Basie's Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. +Eddie Cantor's goyish. The B'nai Brith is goyish. The Hadassah is +Jewish. Marine Corps -- heavy goyish, dangerous. + + "Kool-Aid is goyish. All Drake's Cakes are goyish. +Pumpernickel is Jewish and, as you know, white bread is very goyish. +Instant potatoes -- goyish. Black cherry soda's very Jewish. +Macaroons are ____very Jewish. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime Jell-O is +goyish. Lime soda is ____very goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that +Jews won't go near them ..." + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +The Fifth Rule: + You have taken yourself too seriously. +% +The First Rule of Program Optimization: + Don't do it. + +The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!): + Don't do it yet. + -- Michael Jackson +% +The five rules of Socialism: + (1) Don't think. + (2) If you do think, don't speak. + (3) If you think and speak, don't write. + (4) If you think, speak and write, don't sign. + (5) If you think, speak, write and sign, don't be surprised. + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +The Following Subsume All Physical and Human Laws: + (1) You can't push on a string. + (2) Ain't no free lunches. + (3) Them as has, gets. + (4) You can't win them all, but you sure as hell can lose them all. +% +The Golden Rule of Arts and Sciences: + He who has the gold makes the rules. +% +The Gordian Maxim: + If a string has one end, it has another. +% +The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog: + The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog of Billericay displays, in courtship, + his single prickle and does impressions of Holiday Inn desk clerks. + Since this means him standing motionless for enormous periods of + time he is often eaten in full display by The Great Bald Swamp + Hedgehog Eater. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +The Heineken Uncertainty Principle: + You can never be sure how many beers you had last night. +% +The history of warfare is similarly subdivided, although here the phases +are Retribution, Anticipation, and Diplomacy. Thus: + +Retribution: + I'm going to kill you because you killed my brother. +Anticipation: + I'm going to kill you because I killed your brother. +Diplomacy: + I'm going to kill my brother and then kill you on the + pretext that your brother did it. +% +The Illiterati Programus Canto 1: + A program is a lot like a nose: Sometimes it runs, and + sometimes it blows. +% +The Kennedy Constant: + Don't get mad -- get even. +% +The Law of the Letter: + The best way to inspire fresh thoughts is to seal the envelope. +% +The Marines: + The few, the proud, the dead on the beach. +% +The Marines: + The few, the proud, the not very bright. +% +The Modelski Chain Rule: +(1) Look intently at the problem for several minutes. Scratch your + head at 20-30 second intervals. Try solving the problem on your + Hewlett-Packard. +(2) Failing this, look around at the class. Select a particularly + bright-looking individual. +(3) Procure a large chain. +(4) Walk over to the selected student and threaten to beat him severely + with the chain unless he gives you the answer to the problem. + Generally, he will. It may also be a good idea to give him a sound + thrashing anyway, just to show you mean business. +% +The most dangerous organization in America today is: + (a) The KKK + (b) The American Nazi Party + (c) The Delta Frequent Flyer Club +% +The Official MBA Handbook on business cards: + Avoid overly pretentious job titles such as "Lord of the Realm, + Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" or "Director of Corporate + Planning." +% +The Official MBA Handbook on doing company business on an airplane: + Do not work openly on top-secret company cost documents unless + you have previously ascertained that the passenger next to you + is blind, a rock musician on mood-ameliorating drugs, or the + unfortunate possessor of a forty-seventh chromosome. +% +The Official MBA Handbook on the use of sunlamps: + Use a sunlamp only on weekends. That way, if the office wise guy + remarks on the sudden appearance of your tan, you can fabricate + some story about a sun-stroked weekend at some island Shangri-La + like Caneel Bay. Nothing is more transparent than leaving the + office at 11:45 on a Tuesday night, only to return an Aztec sun + god at 8:15 the next morning. +% +The Phone Booth Rule: + A lone dime always gets the number nearly right. +% +The qotc (quote of the con) was Liz's: + "My brain is paged out to my liver." +% +The real man's Bloody Mary: + Ingredients: vodka, tomato juice, Tobasco, Worcestershire + sauce, A-1 steak sauce, ice, salt, pepper, celery. + + Fill a large tumbler with vodka. + Throw all the other ingredients away. +% +The Roman Rule: + The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the + one who is doing it. +% +The rules: + (1) Thou shalt not worship other computer systems. + (2) Thou shalt not impersonate Liberace or eat watermelon while + sitting at the console keyboard. + (3) Thou shalt not slap users on the face, nor staple their silly + little card decks together. + (4) Thou shalt not get physically involved with the computer system, + especially if you're already married. + (5) Thou shalt not use magnetic tapes as frisbees, nor use a disk + pack as a stool to reach another disk pack. + (6) Thou shalt not stare at the blinking lights for more than one + eight hour shift. + (7) Thou shalt not tell users that you accidentally destroyed their + files/backup just to see the look on their little faces. + (8) Thou shalt not enjoy cancelling a job. + (9) Thou shalt not display firearms in the computer room. + (10) Thou shalt not push buttons "just to see what happens". +% +The Second Law of Thermodynamics: + If you think things are in a mess now, just wait! + -- Jim Warner +% +The Seventh Commandments for Technicians: + Work thou not on energized equipment, for if thou dost, thy fellow + workers will surely buy beers for thy widow and console her in other + ways. +% +The Sixth Commandment of Frisbee: + The greatest single aid to distance is for the disc to be going in a + direction you did not want. (Goes the wrong way = Goes a long way.) + -- Dan Roddick +% +The Third Law of Photography: + If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined + when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of + the dark leaks out. +% +The three biggest software lies: + (1) *Of course* we'll give you a copy of the source. + (2) *Of course* the third party vendor we bought that from + will fix the microcode. + (3) Beta test site? No, *of course* you're not a beta test site. +% +The three laws of thermodynamics: + (1) You can't get anything without working for it. + (2) The most you can accomplish by working is to break even. + (3) You can only break even at absolute zero. +% +Theorem: a cat has nine tails. +Proof: + No cat has eight tails. A cat has one tail more than no cat. + Therefore, a cat has nine tails. +% +Theorem: All positive integers are equal. +Proof: Sufficient to show that for any two positive integers, A and B, A = B. + Further, it is sufficient to show that for all N > 0, if A and B + (positive integers) satisfy (MAX(A, B) = N) then A = B. + +Proceed by induction: + If N = 1, then A and B, being positive integers, must both be 1. + So A = B. + +Assume that the theorem is true for some value k. Take A and B with + MAX(A, B) = k+1. Then MAX((A-1), (B-1)) = k. And hence + (A-1) = (B-1). Consequently, A = B. +% +Theory of Selective Supervision: + The one time in the day that you lean back and relax is + the one time the boss walks through the office. +% +theory, n.: + System of ideas meant to explain something, chosen with a view to + originality, controversialism, incomprehensibility, and how good + it will look in print. +% +There are three ways to get something done: + (1) Do it yourself. + (2) Hire someone to do it for you. + (3) Forbid your kids to do it. +% +Those lovable Brits department: + They also have trouble pronouncing `vitamin'. +% +Three rules for sounding like an expert: + (1) Oversimplify your explanations to the point of uselessness. + (2) Always point out second-order effects, but never point out + when they can be ignored. + (3) Come up with three rules of your own. +% +Thyme's Law: + Everything goes wrong at once. +% +timesharing, n: + An access method whereby one computer abuses many people. +% +Tip of the Day: + Never fry bacon in the nude. + + [Correction: always fry bacon in the nude; you'll learn not to burn it] +% +TIPS FOR PERFORMERS: + Playing cards have the top half upside-down to help cheaters. + There are a finite number of jokes in the universe. + Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music longer than + they would ordinarily. + There is no music in space. + People will pay to watch people make sounds. + Everything on stage should be larger than in real life. +% +today, n.: + A nice place to visit, but you can't stay here for long. +% +toilet toup'ee, n.: + Any shag carpet that causes the lid to become top-heavy, thus + creating endless annoyance to male users. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Toni's Solution to a Guilt-Free Life: + If you have to lie to someone, it's their fault. +% +transfer, n.: + A promotion you receive on the condition that you leave town. +% +transparent, adj.: + Being or pertaining to an existing, nontangible object. + "It's there, but you can't see it" + -- IBM System/360 announcement, 1964. + +virtual, adj.: + Being or pertaining to a tangible, nonexistent object. + "I can see it, but it's not there." + -- Lady Macbeth. +% +travel, n.: + Something that makes you feel like you're getting somewhere. +% +"Trust me": + Translation of the Latin "caveat emptor." +% +Truthful, adj.: + Dumb and illiterate. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Tsort's Constant: + 1.67563, or precisely 1,237.98712567 times the difference between +the distance to the sun and the weight of a small orange. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" (slightly modified) +% +Turnaucka's Law: + The attention span of a computer is only as long as its + electrical cord. +% +Tussman's Law: + Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come. +% +U.S. of A.: + "Don't speak to the bus driver." +Germany: + "It is strictly forbidden for passengers to speak to the driver." +England: + "You are requested to refrain from speaking to the driver." +Scotland: + "What have you got to gain by speaking to the driver?" +Italy: + "Don't answer the driver." +% +Udall's Fourth Law: + Any change or reform you make is going to have consequences you + don't like. +% +Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb: + Never use your thumb for a rule. + You'll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it. +% +Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics: + Superiority is recessive. +% +understand, v.: + To reach a point, in your investigation of some subject, at which + you cease to examine what is really present, and operate on the + basis of your own internal model instead. +% +Unfair animal names: + +-- tsetse fly -- bullhead +-- booby -- duck-billed platypus +-- sapsucker -- Clarence + -- Gary Larson +% +unfair competition, n.: + Selling cheaper than we do. +% +union, n.: + A dues-paying club workers wield to strike management. +% +Universe, n.: + The problem. +% +University, n.: + Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's usable, + and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to fix + it, and ... + + [Okay, okay, I'll leave it in, but I think you're destroying + the credibility of the entire fortune program. Ed.] +% +Unnamed Law: + If it happens, it must be possible. +% +untold wealth, n.: + What you left out on April 15th. +% +User n.: + A programmer who will believe anything you tell him. +% +user, n.: + The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot." + -- Dave Barry, "Claw Your Way to the Top" + +[I always thought "computer professional" was the phrase hackers used + when they meant "idiot." Ed.] +% +vacation, n.: + A two-week binge of rest and relaxation so intense that + it takes another 50 weeks of your restrained workaday + life-style to recuperate. +% +Vail's Second Axiom: + The amount of work to be done increases in proportion to the + amount of work already completed. +% +Van Roy's Law: + An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys. +% +Van Roy's Law: + Honesty is the best policy - there's less competition. + +Van Roy's Truism: + Life is a whole series of circumstances beyond your control. +% +Vanilla, adj.: + Ordinary flavor, standard. See FLAVOR. When used of food, + very often does not mean that the food is flavored with vanilla + extract! For example, "vanilla-flavored won ton soup" (or simply + "vanilla won ton soup") means ordinary won ton soup, as opposed to hot + and sour won ton soup. +% +Velilind's Laws of Experimentation: + (1) If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once. + (2) If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points. +% +Viking, n.: + 1. Daring Scandinavian seafarers, explorers, adventurers, + entrepreneurs world-famous for their aggressive, nautical import + business, highly leveraged takeovers and blue eyes. + 2. Bloodthirsty sea pirates who ravaged northern Europe beginning + in the 9th century. + +Hagar's note: The first definition is much preferred; the second is used +only by malcontents, the envious, and disgruntled owners of waterfront +property. +% +VMS, n.: + The world's foremost multi-user adventure game. +% +volcano, n.: + A mountain with hiccups. +% +Volley Theory: + It is better to have lobbed and lost than never to have lobbed at all. +% +vuja de: + The feeling that you've *never*, *ever* been in this situation before. +% +Walters' Rule: + All airline flights depart from the gates most distant from + the center of the terminal. Nobody ever had a reservation + on a plane that left Gate 1. +% +Watson's Law: + The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the + number and significance of any persons watching it. +% +"We'll look into it": + By the time the wheels make a full turn, we + assume you will have forgotten about it, too. +% +we: + The single most important word in the world. +% +weapon, n.: + An index of the lack of development of a culture. +% +Wedding, n: + A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes + to become nothing and nothing undertakes to become supportable. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Weed's Axiom: + Never ask two questions in a business letter. + The reply will discuss the one in which you are + least interested and say nothing about the other. +% +Weiler's Law: + Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself. +% +Weinberg's First Law: + Progress is only made on alternate Fridays. +% +Weinberg's Principle: + An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while + sweeping on to the grand fallacy. +% +Weinberg's Second Law: + If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, + then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. +% +Weiner's Law of Libraries: + There are no answers, only cross references. +% +well-adjusted, adj.: + The ability to play bridge or golf as if they were games. +% +Westheimer's Discovery: + A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a + couple of hours in the library. +% +When asked the definition of "pi": +The Mathematician: + Pi is the number expressing the relationship between the + circumference of a circle and its diameter. +The Physicist: + Pi is 3.1415927, plus or minus 0.000000005. +The Engineer: + Pi is about 3. +% +Whistler's Law: + You never know who is right, but you always know who is in charge. +% +White's Statement: + Don't lose heart! + +Owen's Commentary on White's Statement: + ...they might want to cut it out... + +Byrd's Addition to Owen's Commentary: + ...and they want to avoid a lengthy search. +% +Whitehead's Law: + The obvious answer is always overlooked. +% +Wiker's Law: + Government expands to absorb revenue and then some. +% +Wilcox's Law: + A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants. +% + William Safire's Rules for Writers: + +Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be +used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to agree with +their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. If you reread +your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be +avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must not shift your point of +view. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a +preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.) Don't overuse +exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long +sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, +dangling participles must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of +a sentence, a linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing +metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should be +careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing. +Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows the verb. Last +but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives. +% +Williams and Holland's Law: + If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical + methods. +% +Wilner's Observation: + All conversations with a potato should be conducted in private. +% +Wit, n.: + The salt with which the American Humorist spoils his cookery + ... by leaving it out. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +wok, n.: + Something to thwow at a wabbit. +% +wolf, n.: + A man who knows all the ankles. +% +Wombat's Laws of Computer Selection: + (1) If it doesn't run Unix, forget it. + (2) Any computer design over 10 years old is obsolete. + (3) Anything made by IBM is junk. (See number 2) + (4) The minimum acceptable CPU power for a single user is a + VAX/780 with a floating point accelerator. + (5) Any computer with a mouse is worthless. + -- Rich Kulawiec +% +Woodward's Law: + A theory is better than its explanation. +% +Woolsey-Swanson Rule: + People would rather live with a problem they cannot + solve rather than accept a solution they cannot understand. +% +Work Rule: Leave of Absence (for an Operation): + We are no longer allowing this practice. We wish to discourage any +thoughts that you may not need all of whatever you have, and you should not +consider having anything removed. We hired you as you are, and to have +anything removed would certainly make you less than we bargained for. +% +work, n.: + The blessed respite from screaming kids and + soap operas for which you actually get paid. +% +Worst Month of 1981 for Downhill Skiing: + August. The lift lines are the shortest, though. + -- Steve Rubenstein +% +Worst Month of the Year: + February. February has only 28 days in it, which means that if + you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you + don't get. Try to avoid Februarys whenever possible. + -- Steve Rubenstein +% +Worst Response To A Crisis, 1985: + From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved + in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs + damage my videotapes?" +% +Worst Vegetable of the Year: + The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next year. + -- Steve Rubenstein +% +write-protect tab, n.: + A small sticker created to cover the unsightly notch carelessly left + by disk manufacturers. The use of the tab creates an error message + once in a while, but its aesthetic value far outweighs the momentary + inconvenience. + -- Robb Russon +% +WYSIWYG: + What You See Is What You Get. +% +XIIdigitation, n.: + The practice of trying to determine the year a movie was made + by deciphering the Roman numerals at the end of the credits. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Year, n.: + A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Yinkel, n.: + A person who combs his hair over his bald spot, hoping no one + will notice. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +yo-yo, n.: + Something that is occasionally up but normally down. + (see also Computer). +% +Zall's Laws: + (1) Any time you get a mouthful of hot soup, the next thing you do + will be wrong. + (2) How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom + door you're on. +% +zeal, n.: + Quality seen in new graduates -- if you're quick. +% +Zero Defects, n.: + The result of shutting down a production line. +% +Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor: + People are always available for work in the past tense. +% +Obscurism: + The practice of peppering daily life with obscure +references as a subliminal means of showcasing both one's education +and one's wish to disassociate from the world of mass culture. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +McJob: + A low-pay, low-prestige, low-benefit, no-future job in the +service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by +those who have never held one. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Poverty Jet Set: + A group of people given to chronic traveling at the expense of +long-term job stability or a permanent residence. Tend to have doomed +and extremely expensive phone-call relationships with people named +Serge or Ilyana. Tend to discuss frequent-flyer programs at parties. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Historic Underdosing: + To live in a period of time when nothing seems to happen. +Major symptoms include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news +broadcasts. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Historic Overdosing: + To live in a period of time when too much seems to happen. +Major symptoms include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news +broadcasts. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Historical Slumming: + The act of visiting locations such as diners, smokestack +industrial sites, rural villages -- locations where time appears to +have been frozen many years back -- so as to experience relief when +one returns back to "the present." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Brazilification: + The widening gulf between the rich and the poor and the +accompanying disappearance of the middle classes. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Vaccinated Time Travel: + To fantasize about traveling backward in time, but only +with proper vaccinations. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Decade Blending: + In clothing: the indiscriminate combination of two or more +items from various decades to create a personal mood: Sheila = +Mary Quant earrings (1960s) + cork wedgie platform shows (1970s) + +black leather jacket (1950s and 1980s). + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Veal-Fattening Pen: + Small, cramped office workstations built of +fabric-covered disassemblable wall partitions and inhabited by junior +staff members. Named after the small preslaughter cubicles used by +the cattle industry. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Emotional Ketchup Burst: + The bottling up of opinions and emotions inside oneself so +that they explosively burst forth all at once, shocking and confusing +employers and friends -- most of whom thought things were fine. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Bleeding Ponytail: + An elderly, sold-out baby boomer who pines for hippie or +presellout days. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Boomer Envy: + Envy of material wealth and long-range material security +accrued by older members of the baby boom generation by virtue of +fortunate births. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Clique Maintenance: + The need of one generation to see the generation following it +as deficient so as to bolster its own collective ego: "Kids today do +nothing. They're so apathetic. We used to go out and protest. All +they do is shop and complain." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Consensus Terrorism: + The process that decides in-office attitudes and behavior. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Sick Building Migration: + The tendency of younger workers to leave or avoid jobs in +unhealthy office environments or workplaces affected by the Sick +Building Syndrome. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Recurving: + Leaving one job to take another that pays less but places one +back on the learning curve. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Ozmosis: + The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Power Mist: + The tendency of hierarchies in office environments to be diffuse +and preclude crisp articulation. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Overboarding: + Overcompensating for fears about the future by plunging +headlong into a job or life-style seemingly unrelated to one's +previous life interests: i.e., Amway sales, aerobics, the Republican +party, a career in law, cults, McJobs.... + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Earth Tones: + A youthful subgroup interested in vegetarianism, tie-dyed +outfits, mild recreational drugs, and good stereo equipment. Earnest, +frequently lacking in humor. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Ethnomagnetism: + The tendency of young people to live in emotionally +demonstrative, more unrestrained ethnic neighborhoods: "You wouldn't +understand it there, mother -- they *hug* where I live now." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Mid-Twenties Breakdown: + A period of mental collapse occurring in one's twenties, +often caused by an inability to function outside of school or +structured environments coupled with a realization of one's essential +aloneness in the world. Often marks induction into the ritual of +pharmaceutical usage. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Successophobia: + The fear that if one is successful, then one's personal needs +will be forgotten and one will no longer have one's childish needs +catered to. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Safety Net-ism: + The belief that there will always be a financial and emotional +safety net to buffer life's hurts. Usually parents. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Divorce Assumption: + A form of Safety Net-ism, the belief that if a marriage +doesn't work out, then there is no problem because partners can simply +seek a divorce. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Anti-Sabbatical: + A job taken with the sole intention of staying only for a +limited period of time (often one year). The intention is usually to +raise enough funds to partake in another, more meaningful activity +such as watercolor sketching in Crete, or designing computer knit +sweaters in Hong Kong. Employers are rarely informed of intentions. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Legislated Nostalgia: + To force a body of people to have memories they do not +actually possess: "How can I be a part of the 1960s generation when I +don't even remember any of it?" + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Now Denial: + To tell oneself that the only time worth living in is the past and +that the only time that may ever be interesting again is the future. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Bambification: + The mental conversion of flesh and blood living creatures into +cartoon characters possessing bourgeois Judeo-Christian attitudes and +morals. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Diseases for Kisses (Hyperkarma): + A deeply rooted belief that punishment will somehow always be +far greater than the crime: ozone holes for littering. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Spectacularism: + A fascination with extreme situations. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Lessness: + A philosophy whereby one reconciles oneself with diminishing +expectations of material wealth: "I've given up wanting to make a +killing or be a bigshot. I just want to find happiness and maybe open +up a little roadside cafe in Idaho." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Status Substitution: + Using an object with intellectual or fashionable cachet to +substitute for an object that is merely pricey: "Brian, you left your +copy of Camus in your brother's BMW." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Survivulousness: + The tendency to visualize oneself enjoying being the last +person on Earth. "I'd take a helicopter up and throw microwave ovens +down on the Taco Bell." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Platonic Shadow: + A nonsexual friendship with a member of the opposite sex. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Mental Ground Zero: + The location where one visualizes oneself during the dropping +of the atomic bomb; frequently, a shopping mall. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Cult of Aloneness: + The need for autonomy at all costs, usually at the expense of +long-term relationships. Often brought about by overly high +expectations of others. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Celebrity Schadenfreude: + Lurid thrills derived from talking about celebrity deaths. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +The Emperor's New Mall: + The popular notion that shopping malls exist on the insides only +and have no exterior. The suspension of visual disbelief engendered +by this notion allows shoppers to pretend that the large, cement +blocks thrust into their environment do not, in fact, exist. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Poorochrondria: + Hypochrondria derived from not having medical insurance. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Personal Tabu: + A small rule for living, bordering on a superstition, that +allows one to cope with everyday life in the absence of cultural or +religious dictums. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Architectural Indigestion: + The almost obsessive need to live in a "cool" +architectural environment. Frequently related objects of fetish +include framed black-and-white art photography (Diane Arbus a +favorite); simplistic pine furniture; matte black high-tech items such +as TVs, stereos, and telephones; low-wattage ambient lighting; a lamp, +chair, or table that alludes to the 1950s; cut flowers with complex +names. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Japanese Minimalism: + The most frequently offered interior design aesthetic used by +rootless career-hopping young people. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Bread and Circuits: + The electronic era tendency to view party politics as corny -- +no longer relevant of meaningful or useful to modern societal issues, +and in many cases dangerous. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Voter's Block: + The attempt, however futile, to register dissent with the +current political system by simply not voting. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Armanism: + After Giorgio Armani; an obsession with mimicking the seamless +and (more importantly) *controlled* ethos of Italian couture. Like +Japanese Minimalism, Armanism reflects a profound inner need for +control. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Poor Buoyancy: + The realization that one was a better person when one had less +money. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Musical Hairsplitting: + The act of classifying music and musicians into pathologically +picayune categories: "The Vienna Franks are a good example of urban +white acid fold revivalism crossed with ska." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +101-ism: + The tendency to pick apart, often in minute detail, all +aspects of life using half-understood pop psychology as a tool. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Yuppie Wannabes: + An X generation subgroup that believes the myth of a yuppie +life-style being both satisfying and viable. Tend to be highly in +debt, involved in some form of substance abuse, and show a willingness +to talk about Armageddon after three drinks. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Ultra Short Term Nostalgia: + Homesickness for the extremely recent past: "God, things seemed +so much better in the world last week." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Rebellion Postponement: + The tendency in one's youth to avoid traditionally youthful +activities and artistic experiences in order to obtain serious career +experience. Sometimes results in the mourning for lost youth at about +age thirty, followed by silly haircuts and expensive joke-inducing +wardrobes. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Conspicuous Minimalism: + A life-style tactic similar to Status Substitution. The +nonownership of material goods flaunted as a token of moral and +intellectual superiority. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Caf'e Minimalism: + To espouse a philosophy of minimalism without actually putting +into practice any of its tenets. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +O'Propriation: + The inclusion of advertising, packaging, and entertainment +jargon from earlier eras in everyday speech for ironic and/or comic +effect: "Kathleen's Favorite Dead Celebrity party was tons o'fun" or +"Dave really thinks of himself as a zany, nutty, wacky, and madcap +guy, doesn't he?" + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Air Family: + Describes the false sense of community experienced among coworkers +in an office environment. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Squirming: + Discomfort inflicted on young people by old people who see no +irony in their gestures. "Karen died a thousand deaths as her father +made a big show of tasting a recently manufactured bottle of wine +before allowing it to be poured as the family sat in Steak Hut. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Recreational Slumming: + The practice of participating in recreational activities +of a class one perceives as lower than one's own: "Karen! Donald! +Let's go bowling tonight! And don't worry about shoes ... apparently +you can rent them." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Conversational Slumming: + The self-conscious enjoyment of a given conversation +precisely for its lack of intellectual rigor. A major spin-off +activity of Recreational Slumming. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Occupational Slumming: + Taking a job well beneath one's skill or education level +as a means of retreat from adult responsibilities and/or avoiding +failure in one's true occupation. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Anti-Victim Device: + A small fashion accessory worn on an otherwise +conservative outfit which announces to the world that one still has a +spark of individuality burning inside: 1940s retro ties and earrings +(on men), feminist buttons, noserings (women), and the now almost +completely extinct teeny weeny "rattail" haircut (both sexes). + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Nutritional Slumming: + Food whose enjoyment stems not from flavor but from a +complex mixture of class connotations, nostalgia signals, and +packaging semiotics: Katie and I bought this tub of Multi-Whip instead +of real whip cream because we thought petroleum distillate whip +topping seemed like the sort of food that air force wives stationed in +Pensacola back in the early sixties would feed their husbands to +celebrate a career promotion. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Tele-Parabilizing: + Morals used in everyday life that derive from TV sitcom plots: +"That's just like the episode where Jan loses her glasses!" + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +QFD: + Quelle fucking drag. "Jamie got stuck at Rome airport for +thirty-six hours and it was, like, totally QFD." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +QFM: + Quelle fashion mistake. "It was really QFM. I mean painter +pants? That's 1979 beyond belief." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Me-ism: + A search by an individual, in the absence of training in +traditional religious tenets, to formulate a personally tailored +religion by himself. Most frequently a mishmash of reincarnation, +personal dialogue with a nebulously defined god figure, naturalism, +and karmic eye-for-eye attitudes. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Paper Rabies: + Hypersensitivity to littering. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Bradyism: + A multisibling sensibility derived from having grown up in +large families. A rarity in those born after approximately 1965, +symptoms of Bradyism include a facility for mind games, emotional +withdrawal in situations of overcrowding, and a deeply felt need for a +well-defined personal space. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Black Holes: + An X generation subgroup best known for their possession of +almost entirely black wardrobes. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Black Dens: + Where Black Holes live; often unheated warehouses with Day-Glo +spray painting, mutilated mannequins, Elvis references, dozens of +overflowing ashtrays, mirror sculptures, and Velvet Underground music +playing in background. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Strangelove Reproduction: + Having children to make up for the fact that one no longer +believes in the future. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Squires: + The most common X generation subgroup and the only subgroup +given to breeding. Squires exist almost exclusively in couples and +are recognizable by their frantic attempts to create a semblance of +Eisenhower-era plenitude in their daily lives in the face of +exorbitant housing prices and two-job life-styles. Squires tend to be +continually exhausted from their voraciously acquisitive pursuit of +furniture and knickknacks. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Poverty Lurks: + Financial paranoia instilled in offspring by depression-era +parents. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Pull-the-Plug, Slice the Pie: + A fantasy in which an offspring mentally tallies up the +net worth of his parents. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Underdogging: + The tendency to almost invariably side with the underdog in a +given situation. The consumer expression of this trait is the +purchasing of less successful, "sad," or failing products: "I know +these Vienna franks are heart failure on a stick, but they were so sad +looking up against all the other yuppie food items that I just had to +buy them." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +2 + 2 = 5-ism: + Caving in to a target marketing strategy aimed at oneself after +holding out for a long period of time. "Oh, all right, I'll buy your +stupid cola. Now leave me alone." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Option Paralysis: + The tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Personality Tithe: + A price paid for becoming a couple; previously amusing +human beings become boring: "Thanks for inviting us, but Noreen and I +are going to look at flatware catalogs tonight. Afterward we're going +to watch the shopping channel." + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Jack-and-Jill Party: + A Squire tradition; baby showers to which both men and +women friends are invited as opposed to only women. Doubled +purchasing power of bisexual attendance brings gift values up to +Eisenhower-era standards. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated + Culture" +% +Down-Nesting: + The tendency of parents to move to smaller, guest-room-free +houses after the children have moved away so as to avoid children aged +20 to 30 who have boomeranged home. + -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated +% +greenrd's law + Evey post disparaging someone else's spelling or grammar, or lauding + one's own spelling or grammar, will inevitably contain a spelling or + grammatical error. + -- greenrd in http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2002/4/16/61744/5230?pid=5#6 +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/drugs b/fortune-mod/datfiles/drugs new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8989db1 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/drugs @@ -0,0 +1,1155 @@ +1/2 oz. gin +1/2 oz. vodka +1/2 oz. rum (preferably dark) +3/4 oz. tequilla +1/2 oz. triple sec +1/2 oz. orange juice +3/4 oz. sour mix +1/2 oz. cola +shake with ice and strain into frosted glass. + Long Island Iced Tea +% +6 oz. orange juice +1 oz. vodka +1/2 oz. Galliano + Harvey Wallbangers +% +A beer delayed is a beer denied. +% +A couple more shots of whiskey, women 'round here start looking good. + + [something about a 10 being a 4 after a six-pack? Ed.] +% +A guy walks into a bar, orders a beer, carries it to the bathroom and dumps it +into a urinal. Over the course of the next few hours, he goes back to the bar +and repeats this sequence -- several times. Finally the bartender got so +curious that he leaned over the bar and asked him what he was doing. + +Replied the customer, "Avoiding the middleman." +% +A prohibitionist is the sort of man one wouldn't care to drink with +-- even if he drank. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +Absinthe makes the tart grow fonder. +% +Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine are weak dilutions. The surest +poison is time. + -- Emerson, "Society and Solitude" +% +Alcoholics Anonymous is when you get to drink under someone else's name. +% +Always store beer in a dark place. + -- Lazarus Long +% +An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do. + -- Dylan Thomas +% +And you can't get any Watney's Red Barrel, +because the bars close every time you're thirsty... +% +... at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand. + -- J. B. White +% +Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" +% +Because the wine remembers. +% +Beer & Pretzels -- Breakfast of Champions. +% +Beer -- it's not just for breakfast anymore. +% +Beggar to well-dressed businessman: + "Could you spare $20.95 for a fifth of Chivas?" +% +Best Beer: A panel of tasters assembled by the Consumer's Union in 1969 +judged Coors and Miller's High Life to be among the very best. Those who +doubt that beer is a serious subject might ponder its effect on American +history. For example, New England's first colonists decided to drop anchor +at Plymouth Rock instead of continuing on to Virginia because, as one of +them put it, "We could not now take time for further consideration, our +victuals being spent and especially our beer." + -- Felton & Fowler's Best, Worst & Most Unusual +% +Booze is the answer. I don't remember the question. +% +Brandy-and-water spoils two good things. + -- Charles Lamb +% +But, officer, he's not drunk, I just saw his fingers twitch! +% +Cerebus: I'd love to lick apricot brandy out of your navel. +Jaka: Look, Cerebus-- Jaka has to tell you ... something +Cerebus: If Cerebus had a navel, would you lick apricot brandy out of it? +Jaka: Ugh! +Cerebus: You don't like apricot brandy? + -- Cerebus #6, "The Secret" +% +Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero +... must drink brandy. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +Climbing onto a bar stool, a piece of string asked for a beer. + "Wait a minute. Aren't you a string?" + "Well, yes, I am." + "Sorry. We don't serve strings here." + The determined string left the bar and stopped a passer-by. "Excuse, +me," it said, "would you shred my ends and tie me up like a pretzel?" The +passer-by obliged, and the string re-entered the bar. "May I have a beer, +please?" it asked the bartender. + The barkeep set a beer in front of the string, then suddenly stopped. +"Hey, aren't you the string I just threw out of here?" + "No, I'm a frayed knot." +% +Coach: Can I draw you a beer, Norm? +Norm: No, I know what they look like. Just pour me one. + -- Cheers, No Help Wanted + +Coach: How about a beer, Norm? +Norm: Hey I'm high on life, Coach. Of course, beer is my life. + -- Cheers, No Help Wanted + +Coach: How's a beer sound, Norm? +Norm: I dunno. I usually finish them before they get a word in. + -- Cheers, Fortune and Men's Weights +% +Coach: How's it going, Norm? +Norm: Daddy's rich and Momma's good lookin'. + -- Cheers, Truce or Consequences + +Sam: What's up, Norm? +Norm: My nipples. It's freezing out there. + -- Cheers, Coach Returns to Action + +Coach: What's the story, Norm? +Norm: Thirsty guy walks into a bar. You finish it. + -- Cheers, Endless Slumper +% +Coach: What would you say to a beer, Normie? +Norm: Daddy wuvs you. + -- Cheers, The Mail Goes to Jail + +Sam: What'd you like, Normie? +Norm: A reason to live. Gimme another beer. + -- Cheers, Behind Every Great Man + +Sam: What will you have, Norm? +Norm: Well, I'm in a gambling mood, Sammy. I'll take a glass of whatever + comes out of that tap. +Sam: Oh, looks like beer, Norm. +Norm: Call me Mister Lucky. + -- Cheers, The Executive's Executioner +% +Coach: What's up, Norm? +Norm: Corners of my mouth, Coach. + -- Cheers, Fortune and Men's Weights + +Coach: What's shaking, Norm? +Norm: All four cheeks and a couple of chins, Coach. + -- Cheers, Snow Job + +Coach: Beer, Normie? +Norm: Uh, Coach, I dunno, I had one this week. Eh, why not, I'm still young. + -- Cheers, Snow Job +% +Come quickly, I am tasting stars! + -- Dom Perignon, upon discovering champagne. +% +Come, landlord, fill the flowing bowl until it does run over, +Tonight we will all merry be -- tomorrow we'll get sober. + -- John Fletcher, "The Bloody Brother", II, 2 +% +Don't drink when you drive -- you might hit a bump and spill it. +% +Don't smoke the next cigarette. Repeat. +% +Drink Canada Dry! You might not succeed, but it *__is* fun trying. +% +Drinking coffee for instant relaxation? That's like drinking alcohol for +instant motor skills. + -- Marc Price +% +Drinking is not a spectator sport. + -- Jim Brosnan +% +Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin +with, that it's compounding a felony. + -- Robert Benchley +% +Drunks are rarely amusing unless they know some good songs and lose a +lot a poker. + -- Karyl Roosevelt +% +Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English. Many +people wonder where the word "eggnog" comes from. The first syllable +comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know where +the "nog" comes from. + +To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine gin and, if they are in +season, eggs... +% +ELECTRIC JELL-O + +2 boxes JELL-O brand gelatin 2 packages Knox brand unflavored gelatin +2 cups fruit (any variety) 2+ cups water +1/2 bottle Everclear brand grain alcohol + +Mix JELL-O and Knox gelatin into 2 cups of boiling water. Stir 'til + fully dissolved. +Pour hot mixture into a flat pan. (JELL-O molds won't work.) +Stir in grain alcohol instead of usual cold water. Remove any congealing + glops of slime. (Alcohol has an unusual effect on excess JELL-O.) +Pour in fruit to desired taste, and to absorb any excess alcohol. +Mix in some cold water to dilute the alcohol and make it easier to eat for + the faint of heart. +Refrigerate overnight to allow mixture to fully harden. (About 8-12 hours.) +Cut into squares and enjoy! + +WARNING: + Keep ingredients away from open flame. Not recommended for + children under eight years of age. +% +Every morning is a Smirnoff morning. +% +Excellent day for drinking heavily. Spike the office water cooler. +% + Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each +other, admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols around +the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors d'oeuvres. + + Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly -- sometimes +to each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your +Christmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright +piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres. + + Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently with +inanimate objects, singing "I can't get no satisfaction," gulping down +other peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and +placing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when +the little hammers strike. + + Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over +their naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burning +Christmas tree. The piano is missing. + + You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless +you rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level +4. The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog. +% +Fishing, with me, has always been an excuse to drink in the daytime. + -- Jimmy Cannon +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #17 + + "This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, + May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet." + Juliet, this bud's for you. +% +FORTUNE'S FAVORITE RECIPES: #8 + Christmas Rum Cake + +1 or 2 quarts rum 1 tbsp. baking powder +1 cup butter 1 tsp. soda +1 tsp. sugar 1 tbsp. lemon juice +2 large eggs 2 cups brown sugar +2 cups dried assorted fruit 3 cups chopped English walnuts + +Before you start, sample the rum to check for quality. Good, isn't it? Now +select a large mixing bowl, measuring cup, etc. Check the rum again. It +must be just right. Be sure the rum is of the highest quality. Pour one cup +of rum into a glass and drink it as fast as you can. Repeat. With an electric +mixer, beat one cup butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 seaspoon of tugar +and beat again. Meanwhile, make sure the rum teh absolutely highest quality. +Sample another cup. Open second quart as necessary. Add 2 orge laggs, 2 cups +of fried druit and beat untill high. If the fried druit gets stuck in the +beaters, just pry it loose with a screwdriver. Sample the rum again, checking +for toncisticity. Next sift 3 cups of baking powder, a pinch of rum, a +seaspoon of toda and a cup of pepper or salt (it really doesn't matter). +Sample some more. Sift 912 pint of lemon juice. Fold in schopped butter and +strained chups. Add bablespoon of brown gugar, or whatever color you have. +Mix mell. Grease oven and turn cake pan to 350 gredees and rake until +poothtick comes out crean. +% +FORTUNE'S PARTY TIPS #14 + +Tired of finding that other people are helping themselves to your good +liquor at BYOB parties? Take along a candle, which you insert and +light after you've opened the bottle. No one ever expects anything +drinkable to be in a bottle which has a candle stuck in its neck. +% +Glogg (a traditional Scandinavian holiday drink): + fifth of dry red wine + fifth of Aquavit + 1 and 1/2 inch piece of cinnamon + 10 cardamom seeds + 1 cup raisins + 4 dried figs + 1 cup blanched or flaked almonds + a few pieces of dried orange peel + 5 cloves + 1/2 lb. sugar cubes + Heat up the wine and hard stuff (which may be substituted with wine +for the faint of heart) in a big pot after adding all the other stuff EXCEPT +the sugar cubes. Just when it reaches boiling, put the sugar in a wire +strainer, moisten it in the hot brew, lift it out and ignite it with a match. +Dip the sugar several times in the liquid until it is all dissolved. Serve +hot in cups with a few raisins and almonds in each cup. + N.B. Aquavit may be hard to find and expensive to boot. Use it only +if you really have a deep-seated desire to be fussy, or if you are of Swedish +extraction. +% +Halley's Comet: It came, we saw, we drank. +% +Harry's bar has a new cocktail. It's called MRS punch. They make it with +milk, rum and sugar and it's wonderful. The milk is for vitality and the +sugar is for pep. They put in the rum so that people will know what to do +with all that pep and vitality. +% +Having a wonderful wine, wish you were beer. +% +Having wandered helplessly into a blinding snowstorm Sam was greatly +relieved to see a sturdy Saint Bernard dog bounding toward him with +the traditional keg of brandy strapped to his collar. + "At last," cried Sam, "man's best friend -- and a great big dog, too!" +% +He knew the tavernes well in every toun. + -- Geoffrey Chaucer +% +He's just like Capistrano, always ready for a few swallows. +% +"Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??!" + -- W. C. Fields +% +HOGAN'S HEROES DRINKING GAME -- + Take a shot every time: + +-- Sergeant Schultz says, "I knoooooowww nooooothing!" +-- General Burkhalter or Major Hochstetter intimidate/insult Colonel Klink. +-- Colonel Klink falls for Colonel Hogan's flattery. +-- One of the prisoners sneaks out of camp (one shot for each prisoner to go). +-- Colonel Klink snaps to attention after answering the phone (two shots + if it's one of our heroes on the other end). +-- One of the Germans is threatened with being sent to the Russian front. +-- Corporal Newkirk calls up a German in his phoney German accent, and + tricks him (two shots if it's Colonel Klink). +-- Hogan has a romantic interlude with a beautiful girl from the underground. +-- Colonel Klink relates how he's never had an escape from Stalag 13. +-- Sergeant Schultz gives up a secret (two shots if he's bribed with food). +-- The prisoners listen to the Germans' conversation by a hidden transmitter. +-- Sergeant Schultz "captures" one of the prisoners after an escape. +-- Lebeau pronounces "colonel" as "cuh-loh-`nell". +-- Carter builds some kind of device (two shots if it's not explosive). +-- Lebeau wears his apron. +-- Hogan says "We've got no choice" when someone claims that the plan is + impossible. +-- The prisoners capture an important German, and sneak him out the tunnel. +% +I can't die until the government finds a safe place to bury my liver. + -- Phil Harris +% +I distrust a man who says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink +too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does. + -- Sidney Greenstreet, "The Maltese Falcon" +% +I don't drink, I don't like it, it makes me feel too good. + -- K. Coates +% +I drink to make other people interesting. + -- George Jean Nathan +% +I gave up Smoking, Drinking and Sex. It was the most *__________horrifying* 20 +minutes of my life! +% +I have just had eighteen whiskeys in a row. I do believe that is a record. + -- Dylan Thomas, his last words +% +I have to think hard to name an interesting man who does not drink. + -- Richard Burton +% +I kissed my first girl and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. +I haven't had time for tobacco since. + -- Arturo Toscanini +% +I may not be able to walk, but I drive from a sitting position. +% +I must get out of these wet clothes and into a dry Martini. + -- Alexander Woolcott +% +I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers; what I said was all +saloonkeepers were Democrats. +% +I never take work home with me; I always leave it in some bar along the way. +% +I suppose that in a few hours I will sober up. That's such a sad +thought. I think I'll have a few more drinks to prepare myself. +% +I used to have a drinking problem. Now I love the stuff. +% +I will not drink! +But if I do... +I will not get drunk! +But if I do... +I will not in public! +But if I do... +I will not fall down! +But if I do... +I will fall face down so that they cannot see my company badge. +% +I wish you were a Scotch on the rocks. +% +I'd like to meet the guy who invented beer and see what he's working on now. +% +I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy. + -- Fred Allen + +[Also attributed to S. Clay Wilson. Ed.] +% +I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol +that some thinkle peep I am. +It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get. +% +I've always felt sorry for people that don't drink -- remember, +when they wake up, that's as good as they're gonna feel all day! +% +I've always made it a solemn practice to never drink anything stronger +than tequila before breakfast. + -- R. Nesson +% +I've never been drunk, but often I've been overserved. + -- George Gobel +% +If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire. +% +If God had intended Men to Smoke, He would have put Chimneys in their Heads. +% +If I knew what brand [of whiskey] he drinks, I would send a barrel or +so to my other generals. + -- Abraham Lincoln, on General Grant +% +If people drank ink instead of Schlitz, they'd be better off. + -- Edward E. Hippensteel + +[What brand of ink? Ed.] +% +If you don't drink it, someone else will. +% +If you drink, don't park. Accidents make people. +% +In 1967, the Soviet Government minted a beautiful silver ruble with Lenin +in a very familiar pose -- arms raised above him, leading the country to +revolution. But, it was clear to everybody, that if you looked at it from +behind, it was clear that Lenin was pointing to 11:00, when the Vodka +shops opened, and was actually saying, "Comrades, forward to the Vodka shops. + +It became fashionable, when one wanted to have a drink, to take out the +ruble and say, "Oh my goodness, Comrades, Lenin tells me we should go. +% +In a bottle, the neck is always at the top. +% +In a gathering of two or more people, when a lighted cigarette is +placed in an ashtray, the smoke will waft into the face of the non-smoker. +% +In a whiskey it's age, in a cigarette it's taste and in a sports car +it's impossible. +% +In vino veritas. + [In wine there is truth.] + -- Pliny +% +It has been said that Public Relations is the art of winning friends +and getting people under the influence. + -- Jeremy Tunstall +% +It's a brave man who, when things are at their darkest, can kick back and party! + -- Dennis Quaid, "Inner Space" +% +It's gonna be alright, +It's almost midnight, +And I've got two more bottles of wine. +% +It's the same old story; boy meets beer, boy drinks beer... boy gets +another beer. + -- Cheers +% +It's useless to try to hold some people to anything they say while they're +madly in love, drunk, or running for office. +% +Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans. +% +Kiss a non-smoker; taste the difference. +% +Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray. +% +Lady Astor was giving a costume ball and Winston Churchill asked her what +disguise she would recommend for him. She replied, "Why don't you come +sober, Mr. Prime Minister?" +% +Let the worthy citizens of Chicago get their liquor the best way +they can. I'm sick of the job. It's a thankless one and full of grief. + -- Al Capone +% +Life, like beer, is merely borrowed. + -- Don Reed +% +Look at it this way: Your daughter just named the fresh turkey you brought +home "Cuddles", so you're going out to buy a canned ham. And you're still +drinking ordinary scotch? +% +Look at it this way: Your wife's spending $280 a month on meditation lessons to +forget $26,000 of college education. And you're still drinking ordinary scotch? +% +Marvin the Nature Lover spied a grasshopper hopping along in the grass, +and in a mood for communing with nature, rare even among full-fledged +Nature Lovers, he spoke to the grasshopper, saying: "Hello, friend +grasshopper. Did you know they've named a drink after you?" + "Really?" replied the grasshopper, obviously pleased. "They've +named a drink Fred?" +% +"Mind if I smoke?" + "I don't care if you burst into flames and die!" +% +"Mind if I smoke?" + "Yes, I'd like to see that, does it come out of your ears or what?" +% +My mother drinks to forget she drinks. + -- Crazy Jimmy +% +My uncle was the town drunk -- and we lived in Chicago. + -- George Gobel +% +Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail hour. +% +Never drink from your finger bowl -- it contains only water. +% +No, I don't have a drinking problem. + +I drink, I get drunk, I fall down. + +No problem! +% +[Norm comes in with an attractive woman.] + +Coach: Normie, Normie, could this be Vera? +Norm: With a lot of expensive surgery, maybe. + -- Cheers, Norman's Conquest + +Coach: What's up, Normie? +Norm: The temperature under my collar, Coach. + -- Cheers, I'll Be Seeing You (Part 2) + +Coach: What would you say to a nice beer, Normie? +Norm: Going down? + -- Cheers, Diane Meets Mom +% +[Norm goes into the bar at Vic's Bowl-A-Rama.] + +Off-screen crowd: Norm! +Sam: How the hell do they know him here? +Cliff: He's got a life, you know. + -- Cheers, From Beer to Eternity + +Woody: What can I do for you, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Elope with my wife. + -- Cheers, The Triangle + +Woody: How's life, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Oh, I'm waiting for the movie. + -- Cheers, Take My Shirt... Please? +% +[Norm is angry.] + +Woody: What can I get you, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Clifford Clavin's head. + -- Cheers, The Triangle + +Sam: Hey, what's happening, Norm? +Norm: Well, it's a dog-eat-dog world, Sammy, + and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear. + -- Cheers, The Peterson Principle + +Sam: How's life in the fast lane, Normie? +Norm: Beats me, I can't find the on-ramp. + -- Cheers, Diane Chambers Day +% +[Norm returns from the hospital.] + +Coach: What's up, Norm? +Norm: Everything that's supposed to be. + -- Cheers, Diane Meets Mom + +Sam: What's new, Normie? +Norm: Terrorists, Sam. They've taken over my stomach. They're demanding beer. + -- Cheers, The Heart is a Lonely Snipehunter + +Coach: What'll it be, Normie? +Norm: Just the usual, Coach. I'll have a froth of beer and a snorkel. + -- Cheers, King of the Hill +% +[Norm tries to prove that he is not Anton Kreitzer.] +Norm: Afternoon, everybody! +All: Anton! + -- Cheers, The Two Faces of Norm + +Woody: What's going on, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: A flashing sign in my gut that says, ``Insert beer here.'' + -- Cheers, Call Me, Irresponsible + +Sam: What can I get you, Norm? +Norm: [scratching his beard] Got any flea powder? Ah, just kidding. + Gimme a beer; I think I'll just drown the little suckers. + -- Cheers, Two Girls for Every Boyd +% +Norm: Gentlemen, start your taps. + -- Cheers, The Coach's Daughter + +Coach: How's life treating you, Norm? +Norm: Like it caught me in bed with his wife. + -- Cheers, Any Friend of Diane's + +Coach: How's life, Norm? +Norm: Not for the squeamish, Coach. + -- Cheers, Friends, Romans, and Accountants +% +Norm: Hey, everybody. +All: [silence; everybody is mad at Norm for being rich.] +Norm: [Carries on both sides of the conversation himself.] + Norm! (Norman.) + How are you feeling today, Norm? + Rich and thirsty. Pour me a beer. + -- Cheers, Tan 'n Wash + +Woody: What's the latest, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Zsa-Zsa marries a millionaire, Peterson drinks a beer. + Film at eleven. + -- Cheers, Knights of the Scimitar + +Woody: How are you today, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Never been better, Woody. ... Just once I'd like to be better. + -- Cheers, Chambers vs. Malone +% +Not all men who drink are poets. Some of us drink because we aren't poets. +% +Not drinking, chasing women, or doing drugs won't make you live longer -- +it just seems that way. +% +NOTICE: + Anyone seen smoking will be assumed to be on fire and will + be summarily put out. +% +Now is the time for drinking; now the time to beat the earth with +unfettered foot. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows power +tools aren't soluble in alcohol... + -- Crazy Nigel +% +Old Grandad is dead but his spirits live on. +% +Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were +forced to live on nothing but food and water for days. + -- W. C. Fields, "My Little Chickadee" +% +One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quiet +when well oiled. +% +One dusty July afternoon, somewhere around the turn of the century, Patrick +Malone was in Mulcahey's Bar, bending an elbow with the other street car +conductors from the Brooklyn Traction Company. While they were discussing the +merits of a local ring hero, the bar goes silent. Malone turns around to see +his wife, with a face grim as death, stalking to the bar. + Slapping a four-bit piece down on the bar, she draws herself up to her +full five feet five inches and says to Mulcahey, "Give me what himself has +been havin' all these years." + Mulcahey looks at Malone, who shrugs, and then back at Margaret Mary +Malone. He sets out a glass and pours her a triple shot of Rye. The bar is +totally silent as they watch the woman pick up the glass and knock back the +drink. She slams the glass down on the bar, gasps, shudders slightly, and +passes out; falling straight back, stiff as a board, saved from sudden contact +with the barroom floor by the ample belly of Seamus Fogerty. + Sometime later, she comes to on the pool table, a jacket under her +head. Her bloodshot eyes fell upon her husband, who says, "And all these +years you've been thinkin' I've been enjoying meself." +% +Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups -- +alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat. + -- Alex Levine +% +PLEASE DON'T SMOKE HERE! + +Penalty: An early, lingering death from cancer, + emphysema, or other smoking-caused ailment. +% +Police: Good evening, are you the host? +Host: No. +Police: We've been getting complaints about this party. +Host: About the drugs? +Police: No. +Host: About the guns, then? Is somebody complaining about the guns? +Police: No, the noise. +Host: Oh, the noise. Well that makes sense because there are no guns + or drugs here. (An enormous explosion is heard in the + background.) Or fireworks. Who's complaining about the noise? + The neighbors? +Police: No, the neighbors fled inland hours ago. Most of the recent + complaints have come from Pittsburgh. Do you think you could + ask the host to quiet things down? +Host: No Problem. (At this point, a Volkswagon bug with primitive + religious symbols drawn on the doors emerges from the living + room and roars down the hall, past the police and onto the + lawn, where it smashes into a tree. Eight guests tumble out + onto the grass, moaning.) See? Things are starting to wind + down. +% +Preserve Wildlife! Throw a party today! +% +Recipe for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster: + (1) Take the juice from one bottle of Ol' Janx Spirit + (2) Pour into it one measure of water from the seas of + Santraginus V (Oh, those Santraginean fish!) + (3) Allow 3 cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin to melt into the + mixture (properly iced or the benzine is lost.) + (4) Allow four liters of Fallian marsh gas to bubble through it. + (5) Over the back of a silver spoon, float a measure of + Qualactin Hypermint extract. + (6) Drop in the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger. Watch it dissolve. + (7) Sprinkle Zamphuor. + (8) Add an olive. + (9) Drink... but... very carefully... +% +Riffle West Virginia is so small that the Boy Scout had to double as the +town drunk. +% +Romance, like alcohol, should be enjoyed, but should not be allowed to +become necessary. + -- Edgar Friedenberg +% +Said the attractive, cigar-smoking housewife to her girl-friend: "I got +started one night when George came home and found one burning in the ashtray." +% +Sam: What do you know there, Norm? +Norm: How to sit. How to drink. Want to quiz me? + -- Cheers, Loverboyd + +Sam: Hey, how's life treating you there, Norm? +Norm: Beats me. ... Then it kicks me and leaves me for dead. + -- Cheers, Loverboyd + +Woody: How would a beer feel, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Pretty nervous if I was in the room. + -- Cheers, Loverboyd +% +Sam: What's the good word, Norm? +Norm: Plop, plop, fizz, fizz. +Sam: Oh no, not the Hungry Heifer... +Norm: Yeah, yeah, yeah... +Sam: One heartburn cocktail coming up. + -- Cheers, I'll Gladly Pay You Tuesday + +Sam: Whaddya say, Norm? +Norm: Well, I never met a beer I didn't drink. And down it goes. + -- Cheers, Love Thy Neighbor + +Woody: What's your pleasure, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Boxer shorts and loose shoes. But I'll settle for a beer. + -- Cheers, The Bar Stoolie +% +Sam: What do you say, Norm? +Norm: Any cheap, tawdry thing that'll get me a beer. + -- Cheers, Birth, Death, Love and Rice + +Sam: What do you say to a beer, Normie? +Norm: Hiya, sailor. New in town? + -- Cheers, Woody Goes Belly Up + +Norm: [coming in from the rain] Evening, everybody. +All: Norm! (Norman.) +Sam: Still pouring, Norm? +Norm: That's funny, I was about to ask you the same thing. + -- Cheers, Diane's Nightmare +% +Sam: What's going on, Normie? +Norm: My birthday, Sammy. Give me a beer, stick a candle in + it, and I'll blow out my liver. + -- Cheers, Where Have All the Floorboards Gone + +Woody: Hey, Mr. P. How goes the search for Mr. Clavin? +Norm: Not as well as the search for Mr. Donut. + Found him every couple of blocks. + -- Cheers, Head Over Hill +% +Sam: What's new, Norm? +Norm: Most of my wife. + -- Cheers, The Spy Who Came in for a Cold One + +Coach: Beer, Norm? +Norm: Naah, I'd probably just drink it. + -- Cheers, Now Pitching, Sam Malone + +Coach: What's doing, Norm? +Norm: Well, science is seeking a cure for thirst. I happen + to be the guinea pig. + -- Cheers, Let Me Count the Ways +% +Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change. +% +Sleep -- the most beautiful experience in life -- except drink. + -- W.C. Fields +% +SMOKING IS NOW ALLOWED !!! + Anyone wishing to smoke, however, must file, in triplicate, the + U.S. government Environmental Impact Narrative Statement (EINS), + describing in detail the type of combustion proposed, impact on + the environment, and anticipated opposition. Statements must be + filed 30 days in advance. +% +Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics. + -- Fletcher Knebel +% +Smoking is, as far as I'm concerned, the entire point of being an adult. + -- Fran Lebowitz +% +Smoking Prohibited. Absolutely no ifs, ands, or butts. +% +So, is the glass half empty, half full, or just twice as +large as it needs to be? +% +Some people have no respect for age unless it's bottled. +% +Sometimes I simply feel that the whole world is a cigarette and I'm the +only ashtray. +% + Split 1/4 bottle .187 liters + Half 1/2 bottle + Bottle 750 milliliters + Magnum 2 bottles 1.5 liters + Jeroboam 4 bottles + Rehoboam 6 bottles Not available in the US + Methuselah 8 bottles + Salmanazar 12 bottles + Balthazar 16 bottles + Nebuchadnezzar 20 bottles 15 liters + Sovereign 34 bottles 26 liters + + The Sovereign is a new bottle, made for the launching of the +largest cruise ship in the world. The bottle alone cost 8,000 dollars +to produce and they only made 8 of them. + Most of the funny names come from Biblical people. +% +Symptom: Drinking fails to give taste and satisfaction, beer is + unusually pale and clear. +Problem: Glass empty. +Action Required: Find someone who will buy you another beer. + +Symptom: Drinking fails to give taste and satisfaction, + and the front of your shirt is wet. +Fault: Mouth not open when drinking or glass applied to + wrong part of face. +Action Required: Buy another beer and practice in front of mirror. + Drink as many as needed to perfect drinking technique. + -- Bar Troubleshooting +% +Symptom: Everything has gone dark. +Fault: The Bar is closing. +Action Required: Panic. + +Symptom: You awaken to find your bed hard, cold and wet. + You cannot see the bathroom light. +Fault: You have spent the night in the gutter. +Action Required: Check your watch to see if bars are open yet. If not, + treat yourself to a lie-in. + -- Bar Troubleshooting +% +Symptom: Feet cold and wet, glass empty. +Fault: Glass being held at incorrect angle. +Action Required: Turn glass other way up so that open end points + toward ceiling. + +Symptom: Feet warm and wet. +Fault: Improper bladder control. +Action Required: Go stand next to nearest dog. After a while complain + to the owner about its lack of house training and + demand a beer as compensation. + -- Bar Troubleshooting +% +Symptom: Floor blurred. +Fault: You are looking through bottom of empty glass. +Action Required: Find someone who will buy you another beer. + +Symptom: Floor moving. +Fault: You are being carried out. +Action Required: Find out if you are taken to another bar. If not, + complain loudly that you are being kidnapped. + -- Bar Troubleshooting +% +Symptom: Floor swaying. +Fault: Excessive air turbulence, perhaps due to air-hockey + game in progress. +Action Required: Insert broom handle down back of jacket. + +Symptom: Everything has gone dim, strange taste of peanuts + and pretzels or cigarette butts in mouth. +Fault: You have fallen forward. +Action Required: See above. + +Symptom: Opposite wall covered with acoustic tile and several + flourescent light strips. +Fault: You have fallen over backward. +Action Required: If your glass is full and no one is standing on your + drinking arm, stay put. If not, get someone to help + you get up, lash yourself to bar. + -- Bar Troubleshooting +% +Take me drunk, I'm home again! +% +The best audience is intelligent, well-educated and a little drunk. + -- Maurice Baring +% +The best way to preserve a right is to exercise it, and the right to +smoke is a right worth dying for. +% +The Celts invented two things, Whiskey and self-destruction. +% +The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I will +walk carefully. + -- Russian Proverb +% +The cost of living has just gone up another dollar a quart. + -- W.C. Fields +% +The father, passing through his son's college town late one evening on a +business trip, thought he would pay his boy a suprise visit. Arriving at the +lad's fraternity house, dad rapped loudly on the door. After several minutes +of knocking, a sleepy voice drifted down from a second-floor window, + "Whaddaya want?" + "Does Ramsey Duncan live here?" asked the father. + "Yeah," replied the voice. "Dump him on the front porch." +% +The mark of a good party is that you wake up the next morning wanting to +change your name and start a new life in different city. + -- Vance Bourjaily, "Esquire" +% +The search for the perfect martini is a fraud. The perfect martini is +a belt of gin from the bottle; anything else is the decadent trappings +of civilization. + -- T.K. +% +The telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer +them a drink. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Interview" +% +The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes +the worst cigars. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +The voluptuous blond was chatting with her handsome escort in a posh +restaurant when their waiter, stumbling as he brought their drinks, +dumped a martini on the rocks down the back of the blonde's dress. She +sprang to her feet with a wild rebel yell, dashed wildly around the table, +then galloped wriggling from the room followed by her distraught boyfriend. +A man seated on the other side of the room with a date of his own beckoned +to the waiter and said, "We'll have two of whatever she was drinking." +% +The water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable, we had to add whiskey. +By diligent effort, I learned to like it. + -- Winston Churchill +% +"The whole world is about three drinks behind." + -- Humphrey Bogart +% +The wise and intelligent are coming belatedly to realize that alcohol, and +not the dog, is man's best friend. Rover is taking a beating -- and he should. + -- W.C. Fields +% +There are more old drunkards than old doctors. +% +There are only two kinds of tequila. Good and better. +% +There are two problems with a major hangover. You feel +like you are going to die and you're afraid that you won't. +% +There be sober men a'plenty, and drunkards barely twenty; there are men +of over ninety who have never yet kissed a girl. But give me the rambling +rover, from Orkney down to Dover, we will roam the whole world over, and +together we'll face the world. + -- Andy Stewart, "After the Hush" +% +There is nothing wrong with abstinence, in moderation. +% +There will always be beer cans rolling on the floor of your car when +the boss asks for a lift home from the office. +% +These days the necessities of life cost you about three times what they +used to, and half the time they aren't even fit to drink. +% +They took some of the Van Goghs, most of the jewels, and all of the Chivas! +% +To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it. +% +To one large turkey add one gallon of vermouth and a demijohn of Angostura +bitters. Shake. + -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, recipe for turkey cocktail. +% +Too ripped. Gotta go. +% +Toothpaste never hurts the taste of good scotch. +% +Two friends were out drinking when suddenly one lurched backward off his +barstool and lay motionless on the floor. + "One thing about Jim," the other said to the bartender, "he sure +knows when to stop." +% +Vermouth always makes me brilliant unless it makes me idiotic. + -- E.F. Benson +% +We don't smoke and we don't chew, and we don't go with girls that do. + -- Walter Summers +% +What scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch? + -- J.D. Farley +% +When all else fails, pour a pint of Guinness in the gas tank, advance +the spark 20 degrees, cry "God Save the Queen!", and pull the starter knob. + -- MG "Series MGA" Workshop Manual +% +When I drink, *everybody* drinks!" a man shouted to the assembled bar patrons. +A loud general cheer went up. After downing his whiskey, he hopped onto a +barstool and shouted "When I take another drink, *everybody* takes another +drink!" The announcement produced another cheer and another round of drinks. + As soon as he had downed his second drink, the fellow hopped back +onto the stool. "And when I pay," he bellowed, slapping five dollars onto +the bar, "*everybody* pays!" +% +When I heated my home with oil, I used an average of 800 gallons a year. I +have found that I can keep comfortably warm for an entire winter with +slightly over half that quantity of beer. + -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" +% +When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging; when my patrons serve +it on silver trays on Lake Shore Drive, it's called hospitality. + -- Al Capone +% +When the cup is full, carry it level. +% +When the going gets tough, the tough go grab a beer. +% + While riding in a train between London and Birmingham, a woman +inquired of Oscar Wilde, "You don't mind if I smoke, do you?" + Wilde gave her a sidelong glance and replied, "I don't mind if +you burn, madam." +% +Who needs friends when you can sit alone in your room and drink? +% +Why on earth do people buy old bottles of wine when they can get a +fresh one for a quarter of the price? +% +Woman on Street: Sir, you are drunk; very, very drunk. +Winston Churchill: Madame, you are ugly; very, very ugly. + I shall be sober in the morning. +% +Wonderful day. Your hangover just makes it seem terrible. +% +Woody: What's the story, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: The Bobbsey twins go to the brewery. + Let's just cut to the happy ending. + -- Cheers, Airport V + +Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, there's a cold one waiting for you. +Norm: I know, and if she calls, I'm not here. + -- Cheers, Bar Wars II: The Woodman Strikes Back + +Sam: Beer, Norm? +Norm: Have I gotten that predictable? Good. + -- Cheers, Don't Paint Your Chickens +% +Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, Jack Frost nipping at your nose? +Norm: Yep, now let's get Joe Beer nipping at my liver, huh? + -- Cheers, Feeble Attraction + +Sam: What are you up to Norm? +Norm: My ideal weight if I were eleven feet tall. + -- Cheers, Bar Wars III: The Return of Tecumseh + +Woody: Nice cold beer coming up, Mr. Peterson. +Norm: You mean, `Nice cold beer going *down* Mr. Peterson.' + -- Cheers, Loverboyd +% +Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, what do you say to a cold one? +Norm: See you later, Vera, I'll be at Cheers. + -- Cheers, Norm's Last Hurrah + +Sam: Well, look at you. You look like the cat that swallowed the canary. +Norm: And I need a beer to wash him down. + -- Cheers, Norm's Last Hurrah + +Woody: Would you like a beer, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: No, I'd like a dead cat in a glass. + -- Cheers, Little Carla, Happy at Last, Part 2 +% +Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, what's up? +Norm: The warranty on my liver. + -- Cheers, Breaking In Is Hard to Do + +Sam: What can I do for you, Norm? +Norm: Open up those beer taps and, oh, take the day off, Sam. + -- Cheers, Veggie-Boyd + +Woody: What's going on, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Another layer for the winter, Wood. + -- Cheers, It's a Wonderful Wife +% +Woody: How are you feeling today, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Poor. +Woody: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. +Norm: No, I meant `pour'. + -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 3 + +Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, what's the story? +Norm: Boy meets beer. Boy drinks beer. Boy gets another beer. + -- Cheers, The Proposal + +Paul: Hey Norm, how's the world been treating you? +Norm: Like a baby treats a diaper. + -- Cheers, Tan 'n Wash +% +Woody: What's going on, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: Let's talk about what's going *in* Mr. Peterson. A beer, Woody. + -- Cheers, Paint Your Office + +Sam: How's life treating you? +Norm: It's not, Sammy, but that doesn't mean you can't. + -- Cheers, A Kiss is Still a Kiss + +Woody: Can I pour you a draft, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: A little early, isn't it Woody? +Woody: For a beer? +Norm: No, for stupid questions. + -- Cheers, Let Sleeping Drakes Lie +% +Woody: What's happening, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: The question is, Woody, why is it happening to me? + -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 1 + +Woody: What's going down, Mr. Peterson? +Norm: My cheeks on this barstool. + -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 2 + +Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, can I pour you a beer? +Norm: Well, okay, Woody, but be sure to stop me at one. ... + Eh, make that one-thirty. + -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 2 +% +Work is the curse of the drinking classes. + -- Mike Romanoff +% +You can't fall off the floor. +% +You're not an alcoholic unless you go to the meetings. +% +You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. + -- Dean Martin +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/education b/fortune-mod/datfiles/education new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dabd139 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/education @@ -0,0 +1,952 @@ +A book is the work of a mind, doing its work in the way that a mind deems +best. That's dangerous. Is the work of some mere individual mind likely to +serve the aims of collectively accepted compromises, which are known in the +schools as 'standards'? Any mind that would audaciously put itself forth to +work all alone is surely a bad example for the students, and probably, if +not downright antisocial, at least a little off-center, self-indulgent, +elitist. ... It's just good pedagogy, therefore, to stay away from such +stuff, and use instead, if film-strips and rap-sessions must be +supplemented, 'texts,' selected, or prepared, or adapted, by real +professionals. Those texts are called 'reading material.' They are the +academic equivalent of the 'listening material' that fills waiting-rooms, +and the 'eating material' that you can buy in thousands of convenient eating +resource centers along the roads. + -- The Underground Grammarian +% +A definition of teaching: casting fake pearls before real swine. + -- Bill Cain, "Stand Up Tragedy" +% +A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and +art into pedantry. Hence University education. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened +into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the +hope of greening the landscape of idea. + -- John Ciardi +% +A grammarian's life is always in tense. +% +A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely +rearranging their prejudices. + -- William James +% +A mother mouse was taking her large brood for a stroll across the kitchen +floor one day when the local cat, by a feat of stealth unusual even for +its species, managed to trap them in a corner. The children cowered, +terrified by this fearsome beast, plaintively crying, "Help, Mother! +Save us! Save us! We're scared, Mother!" + Mother Mouse, with the hopeless valor of a parent protecting its +children, turned with her teeth bared to the cat, towering huge above them, +and suddenly began to bark in a fashion that would have done any Doberman +proud. The startled cat fled in fear for its life. + As her grateful offspring flocked around her shouting "Oh, Mother, +you saved us!" and "Yay! You scared the cat away!" she turned to them +purposefully and declared, "You see how useful it is to know a second +language?" +% +A Parable of Modern Research: + + Bob has lost his keys in a room which is dark except for one +brightly lit corner. + "Why are you looking under the light, you lost them in the dark!" + "I can only see here." +% +A pencil with no point needs no eraser. +% + A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling + by Mark Twain + + For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped +to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer +be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained +would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 +might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the +same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with +"i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. + Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear +with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 +or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. +Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi +ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz +ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. + Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud +hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. +% +A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. +% + A reader reports that when the patient died, the attending doctor +recorded the following on the patient's chart: "Patient failed to fulfill +his wellness potential." + Another doctor reports that in a recent issue of the *American Journal +of Family Practice* fleas were called "hematophagous arthropod vectors." + A reader reports that the Army calls them "vertically deployed anti- +personnel devices." You probably call them bombs. + At McClellan Air Force base in Sacramento, California, civilian +mechanics were placed on "non-duty, non-pay status." That is, they were fired. + After taking the trip of a lifetime, our reader sent his twelve rolls +of film to Kodak for developing (or "processing," as Kodak likes to call it) +only to receive the following notice: "We must report that during the handling +of your twelve 35mm Kodachrome slide orders, the films were involved in an +unusual laboratory experience." The use of the passive is a particularly nice +touch, don't you think? Nobody did anything to the films; they just had a bad +experience. Of course our reader can always go back to Tibet and take his +pictures all over again, using the twelve replacement rolls Kodak so generously +sent him. + -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE) +% +A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam. +% +A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first +thought of. + -- Burt Bacharach +% +A tautology is a thing which is tautological. +% +A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest +in students. + -- John Ciardi +% +"A University without students is like an ointment without a fly." + -- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin +% +About all some men accomplish in life is to send a son to Harvard. +% +Abstract: + This study examined the incidence of neckwear tightness among a group +of 94 white-collar working men and the effect of a tight business-shirt collar +and tie on the visual performance of 22 male subjects. Of the white-collar +men measured, 67% were found to be wearing neckwear that was tighter than +their neck circumference. The visual discrimination of the 22 subjects was +evaluated using a critical flicker frequency (CFF) test. Results of the CFF +test indicated that tight neckwear significantly decreased the visual +performance of the subjects and that visual performance did not improve +immediately when tight neckwear was removed. + -- Langan, L.M. and Watkins, S.M. "Pressure of Menswear on the + Neck in Relation to Visual Performance." Human Factors 29, + #1 (Feb. 1987), pp. 67-71. +% +Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, +because the stakes are so low. + -- Wallace Sayre +% +Academicians care, that's who. +% +=============== ALL FRESHMEN PLEASE NOTE =============== + +To minimize scheduling confusion, please realize that if you are taking one +course which is offered at only one time on a given day, and another which is +offered at all times on that day, the second class will be arranged as to +afford maximum inconvenience to the student. For example, if you happen +to work on campus, you will have 1-2 hours between classes. If you commute, +there will be a minimum of 6 hours between the two classes. +% +An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. + -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. +% +As Gen. de Gaulle occassionally acknowledges America to be the daughter +of Europe, so I am pleased to come to Yale, the daughter of Harvard. + -- J.F. Kennedy +% +As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong? +% +Briefly stated, the findings are that when presented with an array of +data or a sequence of events in which they are instructed to discover +an underlying order, subjects show strong tendencies to perceive order +and causality in random arrays, to perceive a pattern or correlation +which seems a priori intuitively correct even when the actual correlation +in the data is counterintuitive, to jump to conclusions about the correct +hypothesis, to seek and to use only positive or confirmatory evidence, to +construe evidence liberally as confirmatory, to fail to generate or to +assess alternative hypotheses, and having thus managed to expose themselves +only to confirmatory instances, to be fallaciously confident of the validity +of their judgments (Jahoda, 1969; Einhorn and Hogarth, 1978). In the +analyzing of past events, these tendencies are exacerbated by failure to +appreciate the pitfalls of post hoc analyses. + -- A. Benjamin +% +British education is probably the best in the world, if you can survive +it. If you can't there is nothing left for you but the diplomatic corps. + -- Peter Ustinov +% +... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human +intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as +we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues +that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding +of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard +example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads -- +makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing +whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a +finite or an infinite number. + -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds" +% +Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between two points. + -- M. M. Johnston +% +Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness +of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule." + -- David Guaspari +% +Dear Freshman, + You don't know who I am and frankly shouldn't care, but +unknown to you we have something in common. We are both rather +prone to mistakes. I was elected Student Government President by +mistake, and you came to school here by mistake. +% +Dear Miss Manners: + My home economics teacher says that one must never place one's +elbows on the table. However, I have read that one elbow, in between +courses, is all right. Which is correct? + +Gentle Reader: + For the purpose of answering examinations in your home economics +class, your teacher is correct. Catching on to this principle of +education may be of even greater importance to you now than learning +correct current table manners, vital as Miss Manners believes that is. +% +Department chairmen never die, they just lose their faculties. +% +Did you know the University of Iowa closed down after someone stole the book? +% +Do not clog intellect's sluices with bits of knowledge of questionable uses. +% +Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education +is what you get when you read the fine print; experience is what you get +when you don't. + -- Pete Seeger +% +Do you think that illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup? +% +Education and religion are two things not regulated by supply and +demand. The less of either the people have, the less they want. + -- Charlotte Observer, 1897 +% +Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to +time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. + -- Oscar Wilde, "The Critic as Artist" +% +Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know. + -- Daniel J. Boorstin +% +Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine. + -- Irwin Edman +% +Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten. + -- B.F. Skinner +% +Educational television should be absolutely forbidden. It can only lead +to unreasonable disappointment when your child discovers that the letters +of the alphabet do not leap up out of books and dance around with +royal-blue chickens. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +Eloquence is logic on fire. +% +Encyclopedia for sale by father. Son knows everything. +% +Engineering: "How will this work?" +Science: "Why will this work?" +Management: "When will this work?" +Liberal Arts: "Do you want fries with that?" +% +Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak +it to? + -- Clarence Darrow +% +Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My +opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a bestseller +that could have been prevented by a good teacher. + -- Flannery O'Connor +% +Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for +even the greatest fool may ask more the the wisest man can answer. + -- C.C. Colton +% +Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and +the instruction afterward. +% +F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm! +% +f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd. +% +f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng. +% +f u cn rd ths, u r prbbly a lsy spllr. +% +Fortune's Guide to Freshman Notetaking: + +WHEN THE PROFESSOR SAYS: YOU WRITE: + +Probably the greatest quality of the poetry John Milton -- born 1608 +of John Milton, who was born in 1608, is the +combination of beauty and power. Few have +excelled him in the use of the English language, +or for that matter, in lucidity of verse form, +'Paradise Lost' being said to be the greatest +single poem ever written." + +Current historians have come to Most of the problems that now +doubt the complete advantageousness face the United States are +of some of Roosevelt's policies... directly traceable to the + bungling and greed of President + Roosevelt. + +... it is possible that we simply do Professor Mitchell is a +not understand the Russian viewpoint... communist. +% +Fourteen years in the professor dodge has taught me that one can argue +ingeniously on behalf of any theory, applied to any piece of literature. +This is rarely harmful, because normally no-one reads such essays. + -- Robert Parker, quoted in "Murder Ink", ed. D. Wynn +% +Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to school +make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a person a car. +% +Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school. +% +Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths good theatre. + -- Gail Godwin +% +Graduate life: It's not just a job. It's an indenture. +% +Graduate students and most professors are no smarter than undergrads. +They're just older. +% +He that teaches himself has a fool for a master. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +"He was a modest, good-humored boy. It was Oxford that made him insufferable." +% +He who writes with no misspelled words has prevented a first suspicion +on the limits of his scholarship or, in the social world, of his general +education and culture. + -- Julia Norton McCorkle +% +[He] took me into his library and showed me his books, of which he had +a complete set. + -- Ring Lardner +% +Higher education helps your earning capacity. Ask any college professor. +% +History books which contain no lies are extremely dull. +% +History is nothing but a collection of fables and useless trifles, +cluttered up with a mass of unnecessary figures and proper names. + -- Leo Tolstoy +% +How do you explain school to a higher intelligence? + -- Elliot, "E.T." +% +I am a bookaholic. If you are a decent person, you will not sell me +another book. +% +"I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it." + -- English Professor +% +I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone +has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. + -- Professor Lowd, English, Ohio University +% +I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some of the +sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work for you are +loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway. + -- Dr. Dwight Van de Vate, Professor of Philosophy, + University of Tennessee at Knoxville +% +I came out of twelve years of college and I didn't even know how to sew. +All I could do was account -- I couldn't even account for myself. + -- Firesign Theatre +% +I came to MIT to get an education for myself and a diploma for my mother. +% +I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to +make it shorter. + -- Blaise Pascal +% +"I have to convince you, or at least snow you ..." + -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435 +% +I heard a definition of an intellectual, that I thought was very interesting: +a man who takes more words than are necessary to tell more than he knows. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower +% +I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +I think your opinions are reasonable, except for the one about my mental +instability. + -- Psychology Professor, Farifield University +% +"I'm returning this note to you, instead of your paper, because it (your paper) +presently occupies the bottom of my bird cage." + -- English Professor, Providence College +% +If any man wishes to be humbled and mortified, let him become president +of Harvard. + -- Edward Holyoke +% +If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have +taught much more! +% +If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people? +% +If little else, the brain is an educational toy. + -- Tom Robbins +% +If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder. + -- Pope John Paul I +% +If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get +the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in +college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural +method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall +learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should +be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the +young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. +I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not +by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise +instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the +attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, +not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to +put on a professor. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library? + -- Lily Tomlin +% +If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world. + -- Wittgenstein +% +If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel +in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary +qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted. + -- Marguerite Emmons +% +If you are too busy to read, then you are too busy. +% +If you can't read this, blame a teacher. +% +If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire +deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading +are precisely those that challenge our convictions. +% +If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. + -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard +% +If you took all the students that felt asleep in class and laid them end to +end, they'd be a lot more comfortable. + -- "Graffiti in the Big Ten" +% +"If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything." + -- A. L. +% +Ignorance is never out of style. It was in fashion yesterday, it is the +rage today, and it will set the pace tomorrow. + -- Franklin K. Dane +% +Ignorance is when you don't know anything and somebody finds it out. +% +Ignorance must certainly be bliss or there wouldn't be so many people +so resolutely pursuing it. +% +Illiterate? Write today, for free help! +% + In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi, +Junior, what are you up to?" + "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the +rabbit. + "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible! No one +will publish such rubbish!" + "Well, follow me and I'll show you." + They both go into the rabbit's dwelling and after a while the +rabbit emerges with a satisfied expression on his face. Comes along a +wolf. "Hello, little buddy, what are we doing these days?" + "I'm writing the 2'nd chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits devour +wolves." + "Are you crazy? Where's your academic honesty?" + "Come with me and I'll show you." + As before, the rabbit comes out with a satisfied look on his face +and a diploma in his paw. Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave +and, as everybody should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge +lion, sitting, picking his teeth and belching, next to some furry, bloody +remnants of the wolf and the fox. + + The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are +important -- it's your PhD advisor that really counts. +% +In California, Bill Honig, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, said he +thought the general public should have a voice in defining what an excellent +teacher should know. "I would not leave the definition of math," Dr. Honig +said, "up to the mathematicians." + -- The New York Times, October 22, 1985 +% +Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't +they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning +anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five +years we would have the smartest race of people on earth. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +Iowa State -- the high school after high school! + -- Crow T. Robot +% +It has been said [by Anatole France], "it is not by amusing oneself +that one learns," and, in reply: "it is *____only* by amusing oneself that +one can learn." + -- Edward Kasner and James R. Newman +% +It has long been an article of our folklore that too much knowledge or skill, +or especially consummate expertise, is a bad thing. It dehumanizes those who +achieve it, and makes difficult their commerce with just plain folks, in whom +good old common sense has not been obliterated by mere book learning or fancy +notions. This popular delusion flourishes now more than ever, for we are all +infected with it in the schools, where educationists have elevated it from +folklore to Article of Belief. It enhances their self-esteem and lightens +their labors by providing theoretical justification for deciding that +appreciation, or even simple awareness, is more to be prized than knowledge, +and relating (to self and others), more than skill, in which minimum +competence will be quite enough. + -- The Underground Grammarian +% + It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and +by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate +the habit of thinking about what we are doing. The precise opposite is the +case. Civilization advances by extending the numbers of important operations +which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are +like cavalry charges in battle -- they are strictly limited in number, they +require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. + -- Alfred North Whitehead +% + It's grad exam time... +COMPUTER SCIENCE + Inside your desk you'll find a listing of the DEC/VMS operating +system in IBM 1710 machine code. Show what changes are necessary to convert +this code into a UNIX Berkeley 7 operating system. Prove that these fixes are +bug free and run correctly. You should gain at least 150% efficiency in the +new system. (You should take no more than 10 minutes on this question.) + +MATHEMATICS + If X equals PI times R^2, construct a formula showing how long +it would take a fire ant to drill a hole through a dill pickle, if the +length-girth ratio of the ant to the pickle were 98.17:1. + +GENERAL KNOWLEDGE +Describe the Universe. Give three examples. +% + It's grad exam time... +MEDICINE + You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a +bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has +been inspected. (You have 15 minutes.) + +HISTORY + Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present +day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social, political, +economic, religious and philisophical impact upon Europe, Asia, America, and +Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific. + +BIOLOGY + Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture +if this form of life had been created 500 million years ago or earlier, with +special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system. +% +It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it +is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It +isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. + -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News +% +Joe Cool always spends the first two weeks at college sailing his frisbee. + -- Snoopy +% +Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads. +% +Learning at some schools is like drinking from a firehose. +% +Learning without thought is labor lost; +thought without learning is perilous. + -- Confucius +% +Maybe ain't ain't so correct, but I notice that lots of folks who ain't +using ain't ain't eatin' well. + -- Will Rogers +% +Most seminars have a happy ending. Everyone's glad when they're over. +% +My father, a good man, told me, "Never lose your ignorance; you cannot +replace it." + -- Erich Maria Remarque +% +Never have so many understood so little about so much. + -- James Burke +% +Never let your schooling interfere with your education. +% +No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are +really worth the attending. + -- Adam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations" +% +No matter who you are, some scholar can show you the great idea you had +was had by someone before you. +% +No wonder you're tired! You understood so much today. +% +Normally our rules are rigid; we tend to discretion, if for no other reason +than self-protection. We never recommend any of our graduates, although we +cheerfully provide information as to those who have failed their courses. + -- Jack Vance, "Freitzke's Turn" +% +Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper +is from the wrong kind of tree. + -- Professor, EECS, George Washington University + +I'm looking forward to working with you on this next year. + -- Professor, Harvard, on a senior thesis. +% + `O' LEVEL COUNTER CULTURE +Timewarp allowed: 3 hours. Do not scrawl situationalist graffiti in the +margins or stub your rollups in the inkwells. Orange may be worn. Credit +will be given to candidates who self-actualise. + + (1) Compare and contrast Pink Floyd with Black Sabbath and say why + neither has street credibility. + (2) "Even Buddha would have been hard pushed to reach Nirvana squatting + on a juggernaut route." Consider the dialectic of inner truth + and inner city. + (3) Discuss degree of hassle involved in paranoia about being sucked + into a black hole. + (4) "The Egomaniac's Liberation Front were a bunch of revisionist + ripoff merchants." Comment on this insult. + (5) Account for the lack of references to brown rice in Dylan's lyrics. + (6) "Castenada was a bit of a bozo." How far is this a fair summing + up of western dualism? + (7) Hermann Hesse was a Pisces. Discuss. +% +"OK, now let's look at four dimensions on the blackboard." + -- Dr. Joy +% +OK, so you're a Ph.D. Just don't touch anything. +% +One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazing +how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette. + -- Professor Charles P. Issawi +% +Periphrasis is the putting of things in a round-about way. "The cost may be +upwards of a figure rather below 10m#." is a periphrasis for The cost may be +nearly 10m#. "In Paris there reigns a complete absence of really reliable +news" is a periphrasis for There is no reliable news in Paris. "Rarely does +the 'Little Summer' linger until November, but at times its stay has been +prolonged until quite late in the year's penultimate month" contains a +periphrasis for November, and another for lingers. "The answer is in the +negative" is a periphrasis for No. "Was made the recipient of" is a +periphrasis for Was presented with. The periphrasis style is hardly possible +on any considerable scale without much use of abstract nouns such as "basis, +case, character, connexion, dearth, description, duration, framework, lack, +nature, reference, regard, respect". The existence of abstract nouns is a +proof that abstract thought has occurred; abstract thought is a mark of +civilized man; and so it has come about that periphrasis and civilization are +by many held to be inseparable. These good people feel that there is an almost +indecent nakedness, a reversion to barbarism, in saying No news is good news +instead of "The absence of intelligence is an indication of satisfactory +developments." + -- Fowler's English Usage +% +"Plaese porrf raed." + -- Prof. Michael O'Longhlin, S.U.N.Y. Purchase +% +Practice is the best of all instructors. + -- Publilius +% +Princeton's taste is sweet like a strawberry tart. Harvard's is a subtle +taste, like whiskey, coffee, or tobacco. It may even be a bad habit, for +all I know. + -- Prof. J.H. Finley '25 +% +Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem Eng. 130 +midterm. Once again a student did not receive a single point on his exam. +Newell has now tossed 5 shutouts this quarter. Newell's earned exam average +has now dropped to a phenomenal 30%. +% +Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of one's own. +% +Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. +% +Reporter: "How did you like school when you were growing up, Yogi?" +Yogi Berra: "Closed." +% +Rules for Good Grammar #4. + (1) Don't use no double negatives. + (2) Make each pronoun agree with their antecedents. + (3) Join clauses good, like a conjunction should. + (4) About them sentence fragments. + (5) When dangling, watch your participles. + (6) Verbs has got to agree with their subjects. + (7) Just between you and i, case is important. + (8) Don't write run-on sentences when they are hard to read. + (9) Don't use commas, which aren't necessary. + (10) Try to not ever split infinitives. + (11) It is important to use your apostrophe's correctly. + (12) Proofread your writing to see if you any words out. + (13) Correct speling is essential. + (14) A preposition is something you never end a sentence with. + (15) While a transcendant vocabulary is laudable, one must be eternally + careful so that the calculated objective of communication does not + become ensconsed in obscurity. In other words, eschew obfuscation. +% +Smartness runs in my family. When I went to school I was so smart my +teacher was in my class for five years. + -- George Burns +% +Some scholars are like donkeys, they merely carry a lot of books. + -- Folk saying +% +"Speed is subsittute fo accurancy." +% +Spelling is a lossed art. +% +Suddenly, Professor Liebowitz realizes he has come to the seminar +without his duck ... +% +Teachers have class. +% +The 'A' is for content, the 'minus' is for not typing it. Don't ever do +this to my eyes again. + -- Professor Ronald Brady, Philosophy, Ramapo State College +% +The alarm clock that is louder than God's own belongs to the roommate with +the earliest class. +% +The average Ph.D thesis is nothing but the transference of bones from +one graveyard to another. + -- J. Frank Dobie, "A Texan in England" +% +The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned +into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D. + -- Nelson Algren, "Writers at Work" +% + "The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff +and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. +You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at +night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, +you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your +honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for +it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is +the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be +tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning +is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn." + -- T.H. White, "The Once and Future King" +% +The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up +in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school. +% +The college graduate is presented with a sheepskin to cover his +intellectual nakedness. + -- Robert M. Hutchins +% +The end of the world will occur at three p.m., this Friday, with +symposium to follow. +% +The future is a race between education and catastrophe. + -- H.G. Wells +% +The important thing is not to stop questioning. +% +The man who has never been flogged has never been taught. + -- Menander +% +The only thing that experience teaches us is that experience teaches us nothing. + -- Andre Maurois (Emile Herzog) +% +The only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn. + -- Earl Warren + +That men do not learn very much from history is the most important of all +the lessons that history has to teach. + -- Aldous Huxley + +We learn from history that we do not learn from history. + -- Georg Hegel + +HISTORY: Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we learn +nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from what happened +this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view. + -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab" +% +The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. + -- Hegel + +I know guys can't learn from yesterday ... Hegel must be taking the long view. + -- John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar" +% +The problem with graduate students, in general, is that they have +to sleep every few days. +% +The ratio of literacy to illiteracy is a constant, but nowadays the +illiterates can read. + -- Alberto Moravia +% +The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking. + -- Christopher Morley +% +"The student in question is performing minimally for his peer group and +is an emerging underachiever." +% +The sum of the intelligence of the world is constant. The population is, +of course, growing. +% +The sunlights differ, but there is only one darkness. + -- Ursula K. LeGuin, "The Dispossessed" +% +The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed +ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. + -- F. Scott Fitzgerald +% +The three best things about going to school are June, July, and August. +% +The Tree of Learning bears the noblest fruit, but noble fruit tastes bad. +% +The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious +seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the +unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more +bounteous harvest of gobbledegook than the rest of the world put together. + -- Sir Peter Medawar +% +The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books! +% +The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an +open doorway with an open mind. + -- E.B. White +% +There are no answers, only cross-references. + -- Weiner +% +This is the sort of English up with which I will not put. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for +these only gave life, those the art of living well. + -- Aristotle +% +Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. + -- Hector Berlioz +% +To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. +To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither +oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete. + -- Epictetus +% +To craunch a marmoset. + -- Pedro Carolino, "English as She is Spoke" +% +To teach is to learn twice. + -- Joseph Joubert +% +To teach is to learn. +% +Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational. + -- Charles Schulz +% +Trying to get an education here is like trying to get a drink from a fire hose. +% +Universities are places of knowledge. The freshman each bring a little +in with them, and the seniors take none away, so knowledge accumulates. +% +University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small. + -- C. P. Snow +% +Walt: Dad, what's gradual school? +Garp: Gradual school? +Walt: Yeah. Mom says her work's more fun now that she's teaching + gradual school. +Garp: Oh. Well, gradual school is someplace you go and gradually + find out that you don't want to go to school anymore. + -- The World According To Garp +% +"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" + -- Vroomfondel +% +We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary +to know the origin of the universe; it is necessary to want to know. +Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition +to crave knowledge. + -- George Will +% +We're fantastically incredibly sorry for all these extremely unreasonable +things we did. I can only plead that my simple, barely-sentient friend +and myself are underprivileged, deprived and also college students. + -- Waldo D.R. Dobbs +% + "We're running out of adjectives to describe our situation. We +had crisis, then we went into chaos, and now what do we call this?" said +Nicaraguan economist Francisco Mayorga, who holds a doctorate from Yale. + -- The Washington Post, February, 1988 + +The New Yorker's comment: + At Harvard they'd call it a noun. +% +What does education often do? It makes a straight cut ditch of a +free meandering brook. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% + What I Did During My Fall Semester +On the first day of my fall semester, I got up. +Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. +Then I hung out in front of the Dover. + +On the second day of my fall semester, I got up. +Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. +Then I hung out in front of the Dover. + +On the third day of my fall semester, I got up. +Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. +I found a thesis topic: + How to keep people from hanging out in front of the Dover. + -- Sister Mary Elephant, "Student Statement for Black Friday" +% +What makes you think graduate school is supposed to be satisfying? + -- Erica Jong, "Fear of Flying" +% +What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error. + -- Raymond Aron, "The Opium of the Intellectuals" +% +What we do not understand we do not possess. + -- Goethe +% +What's page one, a preemptive strike? + -- Professor Freund, Communication, Ramapo State College +% +When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into +the soul of the boy sitting next to me. + -- Woody Allen +% +Whenever anyone says, "theoretically," they really mean, "not really." + -- Dave Parnas +% +Where do I find the time for not reading so many books? + -- Karl Kraus +% +"Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school. + -- George Ade +% + Wouldn't the sentence "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish +and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign" have been clearer if +quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and +and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and +Chips, as well as after Chips? +% +You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school. + -- H.H. Munro +% +You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers. + -- J. D. Salinger +% +You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog. + -- Alfred Kahn +% +"You should, without hesitation, pound your typewriter into a plowshare, +your paper into fertilizer, and enter agriculture" + -- Business Professor, University of Georgia +% +Your education begins where what is called your education is over. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/ethnic b/fortune-mod/datfiles/ethnic new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b46edb3 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/ethnic @@ -0,0 +1,851 @@ + A German, a Pole and a Czech left camp for a hike through the woods. +After being reported missing a day or two later, rangers found two bears, +one a male, one a female, looking suspiciously overstuffed. They killed +the female, autopsied her, and sure enough, found the German and the Pole. + "What do you think?" said the the first ranger. + "The Czech is in the male," replied the second. +% +Aberdeen was so small that when the family with the car went +on vacation, the gas station and drive-in theatre had to close. +% +According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place to live in +America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York came in twenty-fifth. +Here in New York we really don't care too much. Because we know that we could +beat up their city anytime. + -- David Letterman +% +"All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right hands." + -- Saint Patrick +% +Also, the Scots are said to have invented golf. Then they had +to invent Scotch whiskey to take away the pain and frustration. +% +alta, v: To change; make or become different; modify. +ansa, v: A spoken or written reply, as to a question. +baa, n: A place people meet to have a few drinks. +Baaston, n: The capital of Massachusetts. +baaba, n: One whose business is to cut or trim hair or beards. +beea, n: An alcoholic beverage brewed from malt and hops, often + found in baas. +caaa, n: An automobile. +centa, n: A point around which something revolves; axis. (Or + someone involved with the Knicks.) +chouda, n: A thick seafood soup, often in a milk base. +dada, n: Information, esp. information organized for analysis or + computation. + -- Massachewsetts Unabridged Dictionary +% +America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him, until +people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" and changed its +name to "America". + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? + -- Allen Ginsberg +% +American by birth; Texan by the grace of God. +% +Americans are people who insist on living in the present, tense. +% +Americans' greatest fear is that America will turn out to have been a +phenomenon, not a civilization. + -- Shirley Hazzard, "Transit of Venus" +% +An American is a man with two arms and four wheels. + -- A Chinese child +% +An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose. + -- A.P. Herbert +% +Anything anybody can say about America is true. + -- Emmett Grogan +% +Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Stepanakert, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh +autonomous region, rioted over much needed spelling reform in the Soviet Union. + -- P.J. O'Rourke +% +Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game - it, and high taxes. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them +seemed to come from Texas. + -- Ian Fleming, "Casino Royale" +% +Boston State House is the hub of the Solar System. You couldn't pry that out +of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a +crowbar. + -- Oliver Wendell Holmes +% + Carol's head ached as she trailed behind the unsmiling Calibrees +along the block of booths. She chirruped at Kennicott, "Let's be wild! +Let's ride on the merry-go-round and grab a gold ring!" + Kennicott considered it, and mumbled to Calibree, "Think you folks +would like to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?" + Calibree considered it, and mumbled to his wife, "Think you'd like +to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?" + Mrs. Calibree smiled in a washed-out manner, and sighed, "Oh no, +I don't believe I care to much, but you folks go ahead and try it." + Calibree stated to Kennicott, "No, I don't believe we care to a +whole lot, but you folks go ahead and try it." + Kennicott summarized the whole case against wildness: "Let's try +it some other time, Carrie." + She gave it up. + -- Sinclair Lewis, "Main Street" +% +Climate and Surgery + R C Gilchrist, who was shot by J Sharp twelve days ago, and who +received a derringer ball in the right breast, and who it was supposed at +the time could not live many hours, was on the street yesterday and the +day before -- walking several blocks at a time. To those who design to be +riddled with bullets or cut to pieces with Bowie-knives, we cordially +recommend our Sacramento climate and Sacramento surgery. + -- Sacramento Daily Union, September 11, 1861 +% +David Letterman's "Things we can be proud of as Americans": + + * Greatest number of citizens who have actually boarded a UFO + * Many newspapers feature "JUMBLE" + * Hourly motel rates + * Vast majority of Elvis movies made here + * Didn't just give up right away during World War II + like some countries we could mention + * Goatees & Van Dykes thought to be worn only by weenies + * Our well-behaved golf professionals + * Fabulous babes coast to coast +% +Decemba, n: The 12th month of the year. +erra, n: A mistake. +faa, n: To, from, or at considerable distance. +Linder, n: A female name. +memba, n: To recall to the mind; think of again. +New Hampsha, n: A state in the northeast United States. +New Yaak, n: Another state in the northeast United States. +Novemba, n: The 11th month of the year. +Octoba, n: The 10th month of the year. +ova, n: Location above or across a specified position. What the + season is when the Knicks quit playing. + -- Massachewsetts Unabridged Dictionary +% +Detroit is Cleveland without the glitter. +% +Do Miami a favor. When you leave, take someone with you. +% +Do you know Montana? +% +Do you know the difference between a yankee and a damyankee? + +A yankee comes south to *_____visit*. +% +Eli and Bessie went to sleep. +In the middle of the night, Bessie nudged Eli. + "Please be so kindly and close the window. It's cold outside!" +Half asleep, Eli murmured, + "Nu ... so if I'll close the window, will it be warm outside?" +% +Five people -- an Englishman, Russian, American, Frenchman and Irishman +were each asked to write a book on elephants. Some amount of time later they +had all completed their respective books. The Englishman's book was entitled +"The Elephant -- How to Collect Them", the Russian's "The Elephant -- Vol. I", +the American's "The Elephant -- How to Make Money from Them", the Frenchman's +"The Elephant -- Its Mating Habits" and the Irishman's "The Elephant and +Irish Political History". +% +For some reason a glaze passes over people's faces when you say +"Canada". Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something. + -- Sandra Gotlieb, wife of the Canadian ambassador to the U.S. +% +Fortune presents: + USEFUL PHRASES IN ESPERANTO, #1. + +^Cu vi parolas angle? Do you speak English? +Mi ne komprenas. I don't understand. +Vi estas la sola esperantisto kiun mi You're the only Esperanto speaker + renkontas. I've met. +La ^ceko estas enpo^stigita. The check is in the mail. +Oni ne povas, ^gin netrovi. You can't miss it. +Mi nur rigardadas. I'm just looking around. +Nu, ^sajnis bona ideo. Well, it seemed like a good idea. +% +Fortune presents: + USEFUL PHRASES IN ESPERANTO, #2. + +^Cu tiu loko estas okupita? Is this seat taken? +^Cu vi ofte venas ^ci-tien? Do you come here often? +^Cu mi povas havi via telelonnumeron? May I have your phone number? +Mi estas komputilisto. I work with computers. +Mi legas multe da scienca fikcio. I read a lot of science fiction. +^Cu necesas ke vi eliras? Do you really have to be going? +% +Fortune presents: + USEFUL PHRASES IN ESPERANTO, #5. + +Mi ^cevalovipus vin se mi havus I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse. + ^cevalon. +Vere vi ^sercas. You must be kidding. +Nu, parDOOOOOnu min! Well exCUUUUUSE me! +Kiu invitis vin? Who invited you? +Kion vi diris pri mia patrino? What did you say about my mother? +Bu^so^stopu min per kulero. Gag me with a spoon. +% +Gay shlafen: Yiddish for "go to sleep". + +Now doesn't "gay shlafen" have a softer, more soothing sound than the +harsh, staccato "go to sleep"? Listen to the difference: + "Go to sleep, you little wretch!" ... "Gay shlafen, darling." +Obvious, isn't it? + Clearly the best thing you can do for you children is to start +speaking Yiddish right now and never speak another word of English as +long as you live. This will, of course, entail teaching Yiddish to all +your friends, business associates, the people at the supermarket, and +so on, but that's just the point. It has to start with committed +individuals and then grow.... + Some minor adjustments will have to be made, of course: those +signs written in what look like Yiddish letters won't be funny when +everything is written in Yiddish. And we'll have to start driving on +the left side of the road so we won't be reading the street signs +backwards. But is that too high a price to pay for world peace? +I think not, my friend, I think not. + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +"Gee, Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore." +% +"God gives burdens; also shoulders" + +Jimmy Carter cited this Jewish saying in his concession speech at the +end of the 1980 election. At least he said it was a Jewish saying; I +can't find it anywhere. I'm sure he's telling the truth though; why +would he lie about a thing like that? + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +Good night, Austin, Texas, wherever you are! +% +Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers and +cheating on your income tax. + -- Mike Royko +% +Have you seen the latest Japanese camera? Apparently it is so fast it can +photograph an American with his mouth shut! +% +Hear about the Californian terrorist that tried to blow up a bus? +Burned his lips on the exhaust pipe. +% +Hear about the young Chinese woman who just won the lottery? +One fortunate cookie... +% + Here is the fact of the week, maybe even the fact of the month. +According to probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola people are experiencing +severe marketing anxiety in China. + The words "Coca-Cola" translate into Chinese as either (depending +on the inflection) "wax-fattened mare" or "bite the wax tadpole". + Bite the wax tadpole. + There is a sort of rough justice, is there not? + The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it's hard +to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world to bite a wax +tadpole. Coke -- it's the real wax-fattened mare. Not bad, but broad +satiric vistas do not open up. + -- John Carrol, The San Francisco Chronicle +% +"His great aim was to escape from civilization, and, as soon as he had +money, he went to Southern California." +% +Historians have now definitely established that Juan Cabrillo, discoverer +of California, was not looking for Kansas, thus setting a precedent that +continues to this day. + -- Wayne Shannon +% +Houdini escaping from New Jersey! + +Film at eleven. +% +How many priests are needed for a Boston Mass? +% +I am just a nice, clean-cut Mongolian boy. + -- Yul Brynner, 1956 +% +I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of +pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you +that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic +globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I +can't help it. I was born sneering. + -- Pooh-Bah, "The Mikado" +% +I didn't know he was dead; I thought he was British. +% +I have defined the hundred per cent American as ninety-nine per cent an idiot. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +I shot an arrow in to the air, and it stuck. + -- graffito in Los Angeles + +On a clear day, +U.C.L.A. + -- graffito in San Francisco + +There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our +lungs there'd be no place to put it all. + -- Robert Orben +% +I'm going through my "I want to go back to New York" phase today. Happens +every six months or so. So, I thought, perhaps unwisely, that I'd share +it with you. + +> In New York in the winter it is million degrees below zero and + the wind travels at a million miles an hour down 5th avenue. +> And in LA it's 72. + +> In New York in the summer it is a million degrees and the humidity + is a million percent. +> And in LA it's 72. + +> In New York there are a million interesting people. +> And in LA there are 72. +% +"I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here?" + -- Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate +% +If all the Chinese simultaneously jumped into the Pacific off a 10 foot +platform erected 10 feet off their coast, it would cause a tidal wave +that would destroy everything in this country west of Nebraska. +% +Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the +land He's trying to ignore. +% +In 1880 the French captured Detroit but gave it back ... they couldn't +get parts. +% +In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save. +% +In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of nations -- +it's cold, half-French, and difficult to stir. + -- Stuart Keate +% +In California they don't throw their garbage away -- they make it into +television shows. + -- Woody Allen, "Annie Hall" +% +In Minnesota they ask why all football fields in Iowa have artificial turf. +It's so the cheerleaders won't graze during the game. +% +Indiana is a state dedicated to basketball. Basketball, soybeans, hogs and +basketball. Berkeley, needless to say, is not nearly as athletic. Berkeley +is dedicated to coffee, angst, potholes and coffee. + -- Carolyn Jones +% +Inglish Spocken Hier: some mangled translations + + Sign on a cabin door of a Soviet Black Sea cruise liner: + Helpsavering apparata in emergings behold many whistles! + Associate the stringing apparata about the bosums and meet + behind, flee then to the indifferent lifesaveringshippen + obedicing the instructs of the vessel. + + On the door in a Belgrade hotel: + Let us know about any unficiency as well as leaking on + the service. Our utmost will improve it. + + -- Colin Bowles +% +Inglish Spocken Hier: some mangled translations + + Sign on a cathedral in Spain: + It is forbidden to enter a woman, even a foreigner if + dressed as a man. + + Above the enterance to a Cairo bar: + Unaccompanied ladies not admitted unless with husband + or similar. + + On a Bucharest elevator: + + The lift is being fixed for the next days. + During that time we regret that you will be unbearable. + + -- Colin Bowles +% +Inglish Spocken Hier: some mangled translations + + Various signs in Poland: + + Right turn toward immediate outside. + + Go soothingly in the snow, as there lurk the ski demons. + + Five o'clock tea at all hours. + + In a men's washroom in Sidney: + + Shake excess water from hands, push button to start, + rub hands rapidly under air outlet and wipe hands + on front of shirt. + + -- Colin Bowles, San Francisco Chronicle +% +Iowans ask why Minnesotans don't drink more Kool-Aid. That's because +they can't figure out how to get two quarts of water into one of those +little paper envelopes. +% +Isn't it nice that people who prefer Los Angeles to San Francisco live there? + -- Herb Caen +% +It's hard to argue that God hated Oklahoma. If He didn't, why is it so +close to Texas? +% +It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either. + -- Kevin White, Mayor of Boston +% +It's not enough to be Hungarian; you must have talent too. + -- Alexander Korda +% +It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that +English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many +other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case. + -- Sydney J. Harris +% +It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles. +% +Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else +follows in the same way. + -- Alan J. Perlis +% +Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made +sense from things she found in gift shops. + -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. +% +Likewise, the national appetizer, brine-cured herring with raw onions, +wins few friends, Germans excepted. + -- Darwin Porter "Scandinavia On $50 A Day" +% +Living in LA is like not having a date on Saturday night. + -- Candice Bergen +% +Living in New York City gives people real incentives to want things that +nobody else wants. + -- Andy Warhol +% +Minnesota -- + home of the blonde hair and blue ears. + mosquito supplier to the free world. + come fall in love with a loon. + where visitors turn blue with envy. + one day it's warm, the rest of the year it's cold. + land of many cultures -- mostly throat. + where the elite meet sleet. + glove it or leave it. + many are cold, but few are frozen. + land of the ski and home of the crazed. + land of 10,000 Petersons. +% +Moishe Margolies, who weighed all of 105 pounds and stood an even five feet +in his socks, was taking his first airplane trip. He took a seat next to a +hulking bruiser of a man who happened to be the heavyweight champion of +the world. Little Moishe was uneasy enough before he even entered the plane, +but now the roar of the engines and the great height absolutely terrified him. +So frightened did he become that his stomach turned over and he threw up all +over the muscular giant siting beside him. Fortunately, at least for Moishe, +the man was sound asleep. But now the little man had another problem. How in +the world would he ever explain the situation to the burly brute when he +awakened? The sudden voice of the stewardess on the plane's intercom, finally +woke the bruiser, and Moishe, his heart in his mouth, rose to the occasion. + "Feeling better now?" he asked solicitously. +% +Monterey... is decidedly the pleasantest and most civilized-looking place +in California ... [it] is also a great place for cock-fighting, gambling +of all sorts, fandangos, and various kinds of amusements and knavery. + -- Richard Henry Dama, "Two Years Before the Mast", 1840 +% +Most Texans think Hanukkah is some sort of duck call. + -- Richard Lewis +% +My godda bless, never I see sucha people. + -- Signor Piozzi, quoted by Cecilia Thrale +% +New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors. +% +New York now leads the world's great cities in the number of people around +whom you shouldn't make a sudden move. + -- David Letterman +% +No matter what other nations may say about the United States, +immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery. +% +"Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place called +Yorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees that +were good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST ..." + -- "The Begatting of a President" +% +On the night before her family moved from Kansas to California, the little +girl knelt by her bed to say her prayers. "God bless Mommy and Daddy and +Keith and Kim," she said. As she began to get up, she quickly added, "Oh, +and God, this is goodbye. We're moving to Hollywood." +% +On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia. + -- W.C. Fields' epitaph +% +One of the rules of Busmanship, New York style, is never surrender your +seat to another passenger. This may seem callous, but it is the best +way, really. If one passenger were to give a seat to someone who fainted +in the aisle, say, the others on the bus would become disoriented and +imagine they were in Topeka Kansas. +% +paak, n: A stadium or inclosed playing field. To put or leave (a + a vehicle) for a time in a certain location. +patato, n: The starchy, edible tuber of a widely cultivated plant. +Septemba, n: The 9th month of the year. +shua, n: Having no doubt; certain. +sista, n: A female having the same mother and father as the speaker. +tamato, n: A fleshy, smooth-skinned reddish fruit eaten in salads + or as a vegetable. +troopa, n: A state policeman. +Wista, n: A city in central Masschewsetts. +yaad, n: A tract of ground adjacent to a building. + -- Massachewsetts Unabridged Dictionary +% +Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would +say that it had merely been detected. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Philadelphia is not dull -- it just seems so because it is next to +exciting Camden, New Jersey. +% +Providence, New Jersey, is one of the few cities where Velveeta cheese +appears on the gourmet shelf. +% +San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was. + -- Herb Caen +% +Seattle is so wet that people protect their property with watch-ducks. +% +Seems that a pollster was taking a worldwide opinion poll. +Her question was, "Excuse me; what's your opinion on the meat shortage?" + +In Texas, the answer was "What's a shortage?" +In Poland, the answer was "What's meat?" +In the Soviet Union, the answer was "What's an opinion?" +In New York City, the answer was "What's excuse me?" +% + Some 1500 miles west of the Big Apple we find the Minneapple, a +haven of tranquility in troubled times. It's a good town, a civilized town. +A town where they still know how to get your shirts back by Thursday. Let +the Big Apple have the feats of "Broadway Joe" Namath. We have known the +stolid but steady Killebrew. Listening to Cole Porter over a dry martini +may well suit those unlucky enough never to have heard the Whoopee John Polka +Band and never to have shared a pitcher of 3.2 Grain Belt Beer. The loss is +theirs. And the Big Apple has yet to bake the bagel that can match peanut +butter on lefse. Here is a town where the major urban problem is dutch elm +disease and the number one crime is overtime parking. We boast more theater +per capita than the Big Apple. We go to see, not to be seen. We go even +when we must shovel ten inches of snow from the driveway to get there. Indeed +the winters are fierce. But then comes the marvel of the Minneapple summer. +People flock to the city's lakes to frolic and rejoice at the sight of so +much happy humanity free from the bonds of the traditional down-filled parka. +Here's to the Minneapple. And to its people. Our flair for style is balanced +by a healthy respect for wind chill factors. + And we always, always eat our vegetables. + This is the Minneapple. +% +Someone did a study of the three most-often-heard phrases in New York +City. One is "Hey, taxi." Two is, "What train do I take to get to +Bloomingdale's?" And three is, "Don't worry. It's just a flesh wound." + -- David Letterman +% + "Somewhere", said Father Vittorini, "did Blake not speak of the +Machineries of Joy? That is, did not God promote environments, then +intimidate these Natures by provoking the existence of flesh, toy men and +women, such as are we all? And thus happily sent forth, at our best, with +good grace and fine wit, on calm noons, in fair climes, are we not God's +Machineries of Joy?" + "If Blake said that", said Father Brian, "he never lived in Dublin." + -- R. Bradbury, "The Machineries of Joy" +% +The Almighty in His infinite wisdom did not see fit to create Frenchmen +in the image of Englishmen. + -- Winston Churchill, 1942 +% +The American nation in the sixth ward is a fine people; they love the +eagle -- on the back of a dollar. + -- Finlay Peter Dunne +% +The Anglo-Saxon conscience does not prevent the Anglo-Saxon from +sinning, it merely prevents him from enjoying his sin. + --Salvador De Madariaga +% +The best case: Get salary from America, build a house in England, + live with a Japanese wife, and eat Chinese food. +Pretty good case: Get salary from England, build a house in America, + live with a Chinese wife, and eat Japanese food. +The worst case: Get salary from China, build a house in Japan, + live with a British wife, and eat American food. + --Bungei Shunju, a popular Japanese magazine +% +The best thing that comes out of Iowa is I-80. +% +The big cities of America are becoming Third World countries. + -- Nora Ephron +% +The British are coming! The British are coming! +% +The climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live elsewhere. +% +The curse of the Irish is not that they don't know the words to a song -- +it's that they know them *___all*. + -- Susan Dooley +% +The Czechs announced after Sputnik that they, too, would launch a satellite. +Of course, it would orbit Sputnik, not Earth! +% +The difference between America and England is that the English think 100 +miles is a long distance and the Americans think 100 years is a long time. +% +The egg cream is psychologically the opposite of circumcision -- it +*pleasurably* reaffirms your Jewishness. + -- Mel Brooks +% +The English country gentleman galloping after a fox -- the unspeakable +in full pursuit of the uneatable. + -- Oscar Wilde, "A Woman of No Importance" +% +The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach +their children to speak it. + -- G. B. Shaw +% +The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is modest +about it. + -- James Agate, British film and drama critic +% +[The French Riviera is] a sunny place for shady people. + -- Somerset Maugham +% +The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of the +center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South +Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the South +End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End. +% +The goys have proven the following theorem... + -- Physicist John von Neumann, at the start of a classroom + lecture. +% + The Martian landed his saucer in Manhattan, and immediately upon +emerging was approached by a panhandler. "Mister," said the man, "can I +have a quarter?" + The Martian asked, "What's a quarter?" + The panhandler thought a minute, brightened, then said, "You're +right! Can I have a dollar?" +% +The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey. + -- Andy Warhol +% +The most common given name in the world is Mohammad; the most common +family name in the world is Chang. Can you imagine the enormous number +of people in the world named Mohammad Chang? + -- Derek Wills +% +The only cultural advantage LA has over NY is that you can make a right +turn on a red light. + -- Woody Allen +% +The San Diego Freeway. Official Parking Lot of the 1984 Olympics! +% +The trouble is, there is an endless supply of White Men, but there has +always been a limited number of Human Beings. + -- Little Big Man +% + The world's most avid baseball fan (an Aggie) had arrived at the +stadium for the first game of the World Series only to realize he had left +his ticket at home. Not wanting to miss any of the first inning, he went +to the ticket booth and got in a long line for another seat. After an hour's +wait he was just a few feet from the booth when a voice called out, "Hey, +Dave!" The Aggie looked up, stepped out of line and tried to find the owner +of the voice -- with no success. Then he realized he had lost his place in +line and had to wait all over again. When the fan finally bought his ticket, +he was thirsty, so he went to buy a drink. The line at the concession stand +was long, too, but since the game hadn't started he decided to wait. Just as +he got to the window, a voice called out, "Hey, Dave!" Again the Aggie tried +to find the voice -- but no luck. He was very upset as he got back in line +for his drink. Finally the fan went to his seat, eager for the game to begin. +As he waited for the pitch, he heard the voice calling, "Hey Dave!" once more. +Furious, he stood up and yelled at the top of his lungs, "My name isn't Dave!" +% +Then there was the Formosan bartender named Taiwan-On. +% +There *__is* intelligent life on Earth, but I leave for Texas on Monday. +% +There are people who find it odd to eat four or five Chinese meals +in a row; in China, I often remind them, there are a billion or so +people who find nothing odd about it. + -- Calvin Trillin +% +There is nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the +ocean level wouldn't cure. + -- Ross MacDonald +% +There must be at least 500,000,000 rats in the United States; of course, +I never heard the story before. +% + There once was this swami who lived above a delicatessan. Seems one +day he decided to stop in downstairs for some fresh liver. Well, the owner +of the deli was a bit of a cheap-skate, and decided to pick up a little extra +change at his customer's expense. Turning quietly to the counterman, he +whispered, "Weigh down upon the swami's liver!" +% +There was this New Yorker that had a lifelong ambition to be an Texan. +Fortunately, he had an Texan friend and went to him for advice. "Mike, +you know I've always wanted to be a Texan. You're a *____real* Texan, what +should I do?" + "Well," answered Mike, "The first thing you've got to do is look +like a Texan. That means you have to dress right. The second thing +you've got to do is speak in a southern drawl." + "Thanks, Mike, I'll give it a try," replied the New Yorker. + A few weeks passed and the New Yorker saunters into a store dressed +in a ten-gallon hat, cowboy boots, Levi jeans and a bandanna. "Hey, there, +pardner, I'd like some beef, not too rare, and some of them fresh biscuits," +he tells the counterman. + The guy behind the counter takes a long look at him and then says, +"You must be from New York." + The New Yorker blushes, and says, "Well, yes, I am. How did +you know?" + "Because this is a hardware store." +% +There's just something I don't like about Virginia; the state. +% +There's something different about us -- different from people of Europe, +Africa, Asia ... a deep and abiding belief in the Easter Bunny. + -- G. Gordon Liddy +% +Three Midwesterners, a Kansan, a Missourian and an Iowan, +all appearing on a quiz program, were asked to complete this sentence: +"Old MacDonald had a . . ." + + "Old MacDonald had a carburetor," answered the Kansan. + "Sorry, that's wrong," the game show host said. + "Old MacDonald had a free brake alignment down at the + service station," said the Missourian. + "Wrong." + "Old MacDonald had a farm," said the Iowan. + "CORRECT!" shouts the quizmaster. "Now for $100,000, spell 'farm.'" + "Easy," said the Iowan. "E-I-E-I-O." +% +Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles. + -- Frank Lloyd Wright +% +To a Californian, a person must prove himself criminally insane before he +is allowed to drive a taxi in New York. For New York cabbies, honesty and +stopping at red lights are both optional. + -- From "East vs. West: The War Between the Coasts +% +To a Californian, all New Yorkers are cold; even in heat they rarely go +above fifty-eight degrees. If you collapse on a street in New York, plan +to spend a few days there. + -- From "East vs. West: The War Between the Coasts +% +To a Californian, the basic difference between the people and the pigeons +in New York is that the pigeons don't shit on each other. + -- From "East vs. West: The War Between the Coasts +% +To a New Yorker, all Californians are blond, even the blacks. There are, +in fact, whole neighborhoods that are zoned only for blond people. The +only way to tell the difference between California and Sweden is that the +Swedes speak better English." + -- From "East vs. West: The War Between the Coasts +% +To a New Yorker, the only California houses on the market for less than a +million dollars are those on fire. These generally go for six hundred +thousand. + -- From "East vs. West: The War Between the Coasts +% +To be happy one must be a) well fed, unhounded by sordid cares, at ease in +Zion, b) full of a comfortable feeling of superiority to the masses of one's +fellow men, and c) delicately and unceasingly amused according to one's taste. +It is my contention that, if this definition be accepted, there is no country +in the world wherein a man constituted as I am -- a man of my peculiar +weaknesses, vanities, appetites, and aversions -- can be so happy as he can +be in the United States. Going further, I lay down the doctrine that it is +a sheer physical impossibility for such a man to live in the United States +and not be happy. + -- H.L. Mencken, "On Being An American" +% +To know Edina is to reject it. + -- Dudley Riggs, "The Year the Grinch Stole the Election" +% +Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. + -- Judy Garland, "Wizard of Oz" +% +Tourists -- have some fun with New York's hard-boiled cabbies. When you +get to your destination, say to your driver, "Pay? I was hitch-hiking." + -- David Letterman +% +Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines. + -- David Letterman +% +Traveling through New England, a motorist stopped for gas in a tiny village. +"What's this place called?" he asked the station attendant. + "All depends," the native drawled. "Do you mean by them that has +to live in this dad-blamed, moth-eaten, dust-covered, one-hoss dump, or +by them that's merely enjoying its quaint and picturesque rustic charms +for a short spell?" +% +Visit beautiful Vergas, Minnesota. +% +Visit beautiful Wisconsin Dells. +% +Visit[1] the beautiful Smoky Mountains! + +[1] visit, v.: + Come for a week, spend too much money and pay lots of hidden taxes, + then leave. We'll be happy to see your money again next year. + You can save time by simply sending the money, if you're too busy. +% +We don't care how they do it in New York. +% +Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the men are strong, the women are pretty, +and the children are above-average. + -- Garrison Keillor +% +What kind of sordid business are you on now? I mean, man, whither +goest thou? Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night? + -- Jack Kerouac +% +Whatever doesn't succeed in two months and a half in California will +never succeed. + -- Rev. Henry Durant, founder of the University of California +% +When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +When does summertime come to Minnesota, you ask? Well, last year, I +think it was a Tuesday. +% +When I first arrived in this country I had only fifteen cents in my pocket +and a willingness to compromise. + -- Weber cartoon caption +% +When I saw a sign on the freeway that said, "Los Angeles 445 miles," I said +to myself, "I've got to get out of this lane." + -- Franklyn Ajaye +% +When you become used to never being alone, you may consider yourself +Americanized. +% +Would the last person to leave Michigan please turn out the lights? +% +Yawd [noun, Bostonese]: the campus of Have Id. + -- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary +% +Yes, I've now got this nice little apartment in New York, one of those +L-shaped ones. Unfortunately, it's a lower case l. + -- Rita Rudner +% +You always have the option of pitching baseballs at empty spray paint cans +in a cul-de-sac in a Cleveland suburb. +% +You don't move to Edina, you achieve Edina. + -- Guindon +% +You know you're in a small town when... + You don't use turn signals because everybody knows where you're going. + You're born on June 13 and your family receives gifts from the local + merchants because you're the first baby of the year. + Everyone knows whose credit is good, and whose wife isn't. + You speak to each dog you pass, by name... and he wags his tail. + You dial the wrong number, and talk for 15 minutes anyway. + You write a check on the wrong bank and it covers you anyway. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/food b/fortune-mod/datfiles/food new file mode 100644 index 0000000..da02f4f --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/food @@ -0,0 +1,886 @@ +1893 The ideal brain tonic +1900 Drink Coca-Cola -- delicious and refreshing -- 5 cents at all + soda fountains +1905 Is the favorite drink for LADIES when thirsty -- weary -- despondent +1905 Refreshes the weary, brightens the intellect and clears the brain +1906 The drink of QUALITY +1907 Good to the last drop +1907 It satisfies the thirst and pleases the palate +1907 Refreshing as a summer breeze. Delightful as a Dip in the Sea +1908 The Drink that Cheers but does not inebriate +1917 There's a delicious freshness to the taste of Coca-Cola +1919 It satisfies thirst +1919 The taste is the test +1922 Every glass holds the answer to thirst +1922 Thirst knows no season +1925 Enjoy the sociable drink + -- Coca-Cola slogans +% +1925 With a drink so good, 'tis folly to be thirsty +1929 The high sign of refreshment +1929 The pause that refreshes +1930 It had to be good to get where it is +1932 The drink that makes a pause refreshing +1935 The pause that brings friends together +1937 STOP for a pause... GO refreshed +1938 The best friend thirst ever had +1939 Thirst stops here +1942 It's the real thing +1947 Have a Coke +1961 Zing! what a REFRESHING NEW FEELING +1963 Things go better with Coke +1969 Face Uncle Sam with a Coke in your hand +1979 Have a Coke and a smile +1982 Coke is it! + -- Coca-Cola slogans +% + A couple of kids tried using pickles instead of paddles for a Ping-Pong +game. They had the volley of the Dills. +% + A farm in the country side had several turkeys, it was known as the +house of seven gobbles. +% +A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart that looks at her watch. + -- James Beard +% + A new chef from India was fired a week after starting the job. He +kept favoring curry. +% +A waist is a terrible thing to mind. + -- Ziggy +% + A wife started serving chopped meat, Monday hamburger, Tuesday meat +loaf, Wednesday tartar steak, and Thursday meatballs. On Friday morning her +husband snarled, "How now, ground cow?" +% +Actor: So what do you do for a living? +Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving + dishes for Chinese restaurants. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +Actually, my goal is to have a sandwich named after me. +% + "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?" +asked the father of his little son. + "Diet." +% +Anything is good if it's made of chocolate. +% +Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate. +% +As he had feared, his orders had been forgotten and everyone had brought +the potato salad. +% +As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple +memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time +to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, +E, or U is the proper time for chocolate. + -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion" +% +Be careful when you bite into your hamburger. + -- Derek Bok +% +BOO! We changed Coke again! BLEAH! BLEAH! +% +Boycott meat -- suck your thumb. +% +Carob works on the principle that, when mixed with the right combination of +fats and sugar, it can duplicate chocolate in color and texture. Of course, +the same can be said of dirt. +% +Cheese -- milk's leap toward immortality. + -- Clifton Fadiman, "Any Number Can Play" +% +Chinese saying: "He who speak with forked tongue, not need chopsticks." +% +Consider the following axioms carefully: + "Everything's better when it sits on a Ritz." + and + "Everything's better with Blue Bonnet on it." +What happens if one spreads Blue Bonnet margarine on a Ritz cracker? The +thought is frightening. Is this how God came into being? Try not to +consider the fact that "Things go better with Coke". +% +Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, "Part of +this complete breakfast". The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old will be +watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show a commercial for +a children's compressed breakfast compound such as "Froot Loops" or "Lucky +Charms", and they always show it sitting on a table next to some actual food +such as eggs, and the announcer always says: "Part of this complete +breakfast". Don't that really mean, "Adjacent to this complete breakfast", +or "On the same table as this complete breakfast"? And couldn't they make +essentially the same claim if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of +shaving cream there, or a dead bat? + +Answer: Yes. + -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" +% +Death before dishonor. But neither before breakfast. +% +Did you hear that Captain Crunch, Sugar Bear, Tony the Tiger, and +Snap, Crackle and Pop were all murdered recently... + +Police suspect the work of a cereal killer! +% +Dieters live life in the fasting lane. +% +Dinner is ready when the smoke alarm goes off. +% +Do not drink coffee in early A.M. It will keep you awake until noon. +% +Do not worry about which side your bread is buttered on: you eat BOTH sides. +% +Do you feel personally responsible for the world food shortage? +Every time you go to the beach, does the tide come in? +Have you ever eaten an entire moose? +Can you see your neck? +Do joggers take laps around you for exercise? +If so, welcome to National Fat Week. +This week we'll eat without guilt, and kick off our membership campaign, + ...by force-feeding a box of cornstarch to a skinny person. + -- Garfield +% + During the American Revolution, a Britisher tried to raid a farm. He +stumbled across a rock on the ground and fell, whereupon an agressive Rhode +Island Red hopped on top. Seeing this, the farmer commented, "Chicken catch +a Tory!" +% +Eat as much as you like -- just don't swallow it. + -- Harry Secombe's diet +% +Eat drink and be merry! Tommorrow you may be in Utah. +% +Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal. +% +Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we diet. +% +Eat right, stay fit, and die anyway. +% +"Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may work." +% +Eating chocolate is like being in love without the aggravation. +% +Even a blind pig stumbles upon a few acorns. +% +Even a cabbage may look at a king. +% +Every time I lose weight, it finds me again! +% +Everything I like is either illegal, immoral or fattening. + -- Alexander Woollcott +% +Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being +that a belch is more satisfying. + -- Ingmar Bergman +% +Fat Liberation: because a waist is a terrible thing to mind. +% +Fat people of the world unite, we've got nothing to lose! +% +Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing. + -- Walt Kelly, "Potluck Pogo" +% +For those of you who have been unfortunate enough to never have tasted the +'Great Chieftain O' the Pudden Race' (i.e. haggis) here is an easy to follow +recipe which results in a dish remarkably similar to the above mentioned +protected species. + Ingredients: + 1 Sheep's Pluck (heart, lungs, liver) and bag + 2 teacupsful toasted oatmeal + 1 teaspoonful salt + 8 oz. shredded suet + 2 small onions + 1/2 teaspoonful black pepper + + Scrape and clean bag in cold, then warm, water. Soak in salt water +overnight. Wash pluck, then boil for 2 hours with windpipe draining over +the side of pot. Retain 1 pint of stock. Cut off windpipe, remove surplus +gristle, chop or mince heart and lungs, and grate best part of liver (about +half only). Parboil and chop onions, mix all together with oatmeal, suet, +salt, pepper and stock to moisten. Pack the mixture into bag, allowing for +swelling. Boil for three hours, pricking regularly all over. If bag not +available, steam in greased basin covered by greaseproof paper and cloth for +four to five hours. +% +Fortune's Contribution of the Month to the Animal Rights Debate: + + I'll stay out of animals' way if they'll stay out of mine. + "Hey you, get off my plate" + -- Roger Midnight +% +Fortune's diet truths: +1: Forget what the cookbooks say, plain yogurt tastes nothing like sour cream. +2: Any recipe calling for soybeans tastes like mud. +3: Carob is not an acceptable substitute for chocolate. In fact, carob is not + an acceptable substitute for anything, except, perhaps, brown shoe polish. +4: There is no such thing as a "fun salad." So let's stop pretending and see + salads for what they are: God's punishment for being fat. +5: Fruit salad without maraschino cherries and marshmallows is about as + appealing as tepid beer. +6: A world lacking gravy is a tragic place! +7: You should immediately pass up any recipes entitled "luscious and + low-cal." Also skip dishes featuring "lively liver." They aren't and + it isn't. +8: Wearing a blindfold often makes many diet foods more palatable. +9: Fresh fruit is not dessert. CAKE is dessert! +10: Okra tastes slightly worse than its name implies. +11: A plain baked potato isn't worth the effort involved in chewing and + swallowing. +% +God must have loved calories, she made so many of them. +% +GREAT MOMENTS IN HISTORY (#7): November 23, 1915 + +Pancake make-up is invented; most people continue to prefer syrup. +% +Has anyone ever tasted an "end"? Are they really bitter? +% + Has your family tried 'em? + + POWDERMILK BISCUITS + + Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious! + + They're made from whole wheat, to give shy persons + the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. + + POWDERMILK BISCUITS + + Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of + the biscuit on the front, or in the brown bag with the dark + stains that indicate freshness. +% +Have a taco. + -- P.S. Beagle +% +Home on the Range was originally written in beef-flat. +% +Hors d'oeuvres -- a ham sandwich cut into forty pieces. + -- Jack Benny +% + "How did you spend the weekend?" asked the pretty brunette secretary +of her blonde companion. + "Fishing through the ice," she replied. + "Fishing through the ice? Whatever for?" + "Olives." +% +How many hors d'oeuvres you are allowed to take off a tray being carried by +a waiter at a nice party? + Two, but there are ways around it, depending on the style of the hors +d'oeuvre. If they're those little pastry things where you can't tell what's +inside, you take one, bite off about two-thirds of it, then say: "This is +cheese! I hate cheese!" Then you put the rest of it back on the tray and +bite another one and go, "Darn it! Another cheese!" and so on. + -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette" +% +I am so optimistic about beef prices that I've just leased a pot roast +with an option to buy. +% +I brake for chezlogs! +% +I couldn't remember when I had been so disappointed. Except perhaps the +time I found out that M&Ms really DO melt in your hand. + -- Peter Oakley +% +I don't care for the Sugar Smacks commercial. I don't like the idea of +a frog jumping on my Breakfast. + -- Lowell, Chicago Reader 10/15/82 +% +I don't care where I sit as long as I get fed. + -- Calvin Trillin +% +I don't even butter my bread. I consider that cooking. + -- Katherine Cebrian +% +I don't have an eating problem. I eat. I get fat. I buy new clothes. +No problem. +% +"I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd +eat it, and I just hate it." + -- Clarence Darrow +% +I have never been one to sacrifice my appetite on the altar of appearance. + -- A.M. Readyhough +% +I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, +in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals. + -- Thoreau +% +I just ate a whole package of Sweet Tarts and a can of Coke. I think I saw God. + -- B. Hathrume Duk +% +I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like. +% +I never pray before meals -- my mom's a good cook. +% + "I thought you were trying to get into shape." + "I am. The shape I've selected is a triangle." +% +I'm hungry, time to eat lunch. +% +I've been on a diet for two weeks and all I've lost is two weeks. + -- Totie Fields +% +If at first you fricasee, fry, fry again. +% +If food be the music of love, eat up, eat up. +% +If puns were deli meat, this would be the wurst. +% +If you are what you eat, does that mean Euell Gibbons really was a nut? +% +If you put your supper dish to your ear you can hear the sounds of a +restaurant. + -- Snoopy +% +If you see an onion ring -- answer it! +% +If you stew apples like cranberries, they taste more like prunes than +rhubarb does. + -- Groucho Marx +% +If you waste your time cooking, you'll miss the next meal. +% +If you're going to America, bring your own food. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +If your bread is stale, make toast. +% +In Mexico we have a word for sushi: bait. + -- Josi Simon +% +Is there life before breakfast? +% +It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, +since it has no ears. + -- Marcus Porcius Cato +% +IT MAKES ME MAD when I go to all the trouble of having Marta cook up about +a hundred drumsticks, then the guy at Marineland says, "You can't throw +that chicken to the dolphins. They eat fish." + +Sure they eat fish if that's all you give them! Man, wise up. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +It was a brave man that ate the first oyster. +% +It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing warnings +about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or two things still +safe to eat. + -- Robert Fuoss +% +It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ... +% +It's so beautifully arranged on the plate -- you know someone's fingers +have been all over it. + -- Julia Child on nouvelle cuisine. +% +Just a few of the perfect excuses for having some strawberry shortcake. +Pick one. + + (1) It's less calories than two pieces of strawberry shortcake. + (2) It's cheaper than going to France. + (3) It neutralizes the brownies I had yesterday. + (4) Life is short. + (5) It's somebody's birthday. I don't want them to celebrate alone. + (6) It matches my eyes. + (7) Whoever said, "Let them eat cake." must have been talking to me. + (8) To punish myself for eating dessert yesterday. + (9) Compensation for all the time I spend in the shower not eating. + (10) Strawberry shortcake is evil. I must help rid the world of it. + (11) I'm getting weak from eating all that healthy stuff. + (12) It's the second anniversary of the night I ate plain broccoli. +% +Killing turkeys causes winter. +% +Kissing don't last, cookery do. + -- George Meredith +% +Kitchen activity is highlighted. Butter up a friend. +% +Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up +the pillow was gone. + -- Tommy Cooper +% +Last week's pet, this week's special. +% +Let not the sands of time get in your lunch. +% +Life is like a bowl of soup with hairs floating on it. You have to +eat it nevertheless. + -- Flaubert +% +"Life is like a buffet; it's not good but there's plenty of it." +% +Life is like a tin of sardines. We're, all of us, looking for the key. + -- Beyond the Fringe +% +Life is like an egg stain on your chin -- you can lick it, but it still +won't go away. +% +Life is like an onion: you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes +you weep. + -- Carl Sandburg +% +Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer and then you find +there is nothing in it. + -- James Huneker +% +Life is too short to stuff a mushroom. + -- Storm Jameson +% +Life without caffeine is stimulating enough. + -- Sanka Ad +% +Living here in Rio, I have lots of coffees to choose from. And when +you're on the lam like me, you appreciate a good cup of coffee. + -- "Great Train Robber" Ronald Biggs' coffee commercial +% +Lobster: + Everyone loves these delectable crustaceans, but many cooks are +squeamish about placing them into boiling water alive, which is the only +proper method of preparing them. Frankly, the easiest way to eliminate your +guilt is to establish theirs by putting them on trial before they're cooked. +The fact is, lobsters are among the most ferocious predators on the sea +floor, and you're helping reduce crime in the reefs. Grasp the lobster +behind the head, look it right in its unmistakably guilty eyestalks and say, +"Where were you on the night of the 21st?", then flourish a picture of a +scallop or a sole and shout, "Perhaps this will refresh that crude neural +apparatus you call a memory!" The lobster will squirm noticeably. It may +even take a swipe at you with one of its claws. Incorrigible. Pop it into +the pot. Justice has been served, and shortly you and your friends will +be, too. + -- Dave Barry, "Cooking: The Art of Using Appliances and + Utensils into Excuses and Apologies" +% +Man who arrives at party two hours late will find he has been beaten +to the punch. +% +MOCK APPLE PIE (No Apples Needed) + + Pastry to two crust 9-inch pie 36 RITZ Crackers +2 cups water 2 cups sugar +2 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons lemon juice + Grated rind of one lemon Butter or margarine + Cinnamon + +Roll out bottom crust of pastry and fit into 9-inch pie plate. Break +RITZ Crackers coarsely into pastry-lined plate. Combine water, sugar +and cream of tartar in saucepan, boil gently for 15 minutes. Add lemon +juice and rind. Cool. Pour this syrup over Crackers, dot generously +with butter or margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover with top +crust. Trim and flute edges together. Cut slits in top crust to let +steam escape. Bake in a hot oven (425 F) 30 to 35 minutes, until crust +is crisp and golden. Serve warm. Cut into 6 to 8 slices. + -- Found lurking on a Ritz Crackers box +% +Most people eat as though they were fattening themselves for market. + -- E.W. Howe +% +Mountain Dew and doughnuts... because breakfast is the most important meal +of the day. +% +My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there +are three other people. + -- Orson Welles +% +My favorite sandwich is peanut butter, baloney, cheddar cheese, lettuce +and mayonnaise on toasted bread with catsup on the side. + -- Senator Hubert Humphrey +% +My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies. +% +Never drink coke in a moving elevator. The elevator's motion coupled with +the chemicals in coke produce hallucinations. People tend to change into +lizards and attack without warning, and large bats usually fly in the +window. Additionally, you begin to believe that elevators have windows. +% +Never eat anything bigger than your head. +% +Never eat more than you can lift. + -- Miss Piggy +% +No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after +eating one peanut. + -- Channing Pollock +% +Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love. + -- Charlie Brown +% +Now that you've read Fortune's diet truths, you'll be prepared the next +time some housewife or boutique-owner-turned-diet-expert appears on TV +to plug her latest book. And, if you still feel a twinge of guilt for +eating coffee cake while listening to her exhortations, ask yourself +the following questions: + + (1) Do I dare trust a person who actually considers alfalfa sprouts a + food? + (2) Was the author's sole motive in writing this book to get rich + exploiting the forlorn hopes of chubby people like me? + (3) Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as + prescribed ... without French-fried onion rings, pizza with + double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai? (Remember, living + right doesn't really make you live longer, it just *seems* like + longer.) + +That, and another piece of coffee cake, should do the trick. +% +Peanut Blossoms + +4 cups sugar 16 tbsp. milk +4 cups brown sugar 4 tsp. vanilla +4 cups shortening 14 cups flour +8 eggs 4 tsp. soda +4 cups peanut butter 4 tsp. salt + +Shape dough into balls. Roll in sugar and bake on ungreased cookie +sheet at 375 F. for 10-12 minutes. Immediately top each cookie with a +Hershey's kiss or star pressing down firmly to crack cookie. Makes a +heck of a lot. +% +Pete: Waiter, this meat is bad. +Waiter: Who told you? +Pete: A little swallow. +% +Peter's hungry, time to eat lunch. +% +Preserve wildlife -- pickle a squirrel today! +% +Prunes give you a run for your money. +% +Put a pot of chili on the stove to simmer. Let it simmer. Meanwhile, +broil a good steak. Eat the steak. Let the chili simmer. Ignore it. + -- Recipe for chili from Allan Shrivers, former governor + of Texas. +% +Put cats in the coffee and mice in the tea! +% +Remember, DESSERT is spelled with two `s's while DESERT is spelled with +one, because EVERYONE wants two desserts, but NO ONE wants two deserts. + -- Miss Oglethorp, Gr. 5, PS. 59 +% +RULES OF EATING -- THE BRONX DIETER'S CREED + (1) Never eat on an empty stomach. + (2) Never leave the table hungry. + (3) When traveling, never leave a country hungry. + (4) Enjoy your food. + (5) Enjoy your companion's food. + (6) Really taste your food. It may take several portions to + accomplish this, especially if subtly seasoned. + (7) Really feel your food. Texture is important. Compare, + for example, the texture of a turnip to that of a + brownie. Which feels better against your cheeks? + (8) Never eat between snacks, unless it's a meal. + (9) Don't feel you must finish everything on your plate. You + can always eat it later. + (10) Avoid any wine with a childproof cap. + (11) Avoid blue food. + -- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet" +% +Sacred cows make great hamburgers. +% +Save gas, don't eat beans. +% +Seeing is deceiving. It's eating that's believing. + -- James Thurber +% +So much food; so little time! +% +Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in +the milk. + -- Thoreau +% +The basic menu item, in fact the ONLY menu item, would be a food unit called +the "patty," consisting of -- this would be guaranteed in writing -- "100 +percent animal matter of some kind." All patties would be heated up and then +cooled back down in electronic devices immediately before serving. The +Breakfast Patty would be a patty on a bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, egg, +Ba-Ko-Bits, Cheez Whiz, a Special Sauce made by pouring ketchup out of a +bottle and a little slip of paper stating: "Inspected by Number 12." The +Lunch or Dinner Patty would be any Breakfast Patties that didn't get sold in +the morning. The Seafood Lover's Patty would be any patties that were +starting to emit a serious aroma. Patties that were too rank even to be +Seafood Lover's Patties would be compressed into wads and sold as "Nuggets." + -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants" +% +The black bear used to be one of the most commonly seen large animals +because in Yosemite and Sequoia national parks they lived off of garbage +and tourist handouts. This bear has learned to open car doors in +Yosemite, where damage to automobiles caused by bears runs into the tens +of thousands of dollars a year. Campaigns to bearproof all garbage +containers in wild areas have been difficult, because as one biologist +put it, "There is a considerable overlap between the intelligence levels +of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." +% +The chicken that clucks the loudest is the one most likely to show up +at the steam fitters' picnic. +% +The cow is nothing but a machine which makes grass fit for us people to eat. + -- John McNulty +% + THE DAILY PLANET + + SUPERMAN SAVES DESSERT! + Plans to "Eat it later" +% +The early bird gets the coffee left over from the night before. +% +The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through +three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry, and +Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For +instance, the first phase is characterized by the question "How can we eat?" +the second by "Why do we eat?" and the third by "Where shall we have lunch?". + -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +The Kosher Dill was invented in 1723 by Joe Kosher and Sam Dill. It is +the single most popular pickle variety today, enjoyed throughout the free +world by man, woman and child alike. An astounding 350 billion kosher +dills are eaten each year, averaging out to almost 1/4 pickle per person +per day. New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton says "The kosher dill +really changed my life. I used to enjoy eating McDonald's hamburgers and +drinking Iron City Lite, and then I encountered the kosher dill pickle. +I realized that there was far more to haute cuisine then I'd ever imagined. +And now, just look at me." +% +The men sat sipping their tea in silence. After a while the klutz said, + "Life is like a bowl of sour cream." + "Like a bowl of sour cream?" asked the other. "Why?" + "How should I know? What am I, a philosopher?" +% +The most exquisite peak in culinary art is conquered when you do right by a +ham, for a ham, in the very nature of the process it has undergone since last +it walked on its own feet, combines in its flavor the tang of smoky autumnal +woods, the maternal softness of earthy fields delivered of their crop children, +the wineyness of a late sun, the intimate kiss of fertilizing rain, and the +bite of fire. You must slice it thin, almost as thin as this page you hold +in your hands. The making of a ham dinner, like the making of a gentleman, +starts a long, long time before the event. + -- W.B. Courtney, "Reflections of Maryland Country Ham", + from "Congress Eate It Up" +% +The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served +the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. + -- Calvin Trillin +% +"The National Association of Theater Concessionaires reported that in +1986, 60% of all candy sold in movie theaters was sold to Roger Ebert." + -- D. Letterman +% +The number of feet in a yard is directly proportional to the success +of the barbecue. +% +The number of licorice gumballs you get out of a gumball machine +increases in direct proportion to how much you hate licorice. +% +The only thing better than love is milk. +% +The reason it's called "Grape Nuts" is that it contains "dextrose", which is +also sometimes called "grape sugar," and also because "Grape Nuts" is +catchier, in terms of marketing, than "A Cross Between Gerbil Food and +Gravel," which is what it tastes like. + -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" +% +The scene: in a vast, painted desert, a cowboy faces his horse. + +Cowboy: "Well, you've been a pretty good hoss, I guess. Hardworkin'. + Not the fastest critter I ever come acrost, but..." + +Horse: "No, stupid, not feed*back*. I said I wanted a feed*bag*. +% +The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later +you're hungry again. + -- George Miller +% +The way to a man's stomach is through his esophagus. +% +There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be +offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a +series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of +food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection +increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the +affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no +circumstances can the food be omitted. + -- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour +% +There are times when truth is stranger than fiction and lunch time is one +of them. +% +There are twenty-five people left in the world, and twenty-seven of +them are hamburgers. + -- Ed Sanders +% +There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the +man who eats Grape-Nuts on principle. + -- G.K. Chesterton +% +There is no sincerer love than the love of food. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +There's always free cheese in a mousetrap. +% +There's nothing like the face of a kid eating a Hershey bar. +% +Thirteen at a table is unlucky only when the hostess has only twelve chops. + -- Groucho Marx +% +This is Betty Frenel. I don't know who to call but I can't reach my +Food-a-holics partner. I'm at Vido's on my second pizza with sausage +and mushroom. Jim, come and get me! +% +This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week. +% + ... This striving for excellence extends into people's personal +lives as well. When '80s people buy something, they buy the best one, as +determined by (1) price and (2) lack of availability. Eighties people buy +imported dental floss. They buy gourmet baking soda. If an '80s couple +goes to a restaurant where they have made a reservation three weeks in +advance, and they are informed that their table is available, they stalk +out immediately, because they know it is not an excellent restaurant. If +it were, it would have an enormous crowd of excellence-oriented people +like themselves waiting, their beepers going off like crickets in the +night. An excellent restaurant wouldn't have a table ready immediately +for anybody below the rank of Liza Minnelli. + -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" +% + To lose weight, eat less; to gain weight, eat more; if you merely +wish to maintain, do whatever you were doing. + The Bronx diet is a legitimate system of food therapy showing that +food SHOULD be used a crutch and which food could be the most effective in +promoting spiritual and emotional satisfaction. For the first time, an +eater could instantly grasp the connection between relieving depression and +Mallomars, and understand why a lover's quarrel isn't so bad if there's a +pint of ice cream nearby. + -- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet" +% +To see the butcher slap the steak, before he laid it on the block, +and give his knife a sharpening, was to forget breakfast instantly. It was +agreeable, too -- it really was -- to see him cut it off, so smooth and juicy. +There was nothing savage in the act, although the knife was large and keen; +it was a piece of art, high art; there was delicacy of touch, clearness of +tone, skilful handling of the subject, fine shading. It was the triumph of +mind over matter; quite. + -- Dickens, "Martin Chuzzlewit" +% +Tom's hungry, time to eat lunch. +% +Too Late + A large number of turkies [sic] went to San Francisco yesterday by +the two o'clock boats. If their object in going down was to participate in +the Thanksgiving festivities of that city, they would arrive "the day after +the affair," and of course be sadly disappointed thereby. + -- Sacramento Daily Union, November 29, 1861 +% +Two peanuts were walking through the New York. One was assaulted. +% +Vegetables are what food eats. +Fruit are vegetables that fool you by tasting good. +Fish are fast moving vegetables. +Mushrooms are what grows on vegetables when food's done with them. + -- Meat Eater's Credo, according to Jim Williams +% +Vegetarians beware! You are what you eat. +% +Waiter: "Tea or coffee, gentlemen?" +1st customer: "I'll have tea." +2nd customer: "Me, too -- and be sure the glass is clean!" + (Waiter exits, returns) +Waiter: "Two teas. Which one asked for the clean glass?" +% +Wake up and smell the coffee. + -- Ann Landers +% +What foods these morsels be! +% +What is food to one, is to others bitter poison. + -- Titus Lucretius Carus +% +What is important is food, money and opportunities for scoring off one's +enemies. Give a man these three things and you won't hear much squawking +out of him. + -- Brian O'Nolan, "The Best of Myles" +% +When a person goes on a diet, the first thing he loses is his temper. +% +When all else fails, EAT!!! +% +When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional +cheese dip. + -- Ignatius Reilly +% + "When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, +"what's the first thing you say to yourself?" + "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" + "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet. + Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said. +% +When you're dining out and you suspect something's wrong, you're probably right. +% +Where do you go to get anorexia? + -- Shelley Winters +% +While it may be true that a watched pot never boils, the one you don't +keep an eye on can make an awful mess of your stove. + -- Edward Stevenson +% +Whoever tells a lie cannot be pure in heart -- and only the pure in heart +can make a good soup. + -- Ludwig Van Beethoven +% +Why do so many foods come packaged in plastic? It's quite uncanny. +% +Why do they call a fast a fast, when it goes so slow? +% +Without coffee he could not work, or at least he could not have worked in the +way he did. In addition to paper and pens, he took with him everywhere as an +indispensable article of equipment the coffee machine, which was no less +important to him than his table or his white robe. + -- Stefan Zweigs, Biography of Balzac +% +Without ice cream life and fame are meaningless. +% +You can always tell the Christmas season is here when you start getting +incredibly dense, tinfoil-and-ribbon- wrapped lumps in the mail. Fruitcakes +make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unable to find a way to +damage them. They last forever, largely because nobody ever eats them. In +fact, many smart people save the fruitcakes they receive and send them back +to the original givers the next year; some fruitcakes have been passed back +and forth for hundreds of years. + +The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, then pound +some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet. Be sure to wear safety glasses. + -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" +% +You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting needles. + -- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food +% +You first parents of the human race... who ruined yourself for an apple, +what might you have done for a truffled turkey? + -- Brillat-savarin, "Physiologie du Gout" +% +You know you have a small apartment when Rice Krispies echo. + -- S. Rickly Christian +% +You know you're a little fat if you have stretch marks on your car. + -- Cyrus, Chicago Reader 1/22/82 +% +You must dine in our cafeteria. You can eat dirt cheap there!!!! +% +You should tip the waiter $10, minus $2 if he tells you his name, another $2 +if he claims it will be His Pleasure to serve you and another $2 for each +"special" he describes involving confusing terms such as "shallots," and $4 +if the menu contains the word "fixin's." In many restaurants, this means the +waiter will actually owe you money. If you are traveling with a child aged +six months to three years, you should leave an additional amount equal to +twice the bill to compensate for the fact that they will have to take the +banquette out and burn it because the cracks are wedged solid with gobbets +made of partially chewed former restaurant rolls saturated with baby spit. + +In New York, tip the taxicab driver $40 if he does not mention his hemorrhoids. + -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette" +% +Your mind is the part of you that says, + "Why'n'tcha eat that piece of cake?" +... and then, twenty minutes later, says, + "Y'know, if I were you, I wouldn't have done that!" + -- Steven and Ondrea Levine +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/fortunes b/fortune-mod/datfiles/fortunes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..977703e --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/fortunes @@ -0,0 +1,916 @@ +A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it? +% +A few hours grace before the madness begins again. +% +A gift of a flower will soon be made to you. +% +A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. + +Buy the negatives at any price. +% +A tall, dark stranger will have more fun than you. +% +A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work. +% +A visit to a strange place will bring fresh work. +% +A vivid and creative mind characterizes you. +% +Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. +% +Accent on helpful side of your nature. Drain the moat. +% +Advancement in position. +% +After your lover has gone you will still have PEANUT BUTTER! +% +Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a change. +% +Alimony and bribes will engage a large share of your wealth. +% +All the troubles you have will pass away very quickly. +% +Among the lucky, you are the chosen one. +% +An avocado-tone refrigerator would look good on your resume. +% +An exotic journey in downtown Newark is in your future. +% +Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree. +% +Are you a turtle? +% +Are you ever going to do the dishes? Or will you change your major to biology? +% +Are you making all this up as you go along? +% +Are you sure the back door is locked? +% +Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum. +% +Avert misunderstanding by calm, poise, and balance. +% +Avoid gunfire in the bathroom tonight. +% +Avoid reality at all costs. +% +Bank error in your favor. Collect $200. +% +Be careful! Is it classified? +% +Be careful! UGLY strikes 9 out of 10! +% +Be cautious in your daily affairs. +% +Be cheerful while you are alive. + -- Phathotep, 24th Century B.C. +% +Be different: conform. +% +Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so +get used to it. +% +Be security conscious -- National defense is at stake. +% +Beauty and harmony are as necessary to you as the very breath of life. +% +Best of all is never to have been born. Second best is to die soon. +% +Better hope the life-inspector doesn't come around while you have your +life in such a mess. +% +Beware of a dark-haired man with a loud tie. +% +Beware of a tall black man with one blond shoe. +% +Beware of a tall blond man with one black shoe. +% +Beware of Bigfoot! +% +Beware of low-flying butterflies. +% +Beware the one behind you. +% +Blow it out your ear. +% +Break into jail and claim police brutality. +% +Bridge ahead. Pay troll. +% +Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health. +% +Caution: Keep out of reach of children. +% +Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch. +% +Change your thoughts and you change your world. +% +Cheer Up! Things are getting worse at a slower rate. +% +Chess tonight. +% +Chicken Little only has to be right once. +% +Chicken Little was right. +% +Cold hands, no gloves. +% +Communicate! It can't make things any worse. +% +Courage is your greatest present need. +% +Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed. +% +Do not overtax your powers. +% +Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight. +% +Do nothing unless you must, and when you must act -- hesitate. +% +Do something unusual today. Pay a bill. +% +Do what comes naturally. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum. +% +Domestic happiness and faithful friends. +% +Don't feed the bats tonight. +% +Don't get stuck in a closet -- wear yourself out. +% +Don't get to bragging. +% +Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while. +% +Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon. +% +Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today. +% +Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone. +% +Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you. +% +Don't look now, but the man in the moon is laughing at you. +% +Don't look now, but there is a multi-legged creature on your shoulder. +% +Don't plan any hasty moves. You'll be evicted soon anyway. +% +Don't read any sky-writing for the next two weeks. +% +Don't read everything you believe. +% +Don't relax! It's only your tension that's holding you together. +% +Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective. +% +Don't worry so loud, your roommate can't think. +% +Don't Worry, Be Happy. + -- Meher Baba +% +Don't worry. Life's too long. + -- Vincent Sardi, Jr. +% +Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in? +% +Don't you wish you had more energy... or less ambition? +% +Everything that you know is wrong, but you can be straightened out. +% +Everything will be just tickety-boo today. +% +Excellent day for putting Slinkies on an escalator. +% +Excellent day to have a rotten day. +% +Excellent time to become a missing person. +% +Executive ability is prominent in your make-up. +% +Exercise caution in your daily affairs. +% +Expect a letter from a friend who will ask a favor of you. +% +Expect the worst, it's the least you can do. +% +Fine day for friends. +So-so day for you. +% +Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy. +% +Fortune: You will be attacked next Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. by six samurai +sword wielding purple fish glued to Harley-Davidson motorcycles. + +Oh, and have a nice day! + -- Bryce Nesbitt '84 +% +Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening. +% +Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals. +% +Give him an evasive answer. +% +Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to +a new town. +% +Give your very best today. Heaven knows it's little enough. +% +Go to a movie tonight. Darkness becomes you. +% +Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall. +% +Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase. +% +Good day to deal with people in high places; particularly lonely stewardesses. +% +Good day to let down old friends who need help. +% +Good news from afar can bring you a welcome visitor. +% +Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day. +% +Good night to spend with family, but avoid arguments with your mate's +new lover. +% +Green light in A.M. for new projects. Red light in P.M. for traffic tickets. +% +Hope that the day after you die is a nice day. +% +If you can read this, you're too close. +% +If you learn one useless thing every day, in a single year you'll learn +365 useless things. +% +If you sow your wild oats, hope for a crop failure. +% +If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair. +% +If you think last Tuesday was a drag, wait till you see what happens tomorrow! +% +If your life was a horse, you'd have to shoot it. +% +In the stairway of life, you'd best take the elevator. +% +Increased knowledge will help you now. Have mate's phone bugged. +% +Is that really YOU that is reading this? +% +Is this really happening? +% +It is so very hard to be an +on-your-own-take-care-of-yourself-because-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you +grown-up. +% +It may or may not be worthwhile, but it still has to be done. +% +It was all so different before everything changed. +% +It's a very *__UN*lucky week in which to be took dead. + -- Churchy La Femme +% +It's all in the mind, ya know. +% +It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong direction. +% +Just because the message may never be received does not mean it is +not worth sending. +% +Just to have it is enough. +% +Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis. +% +Keep it short for pithy sake. +% +Lady Luck brings added income today. Lady friend takes it away tonight. +% +Learn to pause -- or nothing worthwhile can catch up to you. +% +Let me put it this way: today is going to be a learning experience. +% +Life is to you a dashing and bold adventure. +% +"Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it." + -- Marvin, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors. +% +Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before. +% +Long life is in store for you. +% +Look afar and see the end from the beginning. +% +Love is in the offing. Be affectionate to one who adores you. +% +Make a wish, it might come true. +% +Many changes of mind and mood; do not hesitate too long. +% +Never be led astray onto the path of virtue. +% +Never commit yourself! Let someone else commit you. +% +Never give an inch! +% +Never look up when dragons fly overhead. +% +Never reveal your best argument. +% +Next Friday will not be your lucky day. As a matter of fact, you don't +have a lucky day this year. +% +Of course you have a purpose -- to find a purpose. +% +People are beginning to notice you. Try dressing before you leave the house. +% +Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things. +% +Questionable day. + +Ask somebody something. +% +Reply hazy, ask again later. +% +Save energy: be apathetic. +% +Ships are safe in harbor, but they were never meant to stay there. +% +Slow day. Practice crawling. +% +Snow Day -- stay home. +% +So this is it. We're going to die. +% +So you're back... about time... +% +Someone is speaking well of you. +% +Someone is speaking well of you. + +How unusual! +% +Someone whom you reject today, will reject you tomorrow. +% +Stay away from flying saucers today. +% +Stay away from hurricanes for a while. +% +Stay the curse. +% +That secret you've been guarding, isn't. +% +The time is right to make new friends. +% +The whole world is a tuxedo and you are a pair of brown shoes. + -- George Gobel +% +There is a 20% chance of tomorrow. +% +There is a fly on your nose. +% +There was a phone call for you. +% +There will be big changes for you but you will be happy. +% +Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face. +% +Think twice before speaking, but don't say "think think click click". +% +This life is yours. Some of it was given to you; the rest, you made yourself. +% +This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget it. +% +Time to be aggressive. Go after a tattooed Virgo. +% +Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day. +% +Today is the first day of the rest of the mess. +% +Today is the first day of the rest of your life. +% +Today is the last day of your life so far. +% +Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. +% +Today is what happened to yesterday. +% +Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest. +% +Tomorrow, this will be part of the unchangeable past but fortunately, +it can still be changed today. +% +Tomorrow, you can be anywhere. +% +Tonight you will pay the wages of sin; Don't forget to leave a tip. +% +Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree. +% +Troubled day for virgins over 16 who are beautiful and wealthy and live +in eucalyptus trees. +% +Truth will out this morning. (Which may really mess things up.) +% +Try the Moo Shu Pork. It is especially good today. +% +Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance. +% +Try to have as good a life as you can under the circumstances. +% +Try to relax and enjoy the crisis. + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% +Try to value useful qualities in one who loves you. +% +Tuesday After Lunch is the cosmic time of the week. +% +Tuesday is the Wednesday of the rest of your life. +% +What happened last night can happen again. +% +While you recently had your problems on the run, they've regrouped and +are making another attack. +% +Write yourself a threatening letter and pen a defiant reply. +% +You are a bundle of energy, always on the go. +% +You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here. +% +You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are. +% +You are always busy. +% +You are as I am with You. +% +You are capable of planning your future. +% +You are confused; but this is your normal state. +% +You are deeply attached to your friends and acquaintances. +% +You are destined to become the commandant of the fighting men of the +department of transportation. +% +You are dishonest, but never to the point of hurting a friend. +% +You are fairminded, just and loving. +% +You are farsighted, a good planner, an ardent lover, and a faithful friend. +% +You are fighting for survival in your own sweet and gentle way. +% +You are going to have a new love affair. +% +You are magnetic in your bearing. +% +You are not dead yet. But watch for further reports. +% +You are number 6! Who is number one? +% +You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. +% +You are scrupulously honest, frank, and straightforward. Therefore you +have few friends. +% +You are sick, twisted and perverted. I like that in a person. +% +You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep. +% +You are standing on my toes. +% +You are taking yourself far too seriously. +% +You are the only person to ever get this message. +% +You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading +this sort of trash. +% +You attempt things that you do not even plan because of your extreme stupidity. +% +You can create your own opportunities this week. Blackmail a senior executive. +% +You can do very well in speculation where land or anything to do with dirt +is concerned. +% +You can rent this space for only $5 a week. +% +You could live a better life, if you had a better mind and a better body. +% +You definitely intend to start living sometime soon. +% +You dialed 5483. +% +You display the wonderful traits of charm and courtesy. +% +You don't become a failure until you're satisfied with being one. +% +You enjoy the company of other people. +% +You feel a whole lot more like you do now than you did when you used to. +% +You fill a much-needed gap. +% +You get along very well with everyone except animals and people. +% +You had some happiness once, but your parents moved away, and you had to +leave it behind. +% +You have a deep appreciation of the arts and music. +% +You have a deep interest in all that is artistic. +% +You have a reputation for being thoroughly reliable and trustworthy. +A pity that it's totally undeserved. +% +You have a strong appeal for members of the opposite sex. +% +You have a strong appeal for members of your own sex. +% +You have a strong desire for a home and your family interests come first. +% +You have a truly strong individuality. +% +You have a will that can be influenced by all with whom you come in contact. +% +You have an ability to sense and know higher truth. +% +You have an ambitious nature and may make a name for yourself. +% +You have an unusual equipment for success. Be sure to use it properly. +% +You have an unusual magnetic personality. Don't walk too close to +metal objects which are not fastened down. +% +You have an unusual understanding of the problems of human relationships. +% +You have been selected for a secret mission. +% +You have Egyptian flu: you're going to be a mummy. +% +You have had a long-term stimulation relative to business. +% +You have literary talent that you should take pains to develop. +% +You have many friends and very few living enemies. +% +You have no real enemies. +% +You have taken yourself too seriously. +% +You have the body of a 19 year old. Please return it before it gets wrinkled. +% +You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot today. +% +You have the power to influence all with whom you come in contact. +% +You learn to write as if to someone else because NEXT YEAR YOU WILL BE +"SOMEONE ELSE." +% +You like to form new friendships and make new acquaintances. +% +You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled. +% +You look tired. +% +You love peace. +% +You love your home and want it to be beautiful. +% +You may be gone tomorrow, but that doesn't mean that you weren't here today. +% +You may be infinitely smaller than some things, but you're infinitely +larger than others. +% +You may be recognized soon. Hide. +% +You may get an opportunity for advancement today. Watch it! +% +You may worry about your hair-do today, but tomorrow much peanut butter will +be sold. +% +You need more time; and you probably always will. +% +You need no longer worry about the future. This time tomorrow you'll be dead. +% +You never hesitate to tackle the most difficult problems. +% +You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the beach. +% +You now have Asian Flu. +% +You own a dog, but you can only feed a cat. +% +You plan things that you do not even attempt because of your extreme caution. +% +You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained. +% +You prefer the company of the opposite sex, but are well liked by your own. +% +You recoil from the crude; you tend naturally toward the exquisite. +% +You seek to shield those you love and you like the role of the provider. +% +You shall be rewarded for a dastardly deed. +% +You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially +if they are dead. +% +You should go home. +% +You single-handedly fought your way into this hopeless mess. +% +You teach best what you most need to learn. +% +You too can wear a nose mitten. +% +You two ought to be more careful--your love could drag on for years and years. +% +You will always get the greatest recognition for the job you least like. +% +You will always have good luck in your personal affairs. +% +You will attract cultured and artistic people to your home. +% +You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old. +% +You will be advanced socially, without any special effort on your part. +% +You will be aided greatly by a person whom you thought to be unimportant. +% +You will be attacked by a beast who has the body of a wolf, the tail of +a lion, and the face of Donald Duck. +% +You will be audited by the Internal Revenue Service. +% +You will be awarded a medal for disregarding safety in saving someone. +% +You will be awarded some great honor. +% +You will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize... posthumously. +% +You will be called upon to help a friend in trouble. +% +You will be divorced within a year. +% +You will be given a post of trust and responsibility. +% +You will be held hostage by a radical group. +% +You will be honored for contributing your time and skill to a worthy cause. +% +You will be imprisoned for contributing your time and skill to a bank robbery. +% +You will be married within a year, and divorced within two. +% +You will be married within a year. +% +You will be misunderstood by everyone. +% +You will be recognized and honored as a community leader. +% +You will be reincarnated as a toad; and you will be much happier. +% +You will be run over by a beer truck. +% +You will be run over by a bus. +% +You will be singled out for promotion in your work. +% +You will be successful in love. +% +You will be surprised by a loud noise. +% +You will be surrounded by luxury. +% +You will be the last person to buy a Chrysler. +% +You will be the victim of a bizarre joke. +% +You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself. +% +You will be traveling and coming into a fortune. +% +You will be winged by an anti-aircraft battery. +% +You will become rich and famous unless you don't. +% +You will contract a rare disease. +% +You will engage in a profitable business activity. +% +You will experience a strong urge to do good; but it will pass. +% +You will feel hungry again in another hour. +% +You will forget that you ever knew me. +% +You will gain money by a fattening action. +% +You will gain money by a speculation or lottery. +% +You will gain money by an illegal action. +% +You will gain money by an immoral action. +% +You will get what you deserve. +% +You will give someone a piece of your mind, which you can ill afford. +% +You will have a long and boring life. +% +You will have a long and unpleasant discussion with your supervisor. +% +You will have domestic happiness and faithful friends. +% +You will have good luck and overcome many hardships. +% +You will have long and healthy life. +% +You will hear good news from one you thought unfriendly to you. +% +You will inherit millions of dollars. +% +You will inherit some money or a small piece of land. +% +You will live a long, healthy, happy life and make bags of money. +% +You will live to see your grandchildren. +% +You will lose your present job and have to become a door to door mayonnaise +salesman. +% +You will meet an important person who will help you advance professionally. +% +You will never know hunger. +% +You will not be elected to public office this year. +% +You will obey or molten silver will be poured into your ears. +% +You will outgrow your usefulness. +% +You will overcome the attacks of jealous associates. +% +You will pass away very quickly. +% +You will pay for your sins. If you have already paid, please disregard +this message. +% +You will pioneer the first Martian colony. +% +You will probably marry after a very brief courtship. +% +You will reach the highest possible point in your business or profession. +% +You will receive a legacy which will place you above want. +% +You will remember something that you should not have forgotten. +% +You will soon forget this. +% +You will soon meet a person who will play an important role in your life. +% +You will step on the night soil of many countries. +% +You will stop at nothing to reach your objective, but only because your +brakes are defective. +% +You will triumph over your enemy. +% +You will visit the Dung Pits of Glive soon. +% +You will win success in whatever calling you adopt. +% +You will wish you hadn't. +% +You work very hard. Don't try to think as well. +% +You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You are not paid enough to worry. +% +You would if you could but you can't so you won't. +% +You'd like to do it instantaneously, but that's too slow. +% +You'll be called to a post requiring ability in handling groups of people. +% +You'll be sorry... +% +You'll feel devilish tonight. Toss dynamite caps under a flamenco dancer's +heel. +% +You'll feel much better once you've given up hope. +% +You'll never be the man your mother was! +% +You'll never see all the places, or read all the books, but fortunately, +they're not all recommended. +% +You'll wish that you had done some of the hard things when they were easier +to do. +% +You're a card which will have to be dealt with. +% +You're almost as happy as you think you are. +% +You're at the end of the road again. +% +You're being followed. Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days. +% +You're currently going through a difficult transition period called "Life." +% +You're definitely on their list. The question to ask next is what list it is. +% +You're growing out of some of your problems, but there are others that +you're growing into. +% +You're not my type. For that matter, you're not even my species!!! +% +You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny. +% +You're working under a slight handicap. You happen to be human. +% +You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture. +% +Your aim is high and to the right. +% +Your aims are high, and you are capable of much. +% +Your analyst has you mixed up with another patient. Don't believe a +thing he tells you. +% +Your best consolation is the hope that the things you failed to get weren't +really worth having. +% +Your boss climbed the corporate ladder, wrong by wrong. +% +Your boss is a few sandwiches short of a picnic. +% +Your boyfriend takes chocolate from strangers. +% +Your business will assume vast proportions. +% +Your business will go through a period of considerable expansion. +% +Your depth of comprehension may tend to make you lax in worldly ways. +% +Your domestic life may be harmonious. +% +Your fly might be open (but don't check it just now). +% +Your goose is cooked. +(Your current chick is burned up too!) +% +Your heart is pure, and your mind clear, and your soul devout. +% +Your ignorance cramps my conversation. +% +Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret. +% +Your love life will be happy and harmonious. +% +Your love life will be... interesting. +% +Your lover will never wish to leave you. +% +Your lucky color has faded. +% +Your lucky number has been disconnected. +% +Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere. +% +Your mode of life will be changed for the better because of good news soon. +% +Your mode of life will be changed for the better because of new developments. +% +Your motives for doing whatever good deed you may have in mind will be +misinterpreted by somebody. +% +Your nature demands love and your happiness depends on it. +% +Your object is to save the world, while still leading a pleasant life. +% +Your own qualities will help prevent your advancement in the world. +% +Your present plans will be successful. +% +Your reasoning is excellent -- it's only your basic assumptions that are wrong. +% +Your reasoning powers are good, and you are a fairly good planner. +% +Your sister swims out to meet troop ships. +% +Your society will be sought by people of taste and refinement. +% +Your step will soil many countries. +% +Your supervisor is thinking about you. +% +Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded. +% +Your temporary financial embarrassment will be relieved in a surprising manner. +% +Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/goedel b/fortune-mod/datfiles/goedel new file mode 100644 index 0000000..94e5704 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/goedel @@ -0,0 +1,204 @@ +======================================================================= +|| || +|| The FORTUNE-COOKIE program is soon to be a Major Motion Picture! || +|| Watch for it at a theater near you next summer! || +|| || +======================================================================= + Francis Ford Coppola presents a George Lucas Production: + "Fortune Cookie" + Directed by Steven Spielberg. + Starring Harrison Ford Bette Midler Marlon Brando + Christopher Reeves Marilyn Chambers + and Bob Hope as "The Waiter". + Costumes Designed by Pierre Cardin. + Special Effects by Timothy Leary. + Read the Warner paperback! + Invoke the Unix program! + Soundtrack on XTC Records. + In 70mm and Dolby Stereo at selected theaters and terminal + centers. +% +3M, under the Scotch brand name, manufactures a fine adhesive for art +and display work. This product is called "Craft Mount". 3M suggests +that to obtain the best results, one should make the bond "while the +adhesive is wet, aggressively tacky." I did not know what "aggressively +tacky" meant until I read today's fortune. + + [And who said we didn't offer equal time, huh? Ed.] +% + Answers to Last Fortune's Questions: + + (1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark). + (2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle. + (3) I don't know. + (4) Who cares? + (5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk, + Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5. + (6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my + book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and + bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of + Papyrus Books). +% +Beware of computerized fortune-tellers! +% +By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as +difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. + -- R. Emerson + -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program + (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.") + [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to + misconstrue all these misquotations?!?" Ed.] +% +Chocolate chip. +% + DELETE A FORTUNE! +Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! +Wouldn't you like to see some of them deleted from the system? +You can! Just mail to `fortune' with the fortune you hate most, +and we'll make sure it gets expunged. +% +Did you know about the -o option of the fortune program? It makes a +selection from a set of offensive and/or obscene fortunes. Why not +try it, and see how offended you are? The -a ("all") option will +select a fortune at random from either the offensive or inoffensive +set, and it is suggested that "fortune -a" is the command that you +should have in your .profile or .cshrc. file. +% +Do not read this fortune under penalty of law. +Violators will be prosecuted. +(Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.)) +% +For 20 dollars, I'll give you a good fortune next time ... +% +For some reason, this fortune reminds everyone of Marvin Zelkowitz. +% +Fortune's current rates: + + Answers .10 + Long answers .25 + Answers requiring thought .50 + Correct answers $1.00 + + Dumb looks are still free. +% +Generic Fortune. +% +Ginger snap. +% +Has anyone realized that the purpose of the fortune cookie program is to +defuse project tensions? When did you ever see a cheerful cookie, a +non-cynical, or even an informative cookie? + Perhaps inadvertently, we have a channel for our aggressions. This +still begs the question of whether the cookie releases the pressure or only +serves to blunt the warning signs. + + Long live the revolution! + Have a nice day. +% +Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person +reading this note, that I can't think up any more famous quotes, jokes, +nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home. +% +I know you believe you understand what you think this fortune says, but +I'm not sure you realize that what you are reading is not what it means. +% +If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune. +% +If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams. +% +If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it. +% +If you wish to live wisely, ignore sayings -- including this one. +% +Ignore previous fortune. +% +In which level of metalanguage are you now speaking? +% +(null cookie; hope that's ok) +% +Oatmeal raisin. +% +Oreo. +% +Pardon this fortune. Database under reconstruction. +% +Pick another fortune cookie. +% +Please ignore previous fortune. +% +Since before the Earth was formed and before the sun burned hot in space, +cosmic forces of inexorable power have been working relentlessly toward +this moment in space-time -- your receiving this fortune. +% +Sorry, no fortune this time. +% +The fortune program is supported, in part, by user contributions and by +a major grant from the National Endowment for the Inanities. +% +There is no such thing as fortune. Try again. +% +This fortune cookie program out of order. For those in desperate need, +please use the program "________randchar". This program generates random +characters, and, given enough time, will undoubtedly come up with +something profound. It will, however, take it no time at all to be +more profound than THIS program has ever been. +% +This Fortune Examined By INSPECTOR NO. 2-14 +% +This fortune intentionally left blank. +% +This fortune intentionally not included. +% +This fortune intentionally says nothing. +% +This fortune is dedicated to your mother, without whose invaluable assistance +last night would never have been possible. +% +This fortune is encrypted -- get your decoder rings ready! +% +This fortune is false. +% +This fortune is inoperative. Please try another. +% +This fortune soaks up 47 times its own weight in excess memory. +% +This fortune was brought to you by the people at Hewlett-Packard. +% +This fortune would be seven words long if it were six words shorter. +% +THIS IS PLEDGE WEEK FOR THE FORTUNE PROGRAM + +If you like the fortune program, why not support it now with your +contribution of a pithy fortunes, clean or obscene? We cannot continue +without your support. Less than 14% of all fortune users are contributors. +That means that 86% of you are getting a free ride. We can't go on like +this much longer. Federal cutbacks mean less money for fortunes, and unless +user contributions increase to make up the difference, the fortune program +will have to shut down between midnight and 8 a.m. Don't let this happen. +Mail your fortunes right now to "fortune". Just type in your favorite pithy +saying. Do it now before you forget. Our target is 300 new fortunes by the +end of the week. Don't miss out. All fortunes will be acknowledged. If you +contribute 30 fortunes or more, you will receive a free subscription to "The +Fortune Hunter", our monthly program guide. If you contribute 50 or more, +you will receive a free "Fortune Hunter" coffee mug .... +% +This is your fortune. +% +Vanilla wafer. +% +Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters. +% +WARNING: + Reading this fortune can affect the dimensionality of your + mind, change the curvature of your spine, cause the growth + of hair on your palms, and make a difference in the outcome + of your favorite war. +% +We interrupt this fortune for an important announcement... +% +What does it mean if there is no fortune for you? +% +When you're not looking at it, this fortune is written in FORTRAN. +% +You will think of something funnier than this to add to the fortunes. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/html/Makefile b/fortune-mod/datfiles/html/Makefile new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04c9408 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/html/Makefile @@ -0,0 +1,20 @@ + +WCOOKIES= + +STRFILE=../util/strfile + + +all: wcookies-stamp + +wcookies-stamp: + rm -f *.dat + for i in $(WCOOKIES) ; do $(STRFILE) $$i || exit $$? ; done + touch cookies-stamp + +install: wcookies-stamp + install -m 0755 -d $(WCOOKIEDIR) + for i in $(WCOOKIES) ; do \ + install -m 0644 $$i $$i.dat $(WCOOKIEDIR) || exit $$? ; done + +clean: + rm -f wcookies-stamp *.dat diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/humorists b/fortune-mod/datfiles/humorists new file mode 100644 index 0000000..25ad3a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/humorists @@ -0,0 +1,1032 @@ +A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. + -- Groucho Marx +% +A friend of mine is into Voodoo Acupuncture. You don't have to go. +You'll just be walking down the street and... Ooohh, that's much better. + -- Steven Wright +% +A large spider in an old house built a beautiful web in which to catch flies. +Every time a fly landed on the web and was entangled in it the spider devoured +him, so that when another fly came along he would think the web was a safe and +quiet place in which to rest. One day a fairly intelligent fly buzzed around +above the web so long without lighting that the spider appeared and said, +"Come on down." But the fly was too clever for him and said, "I never light +where I don't see other flies and I don't see any other flies in your house." +So he flew away until he came to a place where there were a great many other +flies. He was about to settle down among them when a bee buzzed up and said, +"Hold it, stupid, that's flypaper. All those flies are trapped." "Don't be +silly," said the fly, "they're dancing." So he settled down and became stuck +to the flypaper with all the other flies. + +Moral: There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else. + -- James Thurber, "The Fairly Intelligent Fly" +% +A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths. + -- Steven Wright +% + A MODERN FABLE + +Aesop's fables and other traditional children's stories involve allegory +far too subtle for the youth of today. Children need an updated message +with contemporary circumstance and plot line, and short enough to suit +today's minute attention span. + + The Troubled Aardvark + +Once upon a time, there was an aardvark whose only pleasure in life was +driving from his suburban bungalow to his job at a large brokerage house +in his brand new 4x4. He hated his manipulative boss, his conniving and +unethical co-workers, his greedy wife, and his snivelling, spoiled +children. One day, the aardvark reflected on the meaning of his life and +his career and on the unchecked, catastrophic decline of his nation, its +pathetic excuse for leadership, and the complete ineffectiveness of any +personal effort he could make to change the status quo. Overcome by a +wave of utter depression and self-doubt, he decided to take the only +course of action that would bring him greater comfort and happiness: he +drove to the mall and bought imported consumer electronics goods. + +MORAL OF THE STORY: Invest in foreign consumer electronics manufacturers. + -- Tom Annau +% +A possum must be himself, and being himself he is honest. + -- Walt Kelly +% +"A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!" + -- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra" +% + Accidents cause History. + +If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the +Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not +have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil +could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and +the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates. + -- Woody Allen +% +All of the people in my building are insane. The guy above me designs +synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats. The lady across the hall tried to +rob a department store... with a pricing gun... She said, "Give me all +of the money in the vault, or I'm marking down everything in the store." + -- Steven Wright +% +And now for something completely different. +% +And now for something completely the same. +% + "Are you sure you're not an encyclopedia salesman?" + No, Ma'am. Just a burglar, come to ransack the flat." + -- Monty Python +% +As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's +so hard to figure out how to get the bark on. + -- Woody Allen +% +Being Ymor's right-hand man was like being gently flogged to death with +scented bootlaces. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +Bernard Shaw is an excellent man; he has not an enemy in the world, and +none of his friends like him either. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +"Boy, life takes a long time to live." + -- Steven Wright +% +Bozo is the Brotherhood of Zips and Others. Bozos are people who band +together for fun and profit. They have no jobs. Anybody who goes on a +tour is a Bozo. Why does a Bozo cross the street? Because there's a Bozo +on the other side. It comes from the phrase vos otros, meaning others. +They're the huge, fat, middle waist. The archetype is an Irish drunk +clown with red hair and nose, and pale skin. Fields, William Bendix. +Everybody tends to drift toward Bozoness. It has Oz in it. They mean +well. They're straight-looking except they've got inflatable shoes. They +like their comforts. The Bozos have learned to enjoy their free time, +which is all the time. + -- Firesign Theatre, "If Bees Lived Inside Your Head" +% +But I always fired into the nearest hill or, failing that, into blackness. +I meant no harm; I just liked the explosions. And I was careful never to +kill more than I could eat. + -- Raoul Duke +% +"But I don't like Spam!!!!" +% + "But I don't want to go on the cart..." + "Oh, don't be such a baby!" + "But I'm feeling much better..." + "No you're not... in a moment you'll be stone dead!" + -- Monty Python, "The Holy Grail" +% +Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to +point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very +fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are +often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people +from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B +that so many people from point A are so keen to get _____there. They often +wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell +they wanted to be. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +Comedy, like Medicine, was never meant to be practiced by the general public. +% +Death didn't answer. He was looking at Spold in the same way as a dog looks +at a bone, only in this case things were more or less the other way around. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +Decorate your home. It gives the illusion that your life is more +interesting than it really is. + -- C. Schulz +% +Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he +just whipped out a quarter? + -- Steven Wright +% +"Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly, +sincerely, extremely dangerously. + +They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardio plate crossoffs. +They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stick tites. They used +intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used finks. +They used cops. They used search and seizure. They used fallaron. They +used betterment incentives. They used finger prints. They used the +bertillion system. They used cunning. They used guile. They used treachery. +They used Raoul-Mitgong but he wasn't much help. They used applied physics. +They used techniques of criminology. And what the hell, they caught him. + -- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man" +% +Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent. + -- Walt Kelly +% +Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow +in Australia. + -- Charles Schulz +% +Early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. + -- Woody Allen +% +Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end? + -- Tom Stoppard +% +Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what, +exactly, make people laugh. That's why they were called "wise men." All the +other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with spears, and the +wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about: Would you please take my +wife? No. How about: Here is my wife, please take her right now. No How +about: Would you like to take something? My wife is available. No. How +about ..." + -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" +% +Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the +Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. +Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an +utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life +forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches +are a pretty neat idea ... + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +Faster, faster, you fool, you fool! + -- Bill Cosby +% +First, a few words about tools. + +Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage of the +laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously injure +yourself. Today, people tend to take tools for granted. If you're ever +walking down the street and you notice some people who look particularly +smug, the odds are that they are taking tools for granted. If I were you, +I'd walk right up and smack them in the face. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier... I put them in +the same room and let them fight it out. + -- Steven Wright +% +From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was convulsed +with laughter. Some day I intend reading it. + -- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults" +% +God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh. +% +He asked me if I knew what time it was -- I said yes, but not right now. + -- Steven Wright +% +"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like +`Psychic Wins Lottery'?" + -- Jay Leno +% +Hey, what do you expect from a culture that *drives* on *parkways* and +*parks* on *driveways*? + -- Gallagher +% +High Priest: Armaments Chapter One, verses nine through twenty-seven: +Bro. Maynard: And Saint Attila raised the Holy Hand Grenade up on high + saying, "Oh Lord, Bless us this Holy Hand Grenade, and with it + smash our enemies to tiny bits." And the Lord did grin, and the + people did feast upon the lambs, and stoats, and orangutans, and + breakfast cereals, and lima bean- +High Priest: Skip a bit, brother. +Bro. Maynard: And then the Lord spake, saying: "First, shalt thou take + out the holy pin. Then shalt thou count to three. No more, no less. + *Three* shall be the number of the counting, and the number of the + counting shall be three. *Four* shalt thou not count, and neither + count thou two, excepting that thou then goest on to three. Five is + RIGHT OUT. Once the number three, being the third number be reached, + then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade towards thy foe, who, being + naughty in my sight, shall snuff it. Amen. +All: Amen. + -- Monty Python, "The Holy Hand Grenade" +% +"Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse." + -- William Gilbert +% +Humorists always sit at the children's table. + -- Woody Allen +% +I am a conscientious man, when I throw rocks at seabirds I leave no tern +unstoned. + -- Ogden Nash, "Everybody's Mind to Me a Kingdom Is" +% +I am getting into abstract painting. Real abstract -- no brush, no canvas, +I just think about it. I just went to an art museum where all of the art +was done by children. All the paintings were hung on refrigerators. + -- Steven Wright +% +I am two with nature. + -- Woody Allen +% +I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on +any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at +parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me. + -- Dave Barry +% + "I assure you the thought never even crossed my mind, lord." + "Indeed? Then if I were you I'd sue my face for slander." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +I base my fashion taste on what doesn't itch. + -- Gilda Radner +% +I bought some used paint. It was in the shape of a house. + -- Steven Wright +% +I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar. + +What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good +grammar. For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading cause +of slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, the +United States would have lost World War II." + -- Dave Barry, "An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar" +% +"I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lights instead! Now +when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else is standing still ..." + -- Steven Wright +% +I could dance with you till the cows come home. On second thought, I'd rather +dance with the cows till you come home. + -- Groucho Marx +% +I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that +either. + -- Jack Benny +% +I don't get no respect. +% +I don't kill flies, but I like to mess with their minds. I hold them above +globes. They freak out and yell "Whooa, I'm *way* too high." + -- Bruce Baum +% +I don't want to live on in my work, I want to live on in my apartment. + -- Woody Allen +% +I finally went to the eye doctor. I got contacts. I only need them to +read, so I got flip-ups. + -- Steven Wright +% +"I got into an elevator at work and this man followed in after me... I +pushed '1' and he just stood there... I said 'Hi, where you going?' He +said, 'Phoenix.' So I pushed Phoenix. A few seconds later the doors +opened, two tumbleweeds blew in... we were in downtown Phoenix. I looked +at him and said 'You know, you're the kind of guy I want to hang around +with.' We got into his car and drove out to his shack in the desert. +Then the phone rang. He said 'You get it.' I picked it up and said +'Hello?'... the other side said 'Is this Steven Wright?'... I said 'Yes...' +The guy said 'Hi, I'm Mr. Jones, the student loan director from your bank... +It seems you have missed your last 17 payments, and the university you +attended said that they received none of the $17,000 we loaned you... we +would just like to know what happened to the money?' I said, 'Mr. Jones, +I'll give it to you straight. I gave all of the money to my friend Slick, +and with it he built a nuclear weapon... and I would appreciate it if you never +called me again." + -- Steven Wright +% +I got my driver's license photo taken out of focus on purpose. Now +when I get pulled over the cop looks at it (moving it nearer and +farther, trying to see it clearly)... and says, "Here, you can go." + -- Steven Wright +% +I got this powdered water -- now I don't know what to add. + -- Steven Wright +% +I got tired of listening to the recording on the phone at the movie +theater. So I bought the album. I got kicked out of a theater the +other day for bringing my own food in. I argued that the concession +stand prices were outrageous. Besides, I hadn't had a barbecue in a +long time. I went to the theater and the sign said adults $5 children +$2.50. I told them I wanted 2 boys and a girl. I once took a cab to +a drive-in movie. The movie cost me $95. + -- Steven Wright +% +I had no shoes and I pitied myself. Then I met a man who had no feet, +so I took his shoes. + -- Dave Barry +% +I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day cause that means +it's going to be up all night. + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a box of telephone rings under my bed. Whenever I get lonely, I +open it up a little bit, and I get a phone call. One day I dropped the +box all over the floor. The phone wouldn't stop ringing. I had to get +it disconnected. So I got a new phone. I didn't have much money, so I +had to get an irregular. It doesn't have a five. I ran into a friend +of mine on the street the other day. He said why don't you give me a +call. I told him I can't call everybody I want to anymore, my phone +doesn't have a five. He asked how long had it been that way. I said I +didn't know -- my calendar doesn't have any sevens. + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a dog; I named him Stay. So when I'd go to call him, I'd say, "Here, +Stay, here..." but he got wise to that. Now when I call him he ignores me +and just keeps on typing. + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a friend whose a billionaire. He invented Cliff's notes. When +I asked him how he got such a great idea he said, "Well first I... +I just... to make a long story short..." + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a hobby. I have the world's largest collection of sea shells. I keep +it scattered on beaches all over the world. Maybe you've seen some of it. + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a map of the United States. It's actual size. I spent last summer +folding it. People ask me where I live, and I say, "E6". + -- Steven Wright +% +I have a rock garden. Last week three of them died. + -- Richard Diran +% +I have a switch in my apartment that doesn't do anything. Every once +in a while I turn it on and off. On and off. On and off. One day I +got a call from a woman in France who said "Cut it out!" + -- Steven Wright +% +I have an existential map. It has "You are here" written all over it. + -- Steven Wright +% +I just got out of the hospital after a speed reading accident. +I hit a bookmark. + -- Steven Wright +% +I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! +The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building. + -- Charles Schulz +% +I look at life as being cruise director on the Titanic. I may not get +there, but I'm going first class. + -- Art Buchwald +% +"I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is what +entertainment is all about ... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils." + -- Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson +% +I met my latest girl friend in a department store. She was looking at +clothes, and I was putting Slinkys on the escalators. + -- Steven Wright +% +I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception. + -- Groucho Marx +% +I poured spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone. + -- Steven Wright +% +I put contact lenses in my dog's eyes. They had little pictures of cats +on them. Then I took one out and he ran around in circles. + -- Steven Wright +% +I put instant coffee in a microwave and almost went back in time. + -- Steven Wright +% + "I said I hope it is a good party," said Galder, loudly. + "AT THE MOMENT IT IS," said Death levelly. "I THINK IT MIGHT GO +DOWNHILL VERY QUICKLY AT MIDNIGHT." + "Why?" + "THAT'S WHEN THEY THINK I'LL BE TAKING MY MASK OFF." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +I saw a subliminal advertising executive, but only for a second. + -- Steven Wright +% +I should have been a country-western singer. After all, I'm older than +most western countries. + -- George Burns +% +I sold my memoirs of my love life to Parker Brothers -- they're going +to make a game out of it. + -- Woody Allen +% +I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full +house and four people died. + -- Steven Wright +% +I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't do too +much damage if it catches fire or explodes. First you decide which +direction your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy. After much +trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hot tub to face +is up. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +I tell ya, gambling never agreed with me. Last week I went to the track +and they shot my horse with the opening gun. + +Well, just last week I was at a Chinese restaurant and when I opened my +fortune cookie I found the guy's check sitting at the next table. I said, +"Hey, buddy, I got your check", he said, "Thanks." + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I think we're all Bozos on this bus. + -- Firesign Theatre +% +I thought there was something fishy about the butler. Probably a Pisces, +working for scale. + -- Firesign Theatre, "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger" +% +I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace in +twenty minutes. + +It's about Russia. + -- Woody Allen +% +I turned my air conditioner the other way around, and it got cold out. +The weatherman said "I don't understand it. I was supposed to be 80 +degrees today," and I said "Oops." + +In my house on the ceilings I have paintings of the rooms above... so +I never have to go upstairs. + +I just bought a microwave fireplace... You can spend an evening in +front of it in only eight minutes. + -- Steven Wright +% +I used to live in a house by the freeway. When I went anywhere, I had +to be going 65 MPH by the end of my driveway. + +I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights. Now it looks +like I'm the only one moving. + +I was pulled over for speeding today. The officer said, "Don't you know +the speed limit is 55 miles an hour?" And I said, "Yes, but I wasn't going +to be out that long." + +I put a new engine in my car, but didn't take the old one out. Now +my car goes 500 miles an hour. + -- Steven Wright +% +I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near +the place. + -- Steven Wright +% +I was at this restaurant. The sign said "Breakfast Anytime." So I +ordered French Toast in the Rennaissance. + -- Steven Wright +% +"I was drunk last night, crawled home across the lawn. By accident I +put the car key in the door lock. The house started up. So I figured +what the hell, and drove it around the block a few times. I thought I +should go park it in the middle of the freeway and yell at everyone to +get off my driveway." + -- Steven Wright +% +I was in a bar and I walked up to a beautiful woman and said, "Do you live +around here often?" She said, "You're wearing two different-color socks." +I said, "Yes, but to me they're the same because I go by thickness." +She said, "How do you feel?" And I said, "You know when you're sitting on a +chair and you lean back so you're just on two legs and you lean too far so +you almost fall over but at the last second you catch yourself? I feel like +that all the time..." + -- Steven Wright, "Gentlemen's Quarterly" +% +I was in Vegas last week. I was at the roulette table, having a lengthy +argument about what I considered an Odd number. + -- Steven Wright +% +I was the best I ever had. + -- Woody Allen +% +"I went into a general store, and they wouldn't sell me anything specific". + -- Steven Wright +% +"I went to a job interview the other day, the guy asked me if I had any +questions , I said yes, just one, if you're in a car traveling at the +speed of light and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen? + +He said he couldn't answer that, I told him sorry, but I couldn't work +for him then. + -- Steven Wright +% +"I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the +statues that are in all the other museums." + -- Steven Wright +% +I woke up this morning and discovered that everything in my apartment +had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica. I told my roommate, +"Isn't this amazing? Everything in the apartment has been stolen and +replaced with an exact replica." He said, "Do I know you?" + -- Steven Wright +% +I worked in a health food store once. A guy came in and asked me, +"If I melt dry ice, can I take a bath without getting wet?" + -- Steven Wright +% +I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse. + -- Groucho Marx +% +I'D LIKE TO BE BURIED INDIAN-STYLE, where they put you up on a high rack, +above the ground. That way, you could get hit by meteorites and not even +feel it. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I'd never join any club that would have the likes of me as a member. + -- Groucho Marx +% +I'll be comfortable on the couch. Famous last words. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +I'm going to Boston to see my doctor. He's a very sick man. + -- Fred Allen +% +I'm going to give my psychoanalyst one more year, then I'm going to Lourdes. + -- Woody Allen +% +I'm going to live forever, or die trying! + -- Spider Robinson +% +I'm not afraid of death -- I just don't want to be there when it happens. + -- Woody Allen +% +I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it. + -- Groucho Marx +% +If God had wanted us to be concerned for the plight of the toads, he would +have made them cute and furry. + -- Dave Barry +% +If only Dionysus were alive! Where would he eat? + -- Woody Allen +% +If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit +in my name at a Swiss bank. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +If you live to the age of a hundred you have it made because very few +people die past the age of a hundred. + -- George Burns +% +If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do would be +to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to +say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw another party +next year. + What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake +up several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've been +indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious to avoid a +recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning parties of their +own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from having another one ... + If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, +unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas +through your living room window. As host, your job is to make sure that +they don't arrest anybody. Or if they're dead set on arresting someone, +your job is to make sure it isn't you ... + -- Dave Barry +% +If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. + -- Woody Allen +% +If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round it +off with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the universe? + -- Douglas Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" +% +In America today ... we have Woody Allen, whose humor has become so +sophisticated that nobody gets it any more except Mia Farrow. All those who +think Mia Farrow should go back to making movies where the devil gets her +pregnant and Woody Allen should go back to dressing up as a human sperm, +please raise your hands. Thank you. + -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" +% +In like a dimwit, out like a light. + -- Pogo +% +Is it weird in here, or is it just me? + -- Steven Wright +% +It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what +they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed +that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so +much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins +had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But +conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more +intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons. + +Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending +destruction of the of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to +alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were +misinterpreted ... + -- Douglas Admas "The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy" +% +It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune. + -- Woody Allen +% +It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be +unhappy. + -- Groucho Marx +% +It looked like something resembling white marble, which was +probably what it was: something resembling white marble. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" +% +It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it. + -- Steven Wright +% +It's hard to get ivory in Africa, but in Alabama the Tuscaloosa. + -- Groucho Marx +% +It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens. + -- Woody Allen +% +Last night the power went out. Good thing my camera had a flash.... +The neighbors thought it was lightning in my house, so they called the cops. + -- Steven Wright +% +Last year we drove across the country... We switched on the driving... +every half mile. We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip. +I don't remember what it was. + -- Steven Wright +% +Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. + -- Woody Allen, "Annie Hall" +% +Life is wasted on the living. + -- The Restaurant at the Edge of the Universe. +% +Like you, I am frequently haunted by profound questions related to man's +place in the Scheme of Things. Here are just a few: + + Q -- Is there life after death? + A -- Definitely. I speak from personal experience here. On New +Year's Eve, 1970, I drank a full pitcher of a drink called "Black Russian", +then crawled out on the lawn and died within a matter of minutes, which was +fine with me because I had come to realize that if I had lived I would have +spent the rest of my life in the grip of the most excruciatingly painful +headache. Thanks to the miracle of modern orange juice, I was brought back +to life several days later, but in the interim I was definitely dead. I +guess my main impression of the afterlife is that it isn't so bad as long +as you keep the television turned down and don't try to eat any solid foods. + -- Dave Barry +% +Man 1: Ask me the what the most important thing about telling a good joke is. + +Man 2: OK, what is the most impo -- + +Man 1: ______TIMING! +% + "Many have seen Topaxci, God of the Red Mushroom, and they earn the +name of shaman," he said. Some have seen Skelde, spirit of the smoke, and +they are called sorcerers. A few have been privileged to see Umcherrel, the +soul of the forest, and they are known as spirit masters. But none have +seen a box with hundreds of legs that looked at them without eyes, and they +are known as idio--" + The interruption was caused by a sudden screaming noise and a flurry +of snow and sparks that blew the fire across the dark hut; there was a brief +blurred vision and then the opposite wall was blasted aside and the +apparition vanished. + There was a long silence. Then a slightly shorter silence. Then +the old shaman said carefully, "You didn't just see two men go through +upside down on a broomstick, shouting and screaming at each other, did you?" + The boy looked at him levelly. "Certainly not," he said. + The old man heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for that," he +said. "Neither did I." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon, +there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he +was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how +completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday.... + -- Walt Kelly +% +My brother sent me a postcard the other day with this big satellite photo +of the entire earth on it. On the back it said: "Wish you were here". + -- Steven Wright +% +My friend has a baby. I'm writing down all the noises he makes so +later I can ask him what he meant. + -- Steven Wright +% + My friends, I am here to tell you of the wonderous continent known as +Africa. Well we left New York drunk and early on the morning of February 31. +We were 15 days on the water, and 3 on the boat when we finally arrived in +Africa. Upon our arrival we immediately set up a rigorous schedule: Up at +6:00, breakfast, and back in bed by 7:00. Pretty soon we were back in bed by +6:30. Now Africa is full of big game. The first day I shot two bucks. That +was the biggest game we had. Africa is primerally inhabited by Elks, Moose +and Knights of Pithiests. + The elks live up in the mountains and come down once a year for their +annual conventions. And you should see them gathered around the water hole, +which they leave immediately when they discover it's full of water. They +weren't looking for a water hole. They were looking for an alck hole. + One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my +pajamas, I don't know. Then we tried to remove the tusks. That's a tough +word to say, tusks. As I said we tried to remove the tusks, but they were +imbedded so firmly we couldn't get them out. But in Alabama the Tuscaloosa, +but that is totally irrelephant to what I was saying. + We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed. +So we're going back in a few years... + -- Julius H. Marx [Groucho] +% +Nietzsche says that we will live the same life, over and over again. +God -- I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again. + -- Woody Allen, "Hannah and Her Sisters" +% +Nirvana? That's the place where the powers that be and their friends hang out. + -- Zonker Harris +% +NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! +% +Now is the time for all good men to come to. + -- Walt Kelly +% + Obviously the subject of death was in the air, but more as something +to be avoided than harped upon. + Possibly the horror that Zaphod experienced at the prospect of being +reunited with his deceased relatives led on to the thought that they might +just feel the same way about him and, what's more, be able to do something +about helping to postpone this reunion. + -- Douglas Adams +% +One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you. + -- Larry Gelbart +% +Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too +dark to read. + -- Groucho Marx +% +Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves to +spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to +indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest +person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you +are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other +passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they +have plenty of food and water. + -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" +% +"Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time." + -- Steven Wright +% +Rincewind formed a mental picture of some strange entity living in a castle +made of teeth. It was the kind of mental picture you tried to forget. +Unsuccessfully. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Romeo wasn't bilked in a day. + -- Walt Kelly, "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo" +% +Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off +during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent. + -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every + Teen Should Know" +% +Showing up is 80% of life. + -- Woody Allen +% +Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to celebrate +it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around stringing +cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on "The Waltons". +Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind of subversive stunt, +the economy would collapse overnight. The government would have to +intervene: it would form a cabinet-level Department of Holiday Gift-Giving, +which would spend billions and billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls +and electronic games, which it would drop on the populace from Air Force +jets, killing and maiming thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you +should go along with the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large +sum of money and go to a mall. + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +SOMETIMES THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD is so overwhelming, I just want to throw +back my head and gargle. Just gargle and gargle and I don't care who hears +me because I am beautiful. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Thank goodness modern convenience is a thing of the remote future. + -- Pogo, by Walt Kelly +% +The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient than cities. +Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and difficult to +park in. Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots, which are also +dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but -- here is the big +difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO RULES. You're allowed to +do anything. You can drive as fast as you want in any direction you want. +I was once driving in a mall parking lot when my car was struck by a pickup +truck being driven backward by a squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie" +on his forearm, who got out and explained to me, in great detail, why the +accident was my fault, his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular, +whereas I was neither. This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall +parking lots. + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. + -- W. C. Fields +% +The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them +is a match. + -- Will Rogers +% +The buffalo isn't as dangerous as everyone makes him out to be. +Statistics prove that in the United States more Americans are killed in +automobile accidents than are killed by buffalo. + -- Art Buchwald +% +The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all +who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature. + -- Benjamin Franklin. +% + The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on +the subject of towels. + Most importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For +some reason, if a non-hitchhiker discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel +with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a +toothbrush, washcloth, flask, gnat spray, space suit, etc., etc. Furthermore, +the non-hitchhiker will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or +a dozen other items that he may have "lost". After all, any man who can +hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, struggle against terrible odds, +win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be +reckoned with. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +The other day I... uh, no, that wasn't me. + -- Steven Wright +% + "The pyramid is opening!" + "Which one?" + "The one with the ever-widening hole in it!" + -- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At + Once When You're Not Anywhere At All" +% + The Three Major Kind of Tools + +* Tools for hittings things to make them loose or to tighten them up or +jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a +manner that they function perfectly. (These are your hammers, maces, +bludgeons, and truncheons.) + +* Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate your foot. (Awls) + +* Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far +greater than the value of any project that could possibly result. +(Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses +any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.) + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +There comes a time in the affairs of a man when he has to take the bull +by the tail and face the situation. + -- W.C. Fields +% +There's no easy quick way out, we're gonna have to live through our +whole lives, win, lose, or draw. + -- Walt Kelly +% +There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is +becoming an endangered synthetic. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them. + -- Will Rogers +% +This land is full of trousers! +this land is full of mausers! + And pussycats to eat them when the sun goes down! + -- Firesign Theater +% +Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. + -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +TOO BAD YOU CAN'T BUY a voodoo globe so that you could make the earth spin +real fast and freak everybody out. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Twenty Percent of Zero is Better than Nothing. + -- Walt Kelly +% +We have met the enemy, and he is us. + -- Walt Kelly +% +We is confronted with insurmountable opportunities. + -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo" +% +What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I +definitely overpaid for my carpet. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, +what if only that fat guy in the third row exists? + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making +them puke. + -- Steve Martin +% + "What shall we do?" said Twoflower. + "Panic?" said Rincewind hopefully. He always held that panic was +the best means of survival; back in the olden days, his theory went, people +faced with hungry sabretoothed tigers could be divided very simply into +those who panicked and those who stood there saying "What a magnificent +brute!" and "Here, pussy." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +What's another word for "thesaurus"? + -- Steven Wright +% +When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if +I had any firearms with me. I said, "Well, what do you need?" + -- Steven Wright +% +When I was little, I went into a pet shop and they asked how big I'd get. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +When I woke up this morning, my girlfriend asked if I had slept well. +I said, "No, I made a few mistakes." + -- Steven Wright +% +Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what +is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song? + -- Steven Wright +% +Will Rogers never met you. +% +Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity... +If you wanted to run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your +head... if you wanted to cook, you had to pull off a sweater real quick... + -- Steven Wright +% +Would you *______really* want to get on a non-stop flight? + -- George Carlin +% +You can't have everything. Where would you put it? + -- Steven Wright +% + "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon +airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in +deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me +when I was young!" + "Why, what did she tell you?" + "I don't know, I didn't listen." + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +You may already be a loser. + -- Form letter received by Rodney Dangerfield. +% +You'd better beat it. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a taxi, you +can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff. + -- Groucho Marx +% +You're a good example of why some animals eat their young. + -- Jim Samuels to a heckler + +Ah, yes. I remember my first beer. + -- Steve Martin to a heckler + +When your IQ rises to 28, sell. + -- Professor Irwin Corey to a heckler +% +FORTUNE'S RANDOM QUOTES FROM MATCH GAME 75, NO. 1: + + Gene Rayburn: We'd like to close with a thought for the day, friends --- + something ... + + Someone: (interrupting) Uh-oh + + Gene Rayburn: ...pithy, full of wisdom --- and we call on the Poet + Laureate, Lipsy Russell + +Lipsy Russell: The young people are very different today, and there is + one sure way to know: Kids to use to ask where they came + from, now they'll tell you where you can go. + + All: (laughter) +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/kids b/fortune-mod/datfiles/kids new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e41d614 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/kids @@ -0,0 +1,710 @@ +A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no +responsibility at the other. +% +A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. + -- Carl Sandburg +% +A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five. +% +A kid'll eat the middle of an Oreo, eventually. +% +A little kid went up to Santa and asked him, "Santa, you know when I'm bad +right?" And Santa says, "Yes, I do." The little kid then asks, "And you +know when I'm sleeping?" To which Santa replies, "Every minute." So the +little kid then says, "Well, if you know when I'm bad and when I'm good, +then how come you don't know what I want for Christmas?" +% + A young married couple had their first child. Their original pride +and joy slowly turned to concern however, for after a couple of years the +child had never uttered any form of speech. They hired the best speech +therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, all to no avail. The child simply refused +to speak. One morning when the child was five, while the husband was reading +the paper, and the wife was feeding the dog, the little kid looks up from +his bowl and said, "My cereal's cold." + The couple is stunned. The man, in tears, confronts his son. "Son, +after all these years, why have you waited so long to say something?". + Shrugs the kid, "Everything's been okay 'til now". +% +About the only thing we have left that actually discriminates in favor of +the plain people is the stork. +% +Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they escaped +teething. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to look like you ... + -- Gilda Radner +% + After watching an extremely attractive maternity-ward patient +earnestly thumbing her way through a telephone directory for several +minutes, a hospital orderly finally asked if he could be of some help. + "No, thanks," smiled the young mother, "I'm just looking for a +name for my baby." + "But the hospital supplies a special booklet that lists hundreds +of first names and their meanings," said the orderly. + "That won't help," said the woman, "my baby already has a first name." +% +And he climbed with the lad up the Eiffelberg Tower. "This," cried the Mayor, +"is your town's darkest hour! The time for all Whos who have blood that is red +to come to the aid of their country!" he said. "We've GOT to make noises in +greater amounts! So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!" Thus he +spoke as he climbed. When they got to the top, the lad cleared his throat and +he shouted out, "YOPP!" + And that Yopp... That one last small, extra Yopp put it over! +Finally, at last! From the speck on that clover their voices were heard! +They rang out clear and clean. And they elephant smiled. "Do you see what +I mean?" They've proved they ARE persons, no matter how small. And their +whole world was saved by the smallest of All!" + "How true! Yes, how true," said the big kangaroo. "And, from now +on, you know what I'm planning to do? From now on, I'm going to protect +them with you!" And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "ME TOO! From +the sun in the summer. From rain when it's fall-ish, I'm going to protect +them. No matter how small-ish!" + -- Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who" +% +Any father who thinks he's all important should remind himself that this +country honors fathers only one day a year while pickles get a whole week. +% +Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has never +tried taking candy from a baby. + -- Robin Hood +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to +say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + Are you sure you're telling the truth? Think hard. + Does it make you happy to know you're sending me to an early grave? + If all your friends jumped off the cliff, would you jump too? + Do you feel bad? How do you think I feel? + Aren't you ashamed of yourself? + Don't you know any better? + How could you be so stupid? + If that's the worst pain you'll ever feel, you should be thankful. + You can't fool me. I know what you're thinking. + If you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to +say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + Do as I say, not as I do. + Do me a favour and don't tell me about it. I don't want to know. + What did you do *this* time? + If it didn't taste bad, it wouldn't be good for you. + When I was your age... + I won't love you if you keep doing that. + Think of all the starving children in India. + If there's one thing I hate, it's a liar. + I'm going to kill you. + Way to go, clumsy. + If you don't like it, you can lump it. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to +say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + Go away. You bother me. + Why? Because life is unfair. + That's a nice drawing. What is it? + Children should be seen and not heard. + You'll be the death of me. + You'll understand when you're older. + Because. + Wipe that smile off your face. + I don't believe you. + How many times have I told you to be careful? + Just because. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to +say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + Good children always obey. + Quit acting so childish. + Boys don't cry. + If you keep making faces, someday it'll freeze that way. + Why do you have to know so much? + This hurts me more than it hurts you. + Why? Because I'm bigger than you. + Well, you've ruined everything. Now are you happy? + Oh, grow up. + I'm only doing this because I love you. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to +say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + When are you going to grow up? + I'm only doing this for your own good. + Why are you crying? Stop crying, or I'll give you something to + cry about. + What's wrong with you? + Someday you'll thank me for this. + You'd lose your head if it weren't attached. + Don't you have any sense at all? + If you keep sucking your thumb, it'll fall off. + Why? Because I said so. + I hope you have a kid just like yourself. +% +Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to +say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... + + You wouldn't understand. + You ask too many questions. + In order to be a man, you have to learn to follow orders. + That's for me to know and you to find out. + Don't let those bullies push you around. Go in there and stick + up for yourself. + You're acting too big for your britches. + Well, you broke it. Now are you satisfied? + Wait till your father gets home. + Bored? If you're bored, I've got some chores for you. + Shape up or ship out. +% +Article the Third: + Where a crime of the kidneys has been committed, the accused should + enjoy the right to a speedy diaper change. Public announcements and + guided tours of the aforementioned are not necessary. +Article the Fourth: + The decision to eat strained lamb or not should be with the "feedee" + and not the "feeder". Blowing the strained lamb into the feeder's + face should be accepted as an opinion, not as a declaration of war. +Article the Fifth: + Babies should enjoy the freedom to vocalize, whether it be in church, + a public meeting place, during a movie, or after hours when the + lights are out. They have not yet learned that joy and laughter have + to last a lifetime and must be conserved. + -- Erma Bombeck, "A Baby's Bill of Rights" +% +Beat your son every day; you may not know why, but he will. +% +Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us. + -- Henrik Tikkanen +% +Billy: Mom, you know that vase you said was handed down from + generation to generation? +Mom: Yes? +Billy: Well, this generation dropped it. +% +Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests, +since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% + Catching his children with their hands in the new, still wet, patio, +the father spanked them. His wife asked, "Don't you love your children?" +"In the abstract, yes, but not in the concrete." +% +Catproof is an oxymoron, childproof nearly so. +% +Children are like cats, they can tell when you don't like them. That's +when they come over and violate your body space. +% +Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every +effort to teach them good manners. +% +Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're +going to catch you in next. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% +Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. +Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for +word what you shouldn't have said. +% +Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives. + -- Maya Angelou, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" +% +Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling +the walk before it stops snowing. + -- Phyllis Diller + +There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years +the dirt doesn't get any worse. + -- Quentin Crisp +% +Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's +beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning +them at birth. +% +Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. + -- Robert Heinlein +% +Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children, +neither will you. +% +For adult education nothing beats children. +% +For children with short attention spans: boomerangs that don't come back. +% +FORTUNE REMEMBERS THE GREAT MOTHERS: #5 + + "And, and, and, and, but, but, but, but!" + -- Mrs. Janice Markowsky, April 8, 1965 +% +FORTUNE REMEMBERS THE GREAT MOTHERS: #6 + + "Johnny, if you fall and break your leg, don't come running to me!" + -- Mrs. Emily Barstow, June 16, 1954 +% +Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children! +% + -- Gifts for Children -- + +This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children, +because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months and +months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday- morning +cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your children exactly what +they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If your child thinks +he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You Can Rip Right Off, you'd +better get it. You may be worried that it might help to encourage your +child's antisocial tendencies, but believe me, you have not seen antisocial +tendencies until you've seen a child who is convinced that he or she did not +get the right gift. + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters +needs pounding. +% +Give your child mental blocks for Christmas. +% +Having children is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain. + -- Martin Mull +% +How sharper than a serpent's tooth is a sister's "See?" + -- Linus Van Pelt +% +"Humpf!" Humpfed a voice! "For almost two days you've run wild and insisted on +chatting with persons who've never existed. Such carryings-on in our peaceable +jungle! We've had quite enough of you bellowing bungle! And I'm here to +state," snapped the big kangaroo, "That your silly nonsensical game is all +through!" And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "Me, too!" + "With the help of the Wickersham Brothers and dozens of Wickersham +Uncles and Wickersham Cousins and Wickersham In-Laws, whose help I've engaged, +You're going to be roped! And you're going to be caged! And, as for your dust +speck... Hah! That we shall boil in a hot steaming kettle of Beezle-Nut oil!" + -- Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who" +% +I BET WHEN NEANDERTHAL KIDS would make a snowman, someone would always +end up saying, "Don't forget the thick heavy brows." Then they would get +embarrassed because they remembered they had the big hunky brows too, and +they'd get mad and eat the snowman. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I called my parents the other night, but I forgot about the time difference. +They're still living in the fifties. + -- Strange de Jim +% + I did some heavy research so as to be prepared for "Mommy, why is +the sky blue?" + HE asked me about black holes in space. + (There's a hole *where*?) + + I boned up to be ready for, "Why is the grass green?" + HE wanted to discuss nature's food chains. + (Well, let's see, there's ShopRite, Pathmark...) + + I talked about Choo-Choo trains. + HE talked internal combustion engines. + (The INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE said, "I think I can, I think I can.") + + I was delighted with the video game craze, thinking we could compete +as equals. + HE described the complexities of the microchips required to create +the graphics. + + Then puberty struck. Ah, adolescence. + HE said, "Mom, I just don't understand women." + (Gotcha!) + -- Betty LiBrizzi, "The Care and Feeding of a Gifted Child" +% +I hate babies. They're so human. + -- H.H. Munro +% +I know what "custody" [of the children] means. "Get even." That's all +custody means. Get even with your old lady. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +I love children. Especially when they cry -- for then someone takes them away. + -- Nancy Mitford +% +I opened the drawer of my little desk and a single letter fell out, a +letter from my mother, written in pencil, one of her last, with unfinished +words and an implicit sense of her departure. It's so curious: one can +resist tears and "behave" very well in the hardest hours of grief. But +then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window... or one notices +that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed... or +a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses. + -- Letters From Colette +% +I tell ya, I was an ugly kid. I was so ugly that my dad kept the kid's +picture that came with the wallet he bought. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I told my kids, "Someday, you'll have kids of your own." One of them said, +"So will you." + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I used to think I was a child; now I think I am an adult -- not because +I no longer do childish things, but because those I call adults are no +more mature than I am. +% +I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't know +anything else ... I was not a Child Prodigy, because a Child Prodigy is +a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows up. + -- Will Rogers +% +If a child annoys you, quiet him by brushing his hair. If this doesn't +work, use the other side of the brush on the other end of the child. +% +If parents would only realize how they bore their children. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters. + -- Nora Ephron, "Heartburn" +% +If the very old will remember, the very young will listen. + -- Chief Dan George +% +If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent. + -- Bette Davis +% +If your mother knew what you're doing, she'd probably hang her head and cry. +% +Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. +% +It is better to remain childless than to father an orphan. +% +It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start life as children. + -- Kingsley Amis +% +It is so soon that I am done for, I wonder what I was begun for. + -- Epitaph, Cheltenham Churchyard +% +It must have been some unmarried fool that said "A child can ask questions +that a wise man cannot answer"; because, in any decent house, a brat that +starts asking questions is promptly packed off to bed. + -- Arthur Binstead +% +It now costs more to amuse a child than it once did to educate his father. +% +It's never too late to have a happy childhood. +% +Kids always brighten up a house; mostly by leaving the lights on. +% +Kids have *_____never* taken guidance from their parents. If you could +travel back in time and observe the original primate family in the +original tree, you would see the primate parents yelling at the primate +teenager for sitting around and sulking all day instead of hunting for +grubs and berries like dad primate. Then you'd see the primate +teenager stomp up to his branch and slam the leaves. + -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" +% +Lies! All lies! You're all lying against my boys! + -- Ma Barker +% +Life does not begin at the moment of conception or the moment of birth. +It begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies. +% +Life is a sexually transmitted disease with 100% mortality. +% +Life is like a diaper -- short and loaded. +% +Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. +Life is the other way around. + -- David Lodge, "The British Museum is Falling Down" +% +Maturity is only a short break in adolescence. + -- Jules Feiffer +% +May you have many beautiful and obedient daughters. +% +May you have many handsome and obedient sons. +% +MEMORIES OF MY FAMILY MEETINGS still are a source of strength to me. I +remember we'd all get into the car -- I forget what kind it was -- and +drive and drive. + +I'm not sure where we'd go, but I think there were some bees there. The +smell of something was strong in the air as we played whatever sport we +played. I remember a bigger, older guy whom we called "Dad." We'd eat +some stuff or not and then I think we went home. + +I guess some things never leave you. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Microwaves frizz your heir. +% +My boy is a mean kid. I came home the other day and saw him taping worms +to the sidewalk, he sits there and watches the birds get hernias. Well, +only last Christmas I gave him a B-B gun and he gave me a sweatshirt with +a bulls-eye on the back. + +I told my kids, "Someday, you'll have kids of your own." One of them +said, "So will you." + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +My family history begins with me, but yours ends with you. + -- Iphicrates +% +My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one. + -- Groucho Marx +% +My mother once said to me, "Elwood," (she always called me Elwood) +"Elwood, in this world you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." +For years I tried smart. I recommend pleasant. + -- Elwood P. Dowde, "Harvey" +% +My mother wants grandchildren, so I said, "Mom, go for it!" + -- Sue Murphy +% +My mother was a test tube; my father was a knife. + -- Friday +% +My parents went to Niagara Falls and all I got was this crummy life. +% +My ritual differs slightly. What I do, first thing [in the morning], is I +hop into the shower stall. Then I hop right back out, because when I hopped +in I landed barefoot right on top of See Threepio, a little plastic robot +character from "Star Wars" whom my son, Robert, likes to pull the legs off +of while he showers. Then I hop right back into the stall because our dog, +Earnest, who has been alone in the basement all night building up powerful +dog emotions, has come bounding and quivering into the bathroom and wants +to greet me with 60 or 70 thousand playful nips, any one of which -- bear +in mind that I am naked and, without my contact lenses, essentially blind +-- could result in the kind of injury where you have to learn a whole new +part if you want to sing the "Messiah," if you get my drift. Then I hop +right back out, because Robert, with that uncanny sixth sense some children +have -- you cannot teach it; they either have it or they don't -- has chosen +exactly that moment to flush one of the toilets. Perhaps several of them. + -- Dave Barry +% +Nature makes boys and girls lovely to look upon so they can be +tolerated until they acquire some sense. + -- William Phelps +% +Never have children, only grandchildren. + -- Gore Vidal +% +Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth. + -- Erma Bombeck +% +Never raise your hand to your children -- it leaves your midsection +unprotected. + -- Robert Orben +% +Never trust a child farther than you can throw it. +% +No house is childproofed unless the little darlings are in straitjackets. +% +No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for +signs of improvement. + -- Florida Scott-Maxwell +% +Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in order +for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the substance of +their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young and rob the old. + -- Lewis Lapham +% + On this morning in August when I was 13, my mother sent us out pick +tomatoes. Back in April I'd have killed for a fresh tomato, but in August +they are no more rare or wonderful than rocks. So I picked up one and threw +it at a crab apple tree, where it made a good *splat*, and then threw a tomato +at my brother. He whipped one back at me. We ducked down by the vines, +heaving tomatoes at each other. My sister, who was a good person, said, +"You're going to get it." She bent over and kept on picking. + What a target! She was 17, a girl with big hips, and bending over, +she looked like the side of a barn. + I picked up a tomato so big it sat on the ground. It looked like it +had sat there a week. The underside was brown, small white worms lived in it, +and it was very juicy. I stood up and took aim, and went into the windup, +when my mother at the kitchen window called my name in a sharp voice. I had +to decide quickly. I decided. + A rotten Big Boy hitting the target is a memorable sound, like a fat +man doing a belly-flop. With a whoop and a yell the tomatoee came after +faster than I knew she could run, and grabbed my shirt and was about to brain +me when Mother called her name in a sharp voice. And my sister, who was a +good person, obeyed and let go -- and burst into tears. I guess she knew that +the pleasure of obedience is pretty thin compared with the pleasure of hearing +a rotten tomato hit someone in the rear end. + -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days" +% +One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters. + -- George Herbert +% +One of the disadvantages of having children is that they eventually get old +enough to give you presents they make at school. + -- Robert Byrne +% +Only adults have difficulty with childproof caps. +% +Out of the mouths of babes does often come cereal. +% +Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have +much of anything to do with it. +% +Please, Mother! I'd rather do it myself! +% +Reinhart was never his mother's favorite -- and he was an only child. + -- Thomas Berger +% +Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when +you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore +them long enough. +% +Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth +to a child. She must be found and stopped. + -- Sam Levenson +% +Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when they grow up, +they won't be able to edge a car onto a freeway. +% +Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones. +% +That all men should be brothers is the dream of people who have no brothers. + -- Charles Chincholles, "Pensees de tout le monde" +% +The average income of the modern teenager is about 2 a.m. +% + The courtroom was pregnant (pun intended) with anxious silence as the +judge solemnly considered his verdict in the paternity suit before him. +Suddenly, he reached into the folds of his robes, drew out a cigar and +ceremoniously handed it to the defendant. + "Congratulations!" declaimed the jurist. "You have just become a +father!" +% +The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older +people, and greatly assists in the circulation of the blood. + -- Logan Pearsall Smith +% +The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a remarkable +Christian forbearance among men. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half +by our children. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +The full impact of parenthood doesn't hit you until you multiply the +number of your kids by thirty-two teeth. +% +The future is a myth created by insurance salesmen and high school counselors. +% +The good die young -- because they see it's no use living if you've got +to be good. + -- John Barrymore +% +The idea is to die young as late as possible. + -- Ashley Montague +% +The modern child will answer you back before you've said anything. + -- Laurence J. Peter +% +"The only real way to look younger is not to be born so soon." + -- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and + Over and Over" +% +The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard. +% +The real reason large families benefit society is because at least +a few of the children in the world shouldn't be raised by beginners. +% +The years of peak mental activity are undoubtedly between the ages of four +and eighteen. At four we know all the questions, at eighteen all the answers. +% +"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." + -- C. S. Lewis, "The Chronicles of Narnia" +% +There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. + -- Dr. Who +% +There's nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won't aggravate. +% +Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy. +% +Troubles are like babies; they only grow by nursing. +% + Two parent drops spent months teaching their son how to be part of the +ocean. After months of training, the father drop commented to the mother drop, +"We've taught our boy everything we know, he's fit to be tide." +% +We are all born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized +before we are fit to participate in society. + -- Judith Martin, "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly + Correct Behaviour" +% +We are the people our parents warned us about. +% +What really shapes and conditions and makes us is somebody only a few of +us ever have the courage to face: and that is the child you once were, +long before formal education ever got its claws into you -- that +impatient, all-demanding child who wants love and power and can't get +enough of either and who goes on raging and weeping in your spirit till +at last your eyes are closed and all the fools say, "Doesn't he look +peaceful?" It is those pent-up, craving children who make all the wars +and all the horrors and all the art and all the beauty and discovery in +life, because they are trying to achieve what lay beyond their grasp +before they were five years old. + -- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels" +% +What's done to children, they will do to society. +% +When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults. + -- Brian Aldiss +% +When I was 16, I thought there was no hope for my father. By the time I was +20, he had made great improvement. +% +When you were born, a big chance was taken for you. +% +Why do they call it baby-SITTING when all you do is run after them? +% +Why not have an old-fashioned Christmas for your family this year? Just +picture the scene in your living room on Christmas morning as your children +open their old-fashioned presents. + +Your 11-year-old son: "What the heck is this?" + +You: "A spinning top! You spin it around, and then eventually it falls +down. What fun! Ha, ha!" + +Son: "Is this a joke? Jason Thompson's parents got him a computer with +two disk drives and 128 kilobytes of random-access memory, and I get this +cretin TOP?" + +Your 8-year-old daughter: "You think that's bad? Look at this." + +You: "It's figgy pudding! What a treat!" + +Daughter: "It looks like goat barf." + -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" +% +You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, +for instance. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% +"You can't expect a mother to be with a small child all the time," Margaret +Mead once remarked, with her usual good sense, but in 1978 she shocked +feminists by snapping that women don't really have children to put them in +day care twelve hours a day, either. + -- Caroline Bird, "The Two Paycheck Marriage" +% +You can't hug a child with nuclear arms. +% +Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You +need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion +picture star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use +the word "collectible" as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified +success. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Youth is the trustee of posterity. +% +Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is +when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation. +% +Youth. It's a wonder that anyone ever outgrows it. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/knghtbrd b/fortune-mod/datfiles/knghtbrd new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae38f9f --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/knghtbrd @@ -0,0 +1,2402 @@ +* SynrG notes that the number of configuration questions to answer in + sendmail is NON-TRIVIAL +% +* james would be more impressed if netgod's magic powers could stop the + splits in the first place... +* netgod notes debian developers are notoriously hard to impress +% + need help: my first packet to my provider gets lost :-( + sel: dont send the first one, start with #2 +% + abuse me. I'm so lame I sent a bug report to + debian-devel-changes +% +I never thought that I'd see the day where Netscape is free software and +X11 is proprietary. We live in interesting times. + -- Matt Kimball +% + Lemme make sure I'm not wasting time here... bcwhite will remove + pkgs that havent been fixed that have outstanding bugs of severity + "important". True or false? + jim: "important" or higher. True. + Then we're about to lose ftp.debian.org and dpkg :) +* netgod will miss dpkg -- it was occasionally useful + We still have rpm.... +% + Being overloaded is the sign of a true Debian maintainer. +% + partycle: I seriously do need a vacation from this package. + I actually had a DREAM about introducing a stupid new bug + into xbase-preinst last night. That's a Bad Sign. +% +Writing non-free software is not an ethically legitimate activity, so if +people who do this run into trouble, that's good! All businesses based +on non-free software ought to fail, and the sooner the better. + -- Richard Stallman +% +Microsoft DNS service terminates abnormally when it recieves a response +to a DNS query that was never made. Fix Information: Run your DNS +service on a different platform. + -- BugTraq +% +* dpkg hands stu a huge glass of vbeer +* Joey takes the beer from stu, you're too young ;) +* Cylord takes the beer from Joey, you're too drunk. +* Cylord gives the beer to muggles. +% +We the people of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, in order to form a +more perfect operating system, establish quality, insure marketplace +diversity, provide for the common needs of computer users, promote +security and privacy, overthrow monopolistic forces in the computer +software industry, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and +our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Debian +GNU/Linux System. +% +"This is the element_data structure for elements whose *element_type = +FORM_TYPE_SELECT_ONE, FORM_TYPE_SELECT_MULT. */ /* * nesting deeper +and deeper, harder and harder, go, go, oh, OH, OHHHHH!! * Sorry, got +carried away there. */ struct lo_FormElementOptionData_struct." + -- Mozilla source code +% +While the year 2000 (y2k) problem is not an issue for us, all Linux +implementations will impacted by the year 2038 (y2.038k) issue. The +Debian Project is committed to working with the industry on this issue +and we will have our full plans and strategy posted by the first quarter +of 2020. +% +... Where was Stac Electronics when Microsoft invented Doublespace? Where +were Xerox and Apple when Microsoft invented the GUI? Where was Apple's +QuickTime when Microsoft invented Video for Windows? Where was Spyglass +Inc.'s Mosaic when Microsoft invented Internet Explorer? Where was Sun +when Microsoft invented Java? +% +I'm sorry if the following sounds combative and excessively personal, +but that's my general style. -- Ian Jackson +% +"my biggest problem with RH (and especially RH contrib packages) is that +they DON'T have anything like our policy. That's one of the main reasons +why their packages are so crappy and broken. Debian has the teamwork +side of building a distribution down to a fine art." +% +"slackware users don't matter. in my experience, slackware users are +either clueless newbies who will have trouble even with tar, or they are +rabid do-it-yourselfers who wouldn't install someone else's pre-compiled +binary even if they were paid to do it." +% + "Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot + change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom + to hide the bodies of the people I had to kill because they + pissed me off." +% +* dark has changed the topic on channel #debian to: Later tonight: After + months of careful refrigeration, Debian 2.0 is finally cool enough to + release. +% +I sat laughing snidely into my notebook until they showed me a PC running +Linux. And oh! It was as though the heavens opened and God handed down a +client-side OS so beautiful, so graceful, and so elegant that a million +Microsoft developers couldn't have invented it even if they had a hundred +years and a thousand crates of Jolt cola. + -- LAN Times +% +I sat laughing snidely into my notebook until they showed me a PC running +Linux.... And did this PC choke? Did it stutter? Did it, even once, +say that this program has performed an illegal operation and must be shut +down? No. And this is just on the client. + -- LAN Times +% +"I think that most debian developers are rather "strong willed" people +with a great degree of understanding and a high level of passion for what +they perceive as important in development of the debian system." + --Bill Leach +% +"Actually, the only distribution of Linux I've ever used that passed the +rootshell test out of the box (hit rootshell at the time the dist is +released and see if you can break the OS with scripts from there) is +Debian." + -- seen on the Linux security-audit mailing list +% +* Culus fears perl - the language with optional errors +% + you should be afraid to use KDE because RMS might come to your + house and cleave your monitor with an axe or something :) +% +"and i actually like debian 2.0 that much i completely revamped the +default config of the linux systems our company sells and reinstalled any +of the linux systems in the office and here at home.." +% + how bout a policy policing policy with a policy for changing the + police policing policy +% + "Let's form the Linux Standard Linux Standardization Association + Board. The purpose of this board will be to standardize Linux + Standardization Organizations." +% + Don't come crying to me about your "30 minute compiles"!! I + have to build X uphill both ways! In the snow! With bare + feet! And we didn't have compilers! We had to translate the + C code to mnemonics OURSELVES! + And I was 18 before we even had assemblers! +% +NEW YORK (CNN) -- Internet users who spend even a few hours a week online +at home experience higher levels of depression and loneliness than if +they had used the computer network less frequently, The New York Times +reported Sunday. The result ... surprised both researchers and +sponsors, which included Intel Corp., Hewlett Packard, AT&T Research and +Apple Computer. +% +"What is striking, however, is the general layout and integration of the +system. Debian is a truly elegant Linux distribution; great care has +been taken in the preparation of packages and their placement within the +system. The sheer number of packages available is also impressive...." +% +Debian Linux is a solid, comprehensive product, and a genuine pleasure to +use. It is also great to become involved with the Debian collective, +whose friendliness and spirit recalls the early days of the Internet and +its sense of openness and global cooperation. +% + can I write a unix-like kernel in perl? +% + netgod: I also have a "Evil Inside" T-shirt (w/ Intel logo).. on + the back it states: "When the rapture comes, will you have root?" +% + "NT 5.0. All the bugs and ten times the code size!" +% + there is 150 meg in the /tmp dir! DEAR LORD +% + netgod: what do you have in your kernel??? The compiled source for + driving a space shuttle??? + time to make a zip drive your floppy drive then. if the kernel + doesn fit on that, the kernel is an AI +% +Now I can finally explain to everyone why I do this. I just got $7 worth +of free stuff for working on Debian ! +% + netgod: My calculator has more registers than the x86, and + -thats- sad +% +* boren tosses matlab across the room and hopes it breaks into a number + aproaching infinite peices +% +"...It was a lot faster than I thought it was going to be, much faster +than NT. If further speed increases are done to the server for the final +release, Oracle is going to be able to wipe their ass with SQL SERVER and +hand it back to M$ while the Oracle admins ... migrate their databases +over to Linux!" +% +World Domination, of course. And scantily clad females. Who cares if +its twenty below? -- Linus Torvalds +% + Win 98 Psychic edition: We'll tell you where you're going tomorrow +% + it's amazing how "not-broken" debian is compared to slack and rh +% + "Hey, I'm from this project called Debian... have you heard of it? + Your name seems to be on a bunch of our stuff." +% +"In the event of a percieved failing of the project leadership #debian is +empowered to take drastic and descisive action to correct the failing, +including by not limited to expelling officials, apointing new officials +and generally abusing power" + -- proposed amendment to Debian Constitution +% + Fuck, I can't compile the damn thing and I wrote it ! +% + we're calling 2.2 _POTATO_?? +% + does Johnie Ingram hang out here on IRC? +% +* Twilight1 will have to hang his Mozilla beanie dinosaur in effigy if + Netscape sells-out to Alot Of Losers.. +% + if macOS is for the computer illiterate, then windoze is for the + computer masochists +% + Culus: Building a five-meter-high replica of the Empire State + Building with paperclips is impressive. Doing it blindfolded is + eleet. +% +I can just see it now: nomination-terrorism ;-) + -- Manoj + +haha! i nominate manoj. + -- seeS +% + Somehow I have more respect for 14 year old Debian developers than + 14 year old Certified Microsoft Serfs. +% + Ben: Do you solumly swear to read you debian email once a day and + do not permit people to think you are MIA? + Culus: i do so swear +% +"I wonder if this is the first constitution in the history of mankind +where you have to calculate a square root to determine if a motion +passes. :-)" + -- Seen on Slashdot +% +This is the solution to Debian's problem .. and since the only real way +to create more relatives of developers is to have children, we need more +sex! It's a long term investment ... it's the work itself that is +satisfying! + -- Craig Brozefsky +% + dunham: You know how real numbers are constructed from rational + numbers by equivalence classes of convergent sequences? + marcus: yes. +% + "Hello?" "Hi baybee" "Are you Johnie Ingram?" "For you I'll be + anyone" "Ermm.. Do you sell slink CD's?" "I love slinkies" +% + xhost +localhost should only be done by people who would + paint their hostname and root password on an interstate + overpass. +% + AIX - the Unix from the universe where Spock has a beard. +% + Studies prove that research causes cancer in 43% of laboratory + rats + knghtbrd- yeah, but 78% of those statistics are off by 52%... +% + apt: !bugs + !bugs are stupid + apt: are stupid? what's that? + dpkg: i don't know + apt: Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder... + i already had it that way, dpkg. +% + i'm trying to convince some netcom admins i know to convert + to Debian from RH, netgod, but they are DAMN stubborn + why RH users so damned hard headed? + it's the hat +% + Debian - All the power, without the silly hat. +% +How many months are we going to be behind them [Redhat] with a glibc +release?" + -- Jim Pick, 8 months before Debian 2.0 is finally released +% +The purpose of having mailing lists rather than having newsgroups is to +place a barrier to entry which protects the lists and their users from +invasion by the general uneducated hordes. + -- Ian Jackson +% +Most of us feel that marketing types are like a dangerous weapon - keep +'em unloaded and locked up in a cupboard, and only bring them out when +you need them to do a job. + -- Craig Sanders +% + cerb: we subscribed you to debian-fight as the moderator + cerb: list rules are, 1) no nice emails, 2) no apologies +% + our local telco has admitted that someone "backed into a + button on a switch" and took the entire ATM network down + hopefully now routers are designed better, so the "network + off" swtich is on the back +% + Thunder-: when you get { MessagesLikeThisFromYourHardDrive } + Thunder-: it either means { TheDriverIsScrewy } + or + { YourDriveIsFlakingOut BackUpYourDataBeforeIt'sTooLate + PrayToGod } +% + it has been said that redhat is the thing Marc Ewing wears on + his head. +% + by the power of greyskull + someone tell me the ban to place + mrcurious: *.debian.org, *.novare.net + *.debian.org. that's awesome. + -- Seen on LinuxNet #linux +% +"What does this tell me? That if Microsoft were the last software +company left in the world, 13% of the US population would be scouring +garage sales & Goodwill for old TRS-80s, CPM machines & Apple ]['s before +they would buy Microsoft. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement." + -- Seen on Slashdot +% +"Bruce McKinney, author of of Hardcore Visual Basic, has announced that +he's fed up with VB and won't be writing a 3rd edition of his book. The +best quote is at the end: 'I don't need a language designed by a focus +group'." +% + Would it be acceptable to debian policy if we inserted a crontab + by default into potato that emailed bill.gates@microsoft.com + every morning with an email that read, "Don't worry, linux is a + fad..." +% +* Overfiend ponders doing an NMU of asclock, in which he simply changes + the extended description to "If you bend over and put your head between + your legs, you can read the time off your assclock." + Overfiend: go to bed. +% + It is important to note that the primary reason the Roman Empire + fail is that they had no concept of zero... thus they could not + test the success or failure of their C programs. +% +Since when has the purpose of debian been to appease the interests of the +mass of unskilled consumers? -- Steve Shorter +% + netgod: er, are these 2.2.0 packages 2.0.0pre9 or do you have a + direct line with the gods? + joeyh: i have the direct line +% +<_Anarchy_> Argh.. who's handing out the paper bags 8) +% + anyone around? + no, we're all irregular polygons +% + OH MY GOD NOT A RANDOM QUOTE GENERATOR + surely you didnt think that was static? how lame would that be? :-) +% +Mere nonexistence is a feeble excuse for declaring a thing unseeable. You +*can* see dragons. You just have to look in the right direction. + -- John Hasler +% + gcc is the best compressor ever ported to linux. it can turn + 12MB of kernel source (and that's .debbed) into a 500k kernel +% + I *like* the chicken +% + + [ ] DOGBERT + [ 2 ] RICHARD STALLMAN + [ 3 ] BUFFY SUMMERS + [ 1 ] MANOJ SRIVASTAVA + [ 4 ] NONE of the above + + -- Debian Project Leader 1999 ballot +% + anyone know if there is a version of dpkg for redhat? +% +acme-cannon (3.1415) unstable; urgency=low + + * Added safety to prevent operator dismemberment, closes: bug #98765, + bug #98713, #98714. + * Added manpage. closes: #98725. + + -- Wile E. Coyote Sun, 31 Jan 1999 07:49:57 -0600 +% +!netgod:*! time flies when youre using linux +!doogie:*! yeah, infinite loops in 5 seconds. +!Teknix:*! has anyone re-tested that with 2.2.x ? +!netgod:*! yeah, 4 seconds now +% +* dark greets liw with a small yellow frog. +* liw kisses the frog and watches it transform to a beautiful nerd + girl, takes her out to ice cream, and lives happily forever after + with her + liw: Umm it's too late to have the frog back? +% +* Culus thinks we should go to trade shows and see how many people we + can kill by throwing debian cds at them +% + "Yes, your honour, I have RSA encryption code tattood on my + penis. Shall I show the jury?" +% + you people are all insane. + knight: sure, that's why we work on Debian. + Knghtbrd: get in touch with your inner nutcase. +% + Saens demonstrates no less than 3 tcp/ip bugs in 2.2.3 +% + alexsh: Be /VERY/ cairful, you could, if your unlucky, fry your + motherboards.. + Mercury - sounds like fun +% + dark: caldera? + rcw - that's not a distribution, it's a curse + Knghtbrd: it's a cursed distribution +% +Software is like sex, it's better when it's free. -- Linus Torvalds +% + Knghtbrd: We have lots of whatevers. + dark - In Debian? Hell yeah we do! +% +I did it just to piss you off. :-P + -- Branden Robinson in a message to debian-devel +% +The software required Win95 or better, so I installed Linux. +% +10) there is no 10, but it sounded like a nice number :) + -- Wichert Akkerman +% +Eric Raymond: I want to live in a world where software doesn't suck. +Richard Stallman: Any software that isn't free sucks. +Linus Torvalds: I'm interested in free beer. +Richard Stallman: That's okay, as long as I don't have to drink it. I + don't like beer. + -- LinuxWorld Expo panel, 4 March 1999 +% +I'm not a level-headed person... -- Bruce Perens +% +Personally, I don't often talk about social good because when I hear other +people talk about social good, that's when I reach for my revolver. + -- Eric Raymond +% +If we want something nice to get born in nine months, then sex has to +happen. We want to have the kind of sex that is acceptable and fun for both +people, not the kind where someone is getting screwed. Let's get some cross +fertilization, but not someone getting screwed. + -- Larry Wall +% +We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +YES! YES! YES! Oh, YES! (ooops, I sound like Meg Ryan ;-) + -- Ian Nandhra +% + If I start writing essays about Free Software for slashdot, + please shoot me. +% + hmm, lunch does sound like a good idea + would taste like a good idea too +% +p.s. - i'm about *this* close to running around in the server room with a +pair of bolt cutters, and a large wooden mallet, laughing like a maniac and +cutting everything i can fit the bolt cutters around. and whacking that +which i cannot. so if i seem semi-incoherent, or just really *really* nasty +at times, please forgive me. stress is not a pretty thing. };P + -- Phillip R. Jaenke +% +Every company complaining about Microsoft's business practices is simply a +rose bush. They look lovely and smell nice. Once a lucky company dethrones +Microsoft they will shed their petals to expose the thorns underneath. A +thorn by any other name would hurt as much. +% +Something must be Done +This is Something +Therefore, This must be Done + -- The Thatcherite Syllogism +% + xtifr - beware of james when he's off his medication => +% +Indifference will certainly be the downfall of mankind, but who cares? +% +Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. + -- Robert A. Heinlein +% + red dye causes cancer, haven't you heard? (; + fucking everything causes cancer, haven't you heard? + => + no, that causes aids +% +Gold, n.: + A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It is mined + deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich men who immediately + bury it back in the earth in great prisons, although gold hasn't done + anything to them. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +* lilo hereby declares OPN a virtual pain in the ass :) +% +"They are both businesses - if you have given them enough money, I'm +sure they'll do whatever the hell you ask:->" + -- David Welton +% +"You have the right not to be an asshole. If you give up that right +everything you say and do in here will be held against you. If you cannot +afford to stop being an asshole then someone will be appointed to kick +yours outta here." + -- Your rights as an irc addict +% +* Simunye is so happy she has her mothers gene's + you better give them back before she misses them! +% + conning the most intellegent people on the planet is not easy +% +California, n.: + From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" or +Spanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or +"fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex." + -- Ed Moran +% +* Caytln slaps Lisa + catfight :P + Watch it girl, I like that. + :) + figures :D +% + rit/ara: There's something really demented about UNIX + underwear... +% +The X Window System: + The standard UNIX graphical environment. With Linux, this is usually + XFree86 (http://www.xfree86.org). You may call it X, XFree, the X + Window System, XF86, or a host of other things. Call it 'XWindows' and + someone will smack you and you will have deserved it. +% + "The currency collectors are offline." "I'm rerouting though + the secondary couplings. If we re-align the phase manifold we + should be able to use the plasma inductor matrix to manually + launch a new cheesy spinoff series." +* ShadwDrgn sighs + you leave my manifolds alone + ! +% +* Turken thinks little kids are absolutely adorable... especialyy when + they're someone elses. +% +* Overfiend sighs + Netscape sucks. + It is a house of cards resting on a bed of quicksand. + during an earthquake + in a tornado +% + media ethics is an oxymoron, much like Jumbo Shrimp and + Microsoft Works. + not to mention NT Security +% + Oxymorons? I saw one yesterday - the pamphlet on "Taco Bell + Nutritional Information" +% +* Knghtbrd unleashes a pair of double barreled snurf guns and covers + jesus with snurf darts + meany :P +% + doogie: you sound highly unstable :-) + jgoerzen - he is. +* doogie bops Knghtbrd + see? Resorting to violence =D +% +I have also been a huge Unix fan ever since I realized that SCO was not +Unix. -- Dennis Baker +% + Ctrl+Option+Command + P + R + dracus - YE GODS! That's worse than EMACS! + hehehehe + don't ask what that does :P +% + you are not a nutcase + You obviously don't know me well enough yet. => +% +* aj thinks Kb^Zzz ought to pick different things to dream about than + general resolutions and policy changes. + aj - tell me about it, this is a Bad Sign +% + hmm, is there a --now-dammit option for exim? +% + Kira: JOIN THE DARK SIDE, YOUNG ONE. + darth, I *am* the dark side. +% + Feanor: u have no idea of the depth of the stupidty of american law +% +Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me. + -- Linus Torvalds +% + "PLEASE RESPECT INTELLECTUAL RIGHTS!" + "Please demonstrate intellect." ;) +% + Feanor - license issues are important. If we don't watch our + arses now, someone's gonna come up and bite us later... +% +"Now we'll have to kill you." + -- Linus Torvalds +% +* knghtbrd can already envision: "Subject: [INTENT TO PREPARE TO PROPOSE + FILING OF BUG REPORT] Typos in the policy document" +% + heh thats a lost cause, like the correct pronounciation of + "jewelry" + give it up :-) + and the correct spelling of "colour" :) + heh + and aluminium + or nuclear weapons + are you threating me yankee ? + just cause we don't have the bomb... + back off ya yellow belly +% + !seen god + LauraDax, I don't remember seeing "god" +% + Europe Passes Pro-spam Law + I though only Americans were that fucking stupid => + apparently americans are quite naive :) +% + is a surgical war where you go give the foreign troops nose jobs? +% + Athena Desktop Environment! In your hearts, you *know* it's the + right choice! :) +* Knghtbrd THWAPS xtifr +% + shaleh - unclean is just WEIRD. + heh, unclean is cool + Espy - and weird. + yes, weird too +% + direct brain implants :) + xtifr - yah, then using computers would actually require some + of these idiots to think! + ;> +% + Overfiend - BTW, after we've discovered X takes all of 1.4 GIGS + to build, are you willing admit that X is bloatware? => + KB: there is a 16 1/2 minute gap in my answer + knghtbrd: evidence exists that X is only the *2nd* worst windowing + system ;) +% + damn, the autonomous mouse movement starts usually after I use a + mouse button + don't use a mouse button then :) + yeah, right :) +% + you know, Linux needs a platform game starring Tux + kinda Super Marioish, but with Tux and things like little cyber + bugs and borgs and that sort of thing ... + And you have to jump past billgatus and hit the key to drop him + into the lava and then you see some guy that looks like a RMS + or someone say "Thank you for rescuing me Tux, but Linus + Torvalds is in another castle!" +% + Yeah, well that's why it's numbered 2.3.1... it's for those of us + who miss NT-like uptimes +% + There are worse things than Perl....ASP comes to mind +% +* m2 stares at the monitor... it looks like a hamburger... + m2 - that's a bad sign +% + Leave it to manoj to call procmail "puny" +% + Manoj: well, i cant understand stuff like "s/3#$%^% {]][ @ f245 }" + Crow: That is not quite legal ;-) + Manoj - how would one make "s/3#$%^% {]][ @ f245 }" legal + anyway? (and what would it do? hehe) + Knghtbrd: You need to finish the s/// expression. + oh, is that all? +% + Ada, the only language written to milspec. + +% + -include ../../debian/el33t.h + sendmail build...strange header name :) + hahaha +* netgod laffs + BenC: can u tell i used to maintain sendmail? :P + heh :) +% + no... I musn't have any more coffee !!! ;) + sure yu do Phase :) + you really want me bouncing off the ceiling? + yesh :) + bouncing off the ceiling is gewd + ok, that was a silly question + it's splatting on the floor that's the problem. +% + RMS for President??? + ...or ESR, he wants a new job ;) +% +Oh no, not again. + -- Manoj Srivastava +% + Granted, RMS is a fanatic, I don't deny this. I'll even say + he's a royal pain in the arse most of the time. But he's + still more often right than not, and he deserves some level of + credit and respect for his work. We would NOT be here today + without him. +% + tomorrow there will be a great disturbance in the workforce + -- May 18, 1999 +% +I am dyslexic of Borg. Prepare to have your ass laminated. +% + I had a friend stick me in her closet during highschool beacuse I + wouldn't believe that her boyfriend knew about foreplay... + I shoulda brought popcorn. :) +% + hardcopy is for wussies + computer program listings....next, on HardCopy +% + I hate users + you sound like a sysadmin already! +% + Will LINUX ever overtake sliced bread as the #1 achievement + of mankind? +% + manoj is going nuts on the bug fixing crusade! woo woo! + manoj went nuts long time ago. but the bug fixing is cool => +% + those apparently-bacteria-like multicolor worms coming out of + microsoft's backorifice + that's the backoffice logo +% +* Simunye is on a oc3->oc12 + simmy: bite me. :) + daemon: okay :) +% + lilo: well then, you are probably a responsible thinker. + Welcome to a very small club. + Overfiend: welcome me when you join :) +% +Basically, I want people to know that when they use binary-only modules, +it's THEIR problem. I want people to know that in their bones, and I +want it shouted out from the rooftops. I want people to wake up in a +cold sweat every once in a while if they use binary-only modules. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +* wichert_ imagines master without a MTA + wichert: ehm? that might hinder peformance of the BTS :p +% + Hmm... I wonder what else seperates Debian from the rest of the + Linux distributions. + gecko - We Don't Suck + Knghtbrd: you don't say that when addressing a bunch of people + FROM those distros + gecko - point. +% +Due to the closed source development model of XFree it is impossible +to support, or even speculate about, features in pre- or beta releases +of XFree. + -- Marcus Sundberg +% +> >I don't really regard bible-kjv-text as a technical document, +> > but... :) + +> It's a manual -- for living. + +But it hasn't been updated in a long time, many would say that it's +sadly out of date, and the upstream maintainer doesn't respond to his +email. :-) + -- Branden Robinson, Oliver Elphick, and Chris Waters in a + message to debian-policy +% + I can think of lots of people who need USER=ID10T someplace! +% + my US geograpy is lousy...lol + so's mine and I live here +% +Moonchild without an opinion? Satan is skating to work tomorrow! + -- Brett Manz +% + I really don't want much at all... Just a kind word, an + attractive woman, and UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH!! +% + If we're both right (I'm guessing we are) I'm Not Very Happy. +* Minupla hands you the understatement of the year award. +% +Last time I had intimate contact with another human being was rather a +painful experience... I rather liked it... ;) + -- Brett Manz +% + anyone seen my 80 column card? +% + uh oh, what have I started :) + rofl... distro nick wars. +* Slackware just waits for /nick Gnome, /nick KDE, and then world war 4 + to break out + :oP + + :) + no'one would dare /nick RedHat + mew. +% + im fcucking druk +* Knghtbrd makes sure to log everything Crow- says tonight ... + heheh + He said he'd marry me! damnit!! + dude no way + MrBump - he's not THAT drunk + Knghtbrd: I'm crushed :o) +% + aggh! + MAKE IT STOP! + MAKE IT STOP!! +% + RoboHak - okay, the patch isn't broken, but my brain + apparently is + that's nothing new (; + wc - hush. + => +% + americans are wierd.... + californians even weirder + xtifr has a point ... +% +* woot smiles serenely. + I don't want to seem over eager about getting into knghtbrd's + siglist. +% + dhd: R you part of the secret debian overstructure? + no. there is no secret debian overstructure. + although, now that somebody brought it up, let's start one + :-) + CosmicRay - why not, sounds like a fun way to spend the + afternoon =D +% + these stupid head hunters want resumes in ms word format + can you write shit in tex and convert it to word? + \converttoword{shit} +% + you don't have to be insane to work here....oh wait, yes you do! + :) +% +* o-o always like debmake because he knew exactly what it would do... + o-o: you would ;-) +% +2.3.1 has been released. Folks new to this game should remember that +2.3.* releases are development kernels, with no guarantees that they +will not cause your system to do horrible things like corrupt its +disks, catch fire, or start running Mindcraft benchmarks. + -- Slashdot +% +do { + : +} while (!HELL_FROZEN_OVER); +% +0 7 * * * echo "...Linux is just a fad" | mail billg@microsoft.com -s= + "And remember..." +% + kb: I demand integrity and honesty in those who i do business with + i know my demands are unreasonable, but a guy can dream, can't he? +% + stu: ahh that machine. Don't you think that something named + stallman deserves to be an Alpha? :-) + jgoerzen: no, actually, I'd prolly be more inclined to name a 386 + with 4 megs of ram and a 40 meg hard drive stallman. + with a big fat case that makes tons of noise and rattles the floor +* Knghtbrd falls to the floor holding his sides laughing + and.. + double-height hard drive +% +Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' -- they have 'arguments' +-- and they ALWAYS WIN THEM. +% +* Knghtktty is not going to ask how zucchini got into the discussion ... +% + Subject: [GR PROPOSAL] Should we vote on trivial matters? +% + Put *that* in you .sig and smoke it, Knghtbrd. + You know he will read this :> + heheheheh. +% +"As you journey through life take a minute every now and then to give a +thought for the other fellow. He could be plotting something." + -- Hagar the Horrible +% + who gives a shit about US law + anyone living in the US. +% + Okay, you people have started talking about BSDM applications of + network hardware... I think I'll run off and do something useful + and Debianish and stay OUT of this one... + (for a change) +% + mariab - don't think Debian hasn't had some very stupid and + obvious bugs before + of course, we usually fix ours BEFORE we release =D +% + mariab - I am a Debian developer. Red Hat is "the enemy" or + something like that I guess.. Still, typecasting RH users as + idiots or their distribution as completely broken by default + is complete and total FUD. +% +> > But IANAL, of course. +> +> IANAL either. My son is, but if I asked him I might get an answer I +> wouldn't want to hear. + +"Here's my invoice." ? =D +% +> Ok, I see you know what you're doing :-) + +Either that or I've gotten pretty good at faking it. +% + 8am is an ungoldly hour to be awake :) +* gorgo usually gets up at 11am +% +There Is No Cabal. +% +<_Anarchy_> acf: maybe April 1 next year slashdot needs to run "Rob Malda + accepts new job as head of Debian project" 8) +% +* netgod opens his mailbox and immediately wishes he hadnt +% + its hard being a lesbian withoutn breasts...people dont take + you seriously +% +Perhaps Debian is concerned more about technical excellence rather than +ease of use by breaking software. In the former we may excel. In the +latter we have to concede the field to Microsoft. Guess where I want to go +today? + -- Manoj Srivastava +% +* PerlGeek is really a space alien +* Knghtktty believes PerlGeek +% +// Minor lesson: don't fuck about with something you don't fully understand + -- the dosdoom source code +% + my client has been owned severely + this guy got root, ran packet sniffers, installed .rhosts and + backdoors, put a whole new dir in called /lib/" ", which has a + full suite of smurfing and killing tools + the only mistake was not deleting the logfiles + question is how was root hacked, and that i couldnt tell u + it is, of course, not a debian box +* netgod notes the debian box is the only one left untouched by the hacker + -- wonder why +% +* joeyh cvs commits his home directory. Aaaaaa + eeeeeeek + joeyh: That is simply evil. Period. +% + Gruuk: UFies are above and beyond the human race :) +% +I stopped a long time ago to try to find anything in the bug list of dpkg. +We should run for an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. + -- Stephane Bortzmeyer +% + i figured 17G oughta be enough. +% + has /usr/bin/emacs been put into /etc/shells yet? :P +% +* joeyh takes advantage of netscape's marvelous ability to crash to close + 10 windows with a single keypress + now that's progress! + Bus error => +% + You measure your vibrators in "characters per second"? I have + bad news for you, c90, you've been masturbating with a + dot-matrix printer. +% +Hi! I'm a .signature virus! Copy me into your ~/.signature to help me sprea= +d! +% +* Knghtktty whispers sweet nothings to Thyla (stuff about compilers and + graphics and ram upgrades and big hard drives...) + oooooooooOOOOOOOOOO + Knghtktty: that's positively pornographic... +* Thyla goes off into fits of ecstasy... +% + you guys are all sick! sick sick sick I tell ya ;) +% +* bma is a yank +* Knghtbrd is a Knghtbrd +* dhd is also a yank +* Espy is evil +* Knghtbrd believes Espy +% +* bma wonders if this will make the Knghtbrd .sig +% +Techical solutions are not a matter of voting. Two legislations in the US +states almost decided that the value of Pi be 3.14, exactly. Popular vote +does not make for a correct solution. + -- Manoj Srivastava +% + the increase in tension worldwide (as evidenced by crime + and whatnot) over that time period looks a lot like Linux + growth since 1993 + ``Linux linked to worldwide crime epidemic!!'' +% + where am I and what am I doing in this handbasket? +% +Since this database is not used for profit, and since entire works are not +published, it falls under fair use, as we understand it. However, if any +half-assed idiot decides to make a profit off of this, they will need to +double check it all... + -- Notes included with the default fortunes database +% +There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast. +% +Subject: Bug#42432: debian-policy: Proposal for CTV for Draft for Proof of +Concept for Draft for Proposal for Proposal for CTV for a CTV to decide on +a proposal for a CTV for the CTV on whether or not we shoud have a CTV on +the /usr/doc to /usr/share/doc transition now, or later. + -- Ed Lang +% + It's a trackball for one + so it's not a rodent + it's a turd with a ball sticking out + which you fondle constantly +% +* HomeySan waits for the papa john's pizza to show up + mm. papa john's. + hopefully they send the cute delivery driver + they dont have that here. + why? you gonna eat the driver instead? +% + is it me, or is Knghtbrd snoring? + they killed knghtbrd! + Kysh: wichert, gecko, joeyh, and I are in a room trying to ignore + Knghtbrd + netgod: Knghtbrd is hard to ignore. +% + Man, i wish knghtbrd were here to grab that for his sig list. +[...several hours later...] + woot don't know me vewy well, do he? + muahahahaha +% +* Knghtbrd pelts wichert with NERF darts +* wichert notes there are no ICBM nerfs yet and ignores kngtbrd + wichert - just wait, after seeing the NERF gatling guns, ICBMs + are not far off (just pump the damned thing for an hour or two + is all...) +% +Operating Systems Installed: + * Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 4 CD Set ($20 from www.chguy.net; price includes + taxes, shipping, and a $3 donation to FSF). 2 CDs are binaries, 2 CDs + complete source code; + * Windows 98 Second Edition Upgrade Version ($136 through Megadepot.com, + price does not include taxes/shipping). Surprisingly, no source code + is included. + + -- Bill Stilwell, http://linuxtoday.com/stories/8794.html +% +Steal this tagline. I did. +% + oh noooo, Knghtbrd's got a gun :) + ^^insert music^^ + bfextu - o/~ everybody is on the run o/~ + o/~ run away, ruuuuun away from the pay-ay-ain o/~ +% +% + emacs sucks, literally, not a insult, just a comment that its + large enough to have a noticeable gravitational pull... +% +As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing. +% +* Knghtbrd assigns 3 to Chris +* variable wonders who else is named chris besides me + variable - you. => +* Knghtbrd waits for variable to dramatically say "I feel SO used!" + Knghtbrd: :) +* variable ++ + :) +% +* Espy ponders an uplad queue called 'hell' so I can do dupload --to hell +% + java, hon, sometimes I really want to smack you. + Valkyrja - he'd enjoy it too much + Valkyrja: yah, go ahead and do it... beat java into cappuccino! :-) +% + be vewwy vewwy qwuiet .. I'm huntin wuntime ewwos +% +Red Hat has recently released a Security Advisory (RHSA-1999:030-01) +covering a buffer overflow in the vixie cron package. Debian has +discovered this bug two years ago and fixed it. Therefore versions in +both, the stable and the unstable, distributions of Debian are not +vulnerable to this problem.. +% +First off - Quake is simply incredible. It lets you repeatedly kill your +boss in the office without being arrested. :) + -- Signal 11, in a slashdot comment +% +Lucas' Law: Good will always win, because evil hires the _stupid_ + engineers. +% +* TribFurry only gets spam mail from ucsd... I used to get email from + myself but I decided I didn't like myself and stopped talking + to me +% + note on a dorm fridge ... "To the person who ate the contents + of the container labeled 'James' - warning, it was my biology + experiment" +% + Note on a chem lab fridge- "This refrigerator is not explosion- + proof". +% + DalNet is like the special olympics of IRC. There's a lot of + drooling goin' on and everyone is a 'winner'. +% +But modifying dpkg is infeasible, and we've agreed to, among other things, +keep the needs of our users at the forefront of our minds. And from a +user's perspective, something that keeps the system tidy in the normal +case, and works *now*, is much better than idealistic fantasies like a +working dpkg. + -- Manoj Srivastava +% +For every vision there is an equal and opposite revision. +% + Knghtbrd, if we wanted a lameass remark we would have said: + Hey, neckro +% + i have 4gb for /tmp + What do you do with 4G /tmp? Compile X? + yes +% + Bite me. +* TheOne gets some salt, then proceeds to nibble on KnaraKat a little + bit.... +% +* Knghtbrd notes he has mashed potatoes for brains tonight + yum, can I have some? + um ... +* Knghtbrd hides from Valkyrie +% + joeyh now has a terminal at the couch? + That guy is wired, I swear => + Knghtbrd: laptop + and I don't mean the cats. +% +Given some of the recent threads, the interactive discussions might +need to be conducted on canvas, in the presence of a referee, while +wearing padded gloves. ;-) + -- Phil Hands +% + but, then I used an Atari, I was more likely to win the lottery in + ten countries simultaneously than get accelerated X +% +* joeyh wonders why everyone wants to know how tall he is + joeyh: it helps the sniper +% +* BenC wonders why he has upgraded to 3.3.5-1 before teh X maintainer +% + I wouldn't make it through 24 hours before I'd be firing up the + grill and slapping a few friends on the barbie. + Why would you slap friends with barbies, thats kinda kinky +% +In fact.. based on this model of what the NSA is and isn't... many of the +people reading this are members of the NSA... /. is afterall 'News for +Nerds'. + +NSA MONDAY MORNING {at the coffee machine): +NSA AGENT 1: Hey guys, did you check out slashdot over the weekend? + AGENT 2: No, I was installing Mandrake 6.1 and I coulnd't get the darn + ppp connection up.. + AGENT 1: Well check it out... they're on to us. + -- Chris Moyer +% +Technology is a constand battle between manufacturers producing bigger and +more idiot-proof systems and nature producing bigger and better idiots. + -- Slashdot signature +% +"I am ecstatic that some moron re-invented a 1995 windows fuckup." + -- Alan Cox +% +knghtbrd: there may be no spoon, but can you spot the vulnerability in +eye_render_shiny_object.c? + -- rcw +% + wow... simple maths show that Debian developers have closed more + than *31* *thousand* bug reports since our BTS exists! + that is about 30999 more than Microsoft ;) +% + NOTE THAT THE ABOVE IS JUST AN OPINION AND SHOULD NOT BE + TAKEN TO INCLUDE ANY MEASURE OF FACTUAL INFORMATION. THE + SPEAKER DISCLAIMS EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE. DEAL WITH IT. +% + any gnome freaks around? + not me, I'm just a freak +% + ahh + a gathering of geeks.... + I can smell it now +% + learn to love Window Maker. + a little NeXTStep is good for the soul. +% +Caveats: it's GNOME, be afraid, be very afraid of the Depends line + -- James Troup +% + Hhhmmmmmmmm + waterbeds for cows + eleet + Culus: why would a cow need a waterbed? + cas: To be comfy warm +% +If you are what you eat, I guess that makes me a cheese danish. + -- Anonymous +% + when you start making only stupid mistakes that are obvious, thats + when you start getting competent + because you don't make fundamental misunderstanding mistakes + and thats a *good* sign. +% + it's weird, when you go on a safari to Africa to catch a lion, you + find it alive and it charges, and then you kill it + when you go on a safari to South Bay to find a Palm Vx, you find + it dead and take it home and it charges after it arrives :) +% + I can read the bloody *manual* as if it were some sort of + religious tract describing forms of enlightenment you can achieve + after 10 years on a mountain :) +% +Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves. +% + Solver_: add users who should be messing with sound to group + audio.. Make sure the devices are all group audio (ls -l + /dev/dsp will give you the fastest indication if it's probably + set right) and build a kernel with sound support for your card + OR optionally install alsa source and build modules for that + with make-kpkg + OR (not recommended) get and install evil OSS/Linux evil + non-free evil binary only evil drivers---but those are evil. + And did I mention that it's not recommended? +% +I think irc isn't going to work though---we're running out of topic space! + -- Joseph Carter +% +"Pacific Bell Customer Service, this is [..], how can I provide you with +excellent customer service today?" +"HAHAHAHAHA!! That's good, I like it.." +"Um, thanks, they make us say that." + -- knghtbrd and a pacbell rep, name removed to protect her job +% + Omnic: bloody newzealanders + danpat: put a sock in it + heh :) + making fun of .nz'ers is different---they're all weird +* knghtbrd hides + hrmph +% + Flinny: black crontab magic kinda stuff :) + Joy: does that mean people get to dance naked around bonfires + chanting strange things and waving their arms about in a silly + manner? + knghtbrd: what do you *think* people do at novare? +% + *snipsnip* + oh dear, is that the sound of fortune-database editing? + uh oh + Yes => +% + that's a Kludge(TM) + It Works(tm) + AIX works(TM) + no it doesn't + => +% +"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's +limits." + -- Albert Einstein +% + If charging someone for violation of US crypto laws would get + you laughed out of court, just "investigate" them on hte charge + of TREASON! + Tea, anyone? + I'd rather drown politicians instead of tea :) + espy: politicians have gills, duh + weasels don't have gills +% +If I have trouble installing Linux, something is wrong. Very wrong. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +* bma_home gropes you + "oups, wrong channel" + + quit groping me + you know you like it. + actually, it was "grope me baby" + touch my son and you die, bma ;) + gecko-: but your wife is ok? +% +Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading +sex manuals without the software. + - Arthur C Clarke +% + (tinc) + (ytitac) + (ntinac) + (it) + (in) +* Espy notes talking in acr^Winitialisms is scary when the other side + understands you +% + it's too bad most ancient unices are y2k compliant +<|Rain|> too bad? +<|Rain|> why, because people won't upgrade until 2038? +% + "I installed 'Linux 6.1', doesn't that make me a unix + guru?" + Espy_on_crack: no, you have to install it twice before you are a + guru...once to prove you can do it, the second to fix the things + your broke the first time + oh right, how silly of me +% +* knghtbrd does the ET thing + anybody got a speak-n-spell? +% + another .sig addition +% +I'm starting to think the gene pool could use a little chlorine. +% +It's as BAD as you think, and they ARE out to get you. +% + be careful, some twit might quote you + out of context... +% +*** Topic for #redhat: ReDHaT is the answer to all your problems. It + could be the start too! +% +* cesarb wonders if in less than a week Carmack will end up receiving in + e-mail a courtesy copy of a version of the Quake source which is four + times faster than what went out of his virtual hands... +% + JHM: I'm not putting quake in the kernel source + but we should put quake in the boot floppies to one-up + Caldera's tetris game.. ;> +% +Guns don't kill people. It's those damn bullets. Guns just make them go +really really fast. + -- Jake Johanson +% + we need to split main into"core" and "wtf-uses-this" +% + libc6 is not essential :| +% + is there a special christmas pack for quake + where you get to be like the santa robot on futurama? + dhd: that would be a rather unbalanced game... + dunham: that's the idea. ;> +% + the problem with the GNU coding standards is they ASSUME that + everyone in the world uses emacs.. If that were the case, free + software would die because we would all have wrist problems + like RMS by now and no longer be able to code. ;> +% +C'mon! political protest! sheesh. Where's that anarchist spirit? ;-) + -- Decklin Foster +% +We've upped our standards, so up yours! +% +* woot is now known as woot-dinner +* Knghtbrd sprinkles a little salt on woot + I've never had a woot before... Hope they taste good + noooo! + don't eat me! +* Knghtbrd decides he does not want a dinner that talks to him... hehe +% +[regarding measures to prevent cheating in quake] +I mean, as long as I can make my rocket launcher look like a big twinkie, +I'll be happy ;) + -- Qeyser +% + r0bert: in short, we're moving several things the client + currently is responsible for telling the server into things the + server checks for itself + If Neo says "There is no spoon", The Matrix will say "Oh yes + there is---no cheating!" + But he knows kung fu... + Sure he does, but I have a rocket launcher. +% +* Mercury calmly removes XT-Ream's arm.. +* Mercury then proceeds to beat XT-Ream with XT-Ream's arm. + wow, all this quake hacking is making Mercury violent here +* mao is glad the quake forge project is in good hands +% + CVS/Entries had the line I needed to "alter" + Knghtbrd: Was about to mention such.. + Knghtbrd: Now, ready to commit? + wish me luck + Mercury: it's committed + Mercury: and after all that, I should be too. +% +* Knghtbrd crosses his toes + (if I crossed my fingers it would be hard to type) +% + there is one bad thing about having a cell phone. + I can be reached at any time. :| + that's why I leave mine off at all times. ;> +% + how are we going to pronounce '00 or '01 or '02 and so on? + Say goodbye to the nineties, say hello to the naughties. :) +% + If the user points the gun at his foot and pulls the trigger, it + is our job to ensure the bullet gets where it's supposed to. +% + Be warned, I have a keyboard I can use to beat luser's heads + in, and then continue to use... (=:] + Mercury: Oh, an IBM. :) +% + knght, sheesh, are you pasting my words out of context in + #debian or something? + ;) + no, but I probably should be ;> + d'oh! +% + Mercury: gpm isn't a very good web browser. fix it. +% + well there ya go. say something stupid in irc and have it + immortalised forever in someone's .sig file +% +Microsoft is a cross between the Borg and the Ferengi. Unfortunately, +they use Borg to do their marketing and Ferengi to do their +programming. + -- Simon Slavin +% +I would rather spend 10 hours reading someone else's source code than 10 +minutes listening to Musak waiting for technical support which isn't. + -- Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center +% +Where do you think you're going today? +% +I'd been hearing all sorts of gloom and doom predictions for Y2K, so I + thought I'd heed some of the advice that the experts have been giving: + Fill up the car's gas tank, stock up on canned goods, fill up the bathtub + with water, and so on. + +I guess I wasn't fully awake when I completed my preparations late last +night. This morning I found the kitchen shelves soaked in gasoline, water +in the car's gas tank, and my bathtub filled with baked beans. + -- Dan Pearl in a message to rec.humor.funny +% + hey did you fall off your pirch or something? + me? heh. +% + you are baked + Espy: only half so +% + I generally don't use anything that has "experimental" and + "warning" pasted all over it + no, I'm not that dumb... hehe + ... +* darkangel considers downloading the latest unstable kernel +% + solaris is bsd, so it should work +* Espy takes wichert's crack pipe away +% + it's too bad most old unices turned out y2k compliant + because it means people will STILL BE RUNNING THEM in 30 years + =p + it would have been so much nicer if y2k effectively killed off + hpux, aix, sunos, etc ;> + Knghtbrd: since when are PH-UX, aches, and solartus "old"? +% +* gxam wonders if all these globals are really necessary + most of them at the moment yes + we REALLY need to clean them up at some point + gxam: the globals will have to go away as we migrate towards + modularity and madness (ie, libtool) +% + Adamel, i think the code you fixed of mine didn't work + i must not have commited the working code + raptor: like it's the first time THAT has ever happened =p +% + Knghtbrd: Using -3dfx or -svga? + Mercury will do something sane with it + Mercury: both---svga sig11's, -3dfx sig4's + Mercury: that's not good right? ;> +% + Trust us, we know what we're doing... We may have no idea HOW + we're doing it, but we know WHAT we're doing. +% + i can upload to linux server tho + i got a shell account on one + Whats it running? + umm + apache i think + Help, please help.. +* Omni chuckles +% + should a bug be marked critical if it only affects one arch? + jt: rc for that arch maybe, but those kind of arch + specific bugs are rare... + not when it's caused by a bug in gcc + jt: get gcc removed from that arch. :) +% + LWE? + Linux W?? E?? + will eatyou + World Expo? + i see +% +"Nominal fee". What an ugly sentence. It's one of those things that +implies that if you have to ask, you can't afford it. + -- Linus Torvalds +% + you GPL your homework? :) + yah =D + Anyone is permitted to use or modify my homework, but if they + distribute changes they must include the full machine-readable + source code ;> +% +* knghtbrd is each day more convinced that most C++ coders don't know what + the hell they're doing, which is why C++ has such a bad rap + kb: Most C coders don't know what they are doing, it just makes it + easier to hide :P + see for instance, proftpd :P +% + And don't get me started on perl! + :> + perl is beyond evil + you don't know perl yet? + gotta love a language with no definable syntax +% + cat /dev/random | perl ? + doogie: it is also a valid sendmail.cf + :) +* knghtbrd hands doogie a senseless-use-of-cat award +* shaleh wants to try it but is afraid +% + perl < /dev/bdsm + you have a /dev/bdsm? + sure, it's a pseudosadomasochistic random number generator +% + Joey: I'm on it right now.. 3 1.3Gb disks, 128M ram, dual 50Mhz + (Up to quad 250Mhz) + The catch is that it pulls 110v at about 12A 8> + 12A! + Okay, my stove is 3000W, this sun is 1320W + DO YOU SEE A PROBLEM HERE + a 1320W sun, that is like a hair dryer :) +% +* joeyh_ runs ps and sees 10 lines of awk code +* joeyh_ recoils in horror +% + joeyh: I was down since midmorning yesterday and pacbell said + this morning that AT&T was to blame and almost all of the state + was down + dunno why people insist the internet can survive a nuclear holocaust + when it can't survive a backhoe +% +This message was written with vi! (not that anyone in the world cares) + -- seen on an old message from an anon.penet.fi address +% +Connection reset by some moron with a backhoe +% +Feb 5 13:27:01 trinity lp0 on fire + -- the Linux kernel, alerting me that there was some unknown + problem with my printer (ie, it was out of ink) +% +The less you know about computers the more you want Microsoft! + -- Microsoft ad campaign, circa 1996 + +(Proof that Microsoft's advertising _isn't_ dishonest!) +% +Making one brilliant decision and a whole bunch of mediocre ones isn't as +good as making a whole bunch of generally smart decisions throughout the +whole process. + -- John Carmack +% +It's not usually cost effective time wise to go do it. But if something's +really pissing you off, you just go find the code and fix it and that's +really cool. + -- John Carmack, on the advantages of open source +% + yea it sounds useful for RE'ing USB + i have a useless 3com usb camera here :( + calc: 3Com could have you arrested for violating laws which + don't exist 'till October ;> + knghtbrd: i will hide :) + ...resisting arrest too eh? + knghtbrd: no i will hide before i get served +% + At that point it will compile, but segfault, as it should.. +% +* Knghtbrd is FAR too tempted to .sig this entire discussion... +% +The Unixverse ends on Tue, 19 Jan 2038 03:14:07 +0000 +% + Knghtbrd: we should do a quake episode :knee deep in the code": + you run around shooting at bugs:) + taniwha: I'll pass the idea on to OpenQuartz ;> +% + i'd solve a windows key problem with fdisk :) +% + knghtbrd: QW's netcode is doing strange things to me. :P + This is unusual? ;> + Not really. :P +% + rcw: Oh yay---I haven't been involved in a good flamewar in at + least ... 5 minutes! +% + shaleh: I am not, despite your implication, God +% + i just bought MS Office 2000 for only $20!!! + you got ripped off ;> + i know ;) +% + it's 6am. I have been up 24 hours + Wake me up and risk life and limb. +* Knghtbrd &; sleep + Okay everyone, we wait 10 minutes and then start flooding Knghtbrd + with ^G's. Someone, hack root and cat /dev/urandom >/dev/dsp. +% +*** Knghtbrd is now known as SirKewLDooD +*** Mercury kicked SirKewlDooD from #quakeforge (*WHACK*) +% + Knghtbrd: I'd love to see support for xor crosshairs.. + Mercury: you're on quack. + Knghtbrd: You're the dealer... +*** Knghtbrd is now known as QuackDealer +% +* Dry-ice can't code his way out of a paper bag + dry-ice: int main() { ExitPaperBag(); return 0; } + Is that how that's done then? *takes notes* +% + eek, not another one... + Seems ever developer and their mother now has a random + signature using irc quotes ... + WHAT HAVE I STARTED HERE?? +% +* seeS uses knghtbrd's comments as his signature + seeS: as soon as I typed them I realized I'd better snip them + myself before someone else did ;> +% +* Omnic looks at his 33.6k link and then looks at Joy +* Mercury cuddles his cable modem.. (=:] +% +Granted, Win95's look wasn't all that new either - Apple tried to sue +Microsoft for copying the Macintosh UI / trash can icon, until Microsoft +pointed out that Apple got many of its Mac ideas (including the trash can +icon) from Xerox ParcPlace. Xerox is probably still wondering why +everyone is interested in their trash cans. + -- Danny Thorpe, Borland Delphi R&R +% + is it a sign of mental illness to wander aimlessly through the + start map, collect your Thunderbolt, hop in the pool, and gib + yourself with it just to see your head buouce when it falls + through the bottom of the pool? => + "You know you're a Quake addict when ..." +% + I still think you guys are nuts merging Q and QW. :P + Of course we're nuts. Even John said so. => + Zoid: we're nuts, but we're productive nuts:) +% + Zoid: we're nuts, but we're productive nuts:) +* taniwha wonders what productive nuts taste like +% + taniwha: Quote material :) + Endy: :) + Endy: I already snipped it +% + Actually, I think I'll wait for potato to be finalised before + installing debian. + That should be soon, I'm hoping. :) + Endy: You obviously know very little about Debian. +% +Nothing is a problem once you debug the code. + -- John Carmack +% + The Unix way -- everything is a file + The Linux way -- everything is a filesystem :) +% + yeah i saw the lightning gun and where you were going, thinking + you were gonna kick some ass :) + didnt realise it would be your own :) +% +"Otherwise, please speak to a doctor about removing your head from your +ass, I believe it would be beneficial to all involved." + -- Zephaniah E. Hull, flaming someone on a mailing list +% +Tagline, you're it! +% + this is college course in formal logic + knghtbrd: i hate that shit, much prefer fuzzy logic :) + kev: fuzzy logic tickles. + knghtbrd: lol + knghtbrd: fuzzy logic is so cool, it models the world really well +% +I am practicing a fine point of ethics. It is acceptable to shoot back. +It is not acceptable to shoot first. + -- Zed Pobre +% + gib, perl? + methinks perl is the programmer's Swiss Army Chainsaw +% + taniwha: Have you TESTED this one? :) + Endy: of course not +% +That's the funniest thing I've ever heard and I will _not_ condone it. + -- DyerMaker, 17 March 2000 MegaPhone radio show +% +It's not? Are you saying that you SHOULD allow people (other than William +Wallace) to shoot lightning bolts from their arse? + -- Seth Galbraith +% + You don't have to be crazy to be a member of the project, but + you will be.. <=:] +% +* Endy needs to consult coffee :P + coffee the bot person, not coffee the beverage :) + consulting the beverage may help too => +% + knghtbrd: and the meek shall inherit k-mart +% + "Java for the COBOL Programmer" + who writes these things? + people on crack + and cobol programmers + :) + that's redundant. +% + heh, I never took a coding class + or a graphics class + or a software design class + and it shows :P +% +* The_Answer_MD throws spaghetti at everyone +* taniwha eats the spaghetti +* Coderjoe tosses around some meatballs +* Knghtbrd gets the cheese +* taniwha grabs a red +% + What's this message on my screen, + so blue, so blue, what could it mean? + Could you, would you press Delete, + Ctrl and Alt and then repeat. +% + what do you get when someone cracks your debian machine ? + mashed potato... +% + come on + it's a pico clone + it's *meant* to be annoying +% + I invoke Espy's law, which states that you all suck :P +% + Culus: wanna suspend me for it? :) + Overfiend: Go maliciously crack a few severs and we'll talk + Culus: damn, it has to be malicious? + Overfiend: Sadly, yes +% + 2fort5 sucks enough to have its own gravity ... +% +* CosmicRay wishes he had some strippers here.... + err, wire strippers +% + ok guys .. so whens the next commit :PP + when they come to get me +% + I'm a gnus person myself. It's an editor! It's a floorwax! + It's a dessert topping! +% + Q. What's the difference between Batman and Bill Gates? + A. When Batman fought the Penguin, he won. +% +At some point, bits have to go into packets and routers need to make +decisions on them. Changes at that level is what I want to hear about, not +strategic company relationships. + -- John Carmack +% +We reject: kings, presidents, and voting. +We believe in: rough consensus and working code. + -- Dave Clark +% + QF is going to get zipfile support today + heh... infozip? + If I'm lucky yes + knghtbrd: You're kidding, right? ;) +* Deek takes away Knghtbrd's crack pipe. ;) +% + change all cvar->value = X to use Cvar_Set() + that didn't happen in oldtree + Actually, it did. + yeah - two weeks later. +% +=== This letter is the Honor System Virus ==== +If you are running a Macintosh, OS/2, Unix, or +Linux computer, please randomly delete +several files from your hard disk drive and +forward this message to everyone you know. +============================================== +% +* shortc wants to get in one of knghtbrd's sigs one of these days. +% + SGI_Multitexture is bad voodoo now + ARB is good voodoo + no, voodoo rush is bad voodoo :) +% +99 little bugs in the code, 99 bugs in the code, + fix one bug, compile it again... + 101 little bugs in the code.... +% +Hmm... Which would do a better job at driving physicists crazy? Travel +faster than light, or a floating-point boolean value? + -- Michael Mol +% + knghtbrd: gnome 2.0 will be out in a few months, not sure how it + will compare to kde 2.0 though + calc: Just as bloated, just as buggy, and every Gnome 2 app + will depend on 30 libraries. + knghtbrd: so what changes from 1.0 ? +% + so, how's everything in the world of Quack? + just ducky + excellent, fried duck is mighty fine tasty. +% + I should probably reboot... + ok brb + So, what apart form avoiding virii, memory leaks, and rampant + crashing does Linux reallhy offer :) + reliable multitasking? +% + if (cb) ((cb->obj)->*(cb->ui_func))(); + tausq: who the HELL wrote that ? + me :) +* knghtbrd flogs tausq +% + Exactly how much of a PITA is this in C? + It's written in C++. + Hence my question. + I could do something like it in C. Anyone who saw the results + would think I was either a genius or out of my fucking mind. + They'd be right on either count. +% + glDisable (GL_BUGS); + heh + Is that in 1.2? :) +% + knghtbrd: Eww, find a better name, the movie sucked.. + Mercury: The engine is better than the movie +% + What are 'bots'? +<``Erik> rsg is a bot, not a human, not a human usable client, just a bot. +<``Erik> about the same as a quake bot, except irc bots are (usually) + built to help, not shoot your ass full of holes +% +if (me != you) // FIXME: probably always true, delete? + for (n = 0; n < who_knows_what; n++) { + answer = DoSomething (withthis[n]); + if (answer == foobar) { + GetLost (n); + break; + } + } +% + Yorick: no problem with indexed color palettes for images, as + long as you can pick the palette + Obviously the people creating quake were colour-blind but that + doesn't mean you have to be +% + Damn, every time I spawn, qf-client-x11 locks hard + Don't die? + good incentive. +% +Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the +universe are pointed away from Earth? +% + hey, quick question, is there any way to speed up the + performance of uquake-x11? + rebelpacket: If you want to accelerate it, throw it harder. +% + you know + its really sad when the internic itself cant configure DNS + servers right + it just doesnt get any more pathetic than that +% + Even with overbrights, Quake's color palette is full of dull, + flat colors + knghtbrd: quake's palette is very vibrant unless you use gamma + correction + well actually I agree, it's nowhere near as vibrant as Unreal + Q3 on the other hand...NEON. + Q3 is just ridiculous + Q3 takes the medieval church-dungeon and puts it in Vegas. +% +"I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." + -- Anonymous +% +Z.O.I.D.: Zombie Optimized for Infiltration and Destruction +% + Yes, America is a country based on how pissed-off a group of taxed + people can get. + We exist as a country because we're cheap. +% + Overfiend: many patches on top of 4.0.1 already? + Oskuro: a few + only 152 megs +% + oh my, it's a UP P III. + dos it. +* joeyh runs dselect + that ought to be sufficient :) +% + knghtbrd: crap, SDL sure makes DGA a helluva alot easier too + doesn't it? :) + barneyfu: what DGA? + mouse dga + barneyfu: (does that answer your question?) + Hahahahaha YEAH! :) +% + "A good programmer can write FORTRAN in any language." + knghtbrd has proven that you can write C++ in any language too. + + We are currently considdering if we should give him or prize, or + kill him.. + (Of course, by all rights, this means we should give him the + prize, and then kill him.. ) +% +A subversive is anyone who can out-argue their government. +% +We must know, we will know. + -- David Hilbert +% + Internet censorship. Because your children need to be + protected from naked women, medical procedures, diverse + cultures, and violent video games. + (but information on building bombs, stealing cable, and + manufacturing drugs is okay...) +% +A friend of mine has a barcode on his arm. +He rings up as a $.35 pack of JuicyFruit. + -- Seen on Slashdot +% + I like the seed code for computing masking curves. + I've never seen code that made be want to drink before that... +% +$you = new YOU; +honk() if $you->love(perl) + -- Seen on Slashdot +% + no! problems in M$ software? + "Thoroughly bugtested" +* Dabb grins. + rewrite that as 'Thoroughly buginfested' +% + dpkg has bugs? no way! +% +"Debian: no hats or reptiles were harmed in the making of this distribution= +." + -- Paul Slootman +% +* knghtbrd ponders how to scare the living shit out of 87 people at once.. + AHH! I can do it in 3 words!: + Microsoft Visual COBOL. +% +* athener calls Amnesty International House of Pancakes +% + unclean: err, the admin team do not control the archive, that's the + ftp cabal + get your cabals right, damn it :-P +% + CosmicRay: you complete me + err... + heh +* BenC goes back to coding +* elmo looks at benc + something we should know about you and cosmicray, Ben? :) +% +Change the Social Contract? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. + -- Branden Robinson +% + Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. + 0x40095fb0 in memchr () from /lib/libc.so.6 + (gdb) bt + #0 0x40095fb0 in memchr () from /lib/libc.so.6 + #1 0x0 in ?? () + Well That's Really Helpful +* knghtbrd trades gdb for a nice ouija board - it'll help more +% +All good ideas look like bad ideas to those who are losers. + -- Dilbert +% +RFC 882 put the dot in .com, not Sun Microsystems + -- Seen on Slashdot +% +* joeyh_ wonders if linux is supposed to lock up when you ask 100 + processes to cat the entire cd drive +% + knghtbrd: Quake should support xray vision, dammit + pretzelgod: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/quake/partial_conversions/ + xrated/i_am_old_enough_to_look_at_this + ... you asked ... + haha, that is a real directory +% + I SNEAK TO BUN + HELP ME FOR TO QUACK + kb: what the hell are you talking about? + bwahahaha.. It's a long story. +% + Mercury, isn't debugging X a little like finding perfectly + bugfree code in windows ?? + WildCode: Debugging X is like trying to run a straight line + through a maze. + You just need to bend space-time so that the corners move around + you and you won't have any problems. (=:] +% + `You have been unsubscribed from the high energy personal + protection devices mailing list' + I dont remember getting into the mailing list +% + I'm getting a connection refused when connecting to port 25, anyone + know where the damn log is? + Myth: /var/log/damn.log? +* aj wonders what that'd look like + Dec 18 05:32:30 blae smtpd[123]: DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!! +% + linux takes shit and turns it into something useful. + windows takes something useful and turns it into shit +% +* weasel wonders how stupid one has to be to spam alt.anonymous.messages + weasel: about half as stupid as one has to be to harvest it. +% +* wolfie ponders how many debianites it takes to screw in a lightbulb + wolfie: Somewhere around 600? One screw's the bulb, and the rest + flame him for doing it wrong. + wolfie: is the bulb free software? + Can we vote on whether to screw it or not? +% + We are also hoping to release a version of linux where shell is + replaced by perl to a large degree. Adding to that, there are a + few of us who would like to see a pure perl platform.. PerlOS :) +* Culus_ looks on in horror + Culus_: on the up side, you can type damn near anything in at the + command prompt :) +% + LordHavoc: The reason why GL has overdraw is because it is only + using HALF of the system they designed for vis. + LordHavoc: Shooting itself in the foot. +* Dabb looks at all those bullet holes in his shoes - damn, lots :) +% + hehe, I really hate bug reports which are like calling fire + department and saying: "There is fire here, come!" :) + (and hanging up) +* Dabb kills off dozen bug reports. +% + wow, I think I just used libtool to solve a problem -- somebody + help me! :> + xtifr, STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD +% + why do they insist on ading -Werror... + Mesa would not compile out of the box if it were done by you + guys ;) + Uh, Mesa DOESN'T compile out of the box most of the time. +% + nopcode: No, it isn't. Win32 lacks the equivalent of fork(). + Deek: windoze is not meant for people who should have access to + sharp objects, hence no fork() + instead, you must rely on spoon() +% + This font is starting to come out very nicely + Knghtbrd: oh dear, are you hacking up another quake font in vi? :) +% + oh, besides, whats the best approach if i want to make a Quake + level designed from an existing building? + Get a floorplan of Brian's office? =) + Knghtbrd: im considering my school. + Oh great + That's ALL we need +% + Windoze CEMeNT: Now with CrackGuard(TM)! Never worry about + unsightly cracks in Windoze CEMeNT again! CrackGuard(TM) is + so powerful that the entire thing will crumble before it will + crack. Order your $200 upgrade version today! +% + Culus: my bug with openssh appears to be fixed in 2.5.2, but + master runs 2.3.0 + Don't even start + I just did. + You guys are going to drive me to build a huge giant robot and + destroy all of texas, aren't you? +% + whats wrong with rjing? + it's lame :P + it should NOT be possible + shoving a grenade up your ass and using it as rocket + propelant shouldn't be a viable technique :P +% + * Equivalent code is available from RSA Data Security, Inc. + * This code has been tested against that, and is equivalent, + * except that you don't need to include two pages of legalese + * with every copy. + -- public domain MD5 source +% +* knghtbrd is gone - zzz - messages will be snapped like wet towels at all + of the people who have stolen the trademark knghtbrd away message + ack +* Coderjoe prepares to defend himself from wet messages +% +Never underestimate the power of somebody with source code, a text editor, +and the willingness to totally hose their system. + -- Rob Landley +% +"So, will the Andover party have a cash bar?" +"No, there's free beer." +"Uh-oh, Stallman's gonna be pissed..." + -- overheard at the Bazaar, 1999 +% + Alter.net seems to have replaced one of its router with a zucchini. +% + Someone fix it. + committed + Despair: Mercury? + Knghtbrd: he's tired, made a mistake, wanted someone to undo it. + Despair: so you had him committed? + Knghtbrd: well, dedicated anyways. +% + Knghtbrd: it's not bloat if it's used + taniwha: how do you explain windoze then? + Knghtbrd: most of it is used only as ballast to make sure your + harddrive is full + taniwha: ballast... Isn't that what makes subs sink to the + bottom of the ocean? + taniwha: that would explain why winboxes are always going down. +% +innovate /IN no vait/ vb.: 1. To appropriate third-party technology +through purchase, imitation, or theft and to integrate it into a +de-facto, monopoly-position product. 2. To increase in size or complexity +but not in utility; to reduce compatibility or interoperability. 3. To +lock-out competitors or to lock-in users. 4. To charge more money; to +increase prices or costs. 5. To acquire profits from investments in other +companies but not from direct product or service sales. 6. To stifle or +manipulate a free market; to extend monopoly powers into new markets. 7. +To evade liability for wrong-doings; to get off. 8. To purchase +legislation, legislators, legislatures, or chiefs of state. 9. To +mediate all transactions in a global economy; to embezzle; to co-opt power +(coup d'état). Cf. innovate, English usage (antonym). + -- csbruce, in a Slashdot post +% +The deafening silence taught me not to ask a bunch of geeks for advice +from their girlfriends +% +"What are we going to do tonight, Bill?" +"Same thing we do every night Steve, try to take over the world!" +% + *sigh* My todo list is like the fucking energizer bunny + It keeps growing and growing and growing and ... +% + That reminds me, we'll need to buy a chainsaw for the office. "In + case of emergency, break glass" +% + He's a about half the size of the others. + But he's got a chainsaw. +% + It is when the example source won't compile ... +<``Erik> then you fucked something up + Nope, I followed their instructions +<``Erik> that may've been your problem :} +% + "I keep my personal gpg data in a locked, lead safe in a vault + guarded by angry rednecks and their dawgs. Trespassers will be + violated, and all that..." +% + glQuakeIIIRendererMode(GL_TRUE) + ExMachina: isn't that part of the extension which provides + glDriverBugs(GL_FALSE); ? + Knghtbrd: no, glDriverBugs() is part of EXT_help_me. + which also contains glMakeItWork(GL_PLEASE); +% +<``Erik> 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 is a big number +% + is that really knghtbrd? + No, I'm an EVIL IMPOSTOR! + An evil impostor who LIKES HYBRID! + haha + ok, it's him :P +% +<|Rain|> I *love* SWB!! +<|Rain|> Or, press 5 to speak to a representitive.. +<|Rain|> *5* +<|Rain|> You are being transferred, please hold... +<|Rain|> ... +<|Rain|> ... +<|Rain|> We're sorry, this number can not be completed as dialed. +<|Rain|> Please check the number and try again. +% +<|Rain|> #define struct union /* great space saver */ +% + no BSD fans ? + Elric: it's hard to be a gamer and a bsd fan :p +% + There's too much blood in my caffeine system. +% + Culus: are you awake? + no +% + Yeah, I looked at esd and it looked like the kind of C code that an + ex-JOVIAL/Algol '60 coder who had spent the last 20 years bouncing + between Fortran-IV and Fortran '77 would write. +% + .net is microsofts perverted version of a java networked + environment uglified for windows-specific crap +% + LordHavoc: I'm already insane. + damn straight. or curvy, crooked, or what have you +% +Unix is mature OS, windows is still in diapers and they smell badly. + -- Rafael Skodlar +% + From all the sterotypes about Aussies, I figure you guys are + really tough. + ;p + we'll throw koala's at you +% +<|Rain|> *nod* I'm not fond of using smarthosts, myself +<|Rain|> as it relies on both the remote host and your host being smart +<|Rain|> and too often you miss one of both of those goals +% +The sourceforge approach is to place all of the projects in some bland +"open source surburbia", where all of the houses are alike, with only the +colors and minor style variations (which building plan was used for which +particular house) are allowed by the restrictive covenants and local +zoning laws. Sourceforege is the open source equivalent of the +subdivision in the movie "Edward Scissorhands". + -- Terry Lambert +% + Knghtbrd: irc doesn't compile c code very well ;) +% +* |Rain| prepares for polygon soup +<|Rain|> sweet merciful crap, it works? +* |Rain| faints +% +"Since it's a foregone conclusion that Microsoft will be littering its XML +with pointers to Win32-based components, the best that can be said about +its adoption of XML is that it will make it easier for browsers and +applications on non-Windows platforms to understand which parts of the +document it must ignore." + -- Nicholas Petreley, "Computerworld", 3 September, 2001 +% + i understand there are some reasonable limits to free speech in + america, for example I cannot scream Fire into a crowded theatre + .. But can i scream fire into a theatre with only 5 or 6 poeple + in it ? +% + coffee on an empty stomach is pretty nasy + aav: time to run to the vending machine for cheetos + cheetos? :) +% +<|Rain|> with sane code, maybe I could figure out the renderer :) + rain: I'd probably be the one writing the renderer +<|Rain|> well, er, uh +% +<|Rain|> Knghtbrd: let me give you access to the zone files + oh gods - you do realize I have never played with bind right? +<|Rain|> uhoh :) +% + Look, rejects, this is #OpenGL, not #GEEKSEX. +% +* TwingyAFK is shopping for 17" flat panel +* aav sells TwingyAFK a piece of plywood +% +Isn't it embarrassing when you have to go to the drugstore for some +"special items", and when you're checking out, the cashier looks at you +like, "oh, I know what YOU'RE doing tonight..." + +Yep, that cashier read all the signs... canned chicken soup, TheraFlu, +Halls, NyQuil, the bigass bottles of OJ and grapefruit juice... he knew +and I knew that I had a date with the teevee and a down comforter. Awww +yeah. + -- Elizabeth Kirkindall +% +In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really +good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change +their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really +do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are +human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot +recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. + -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address +% + add a GF2/3, a sizable hard drive, and a 15" flat panel and + you've got a pretty damned portable machine. + a GeForce Two-Thirds? + Coderjoe: yes, a GeForce two-thirds, ie, any card from ATI. +% + Nintendo Declares GCN Most Popular Console Ever + Who are they kidding? + knghtbrd: Stock holders? +% + the majority of windoze artists do not have the ability to + save xpm + LordHavoc: They don't have notepad? *G,D&R* +% +Linux supports the notion of a command line or a shell for the same reason +that only children read books with only pictures in them. Language, be it +English or something else, is the only tool flexible enough to accomplish +a sufficiently broad range of tasks. + -- Bill Garrett +% +## Signoff: insurgent (razzin' frazzin' motherfu... stupid directx...) +% + Kgnghtbrd: I wouldn't kow, I see no need for a spellchecker yet + you were saying? +% + I'd better put the incriminating stuff into code: ahfuiovka + ikperoa edfr ade 9 enbuw ejasxleme ka iena df4mesa + If you can decrypt that, you're a better cryptographer than I + am. =) +% + liiwi: printk("CPU0 on fire\n"); +% + that's *IT*. I'm never fucking attempting to install redhat + again. + this is like the 10th fucking machine on which the installer has + imploded immediately after I went through the hell of their + package selection process. + Sammy: just use debian and never look back + timball: debian iso's are being written at this very moment. +% + my computer was once one of the building blocks of a great + pyramid +% +NOTICE: anyone seen smoking will be assumed to be on fire and will be + summarily put out. +% + c++: the power, elegance and simplicity of a hand grenade +% + but one sort per tab and none per list is arguably better than + O(n + n**2) per tab and O(n**2) per list. + OMG, someone shoot me. + ? + I can't believe I just used the big goose-egg to explain why my + way is probably best in the long run. +% + my program works if i take out the bugs. +% + Knghtbrd: Hey, perl has the power grace and elegance of a sledge + hammer. (=:] +<|Rain|> certainly the grace and elegance, anyway +% + Hit the monkey to win $20(*)! +* knghtbrd gets out his mallet. +* knghtbrd plants it firmly on DannyS' head. +* knghtbrd will take his $20 now. =D +% + well I'm impressed + win98 managed to crash X from within vmware. +* gholam applauds. +% +"Nvidia's OpenGL drivers are my "gold standard", and it has been quite a +while since I have had to report a problem to them, and even their brand +new extensions work as documented the first time I try them. When I have +a problem on an Nvidia, I assume that it is my fault. With anyone else's +drivers, I assume it is their fault. This has turned out correct almost +all the time." + -- John Carmack +% +Libtool shared library portability is only slightly more believable than +perpetual motion machines. Especially on AIX :)." + -- David Leimbach +% + this is the New Overfiend, preacher of Love and Tolerance +% + the difference between netbsd, freebsd, and openbsd, as an + insider is freebsd is interested in getting things done, and + doesn't mind hurting people who get in their way. + netbsd is interested in making sure nothing gets done, and + doesn't mind hurting people who try to accomplish things. + openbsd is interested in looking good, and doesn't hurt anyone + in their own little community, but look out everybody else! +% + so, what's the official way to get buildd to retry a package? prod + it with a stick? + prod neuro + with a stick? + yes. +% + "... you will more than likely see all kinds of compiler + warnings scrolling by on the screen. These are normal and can + be safely ignored." + Knghtbrd: is that a note attached to some M$ code? + No, it's a note about a bunch of GNU stuff. +% + knightbrd: from knightbrd.brain import * :) + Oh gods if it were that easy .. + from carmack.brain import OpenGL +% + mmmm, multitextured donuts.... + LIM: with fruit filling? + knghtbrd: chocolate cream... +% + You're rewriting parts of Quake in *Python*? + MUAHAHAHA +% +## a_nick (nobody@c213-89-87-111.cm-upc.chello.se) has joined #python + how do i add a new key to a dictionary? + nm + heh :) + behold the problem-solving power of #python. +% + i had something that i think was chicken that was coated with a red + paste that seemed to be composed of lye based on how much of my + tounge it burned away. + our friend who is Indian said this is why most Indians are thin + and i quote "It doesn't take very much of this food to get you + satisfied enoguh to stop eating." +% + "It's classic percolate-up economics, recognizing that money + is like manure: It works best if you spread it around." + Intention: Carter's correlation: People with lots of either + usually smell funny + Knghtbrd: You SO win. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/law b/fortune-mod/datfiles/law new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0990511 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/law @@ -0,0 +1,1255 @@ +A blind rabbit was hopping through the woods, tripping over logs and crashing +into trees. At the same time, a blind snake was slithering through the same +forest, with identical results. They chanced to collide head-on in a clearing. + "Please excuse me, sir, I'm blind and I bumped into you accidentally," +apologized the rabbit. + "That's quite all right," replied the snake, "I have the same +problem!" + "All my life I've been wondering what I am," said the rabbit, "Do +you think you could help me find out?" + "I'll try," said the snake. He gently coiled himself around the +rabbit. "Well, you're covered with soft fur, you have a little fluffy tail +and long ears. You're... hmmm... you're probably a bunny rabbit!" + "Great!" said the rabbit. "Thanks, I really owe you one!" + "Well," replied the snake, "I don't know what I am, either. Do you +suppose you could try and tell me?" + The rabbit ran his paws all over the snake. "Well, you're low, cold +and slimey..." And, as he ran one paw underneath the snake, "and you have +no balls. You must be an attorney!" +% +A certain old cat had made his home in the alley behind Gabe's bar for some +time, subsisting on scraps and occasional handouts from the bartender. One +evening, emboldened by hunger, the feline attempted to follow Gabe through +the back door. Regrettably, only the his body had made it through when +the door slammed shut, severing the cat's tail at its base. This proved too +much for the old creature, who looked sadly at Gabe and expired on the spot. + Gabe put the carcass back out in the alley and went back to business. +The mandatory closing time arrived and Gabe was in the process of locking up +after the last customers had gone. Approaching the back door he was startled +to see an apparition of the old cat mournfully holding its severed tail out, +silently pleading for Gabe to put the tail back on its corpse so that it could +go on to the kitty afterworld complete. + Gabe shook his head sadly and said to the ghost, "I can't. You know +the law -- no retailing spirits after 2:00 AM." +% +A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. + -- Ben Franklin +% +A doctor was stranded with a lawyer in a leaky life raft in shark-infested +waters. The doctor tried to swim ashore but was eaten by the sharks. The +lawyer, however, swam safely past the bloodthirsty sharks. "Professional +courtesy," he explained. +% +A Dublin lawyer died in poverty and many barristers of the city subscribed to +a fund for his funeral. The Lord Chief Justice of Orbury was asked to donate +a shilling. "Only a shilling?" exclaimed the man. "Only a shilling to bury +an attorney? Here's a guinea; go and bury twenty of them." +% +A friend of mine won't get a divorce, because he hates lawyers more than he +hates his wife. +% + A grade school teacher was asking students what their parents did +for a living. "Tim, you be first," she said. "What does your mother do +all day?" + Tim stood up and proudly said, "She's a doctor." + "That's wonderful. How about you, Amie?" + Amie shyly stood up, scuffed her feet and said, "My father is a +mailman." + "Thank you, Amie," said the teacher. "What about your father, Billy?" + Billy proudly stood up and announced, "My daddy plays piano in a +whorehouse." + The teacher was aghast and promptly changed the subject to geography. +Later that day she went to Billy's house and rang the bell. Billy's father +answered the door. The teacher explained what his son had said and demanded +an explanation. + Billy's father replied, "Well, I'm really an attorney. But how do +you explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old child?" +% + A housewife, an accountant and a lawyer were asked to add 2 and 2. + The housewife replied, "Four!". + The accountant said, "It's either 3 or 4. Let me run those figures +through my spread sheet one more time." + The lawyer pulled the drapes, dimmed the lights and asked in a +hushed voice, "How much do you want it to be?" +% +A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. + -- Robert Frost +% + A lawyer named Strange was shopping for a tombstone. After he had +made his selection, the stonecutter asked him what inscription he +would like on it. "Here lies an honest man and a lawyer," responded the +lawyer. + "Sorry, but I can't do that," replied the stonecutter. "In this +state, it's against the law to bury two people in the same grave. However, +I could put ``here lies an honest lawyer'', if that would be okay." + "But that won't let people know who it is" protested the lawyer. + "Certainly will," retorted the stonecutter. "people will read it +and exclaim, "That's Strange!" +% +A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in +his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and +exceptional ability in that particular field." +% + A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in +his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and exceptional +ability in that particular field." +% + A man walked into a bar with his alligator and asked the bartender, +"Do you serve lawyers here?". + "Sure do," replied the bartender. + "Good," said the man. "Give me a beer, and I'll have a lawyer for +my 'gator." +% + A New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the +movies insist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have the +right to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them. +% +A New York City ordinance prohibits the shooting of rabbits from the +rear of a Third Avenue street car -- if the car is in motion. +% +A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may +not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized rosewater. +% +A small town that cannot support one lawyer can always support two. +% +According to Arkansas law, Section 4761, Pope's Digest: "No person +shall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer than +fifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the opening +of the polls until the completion of the count and the certification of +the returns." +% +According to Kentucky state law, every person must take a bath at least +once a year. +% +After 35 years, I have finished a comprehensive study of European +comparative law. In Germany, under the law, everything is prohibited, +except that which is permitted. In France, under the law, everything +is permitted, except that which is prohibited. In the Soviet Union, +under the law, everything is prohibited, including that which is +permitted. And in Italy, under the law, everything is permitted, +especially that which is prohibited. + -- Newton Minow, + Speech to the Association of American Law Schools, 1985 +% + After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from +Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, +and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon +to be created." + "This is true," He replied. + "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly. + "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the +right to make his laws?" + "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to +make his own." + It was so granted. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +An amendment to a motion may be amended, but an amendment to an amendment +to a motion may not be amended. However, a substitute for an amendment to +and amendment to a motion may be adopted and the substitute may be amended. + -- The Montana legislature's contribution to the English + language. +% +An attorney was defending his client against a charge of first-degree murder. +"Your Honor, my client is accused of stuffing his lover's mutilated body into +a suitcase and heading for the Mexican border. Just north of Tijuana a cop +spotted her hand sticking out of the suitcase. Now, I would like to stress +that my client is *___not* a murderer. A sloppy packer, maybe..." +% +An English judge, growing weary of the barrister's long-winded summation, +leaned over the bench and remarked, "I've heard your arguments, Sir +Geoffrey, and I'm none the wiser!" Sir Geoffrey responded, "That may be, +Milord, but at least you're better informed!" +% +And then there was the lawyer that stepped in cow manure and thought +he was melting... +% +Another day, another dollar. + -- Vincent J. Fuller, defense lawyer for John Hinckley, + upon Hinckley's acquittal for shooting President Ronald + Reagan. +% +Anti-trust laws should be approached with exactly that attitude. +% +Atlanta makes it against the law to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole +or street lamp. +% +Attorney General Edwin Meese III explained why the Supreme Court's Miranda +decision (holding that subjects have a right to remain silent and have a +lawyer present during questioning) is unnecessary: "You don't have many +suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person +is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect." + -- U.S. News and World Report, 10/14/85 +% +Be frank and explicit with your lawyer ... it is his business to confuse +the issue afterwards. +% +Behold the warranty -- the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away. +% +Being a miner, as soon as you're too old and tired and sick and stupid to +do your job properly, you have to go, where the very opposite applies with +the judges. + -- Beyond the Fringe +% +Between grand theft and a legal fee, there only stands a law degree. +% +... but as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be +proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge +to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women +were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still +unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and +in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than +the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If +there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute +of value. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Carmel, New York, has an ordinance forbidding men to wear coats and +trousers that don't match. +% +Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation and the +most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion. A judge of the Court of +Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book his candidate which +reads, "In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground nuts) Order, the expression +nuts shall have reference to such nuts, other than ground nuts, as would +but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground) (other than ground +nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground)." + -- Guiness Book of World Records, 1973 +% +Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire. +% +Diogenes went to look for an honest lawyer. "How's it going?", someone +asked him, after a few days. + "Not too bad", replied Diogenes. "I still have my lantern." +% +[District Attorneys] learn in District Attorney School that there are +two sure-fire ways to get a lot of favorable publicity: + +(1) Go down and raid all the lockers in the local high school and + confiscate 53 marijuana cigarettes and put them in a pile and hold + a press conference where you announce that they have a street value + of $850 million. These raids never fail, because ALL high schools, + including brand-new, never-used ones, have at least 53 marijuana + cigarettes in the lockers. As far as anyone can tell, the locker + factory puts them there. +(2) Raid an "adult book store" and hold a press conference where you + announce you are charging the owner with 850 counts of being a + piece of human sleaze. This also never fails, because you always + get a conviction. A juror at a pornography trial is not about to + state for the record that he finds nothing obscene about a movie + where actors engage in sexual activities with live snakes and a + fire extinguisher. He is going to convict the bookstore owner, and + vote for the death penalty just to make sure nobody gets the wrong + impression. + -- Dave Barry, "Pornography" +% +District of Columbia pedestrians who leap over passing autos to escape +injury, and then strike the car as they come down, are liable for any +damage inflicted on the vehicle. +% +Divorce is a game played by lawyers. + -- Cary Grant +% +Doctors and lawyers must go to school for years and years, often with +little sleep and with great sacrifice to their first wives. + -- Roy G. Blount, Jr. +% +Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited by statute in Barber, North +Carolina. +% +First there was Dial-A-Prayer, then Dial-A-Recipe, and even Dial-A-Footballer. +But the south-east Victorian town of Sale has produced one to top them all. +Dial-A-Wombat. + It all began early yesterday when Sale police received a telephone +call: "You won't believe this, and I'm not drunk, but there's a wombat in the +phone booth outside the town hall," the caller said. + Not firmly convinced about the caller's claim to sobriety, members of +the constabulary drove to the scene, expecting to pick up a drunk. + But there it was, an annoyed wombat, trapped in a telephone booth. + The wombat, determined not to be had the better of again, threw its +bulk into the fray. It was eventually lassoed and released in a nearby scrub. + Then the officers received another message ... another wombat in +another phone booth. + There it was: *Another* angry wombat trapped in a telephone booth. + The constables took the miffed marsupial into temporary custody and +released it, too, in the scrub. + But on their way back to the station they happened to pass another +telephone booth, and -- you guessed it -- another imprisoned wombat. + After some serious detective work, the lads in blue found a suspect, +and after questioning, released him to be charged on summons. + Their problem ... they cannot find a law against placing wombats in +telephone booths. + -- "Newcastle Morning Herald", NSW Australia, Aug 1980. +% +For certain people, after fifty, litigation takes the place of sex. + -- Gore Vidal +% +For three years, the young attorney had been taking his brief +vacations at this country inn. The last time he'd finally managed an +affair with the innkeeper's daughter. Looking forward to an exciting +few days, he dragged his suitcase up the stairs of the inn, then stopped +short. There sat his lover with an infant on her lap! + "Helen, why didn't you write when you learned you were pregnant?" +he cried. "I would have rushed up here, we could have gotten married, +and the baby would have my name!" + "Well," she said, "when my folks found out about my condition, +we sat up all night talkin' and talkin' and finally decided it would be +better to have a bastard in the family than a lawyer." +% +Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions: + +It is a rule of evidence deduced from the experience of mankind and +supported by reason and authority that positive testimony is entitled to +more weight than negative testimony, but by the latter term is meant +negative testimony in its true sense and not positive evidence of a +negative, because testimony in support of a negative may be as positive +as that in support of an affirmative. + -- 254 Pac. Rep. 472. +% +Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions: + +We can imagine no reason why, with ordinary care, human toes could not be +left out of chewing tobacco, and if toes are found in chewing tobacco, it +seems to us that someone has been very careless. + -- 78 So. 365. +% +Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions: + +We think that we may take judicial notice of the fact that the term "bitch" +may imply some feeling of endearment when applied to a female of the canine +species but that it is seldom, if ever, so used when applied to a female +of the human race. Coming as it did, reasonably close on the heels of two +revolver shots directed at the person of whom it was probably used, we think +it carries every reasonable implication of ill-will toward that person. + -- Smith v. Moran, 193 N.E. 2d 466. +% +Fortune's Law of the Week (this week, from Kentucky): + No female shall appear in a bathing suit at any airport in this +State unless she is escorted by two officers or unless she is armed +with a club. The provisions of this statute shall not apply to females +weighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds, nor shall it +apply to female horses. +% +Fortune's nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful +Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan. During an +impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster and +clam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following +exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan. + +DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are + having to artificially propagate oysters and clams. +HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters? +DINGELL: They may or may not be natural. The simple fact of the matter + is that female oysters through their living habits cast out + large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large + amounts of fertilization ... +HOFFMAN: Wait a minute! I do not want to go into that. There are many + teenagers who read The Congressional Record. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #18: + +Q: Are you married? +A: No, I'm divorced. +Q: And what did your husband do before you divorced him? +A: A lot of things I didn't know about. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #19: + +Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people? +A: All my autopsies have been performed on dead people. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #25: + +Q: You say you had three men punching at you, kicking you, raping you, + and you didn't scream? +A: No ma'am. +Q: Does that mean you consented? +A: No, ma'am. That means I was unconscious. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #29: + +THE JUDGE: Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present + information and prejudice from your minds, if you have any ... +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #32: + +Q: Do you know how far pregnant you are right now? +A: I will be three months November 8th. +Q: Apparently then, the date of conception was August 8th? +A: Yes. +Q: What were you and your husband doing at that time? +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #37: + +Q: Did he pick the dog up by the ears? +A: No. +Q: What was he doing with the dog's ears? +A: Picking them up in the air. +Q: Where was the dog at this time? +A: Attached to the ears. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #3: + +Q: When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were + able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to + go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with + him to the station? +MR. BROOKS: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #41: + +Q: Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated? +A: By death. +Q: And by whose death was it terminated? +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #52: + +Q: What is your name? +A: Ernestine McDowell. +Q: And what is your marital status? +A: Fair. +% +Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #7: + +Q: What happened then? +A: He told me, he says, "I have to kill you because you can identify me." +Q: Did he kill you? +A: No. +% +Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a policeman's tie. +% +"Gentlemen of the jury," said the defense attorney, now beginning +to warm to his summation, "the real question here before you is, shall this +beautiful young woman be forced to languish away her loveliest years in a +dark prison cell? Or shall she be set free to return to her cozy little +apartment at 4134 Mountain Ave. -- there to spend her lonely, loveless hours +in her boudoir, lying beside her little Princess phone, 962-7873?" +% +Getting kicked out of the American Bar Association is liked getting kicked +out of the Book-of-the-Month Club. + -- Melvin Belli on the occcasion of his getting kicked out + of the American Bar Association +% + God decided to take the devil to court and settle their differences +once and for all. + When Satan heard of this, he grinned and said, "And just where do you +think you're going to find a lawyer?" +% +Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of +those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the +will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of +government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. + -- Frank Herbert, "Children of Dune" +% +He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides. +% +"Hi, I'm Preston A. Mantis, president of Consumers Retail Law Outlet. As you +can see by my suit and the fact that I have all these books of equal height +on the shelves behind me, I am a trained legal attorney. Do you have a car +or a job? Do you ever walk around? If so, you probably have the makings of +an excellent legal case. Although of course every case is different, I +would definitely say that based on my experience and training, there's no +reason why you shouldn't come out of this thing with at least a cabin +cruiser. + +"Remember, at the Preston A. Mantis Consumers Retail Law Outlet, our motto +is: 'It is very difficult to disprove certain kinds of pain.'" + -- Dave Barry, "Pain and Suffering" +% + Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants in Marshalltown, Iowa. +% + How do you insult a lawyer? + You might as well not even try. Consider: of all the highly +trained and educated professions, law is the only one in which the prime +lesson is that *winning* is more important than *truth*. + Once someone has sunk to that level, what worse can you say about them? +% +HR 3128. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation, Fiscal 1986. Martin, R-Ill., motion +that the House recede from its disagreement to the Senate amendment making +changes in the bill to reduce fiscal 1986 deficits. The Senate amendment +was an amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the House +amendment to the Senate amendment to the bill. The original Senate amendment +was the conference agreement on the bill. Agreed to. + -- Albuquerque Journal +% +Humor in th Court: +Q: Do you drink when you're on duty? +A: I don't drink when I'm on duty, unless I come on duty drunk. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. And lastly, Gary, all your responses must be oral. O.K.? What school do + you go to? +A. Oral. +Q. How old are you? +A. Oral. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. And who is this person you are speaking of? +A. My ex-widow said it. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in New York? +A. I refuse to answer that question. +Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in Chicago? +A. I refuse to answer that question. +Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in Miami? +A. No. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods? +A. No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. Mrs. Jones, is your appearance this morning pursuant to a deposition + notice which I sent to your attorney? +A. No. This is how I dress when I go to work. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. Mrs. Smith, do you believe that you are emotionally unstable? +A. I should be. +Q. How many times have you comitted suicide? +A. Four times. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. Officer, what led you to believe the defendant was under the influence? +A. Because he was argumentary and he couldn't pronunciate his words. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. Were you aquainted with the deceased? +A. Yes, sir. +Q. Before or after he died? +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. What is your brother-in-law's name? +A. Borofkin. +Q. What's his first name? +A. I can't remember. +Q. He's been your brother-in-law for years, and you can't remember his first + name? +A. No. I tell you I'm too excited. (Rising from the witness chair and + pointing to Mr. Borofkin.) Nathan, for God's sake, tell them your first + name! +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: (Showing man picture.) That's you? +A: Yes, sir. +Q: And you were present when the picture was taken, right? +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: ...and what did he do then? +A: He came home, and next morning he was dead. +Q: So when he woke up the next morning he was dead? +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: ...any suggestions as to what prevented this from being a murder trial + instead of an attempted murder trial? +A: The victim lived. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: Are you qualified to give a urine sample? +A: Yes, I have been since early childhood. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: Are you sexually active? +A: No, I just lie there. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: Could you see him from where you were standing? +A: I could see his head. +Q: And where was his head? +A: Just above his shoulders. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: Did you tell your lawyer that your husband had offered you indignities? +A: He didn't offer me nothing; he just said I could have the furniture. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: Now, you have investigated other murders, have you not, where there was + a victim? +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: So, after the anesthesia, when you came out of it, what did you observe + with respect to your scalp? +A: I didn't see my scalp the whole time I was in the hospital. +Q: It was covered? +A: Yes, bandaged. +Q: Then, later on.. what did you see? +A: I had a skin graft. My whole buttocks and leg were removed and put on top + of my head. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: The truth of the matter is that you were not an unbiased, objective + witness, isn't it. You too were shot in the fracas? +A: No, sir. I was shot midway between the fracas and the naval. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: What can you tell us about the truthfulness and veracity of this defendant? +A: Oh, she will tell the truth. She said she'd kill that sonofabitch--and + she did! +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: What is the meaning of sperm being present? +A: It indicates intercourse. +Q: Male sperm? +A. That is the only kind I know. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q: What is your relationship with the plaintiff? +A: She is my daughter. +Q: Was she your daughter on February 13, 1979? +% +I need another lawyer like I need another hole in my head. + -- Fratianno +% +I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some +kind of loophole. + -- Leo Kessler +% +I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the +country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which +I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving +are worth considering, to wit: + +[110.13]: + "When traveling on a one-way street, stay to the right, so as not + to interfere with oncoming traffic." + +[22.17b]: + "Learning to change lanes takes time and patience. The best + recommendation that can be made is to go to a Celtics [basketball] + game; study the fast break and then go out and practice it + on the highway." + +[41.16]: + "Never bump a baby carriage out of a crosswalk unless the kid's really + asking for it." +% +I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the +country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which +I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving +are worth considering, to wit: + +[131.16d]: + "Directional signals are generally not used except during vehicle + inspection; however, a left-turn signal is appropriate when making + a U-turn on a divided highway." + +[96.7b]: + "When paying tolls, remember that it is necessary to release the + quarter a full 3 seconds before passing the basket if you are + traveling more than 60 MPH." + +[110.13]: + "When traveling on a one-way street, stay to the right, so as not + to interfere with oncoming traffic." +% +I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the +country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which +I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving +are worth considering, to wit: + +[173.15b]: + "When competing for a section of road or a parking space, remember + that the vehicle in need of the most body work has the right-of-way." + +[141.2a]: + "Although it is altogether possible to fit a 6' car into a 6' + parking space, it is hardly ever possible to fit a 6' car into + a 5' parking space." + +[105.31]: + "Teenage drivers believe that they are immortal, and drive accordingly. + Nevertheless, you should avoid the temptation to prove them wrong." +% +I value kindness to human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I +don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected +with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, +the food cheaper, and old men and women warmer in the winter, and happier +in the summer. + -- Brendan Behan +% + Idaho state law makes it illegal for a man to give his sweetheart +a box of candy weighing less than fifty pounds. +% +If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than twenty-four hours, it +is certain to vote acquittal, save in those instances where it votes guilty. + -- Joseph C. Goulden +% +If a man stay away from his wife for seven years, the law presumes the +separation to have killed him; yet according to our daily experience, +it might well prolong his life. + -- Charles Darling, "Scintillae Juris, 1877 +% +"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think +little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and +Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." + -- Thomas De Quincey (1785 - 1859) +% +If reporters don't know that truth is plural, they ought to be lawyers. + -- Tom Wicker +% +If there were a school for, say, sheet metal workers, that after three +years left its graduates as unprepared for their careers as does law +school, it would be closed down in a minute, and no doubt by lawyers. + -- Michael Levin, "The Socratic Method +% + In "King Henry VI, Part II," Shakespeare has Dick Butcher suggest to +his fellow anti-establishment rabble-rousers, "The first thing we do, let's +kill all the lawyers." That action may be extreme but a similar sentiment +was expressed by Thomas K. Connellan, president of The Management Group, Inc. +Speaking to business executives in Chicago and quoted in Automotive News, +Connellan attributed a measure of America's falling productivity to an excess +of attorneys and accountants, and a dearth of production experts. Lawyers +and accountants "do not make the economic pie any bigger; they only figure +out how the pie gets divided. Neither profession provides any added value +to product." + According to Connellan, the highly productive Japanese society has +10 lawyers and 30 accountants per 100,000 population. The U.S. has 200 +lawyers and 700 accountants. This suggests that "the U.S. proportion of +pie-bakers and pie-dividers is way out of whack." Could Dick Butcher have +been an efficiency expert? + -- Motor Trend, May 1983 +% +In Blythe, California, a city ordinance declares that a person must own +at least two cows before he can wear cowboy boots in public. +% +In Boston, it is illegal to hold frog-jumping contests in nightclubs. +% +In Columbia, Pennsylvania, it is against the law for a pilot to tickle +a female flying student under her chin with a feather duster in order +to get her attention. +% +In Corning, Iowa, it's a misdemeanor for a man to ask his wife to ride +in any motor vehicle. +% +In Denver it is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door neighbor. +% +In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset. +% +In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on +the sidewalks when a concert is on. +% +In Lexington, Kentucky, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your pocket. +% +In Lowes Crossroads, Delaware, it is a violation of local law for any +pilot or passenger to carry an ice cream cone in their pocket while +either flying or waiting to board a plane. +% + In Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car unless +there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red +flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians. +% +In Ohio, if you ignore an orator on Decoration day to such an extent as +to publicly play croquet or pitch horseshoes within one mile of the +speaker's stand, you can be fined $25.00. +% +In Pocataligo, Georgia, it is a violation for a woman over 200 pounds +and attired in shorts to pilot or ride in an airplane. +% +In Pocatello, Idaho, a law passed in 1912 provided that "The carrying +of concealed weapons is forbidden, unless same are exhibited to public view." +% +In Seattle, Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon that +is over six feet in length. +% +In Tennessee, it is illegal to shoot any game other than whales from a +moving automobile. +% +In the olden days in England, you could be hung for stealing a sheep or a +loaf of bread. However, if a sheep stole a loaf of bread and gave it to +you, you would only be tried for receiving, a crime punishable by forty +lashes with the cat or the dog, whichever was handy. If you stole a dog +and were caught, you were punished with twelve rabbit punches, although it +was hard to find rabbits big enough or strong enough to punch you. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without +the supervision of a licensed engineer. +% +In West Union, Ohio, No married man can go flying without his spouse +along at any time, unless he has been married for more than 12 months. +% +It has long been noticed that juries are pitiless for robbery and full of +indulgence for infanticide. A question of interest, my dear Sir! The jury +is afraid of being robbed and has passed the age when it could be a victim +of infanticide. + -- Edmond About +% +It is against the law for a monster to enter the corporate limits of +Urbana, Illinois. +% +It is illegal to drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood +Boulevard at one time. +% +It is illegal to say "Oh, Boy" in Jonesboro, Georgia. +% +It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our +offense consists in doubting it. + -- Justice Robert H. Jackson +% +It is Texas law that when two trains meet each other at a railroad crossing, +each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed until the other +has gone. +% + It seems these two guys, George and Harry, set out in a Hot Air +balloon to cross the United States. After forty hours in the air, George +turned to Harry, and said, "Harry, I think we've drifted off course! We +need to find out where we are." + Harry cools the air in the balloon, and they descend to below the +cloud cover. Slowly drifting over the countryside, George spots a man +standing below them and yells out, "Excuse me! Can you please tell me +where we are?" + The man on the ground yells back, "You're in a balloon, approximately +fifty feet in the air!" + George turns to Harry and says, "Well, that man *must* be a lawyer". + Replies Harry, "How can you tell?". + "Because the information he gave us is 100% accurate, and totally +useless!" + +That's the end of The Joke, but for you people who are still worried about +George and Harry: they end up in the drink, and make the front page of the +New York Times: "Balloonists Soaked by Lawyer". +% +It shall be unlawful for any suspicious person to be within the municipality. + -- Local ordinance, Euclid Ohio +% +It's illegal in Wilbur, Washington, to ride an ugly horse. +% +It's recently come to Fortune's attention that scientists have stopped +using laboratory rats in favor of attorneys. Seems that there are not +only more of them, but you don't get so emotionally attached. The only +difficulty is that it's sometimes difficult to apply the experimental +results to humans. + + [Also, there are some things even a rat won't do. Ed.] +% +Judges, as a class, display, in the matter of arranging alimony, that +reckless generosity which is found only in men who are giving away +someone else's cash. + -- P.G. Wodehouse, "Louder and Funnier" +% +Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to +twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty! +% +Kansas state law requires pedestrians crossing the highways at night to +wear tail lights. +% +Kirkland, Illinois, law forbids bees to fly over the village or through +any of its streets. +% +Know how to save 5 drowning lawyers? + +-- No? + +GOOD! +% +Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made. + -- Otto von Bismarck +% +Legislation proposed in the Illinois State Legislature, May, 1907: + "Speed upon county roads will be limited to ten miles an hour +unless the motorist sees a bailiff who does not appear to have had a +drink in 30 days, when the driver will be permitted to make what he can." +% +Let us remember that ours is a nation of lawyers and order. +% +Let's say your wedding ring falls into your toaster, and when you stick +your hand in to retrieve it, you suffer Pain and Suffering as well as +Mental Anguish. You would sue: + +* The toaster manufacturer, for failure to include, in the instructions + section that says you should never never never ever stick you hand + into the toaster, the statement "Not even if your wedding ring falls + in there". + +* The store where you bought the toaster, for selling it to an obvious + cretin like yourself. + +* Union Carbide Corporation, which is not directly responsible in this + case, but which is feeling so guilty that it would probably send you + a large cash settlement anyway. + -- Dave Barry +% +... Logically incoherent, semantically incomprehensible, and legally ... +impeccable! +% +Loud burping while walking around the airport is prohibited in Halstead, Kansas. +% +Marijuana will be legal some day, because the many law students +who now smoke pot will someday become congressmen and legalize +it in order to protect themselves. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +Men often believe -- or pretend -- that the "Law" is something sacred, or +at least a science -- an unfounded assumption very convenient to governments. +% +Minors in Kansas City, Missouri, are not allowed to purchase cap pistols; +they may buy shotguns freely, however. +% +Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a +law against it by that time. +% +NEVER swerve to hit a lawyer riding a bicycle -- it might be your bicycle. +% +New Hampshire law forbids you to tap your feet, nod your head, or in +any way keep time to the music in a tavern, restaurant, or cafe. +% +Of ______course it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with a fake? +% + Old Barlow was a crossing-tender at a junction where an express train +demolished an automobile and its occupants. Being the chief witness, his +testimony was vitally important. Barlow explained that the night was dark, +and he waved his lantern frantically, but the driver of the car paid +no attention to the signal. + The railroad company won the case, and the president of the company +complimented the old-timer for his story. "You did wonderfully," he said, +"I was afraid you would waver under testimony." + "No sir," exclaimed the senior, "but I sure was afraid that durned +lawyer was gonna ask me if my lantern was lit." +% +Once he had one leg in the White House and the nation trembled under his +roars. Now he is a tinpot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the +forlorn pastors who belabor halfwits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind +the railroad yards." + -- H.L. Mencken, writing of William Jennings Bryan, + counsel for the supporters of Tennessee's anti-evolution + law at the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in 1925. +% +... Our second completely true news item was sent to me by Mr. H. Boyce +Connell Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., where he is involved in a law firm. One thing +I like about the South is, folks there care about tradition. If somebody +gets handed a name like "H. Boyce," he hangs on to it, puts it on his legal +stationery, even passes it to his son, rather than do what a lesser person +would do, such as get it changed or kill himself. + -- Dave Barry, "This Column is Nothing but the Truth!" +% + Pittsburgh driver's test + +(10) Potholes are + + (a) extremely dangerous. + (b) patriotic. + (c) the fault of the previous administration. + (d) all going to be fixed next summer. + +The correct answer is (b). Potholes destroy unpatriotic, unamerican, +imported cars, since the holes are larger than the cars. If you drive a +big, patriotic, American car you have nothing to worry about. +% + Pittsburgh driver's test + +(2) A traffic light at an intersection changes from yellow to red, you should + + (a) stop immediately. + (b) proceed slowly through the intersection. + (c) blow the horn. + (d) floor it. + +The correct answer is (d). If you said (c), you were almost right, so +give yourself a half point. +% + Pittsburgh driver's test + +(3) When stopped at an intersection you should + + (a) watch the traffic light for your lane. + (b) watch for pedestrians crossing the street. + (c) blow the horn. + (d) watch the traffic light for the intersecting street. + +The correct answer is (d). You need to start as soon as the traffic light +for the intersecting street turns yellow. Answer (c) is worth a half point. +% + Pittsburgh driver's test + +(4) Exhaust gas is + + (a) beneficial. + (b) not harmful. + (c) toxic. + (d) a punk band. + +The correct answer is (b). The meddling Washington eco-freak communist +bureaucrats who say otherwise are liars. (Message to those who answered (d). +Go back to California where you came from. Your kind are not welcome here.) +% + Pittsburgh driver's test + +(5) Your car's horn is a vital piece of safety equipment. How often should +you test it? + + (a) once a year. + (b) once a month. + (c) once a day. + (d) once an hour. + +The correct answer is (d). You should test your car's horn at least once +every hour, and more often at night or in residential neighborhoods. +% + Pittsburgh Driver's Test + +(7) The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail light + but a steady left tail light. This means + + (a) one of the tail lights is broken; you should blow your horn + to call the problem to the driver's attention. + (b) the driver is signaling a right turn. + (c) the driver is signaling a left turn. + (d) the driver is from out of town. + +The correct answer is (d). Tail lights are used in some foreign +countries to signal turns. +% + Pittsburgh Driver's Test + +(8) Pedestrians are + + (a) irrelevant. + (b) communists. + (c) a nuisance. + (d) difficult to clean off the front grille. + +The correct answer is (a). Pedestrians are not in cars, so they are +totally irrelevant to driving; you should ignore them completely. +% + Pittsburgh driver's test + +(9) Roads are salted in order to + + (a) kill grass. + (b) melt snow. + (c) help the economy. + (d) prevent potholes. + +The correct answer is (c). Road salting employs thousands of persons +directly, and millions more indirectly, for example, salt miners and +rustproofers. Most important, salting reduces the life spans of cars, +thus stimulating the car and steel industries. +% +She cried, and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook. + -- Tommy Manville +% +Sho' they got to have it against the law. Shoot, ever'body git high, +they wouldn't be nobody git up and feed the chickens. Hee-hee. + -- Terry Southern +% +Some men are heterosexual, and some are bisexual, and some men don't think +about sex at all... they become lawyers. + -- Woody Allen +% +Some of the most interesting documents from Sweden's middle ages are the +old county laws (well, we never had counties but it's the nearest equivalent +I can find for "landskap"). These laws were written down sometime in the +13th century, but date back even down into Viking times. The oldest one is +the Vastgota law which clearly has pagan influences, thinly covered with some +Christian stuff. In this law, we find a page about "lekare", which is the +Old Norse word for a performing artist, actor/jester/musician etc. Here is +an approximate translation, where I have written "artist" as equivalent of +"lekare". + "If an artist is beaten, none shall pay fines for it. If an artist + is wounded, one such who goes with hurdie-gurdie or travels with + fiddle or drum, then the people shall take a wild heifer and bring + it out on the hillside. Then they shall shave off all hair from the + heifer's tail, and grease the tail. Then the artist shall be given + newly greased shoes. Then he shall take hold of the heifer's tail, + and a man shall strike it with a sharp whip. If he can hold her, he + shall have the animal. If he cannot hold her, he shall endure what + he received, shame and wounds." +% +Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked down upon because he is a +fool is despised only because he is a lawyer. + -- Montesquieu +% +Texas law forbids anyone to have a pair of pliers in his possession. +% +The animals are not as stupid as one thinks -- they have neither +doctors nor lawyers. + -- L. Docquier +% + The Arkansas legislature passed a law that states that the Arkansas +River can rise no higher than to the Main Street bridge in Little Rock. +% +The City of Palo Alto, in its official description of parking lot standards, +specifies the grade of wheelchair access ramps in terms of centimeters of +rise per foot of run. A compromise, I imagine... +% +The difference between a lawyer and a rooster is that +the rooster gets up in the morning and clucks defiance. +% +The District of Columbia has a law forbidding you to exert pressure on +a balloon and thereby cause a whistling sound on the streets. +% + The judge fined the jaywalker fifty dollars and told him if he was +caught again, he would be thrown in jail. Fine today, cooler tomorrow. +% +The justifications for drug testing are part of the presently fashionable +debate concerning restoring America's "competitiveness." Drugs, it has been +revealed, are responsible for rampant absenteeism, reduced output, and poor +quality work. But is drug testing in fact rationally related to the +resurrection of competitiveness? Will charging the atmosphere of the +workplace with the fear of excretory betrayal honestly spur productivity? +Much noise has been made about rehabilitating the worker using drugs, but +to date the vast majority of programs end with the simple firing or the not +hiring of the abuser. This practice may exacerbate, not alleviate, the +nation's productivity problem. If economic rehabilitation is the ultimate +goal of drug testing, then criteria abandoning the rehabilitation of the +drug-using worker is the purest of hypocrisy and the worst of rationalization. + -- The concluding paragraph of "Constitutional Law: The + Fourth Amendment and Drug Testing in the Workplace," + Tim Moore, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol. + 10, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 762-768. +% +The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, +to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. + -- Anatole France +% +The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. He of all men +should behave as though the law compelled him. But it is the universal +weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer we presently imagine +we own. + -- H.G. Wells +% +The Least Successful Equal Pay Advertisement + In 1976 the European Economic Community pointed out to the Irish +Government that it had not yet implemented the agreed sex equality +legislation. The Dublin Government immediately advertised for an equal pay +enforcement officer. The advertisement offered different salary scales for +men and women. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it +were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor +prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, +or to the people. + -- U.S. Constitution, Amendment 10. (Bill of Rights) +% +The primary requisite for any new tax law is for it to exempt enough +voters to win the next election. +% +The state law of Pennsylvania prohibits singing in the bathtub. +% +The Worst Jury + A murder trial at Manitoba in February 1978 was well advanced, when +one juror revealed that he was completely deaf and did not have the +remotest clue what was happening. + The judge, Mr. Justice Solomon, asked him if he had heard any +evidence at all and, when there was no reply, dismissed him. + The excitement which this caused was only equalled when a second +juror revealed that he spoke not a word of English. A fluent French +speaker, he exhibited great surprised when told, after two days, that he +was hearing a murder trial. + The trial was abandoned when a third juror said that he suffered +from both conditions, being simultaneously unversed in the English language +and nearly as deaf as the first juror. + The judge ordered a retrial. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +There is a Massachusetts law requiring all dogs to have their hind legs +tied during the month of April. +% +There is no better way of exercising the imagination than the study of law. +No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets truth. + -- Jean Giraudoux, "Tiger at the Gates" +% +There is no doubt that my lawyer is honest. For example, when he +filed his income tax return last year, he declared half of his salary +as 'unearned income.' + -- Michael Lara +% +"There was an interesting development in the CBS-Westmoreland trial: +both sides agreed that after the trial, Andy Rooney would be allowed to +talk to the jury for three minutes about little things that annoyed him +during the trial." + -- David Letterman +% +There's no justice in this world. + -- Frank Costello, on the prosecution of "Lucky" Luciano by + New York district attorney Thomas Dewey after Luciano had + saved Dewey from assassination by Dutch Schultz (by ordering + the assassination of Schultz instead) +% +This product is meant for educational purposes only. Any resemblance to real +persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Void where prohibited. Some +assembly may be required. Batteries not included. Contents may settle during +shipment. Use only as directed. May be too intense for some viewers. If +condition persists, consult your physician. No user-serviceable parts inside. +Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of agreement. Not responsible for direct, +indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error +or failure to perform. Slippery when wet. For office use only. Substantial +penalty for early withdrawal. Do not write below this line. Your cancelled +check is your receipt. Avoid contact with skin. Employees and their families +are not eligible. Beware of dog. Driver does not carry cash. Limited time +offer, call now to insure prompt delivery. Use only in well-ventilated area. +Keep away from fire or flame. Some equipment shown is optional. Price does +not include taxes, dealer prep, or delivery. Penalty for private use. Call +toll free before digging. Some of the trademarks mentioned in this product +appear for identification purposes only. All models over 18 years of age. Do +not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Postage will be +paid by addressee. Apply only to affected area. One size fits all. Many +suitcases look alike. Edited for television. No solicitors. Reproduction +strictly prohibited. Restaurant package, not for resale. Objects in mirror +are closer than they appear. Decision of judges is final. This supersedes +all previous notices. No other warranty expressed or implied. +% +Virginia law forbids bathtubs in the house; tubs must be kept in the yard. +% +We may not like doctors, but at least they doctor. Bankers are not ever +popular but at least they bank. Policeman police and undertakers take +under. But lawyers do not give us law. We receive not the gladsome light +of jurisprudence, but rather precedents, objections, appeals, stays, +filings and forms, motions and counter-motions, all at $250 an hour. + -- Nolo News, summer 1989 +% +We should realize that a city is better off with bad laws, so long as they +remain fixed, then with good laws that are constantly being altered, that +the lack of learning combined with sound common sense is more helpful than +the kind of cleverness that gets out of hand, and that as a general rule, +states are better governed by the man in the street than by intellectuals. +These are the sort of people who want to appear wiser than the laws, who +want to get their own way in every general discussion, because they feel that +they cannot show off their intelligence in matters of greater importance, and +who, as a result, very often bring ruin on their country. + -- Cleon, Thucydides, III, 37 translation by Rex Warner +% +Welcome to Utah. +If you think our liquor laws are funny, you should see our underwear! +% +What do you have when you have six lawyers buried up to their necks in sand? +Not enough sand. +% +When alerted to an intrusion by tinkling glass or otherwise, 1) Calm +yourself 2) Identify the intruder 3) If hostile, kill him. + +Step number 3 is of particular importance. If you leave the guy alive +out of misguided softheartedness, he will repay your generosity of spirit +by suing you for causing his subsequent paraplegia and seek to force you +to support him for the rest of his rotten life. In court he will plead +that he was depressed because society had failed him, and that he was +looking for Mother Teresa for comfort and to offer his services to the +poor. In that lawsuit, you will lose. If, on the other hand, you kill +him, the most that you can expect is that a relative will bring a wrongful +death action. You will have two advantages: first, there be only your +story; forget Mother Teresa. Second, even if you lose, how much could +the bum's life be worth anyway? A Lot less than 50 years worth of +paralysis. Don't play George Bush and Saddam Hussein. Finish the job. + -- G. Gordon Liddy's "Forbes" column on personal security +% +Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to +examine the laws of heat. + -- Christopher Morley +% +Why does a hearse horse snicker, hauling a lawyer away? + -- Carl Sandburg +% +Why does New Jersey have more toxic waste dumps and California have +more lawyers? + +New Jersey had first choice. +% +With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law; and every time +they make a law it's a joke. + -- Will Rogers +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/linux b/fortune-mod/datfiles/linux new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f477f0f --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/linux @@ -0,0 +1,1829 @@ +"How do you pronounce SunOS?" "Just like you hear it, with a big SOS" + -- dedicated to Roland Kaltefleiter +% +finlandia:~> apropos win +win: nothing appropriate. +% +C:\> WIN +Bad command or filename + +C:\> LOSE +Loading Microsoft Windows ... +% +Linux ext2fs has been stable for a long time, now it's time to break it + -- Linuxkongreß '95 in Berlin +% +The state of some commercial Un*x is more unsecure than any Linux box +without a root password... + -- Bernd Eckenfels +% +Less is more or less more + -- Y_Plentyn on #LinuxGER +% +Let's call it an accidental feature. + --Larry Wall +% +......... Escape the 'Gates' of Hell + `:::' ....... ...... + ::: * `::. ::' + ::: .:: .:.::. .:: .:: `::. :' + ::: :: :: :: :: :: :::. + ::: .::. .:: ::. `::::. .:' ::. +...:::.....................::' .::::.. + -- William E. Roadcap +% +Win95 is not a virus; a virus does something. + -- unknown source +% +Machine Always Crashes, If Not, The Operating System Hangs (MACINTOSH) + -- Topic on #Linux +% +Except for Great Britain. According to ISO 9166 and Internet reality +Great Britain's toplevel domain should be _gb_. Instead, Great Britain +and Nortern Ireland (the United Kingdom) use the toplevel domain _uk_. +They drive on the wrong side of the road, too. + -- PERL book (or DNS and BIND book) +% +Save yourself from the 'Gates' of hell, use Linux." -- like that one. + -- The_Kind @ LinuxNet +% +I did this 'cause Linux gives me a woody. It doesn't generate revenue. + -- Dave '-ddt->` Taylor, announcing DOOM for Linux +% +Feel free to contact me (flames about my english and the useless of this +driver will be redirected to /dev/null, oh no, it's full...). + -- Michael Beck, describing the PC-speaker sound device +% + if (argc > 1 && strcmp(argv[1], "-advice") == 0) { + printf("Don't Panic!\n"); + exit(42); + } + -- Arnold Robbins in the LJ of February '95, describing RCS +% +lp1 on fire + -- One of the more obfuscated kernel messages +% +A Linux machine! Because a 486 is a terrible thing to waste! + -- Joe Sloan, jjs@wintermute.ucr.edu +% +Microsoft is not the answer. +Microsoft is the question. +NO (or Linux) is the answer. + -- Taken from a .signature from someone from the UK, source unknown +% +In most countries selling harmful things like drugs is punishable. +Then howcome people can sell Microsoft software and go unpunished? + -- Hasse Skrifvars, hasku@rost.abo.fi, +% +Windows without the X is like making love without a partner. + -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi +% +Sex, Drugs & Linux Rules + -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi +% +win-nt from the people who invented edlin. + -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi +% +Apples have meant trouble since eden. + -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi +% +Linux, the way to get rid of boot viruses + -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi +% +Once upon a time there was a DOS user who saw Unix, and saw that it was +good. After typing cp on his DOS machine at home, he downloaded GNU's +unix tools ported to DOS and installed them. He rm'd, cp'd, and mv'd +happily for many days, and upon finding elvis, he vi'd and was happy. After +a long day at work (on a Unix box) he came home, started editing a file, +and couldn't figure out why he couldn't suspend vi (w/ ctrl-z) to do +a compile. + -- Erik Troan, ewt@tipper.oit.unc.edu +% +We are MicroSoft. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. + -- Attributed to B.G., Gill Bates +% +Avoid the Gates of Hell. Use Linux + -- unknown source +% +Intel engineering seem to have misheard Intel marketing strategy. The +phrase was "Divide and conquer" not "Divide and cock up" + -- Alan Cox, iialan@www.linux.org.uk +% +Linux! Guerrilla UNIX Development Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus. + -- Mark A. Horton KA4YBR, mah@ka4ybr.com +% +----==-- _ / / \ +---==---(_)__ __ ____ __ / / /\ \ +--==---/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / / /_/\ \ \ +-=====/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ /______\ \ \ +A proud member of TeamLinux \_________\/ + -- CHaley (HAC), haley@unm.edu, ch008cth@pi.lanl.gov) +% +"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?" +Microsoft spel chekar vor sail, worgs grate !! + -- Felix von Leitner, leitner@inf.fu-berlin.de +% +Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars has to +be the HP-48 series of calculators. They'll run almost anything. And if they +can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into the serial port and load up the +HP-48 VT-100 emulator. + -- Jeff Dege, jdege@winternet.com +% +/* + * Oops. The kernel tried to access some bad page. We'll have to + * terminate things with extreme prejudice. +*/ +die_if_kernel("Oops", regs, error_code); + -- From linux/arch/i386/mm/fault.c +% +Linux: because a PC is a terrible thing to waste + -- ksh@cis.ufl.edu put this on Tshirts in '93 +% +Linux: the choice of a GNU generation + -- ksh@cis.ufl.edu put this on Tshirts in '93 +% +There are two types of Linux developers - those who can spell, and +those who can't. There is a constant pitched battle between the two. + -- From one of the post-1.1.54 kernel update messages posted to c.o.l.a +% +> > Other than the fact Linux has a cool name, could someone explain why I +> > should use Linux over BSD? +> +> No. That's it. The cool name, that is. We worked very hard on +> creating a name that would appeal to the majority of people, and it +> certainly paid off: thousands of people are using linux just to be able +> to say "OS/2? Hah. I've got Linux. What a cool name". 386BSD made the +> mistake of putting a lot of numbers and weird abbreviations into the +> name, and is scaring away a lot of people just because it sounds too +> technical. + -- Linus Torvalds' follow-up to a question about Linux +% +> The day people think linux would be better served by somebody else (FSF +> being the natural alternative), I'll "abdicate". I don't think that +> it's something people have to worry about right now - I don't see it +> happening in the near future. I enjoy doing linux, even though it does +> mean some work, and I haven't gotten any complaints (some almost timid +> reminders about a patch I have forgotten or ignored, but nothing +> negative so far). +> +> Don't take the above to mean that I'll stop the day somebody complains: +> I'm thick-skinned (Lasu, who is reading this over my shoulder commented +> that "thick-HEADED is closer to the truth") enough to take some abuse. +> If I weren't, I'd have stopped developing linux the day ast ridiculed me +> on c.o.minix. What I mean is just that while linux has been my baby so +> far, I don't want to stand in the way if people want to make something +> better of it (*). +> +> Linus +> +> (*) Hey, maybe I could apply for a saint-hood from the Pope. Does +> somebody know what his email-address is? I'm so nice it makes you puke. + -- Taken from Linus's reply to someone worried about the future of Linux +% +> : Any porters out there should feel happier knowing that DEC is shipping +> : me an AlphaPC that I intend to try getting linux running on: this will +> : definitely help flush out some of the most flagrant unportable stuff. +> : The Alpha is much more different from the i386 than the 68k stuff is, so +> : it's likely to get most of the stuff fixed. +> +> It's posts like this that almost convince us non-believers that there +> really is a god. + -- Anthony Lovell, to Linus's remarks about porting +% +When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows", people just stare at +you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*". + -- Linus Torvalds +% +We come to bury DOS, not to praise it. + -- Paul Vojta, vojta@math.berkeley.edu +% +Be warned that typing \fBkillall \fIname\fP may not have the desired +effect on non-Linux systems, especially when done by a privileged user. + -- From the killall manual page +% +Note that if I can get you to "su and say" something just by asking, +you have a very serious security problem on your system and you should +look into it. + -- Paul Vixie, vixie-cron 3.0.1 installation notes +% +How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are for. I +only coded it. + -- Attributed to Linus Torvalds, somewhere in a posting +% +I develop for Linux for a living, I used to develop for DOS. +Going from DOS to Linux is like trading a glider for an F117. + -- Lawrence Foard, entropy@world.std.com +% +Absolutely nothing should be concluded from these figures except that +no conclusion can be drawn from them. + -- Joseph L. Brothers, Linux/PowerPC Project) +% +If the future navigation system [for interactive networked services on +the NII] looks like something from Microsoft, it will never work. + -- Chairman of Walt Disney Television & Telecommunications +% +Problem solving under Linux has never been the circus that it is under +AIX. + -- Pete Ehlke in comp.unix.aix +% +I don't know why, but first C programs tend to look a lot worse than +first programs in any other language (maybe except for fortran, but then +I suspect all fortran programs look like `firsts') + -- Olaf Kirch +% +On a normal ascii line, the only safe condition to detect is a 'BREAK' +- everything else having been assigned functions by Gnu EMACS. + -- Tarl Neustaedter +% +By golly, I'm beginning to think Linux really *is* the best thing since +sliced bread. + -- Vance Petree, Virginia Power +% +I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development +That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb. Thank you. + -- Vance Petree, Virginia Power +% +Oh, I've seen copies [of Linux Journal] around the terminal room at The Labs. + -- Dennis Ritchie +% +If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot +of different places, just write a Unix operating system. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +...and scantily clad females, of course. Who cares if it's below zero +outside. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +...you might as well skip the Xmas celebration completely, and instead +sit in front of your linux computer playing with the all-new-and-improved +linux kernel version. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +Besides, I think Slackware sounds better than 'Microsoft,' don't you? + -- Patrick Volkerding +% +All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory... + -- Larry Wall +% +And the next time you consider complaining that running Lucid Emacs +19.05 via NFS from a remote Linux machine in Paraguay doesn't seem to +get the background colors right, you'll know who to thank. + -- Matt Welsh +% +Are Linux users lemmings collectively jumping off of the cliff of +reliable, well-engineered commercial software? + -- Matt Welsh +% +Even more amazing was the realization that God has Internet access. I +wonder if He has a full newsfeed? + -- Matt Welsh +% +I once witnessed a long-winded, month-long flamewar over the use of +mice vs. trackballs... It was very silly. + -- Matt Welsh +% +Linux poses a real challenge for those with a taste for late-night +hacking (and/or conversations with God). + -- Matt Welsh +% +What you end up with, after running an operating system concept through +these many marketing coffee filters, is something not unlike plain hot +water. + -- Matt Welsh +% +...Deep Hack Mode -- that mysterious and frightening state of +consciousness where Mortal Users fear to tread. + -- Matt Welsh +% +...Unix, MS-DOS, and Windows NT (also known as the Good, the Bad, and +the Ugly). + -- Matt Welsh +% +...very few phenomena can pull someone out of Deep Hack Mode, with two +noted exceptions: being struck by lightning, or worse, your *computer* +being struck by lightning. + -- Matt Welsh +% +..you could spend *all day* customizing the title bar. Believe me. I +speak from experience. + -- Matt Welsh +% +[In 'Doctor' mode], I spent a good ten minutes telling Emacs what I +thought of it. (The response was, 'Perhaps you could try to be less +abusive.') + -- Matt Welsh +% +I would rather spend 10 hours reading someone else's source code than +10 minutes listening to Musak waiting for technical support which isn't. + -- Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center +% +...[Linux's] capacity to talk via any medium except smoke signals. + -- Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center +% +Whip me. Beat me. Make me maintain AIX. + -- Stephan Zielinski +% +Your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a good excuse +for some of the brain-damages of minix. + -- Linus Torvalds to Andrew Tanenbaum +% +I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is a +fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a +high grade for such a design :-) + -- Andrew Tanenbaum to Linus Torvalds +% +We use Linux for all our mission-critical applications. Having the source code +means that we are not held hostage by anyone's support department. + -- Russell Nelson, President of Crynwr Software +% +Linux is obsolete + -- Andrew Tanenbaum +% +Dijkstra probably hates me. + -- Linus Torvalds, in kernel/sched.c +% +And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports +on it, you know they are just evil lies. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated. + -- seen in someone's .signature +% +Linux: the operating system with a CLUE... Command Line User Environment. + -- seen in a posting in comp.software.testing +% +quit When the quit statement is read, the bc processor + is terminated, regardless of where the quit state- + ment is found. For example, "if (0 == 1) quit" + will cause bc to terminate. + -- seen in the manpage for "bc". Note the "if" statement's logic +% +Sic transit discus mundi + -- From the System Administrator's Guide, by Lars Wirzenius +% +Sigh. I like to think it's just the Linux people who want to be on +the "leading edge" so bad they walk right off the precipice. + -- Craig E. Groeschel +% +We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds. + - Linus Torvalds about the superiority of Linux on the Amterdam Linux Symposium +% +Waving away a cloud of smoke, I look up, and am blinded by a bright, white +light. It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God. In +a booming voice, He says: "THIS IS A SIGN. USE LINUX, THE FREE UNIX SYSTEM +FOR THE 386. + -- Matt Welsh +% +The chat program is in public domain. This is not the GNU public license. +If it breaks then you get to keep both pieces. + -- Copyright notice for the chat program +% +'Mounten' wird für drei Dinge benutzt: 'Aufsitzen' auf Pferde, 'einklinken' +von Festplatten in Dateisysteme, und, nun, 'besteigen' beim Sex. + -- Christa Keil +% +Manchmal stehe nachts auf und installier's mir einfach... + -- H0arry @ IRC +% +'Mounting' is used for three things: climbing on a horse, linking in a +hard disk unit in data systems, and, well, mounting during sex. + -- Christa Keil +% +We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours! + -- Adapted from Pat Paulsen by Joe Sloan +% +But what can you do with it? + -- ubiquitous cry from Linux-user partner +% +/* + * [...] Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum + * possible RTT. I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP + * to talk to the University of Mars. + * PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented + * ftp to mars will work nicely. + */ + -- from /usr/src/linux/net/inet/tcp.c, concerning RTT [round trip time] +% +DOS: n., A small annoying boot virus that causes random spontaneous system + crashes, usually just before saving a massive project. Easily cured by + UNIX. See also MS-DOS, IBM-DOS, DR-DOS. + -- David Vicker's .plan +% +MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years +of careful development. + -- dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca +% +LILO, you've got me on my knees! + -- David Black, dblack@pilot.njin.net, with apologies to Derek and the +Dominos, and Werner Almsberger +% +I've run DOOM more in the last few days than I have the last few +months. I just love debugging ;-) + -- Linus Torvalds +% +Microsoft Corp., concerned by the growing popularity of the free 32-bit +operating system for Intel systems, Linux, has employed a number of top +programmers from the underground world of virus development. Bill Gates stated +yesterday: "World domination, fast -- it's either us or Linus". Mr. Torvalds +was unavailable for comment ... + -- Robert Manners, rjm@swift.eng.ox.ac.uk, in comp.os.linux.setup +% +The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned. + -- Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, on X interfaces +% +After watching my newly-retired dad spend two weeks learning how to make a new +folder, it became obvious that "intuitive" mostly means "what the writer or +speaker of intuitive likes". + -- Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, on X the intuitiveness of a Mac interface +% +Now I know someone out there is going to claim, "Well then, UNIX is intuitive, +because you only need to learn 5000 commands, and then everything else follows +from that! Har har har!" + -- Andy Bates on "intuitive interfaces", slightly defending Macs +% +> No manual is ever necessary. +May I politely interject here: BULLSHIT. That's the biggest Apple lie of all! + -- Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces +% +How do I type "for i in *.dvi do xdvi $i done" in a GUI? + -- Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces +% +>Ever heard of .cshrc? +That's a city in Bosnia. Right? + -- Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands +% +Who wants to remember that escape-x-alt-control-left shift-b puts you into +super-edit-debug-compile mode? + -- Discussion on the intuitiveness of commands, especially Emacs +% +Anyone who thinks UNIX is intuitive should be forced to write 5000 lines of +code using nothing but vi or emacs. AAAAACK! + -- Discussion on the intuitiveness of commands, especially Emacs +% +Now, it we had this sort of thing: + yield -a for yield to all traffic + yield -t for yield to trucks + yield -f for yield to people walking (yield foot) + yield -d t* for yield on days starting with t + +...you'd have a lot of dead people at intersections, and traffic jams you +wouldn't believe... + -- Discussion on the intuitiveness of commands +% +Actually, typing random strings in the Finder does the equivalent of +filename completion. + -- Discussion on file completion vs. the Mac Finder +% +Not me, guy. I read the Bash man page each day like a Jehovah's Witness reads +the Bible. No wait, the Bash man page IS the bible. Excuse me... + -- More on confusing aliases, taken from comp.os.linux.misc +% +On the Internet, no one knows you're using Windows NT + -- Submitted by Ramiro Estrugo, restrugo@fateware.com +% +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +Disquieting ... + -- Gonzalo Tornaria in response to Linus Torvalds's +% +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +We need to find some new terms to describe the rest of us mere mortals +then. + -- Craig Schlenter in response to Linus Torvalds's +% +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +Surely, Linus is talking about the kind of idiocy that others aspire to :-). + -- Bruce Perens in response to Linus Torvalds's +% +Never make any mistaeks. + -- Anonymous, in a mail discussion about to a kernel bug report +% ++#if defined(__alpha__) && defined(CONFIG_PCI) ++ /* ++ * The meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Plus ++ * this makes the year come out right. ++ */ ++ year -= 42; ++#endif + -- From the patch for 1.3.2: (kernel/time.c), submitted by Marcus Meissner +% +As usual, this being a 1.3.x release, I haven't even compiled this +kernel yet. So if it works, you should be doubly impressed. + -- Linus Torvalds, announcing kernel 1.3.3 +% +People disagree with me. I just ignore them. + -- Linus Torvalds, regarding the use of C++ for the Linux kernel +% +It's now the GNU Emacs of all terminal emulators. + -- Linus Torvalds, regarding the fact that Linux started off as a terminal emulator +% +Audience: What will become of Linux when the Hurd is ready? +Eric Youngdale: Err... is Richard Stallman here? + -- From the Linux conference in spring '95, Berlin +% +Linux: The OS people choose without $200,000,000 of persuasion. + -- Mike Coleman +% +The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +... faster BogoMIPS calculations (yes, it now boots 2 seconds faster than +it used to: we're considering changing the name from "Linux" to "InstaBOOT" + -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.26 +% +... of course, this probably only happens for tcsh which uses wait4(), +which is why I never saw it. Serves people who use that abomination +right 8^) + -- Linus Torvalds, about a patch that fixes getrusage for 1.3.26 +% +It's a bird.. +It's a plane.. +No, it's KernelMan, faster than a speeding bullet, to your rescue. +Doing new kernel versions in under 5 seconds flat.. + -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27 +% +Eh, that's it, I guess. No 300 million dollar unveiling event for this +kernel, I'm afraid, but you're still supposed to think of this as the +"happening of the century" (at least until the next kernel comes along). + -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27 +% +Oh, and this is another kernel in that great and venerable "BugFree(tm)" +series of kernels. So be not afraid of bugs, but go out in the streets +and deliver this message of joy to the masses. + -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27 +% +When you say 'I wrote a program that crashed Windows', people just stare at +you blankly and say 'Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*'. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-) + -- Unknown source +% +> Linux is not user-friendly. +It _is_ user-friendly. It is not ignorant-friendly and idiot-friendly. + -- Seen somewhere on the net +% +Keep me informed on the behaviour of this kernel.. As the "BugFree(tm)" +series didn't turn out too well, I'm starting a new series called the +"ItWorksForMe(tm)" series, of which this new kernel is yet another +shining example. + -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.29 +% +Seriously, the way I did this was by using a special /sbin/loader binary +with debugging hooks that I made ("dd" is your friend: binary editors +are for wimps). + -- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver +% +(I tried to get some documentation out of Digital on this, but as far as +I can tell even _they_ don't have it ;-) + -- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver +% +Q: Why shouldn't I simply delete the stuff I never use, it's just taking up + space? +A: This question is in the category of Famous Last Words.. + -- From the Frequently Unasked Questions +% +Q: What's the big deal about rm, I have been deleting stuff for years? And + never lost anything.. oops! +A: ... + -- From the Frequently Unasked Questions +% +Linux is addictive, I'm hooked! + -- MaDsen Wikholm's .sig +% +panic("Foooooooood fight!"); + -- In the kernel source aha1542.c, after detecting a bad segment list +% +Convention organizer to Linus Torvalds: "You might like to come with us +to some licensed[1] place, and have some pizza." + +Linus: "Oh, I did not know that you needed a license to eat pizza". + +[1] Licenced - refers in Australia to a restaurant which has government +licence to sell liquor. + -- Linus at a talk at the Melbourne University +% +Footnotes are for things you believe don't really belong in LDP manuals, +but want to include anyway. + -- Joel N. Weber II discussing the 'make' chapter of LPG +% +Eh, that's it, I guess. No 300 million dollar unveiling event for this +kernel, I'm afraid, but you're still supposed to think of this as the +"happening of the century" (at least until the next kernel comes along). +Oh, and this is another kernel in that great and venerable "BugFree(tm)" +series of kernels. So be not afraid of bugs, but go out in the streets +and deliver this message of joy to the masses. + -- Linus Torvalds, on releasing 1.3.27 +% +Ok, I'm just uploading the new version of the kernel, v1.3.33, also +known as "the buggiest kernel ever". + -- Linus Torvalds +% +Go not unto the Usenet for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (and +quite a few things that just have nothing at all to do with the question). + -- seen in a .sig somewhere +% +Those who don't understand Linux are doomed to reinvent it, poorly. + -- unidentified source +% +Look, I'm about to buy me a double barreled sawed off shotgun and show +Linus what I think about backspace and delete not working. + -- some anonymous .signature +% +I forgot to mention an important fact in the 1.3.67 announcement. In order to +get a fully working kernel, you have to follow the steps below: + - Walk around your computer widdershins 3 times, chanting "Linus is + overworked, and he makes lousy patches, but we love him anyway". Get + your spuouse to do this too for extra effect. Children are optional. + - Apply the patch included in this mail + - Call your system "Super-67", and don't forget to unapply the patch + before you later applying the official 1.3.68 patch. + - reboot + -- Linus Torvalds, announcing another kernel patch +% +We apologize for the inconvenience, but we'd still like yout to test out +this kernel. + -- Linus Torvalds, announcing another kernel patch +% +The new Linux anthem will be "He's an idiot, but he's ok", as performed by +Monthy Python. You'd better start practicing. + -- Linus Torvalds, announcing another kernel patch +% +How do you power off this machine? + -- Linus, when upgrading linux.cs.helsinki.fi, and after using the machine for several months +% +Excusing bad programming is a shooting offence, no matter _what_ the +circumstances. + -- Linus Torvalds, to the linux-kernel list +% +Linus? Whose that? + -- clueless newbie on #Linux +% +N: Phil Lewis +E: beans@bucket.ualr.edu +D: Promised to send money if I would put his name in the source tree. +S: PO Box 371 +S: North Little Rock, Arkansas 72115 +S: US + -- /usr/src/linux/CREDITS +% +> You know you are "there" when you are known by your first name, and +> are recognized. +> Lemmie see, there is Madonna, and Linus, and ..... help me out here! +Bill ? ;-) + -- From some postings on comp.os.linux.misc +% +Whoa...I did a 'zcat /vmlinuz > /dev/audio' and I think I heard God... + -- mikecd on #Linux +% +Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the +grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin +charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what +they say if they had. + -- Linus Torvalds, announcing Linux v2.0 +% +MS-DOS, you can't live with it, you can live without it. + -- from Lars Wirzenius' .sig +% +> If you don't need X then little VT-100 terminals are available for real +> cheap. Should be able to find decent ones used for around $40 each. +> For that price, they're a must for the kitchen, den, bathrooms, etc.. :) +You're right. Can you explain this to my wife? + -- Seen on c.o.l.development.system, on the subject of extra terminals +% +.. I used to get in more fights with SCO than I did my girlfriend, but +now, thanks to Linux, she has more than happily accepted her place back at +number one antagonist in my life.. + -- Jason Stiefel, krypto@s30.nmex.com +% +I mean, well, if it were not for Linux I might be roaming the streets looking +for drugs or prostitutes or something. Hannu and Linus have my highest +admiration (apple polishing mode off). + -- Phil Lewis, plewis@nyx.nyx.net +% +> What does ELF stand for (in respect to Linux?) +ELF is the first rock group that Ronnie James Dio performed with back in +the early 1970's. In constrast, a.out is a misspelling of the French word +for the month of August. What the two have in common is beyond me, but +Linux users seem to use the two words together. + -- seen on c.o.l.misc +% +"Linux was made by foreign terrorists to take money from true US companies +like Microsoft." - Some AOL'er. +"To this end we dedicate ourselves..." -Don + -- From the sig of "Don", don@cs.byu.edu +% +Shoot me again. +Just proving that the quickest way to solve the problem is to post a +whine to the newsgroups: within moments the solution presents itself to +me, and meanwhile my ass is hanging out on the Net... *sigh*... + -- Dave Phillips, dlphilp@bright.net, about problem solving via news +% +> Is there any hope for me? Am I just thick? Does anyone remember the +> Rubiks Cube, it was easier! +I found that the Rubiks cube and Linux are alike. Looks real confusing +until you read the right book. :-) + -- seen on c.o.l.misc, about the "Linux Learning Curve" +% +> I've hacked the Xaw3d library to give you a Win95 like interface and it +> is named Xaw95. You can replace your Xaw3d library. +Oh God, this is so disgusting! + -- seen on c.o.l.development.apps, about the "Win95 look-alike" +% +Besides, its really not worthwhile to use more than two times your physical +ram in swap (except in a select few situations). The performance of the system +becomes so abysmal you'd rather heat pins under your toenails while reciting +Windows95 source code and staring at porn flicks of Bob Dole than actually try +to type something. + -- seen on c.o.l.development.system, about the size of the swap space +% +> I get the following error messages at bootup, could anyone tell me +> what they mean? +> fcntl_setlk() called by process 51 (lpd) with broken flock() emulation +They mean that you have not read the documentation when upgrading the +kernel. + -- seen on c.o.l.misc +% +Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff +on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;) + -- Linus Torvalds, about his failing hard drive on linux.cs.helsinki.fi +% +One of the things that hamper Linux's climb to world domination is the +shortage of bad Computer Role Playing Games, or CRaPGs. No operating system +can be considered respectable without one. + -- Brian O'Donnell, odonnllb@tcd.ie +% +The game, anoraks.2.0.0.tgz, will be available from sunsite until somebody +responsible notices it and deletes it, and shortly from +ftp.mee.tcd.ie/pub/Brian, though they don't know that yet. + -- Brian O'Donnell, odonnllb@tcd.ie +% +'Ooohh.. "FreeBSD is faster over loopback, when compared to Linux +over the wire". Film at 11.' + -- Linus Torvalds +% +Q: Would you like to see the WINE list? +A: What's on it, anything expensive? +Q: No, just Solitaire and MineSweeper for now, but the WINE is free. + -- Kevin M. Bealer, about the WINdows Emulator +% +So in the future, one 'client' at a time or you'll be spending CPU time with +lots of little 'child processes'. + -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the private life of a Linux nerd +% +By the way, I can hardly feel sorry for you... All last night I had to listen +to her tears, so great they were redirected to a stream. What? Of _course_ +you didn't know. You and your little group no longer have any permissions +around here. She changed her .lock files, too. + -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the private life of a Linux nerd +% +We should start referring to processes which run in the background by their +correct technical name... paenguins. + -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the penguin Linux logo +% +We can use symlinks of course... syslogd would be a symlink to syslogp and +ftpd and ircd would be linked to ftpp and ircp... and of course the +point-to-point protocal paenguin. + -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the penguin Linux logo +% +This is a logical analogy too... anyone who's been around, knows the world is +run by paenguins. Always a paenguin behind the curtain, really getting things +done. And paenguins in politics--who can deny it? + -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the penguin Linux logo +% +Linux: Where Don't We Want To Go Today? + -- Submitted by Pancrazio De Mauro, paraphrasing some well-known sales talk +% +The most important design issue... is the fact that Linux is supposed to +be fun... + -- Linus Torvalds at the First Dutch International Symposium on Linux +% +In short, at least give the penguin a fair viewing. If you still don't +like it, that's ok: that's why I'm boss. I simply know better than you do. + -- Linus "what, me arrogant?" Torvalds, on c.o.l.advocacy +% + what's the difference between chattr and chmod? + SomeLamer: man chattr > 1; man chmod > 2; diff -u 1 2 | less + -- Seen on #linux on irc +% +The linuX Files -- The Source is Out There. + -- Sent in by Craig S. Bell, goat@aracnet.com +% +"... being a Linux user is sort of like living in a house inhabited +by a large family of carpenters and architects. Every morning when +you wake up, the house is a little different. Maybe there is a new +turret, or some walls have moved. Or perhaps someone has temporarily +removed the floor under your bed." - Unix for Dummies, 2nd Edition + -- found in the .sig of Rob Riggs, rriggs@tesser.com +% +C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success + -- Dennis M. Ritchie +% +If Bill Gates is the Devil then Linus Torvalds must be the Messiah. + -- Unknown source +% +Vini, vidi, Linux! + -- Unknown source +% +Checking host system type... +i586-unknown-linux +configure: error: sorry, this is the gnu os, not linux + -- Topic on #Linux +% +It's easy to get on the internet and forget you have a life + -- Topic on #LinuxGER +% +To kick or not to kick... + -- Somewhere on IRC, inspired by Shakespeare +% +Linux - Where do you want to fly today? + -- Unknown source +% +The easiest way to get the root password is to become system admin. + -- Unknown source +% +The good thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. + -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum +% +The primary difference [...] is that the Java programm will reliably and +obviously crash, whereas the C Program will do something obscure + -- Java Language Tutorial +% +LOAD "LINUX",8,1 + -- Topic on #LinuxGER +% +Old MacLinus had a stack/l-i-n-u-x/and on this stack he had a trace/l-i-n-u-x +with an Oops-Oops here and an Oops-Oops there +here an Oops, there an Oops, everywhere an Oops-Oops. + -- tjimenez@site.gmu.edu, linux.dev.kernel +% +Also another major deciding factor is availability of source code. +It just gives everybody a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that there is +source code available to the product you are using. It allows everybody +to improve on the product and fix bugs etc. sooner that the author(s) +would get the time/chance to. + -- Atif Khan +% +> Also another major deciding factor is availability of source code. +> It just gives everybody a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that there is +> source code available to the product you are using. It allows everybody +> to improve on the product and fix bugs etc. sooner that the author(s) +> would get the time/chance to. + +I think this is one the really BIG reasons for the snowball/onslaught +of Linux and the wealth of stuff available that gets enhanced faster +than the real vendors can keep up. + -- Norman +% +Not only Guinness - Linux is good for you, too. + -- Banzai on IRC +% +> NE-2000 clone. Pentium optimizing gcc (pentium gcc pl8 I think). + ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ + +Build a kernel with the proper gcc. Reports with a non standard compiler +are useless. + -- Alan Cox +% +BTW: I have a better name for the software .... Microsoft Internet +Exploder. + -- George Bonser +% +Well, since MS cant be sure of the username of someone downloading +things, they are going to play it safe and have everything dowloaded +and executed by Explorer as suid root. That way, it will run on ANY +system anywhere. :) + -- George Bonser +% +If you really want pure ASCII, save it as text... or browse +it with your favorite browser... + -- Alexandre Maret +% +Sorry for mailing this article, I've obviously made a typo (168!=186) +that's the price for being up all night and doing some "quick" +checks before you go to bed .... + -- Herbert Rosmanith +% +Just to remind everyone. Today, Sept 17, is Linux's 5th birthday. So +happy birthday to all on the list. Thanks go out to Linus and all the +other hard-working maintainers for 5 wonderful fast paced years! + -- William E. Roadcap +% +Exporting beer from Finnland doesn't seem to be that much of a hassle, +as the Lenigrad Cowboys brought a lot of their brew to the concerts in +Austria. + -- Otmar Lendl +% +Beeping is cute, if you are in the office ;) + -- Alan Cox +% +> Where in the US is Linus? + +He was in the "Promise Land". + -- David S. Miller +% +> Yeah, Linus is in the US. +> +> His source trees are in Finland. + + OK, someone give him access -fast- ...... ;-) + -- babydr@nwrain.net, because of problems with the kernel +% +Subject: Linux box finds it hard to wake up in the morning + +I've heard of dogs being like their owners, but Linux boxen? + -- Peter Hunter +% +Win 95 is simplified for the user: + +User: What does this configuration thing do? +You: It allows you to modify you settings, for networking, + hardware, protocols, ... +User: Whoa! Layman's terms, please! +You: It changes stuff. +User: That's what I'm looking for! What can it change? +You: This part change IP forwarding. It allows ... +User: Simplify, simplify! What can it do for ME? +You: Nothing, until you understand it. +User: Well it makes me uncomfortable. It looks so technical; + Get rid of it, I want a system *I* can understand. +You: But... +User: Hey, who's system is this anyway? +You: (... rm this, rm that, rm /etc/* ...) "All done." + -- Kevin M. Bealer +% +*** PUBLIC flooding detected from erikyyy + THAT's an erik, pholx.... ;) + -- Seen on #LinuxGER +% +I've no idea when Linus is going to release 2.0.24, but if he takes +too long Im going to release a 2.0.24unoff and he can sound off all +he likes. + -- Alan Cox +% +All the existing 2.0.x kernels are to buggy for 2.1.x to be the +main goal. + -- Alan Cox +% +Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. + -- Pablo Picasso +% +martin@bdsi.com (no longer valid - where are you now, Martin?) + -- from /usr/src/linux/drivers/cdrom/mcd.c +% +[...] or some clown changed the chips on a board and not its name. +(Don't laugh! Look at the SMC etherpower for that.) + -- from /usr/src/linux/MAINTAINERS +% +REST: +P: Linus Torvalds +S: Buried alive in email + -- from /usr/src/linux/MAINTAINERS +% + Why use Windows when you can have air conditioning? + Why use Windows, when you can leave through the door? + -- Konrad Blum +% +Netscape is not a newsreader, and probably never shall be. + -- Tom Christiansen +% +I think it's time to remove Qt and Qt-derived applications from the distributon. +By distributing it, we only encourage authors to create restrictive licenses. + -- Bruce Perens +% +If someone can point me to a good and _FREE_ backup software that keeps +track of which files get stored on which tape, we can change to it. + -- Mike Neuffer, admin of i-Connect Corp. +% +Whoa, first contact! + +[...] + +Welcome, from the people of Terra (Sol III). We extend our hands in +friendship, and sincerely hope you shall do the same with your +hand-equivelents. + -- Jason Burrell about a russian posting +% +> Whoa, first contact! + +Nope, 'fraid not, Linux is still primarily used on planet Earth, I'm +afraid. + +Our friend here sent a message in Russian (KOI8-R encoding). + -- Aleksey Kliger, explaining a russian posting +% +There is, however, a strange, musty smell in the air that reminds me of +something...hmm...yes...I've got it...there's a VMS nearby, or I'm a Blit. + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +Das ganze Saarland ist von M$ besetzt - das ganze? Nein eine kleine +Gruppe im Sudwesten trotzt dem ubergrosen Herrscher dank ihres +Zaubertrankes Linux + -- Tooster on #LinuxGER +% +1648 files (84%) out of the files that I mirror disappeared. Since +my delete threshold was set at 90%, all those files are now missing +from my hard drive. It's going to take a loooong time to fetch those +again via 14.4kbps! + -- Brian C. White +% +Whoever asked if the debian organization was dead isn't reading +debian-devel. 66 messages in one day, and it's not over. I find it +difficult to keep up. + -- Bruce Perens +% +> What is the status of Linux' Unicode implementation. Will Linux +> be prepared for the first contact? + +We have full klingon console support just in case + -- Alan Cox on linux-kernel +% +"You, sir, are nothing but a pathetically lame salesdroid! +I fart in your general direction!" + -- Randseed on #Linux +% +* Jes wonders why so many people in here uses fooZZZZZ and foo_sleeping nicks + Jes: Because they are sleeping? + -- Seen on #Linux +% +* gb notes that fdisk thinks his cdrom can store one terabyte + -- Seen on #Linux +% +Check it out, send me comments, and dance joyously in the streets, + -- Linus Torvalds announcing 2.0.27 +% +AP/STT. Helsinki, Dec 5th, 6:22 AM. For immediate release. + +In order to allay fears about the continuity of the Linux project, Linus +Torvalds together with his manager Tove Monni have released "Linus +v2.0", affectionately known as "Kernel Hacker - The Next Generation". + +Linux stock prices on Wall Street rose sharply after the announcement; +as one well-known analyst who wishes to remain anonymous says - "It +shows a long-term commitment, and while we expect a short-term decrease +in productivity, we feel that this solidifies the development in the +long run". + +Other analysts downplay the importance of the event, and claim that just +about anybody could have done it. "I'm glad somebody finally told them +about the birds and the bees" one sceptic comments cryptically. But +even the skeptics agree that it is an interesting turn of events. + +Others bring up other issues with the new version - "I'm especially +intrigued by the fact that the new version is female, and look forward +to seeing what the impact of that will be on future development. Will +"Red Hat Linux" change to "Pink Hat Linux", for example?" + -- Linus Torvalds announcing that he became father of a girl +% +Sex dumps core +(Sex is a Simple editor for X11) + -- Seen on debian bugtracking +% +I tried the clone syscall on me, but it didn't work. + -- Mike Neuffer trying to fix a serious time problem +% +- long f_ffree; /* free file nodes in fs */ ++ long f_ffree; /* freie Dateiknoten im Dateisystem */ + -- Seen in a translation +% +* Phaedrus wishes he could get a machine that consists of Sparc IO, + Alpha Processors and sleek design of an SGI + And intel prices + -- Seen on #Linux +% + damn my office is cold. + need a hot secretary to warm it up. + -- Seen on #Linux +% +This is a scsi driver, scraes the shit out of me, therefore I tapdanced +and wrote a unix clone around it (C) by linus + -- Somewhere in the kernel tree +% + * This is complicated. Has to do with interrupts. Thus, I am + * scared witless. Therefore I refuse to write this function. :-P + -- From the maclinux patch +% +Yes I have a Machintosh, please don't scream at me. + -- Larry Blumette on linux-kernel +% + any new sendmail hole I have to fix before going on vacations? + -- Seen on #Linux +% +AUTHOR +FvwmAuto just appeared one day, nobody knows how. + -- FvwmAuto(1x) +% + Fairlight: udp is the light margarine of tcp/ip transport protocols :) + -- Seen on #Linux +% +i dont even know if it makes sense at all :) This is an experimental patch +for an experimental kernel :)) + -- Ingo Molnar on linux-kernel +% +Linux - Das System fuer schlaue Maedchen ;) + -- banshee +% +If loving linux is wrong, I dont wanna be right. + -- Topic for #LinuxGER +% +>>> FreeOS is an english-centric name + +Have you all been stuck in email, or have any of you tried +*pronouncing* that? free-oh-ess? free-ows? fritos? :-) + -- Mark Eichin +% +The documentation is in Japanese. Good luck. + -- Rich $alz +% +People are going to scream bloody murder about that. + -- Seen on linux-kernel +% +> 1. is qmail as secure as they say? + +Depends on what they were saying, but most likely yes. + -- Seen on debian-devel +% +NEVER RESPOND TO CRITICAL PRESS. IT IS A GAME YOU CAN ONLY LOSE, AND IT +MAKES US LOOK BAD. + -- Bruce Perens +% +A feature is nothing more than a bug with seniority. + -- Unknown source +% +Winnuke in one line? No problem: +perl -MIO::Socket -e 'IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139")->send("bye",MSG_OOB)' + +And formatted so it's a little easier to read: + + #!/usr/bin/perl + use IO::Socket; + IO::Socket::INET + ->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139") + ->send("bye", MSG_OOB); + + -- Randal Schwartz +% +(It is an old Debian tradition to leave at least twice a year ...) + -- Sven Rudolph +% +If a 'train station' is where a train stops, what's a 'workstation'? +% +Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. +% +"We don't do a new version to fix bugs." - Bill Gates +"The new version - it's not there to fix bugs." - Bill Gates + -- Retranslated from Focus 43/1995, pp. 206-212 +% +The POP3 server service depends on the SMTP server service, which +failed to start because of the following error: +The operation completed successfully. + -- Windows NT Server v3.51 +% +Software is like sex; it's better when it's free. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +vi is [[13~^[[15~^[[15~^[[19~^[[18~^ a +muk[^[[29~^[[34~^[[26~^[[32~^ch better editor than this emacs. I know +I^[[14~'ll get flamed for this but the truth has to be +said. ^[[D^[[D^[[D^[[D ^[[D^[^[[D^[[D^[[B^ +exit ^X^C quit :x :wq dang it :w:w:w :x ^C^C^Z^D + -- Jesper Lauridsen from alt.religion.emacs +% +oh okay. my mistake. + +Yafcot:atj(*), + +mark + +* Yet another fool coming over this: according to joey + -- mark@mail.novare.net +% +Sorry. I just realized this sentance makes no sense :) + -- Ian Main +% +Netscape is not a newsreader, and probably never shall be. + -- Tom Christiansen +% +Stopping Apache webserver...sleeping...starting again...apache: dl-version.c:189: + _dl_check_map_versions: Assertion `needed != ((void *)0)' failed +noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo + -- netgod on #Debian at LISC +% +Make it idiot-proof, and someone will breed a better idiot. + -- Oliver Elphick +% +#Debian makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :) + -- HippieGuy on #Debian +% + I know. Unless htere is a cookie monster somewhere between us tat muches the amil. + amil/mail + muches/munches tat/that htere/there + heheh + problems? :) +* Myxie needs an ircii addon that pipes teh command line through ispell :) + -- Seen on #Debian +% +ECRC hat keine lynx komp. seiten, sowas MUSS ja pleite gehen ;-)= + -- Getty on #LinuxGER +% +Uh... deity is a word, and diety isn't. + +Or is it supposed to be one of those recursive acronyms? Diety Is +Excellent To You. Deity Eats Icecream That's Yellow. Diety Is +Eloping To Yokohama. I'll stop now. + -- Guy Maor +% +Why are there always boycotts? Shouldn't there be girlcotts too? + -- argon on #Linux +% + Anyone want the new supermount? :) + whats new aboutit + klogd: It cleans whiter than white. :) + -- Seen on #Linux +% +Und die Tastaturabrdücke auf Ihrer Wange unterstreichen seeeeeehr +vorteilhaft ihr unterschütterliches Vertrauen in die moderene +Technologie + -- Agent Gully in "Die eXakten" +% +- DDD no longer requires the librx library. Consequently, librx + errors can no more cause DDD to crash. + -- DDD +% +snafu = Situation Normal All F%$*ed up +% +It's computer hardware, of course it's worth having + -- Espy on #Debian +% +Alan E. Davis: Some files at llug.sep.bnl.gov/pub/debian/Incoming are +stamped on 10 January 1998. As I write, nowhere on Earth is it now 10 January. + +Craig Sanders: That just proves how advanced debian is, doesn't it :-) + -- debian-devel +% +Computers are like air conditioners. Both stop working, if you open windows. + -- Adam Heath +% +I am NOT a kludge! I am a computer! + -- tts +% + gorgo: *lol* + joey: what's so funny? :) + shh, joey is losing all sanity from lack of sleep + 'yes joey, very funny' + Humor him :> + -- Seen on #Debian +% +* SynrG notes that the number of configuration questions to answer in sendmail + is NON-TRIVIAL + -- Seen on #Debian +% +My apologies if I sound angry. I feel like I'm talking to a void. + -- Avery Pennarun +% +RIP is irrelevant. Spoofing is futile. Your routes will be aggregated. + -- Alex Yuriev +% +After 14 non-maintainer releases, I'm the S-Lang non-maintainer. + -- Ray Dassen +% +BREAKFAST.COM Halted... Cereal Port Not Responding. +% +* JHM wonders what Joey did to earn "I'd just like to say, for the record, + that Joey rules." + -- Seen on #Debian +% +Steal my cash, car and TV - but leave the computer! + -- Soenke Lange +% +The only really good reason I can think to not release specs is +embarrassment on just how crappy some hardware out there is, or just how +buggy it is. + -- Chris Wedgwood +% +> Alan Cox wrote: +[..] + +No I didnt. Someone else wrote that. Please keep attributions +straight. + -- From linux-kernel +% +Do people like check the Debian website every 5 minutes to check it hasn't morphed into another one? +Not that I'm one to talk, but some people seriously need to get a life + -- james on #Debian +% +... Linux und seine Programme sind damit so etwas wie ein real existierender +Sozialismus der besseren Art ... + -- Christian Seel in der Berliner Morgenpost v. 9.3.1997 +% +* james would be more impressed if netgod's magic powers could stop the splits in the first place... +* netgod notes debian developers are notoriously hard to impress + -- Seen on #Debian +% + * In anticipation of 2.10.02 release, updated to patchlevel + +ircu2.10.01+.config6-7.config7-8.lgline3.iwho.limit.glibc.motdcache2.trace.whois1-2.config8-9.statsw.sprintf2-3.msgtree2.memleak1-2+.msgtree2-3.gline8-9.gline9-10.invite2.rbr.stats.numclients.whisper.whisper1-2.stats1-2.nokick1-2.chroot.config9-11.snomask7-8.limi+t1-3.userip1-3.userip3-4.config11-12.config12-13.umode2-3.akillsbt.who4-5.kn.kn1-2.freebsdcore2.msgtree3-5.y2k.glibc1-2.rmfunc.msgf+lags2.who5-6.nickchange2.glibc2-3.modeless3 + -- From the annoucement of ircd 2.10.01-3 for Debian GNU/Linux +% +* Joey should not write changelog entries at 5:30am + * DFSC Free cgi library + What's that? DFSC? + Debian Free Software mroooooCows + -- Seen on #Debian +% + this guy _is_ crazy + posix: from the looks of Enlightenment he's on LSD + LSD is nothing compared to what this guy's on.. + -- Seen on #Unix +% +On Netscape GPLing their browser: ``How can you trust a browser that +ANYONE can hack? For the secure choice, choose Microsoft.'' + -- in a comment on slashdot.org +% +Turn right here. No! NO! The OTHER right! +% +#define FALSE 0 /* This is the naked Truth */ +#define TRUE 1 /* and this is the Light */ + -- mailto.c +% + How do I bind a computer to an NIS server? + Use a rope? + -- Seen on #Debian +% +Try to remove the color-problem by restarting your computer several times. + -- Microsoft-Internet Explorer README.TXT +% +Does biff in bo work +coz it biffin doesn't beep +an if biff in bo is broke +then biff in bo I will delete + +I've tried biff in bo with 'y' +I've tried biff in bo with '-y' +no biffin output does it show +so poor wee biff is gonna go. + -- John Spence on debian-user +% +Real Men don't make backups. They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror it. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +One tree to rule them all, +One tree to find them, +One tree to bring them all, +and to itself bind them. + -- Gavin Koch +% +As I currently don't have a floppy drive in my computer, I'd like to +make an `emergency cdrom' ;) + -- Eugene Crosser +% +Alan Cox wrote: +>> On any procmail new enough not to be full of security holes you set +>Brain on, Imeant majordomo of course 8) +You got me worried there for a brief (very brief) moment :-). + -- Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless) +% + seen jhm + jhm is Sarek, and jhm is on the channel right now! +* JHM wonders why dpkg remembers that particular nick. + dpkg: Sarek? ermm, sure, and I am Khan + -- Seen on #Debian +% +When you have 200 programmers trying to write code for one +product, like Win95 or NT, what you get is a multipule personality +program. By definition, the real problem is that these programs are +psychotic by nature and make people crazy when they use them. + -- Joan Brewer on alt.destroy.microsoft +% + Hah! we have 2 Johnie Ingrams in the channel :) + Hey all btw :) +% +I just uploaded xtoolplaces-1.6. It fixes all bugs but one: It still +coredumps instead of doing something useful. The upstream author's +e-mail address bounces, Redhat doesn't provide it and I never used it. + -- Sven Rudolph +% +> I thing you're missing the capability of Makefiles. + + It takes several _hours_ to do `make' a second time on my +machine with the latest glibc sources (and no files are recompiled a +second time). I think I'll remove `build' after changing one file if +I want to recompile it. + -- Juan Cespedes +% + aIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 + MY LIGHT JUST DIED + I AM SO SAD + I'm blind! I'm blind! + Light? + Turn all your xterms to black-on-white :) Plenty of light that way. + -- Seen on #Debian +% +| |-sshd---tcsh-+-dpkg-buildpacka---rules---sh---make---make---sh---make---sh---make---sh---make---sh---make---sh---make + -- While packaging XFree86 for Debian GNU/Linux +% +/* + * Please skip to the bottom of this file if you ate lunch recently + * -- Alan + */ + -- from Linux kernel pre-2.1.91-1 +% +#if _FP_W_TYPE_SIZE < 64 +#error "Only stud muffins allowed, schmuck." +#endif + -- linux/arch/sparc64/quad.c +% +#if _FP_W_TYPE_SIZE < 32 +#error "Here's a nickel kid. Go buy yourself a real computer." +#endif + -- linux/arch/sparc64/double.h +% + eat Depends: cook | eat-out. + But eat-out is non-free so that's out. + And cook Recommends: clean-pans. + -- Seen on #Debian +% +* Linux Viruscan..... + Windows 95 found. Remove it? (Y/y) + -- Unknown source +% + need help: my first packet to my provider gets lost :-( + sel: dont send the first one, start with #2 +* netgod is kidding +% +These download files are in Microsoft Word 6.0 format. After +unzipping, these files can be viewed in any text editor, including +all versions of Microsoft Word, WordPad, and Microsoft Word Viewer + -- From Micro$oft +% + abuse me. I'm so lame I sent a bug report to debian-devel-changes + -- Seen on #Debian +% +Ooh, mommy, mommy, what I have now doesn't work in this extremely +unlikely circumstance, so I'll just throw it away and write something +completely new. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +#ifdef __SMP__ +#error "Me no hablo Alpha SMP" +#else +#define irq_enter(cpu, irq) (++local_irq_count[cpu]) +#define irq_exit(cpu, irq) (--local_irq_count[cpu]) +#endif + -- from kernel 2.1.90, arch/alpha/kernel/irc.c +% +Linus Torvalds: +> This is the special easter release of linux, more mundanely called 1.3.84 +Winfried Truemper: +> Umh, oh. What do you mean by "special easter release"?. Will it quit +> working today and rise on easter? +% +I never thought that I'd see the day where Netscape is free software and +X11 is proprietary. We live in interesting times. + -- Matt Kimball +% +Because I don't need to worry about finances I can ignore Microsoft +and take over the (computing) world from the grassroots. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +/* + * Buddy system. Hairy. You really aren't expected to understand this + * + */ + -- From /usr/src/linux/mm/page_alloc.cA +% +baz bat bamus batis bant. + -- James Troup +% +Just go ahead and write your own multitasking multiuser os! +Worked for me all the times. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +I've seen people with new children before, they go from ultra happy to +looking like something out of a zombie film in about a week. + -- Alan Cox about Linus after his 2nd daughter +% +I expect that noone has objections. However, if I'd only add these entries +to the list because `I think it's the right thing to do', I'd get a lot of +flames afterwards :) + -- Christian Schwarz +% +Various documentation updates and bugfixes (the best way to know that a +stable kernel is approaching is to notice that somebody starts to +spellcheck the kernel - it has so far never failed) + -- Linus Torvalds in the annoucement for pre-2.1.99-3 +% +You will not censor me through bug terrorism. + -- James Troup +% + Thinking is dangerous. It leads to ideas. + -- Seen on #Debian +% + Are we going to make an emacs out of apt? + APT - Debian in a program. It even does your laundry + -- Seen on #Debian +% + Do you mean to say that I can read mail with vi too? ;-) + Didn't you know that? + :r /var/spool/mail/jk + -- debian-mentors +% +Charles Briscoe-Smith : + After all, the gzip package is called `gzip', not `libz-bin'... + +James Troup : + Uh, probably because the gzip binary doesn't come from the + non-existent libz package or the existent zlib package. + -- debian-bugs-dist +% +Debian is like Suse with yast turned off, just better. :) + -- Goswin Brederlow +% +Arnold's Laws of Documentation: + (1) If it should exist, it doesn't. + (2) If it does exist, it's out of date. + (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the + first two laws. +% +The truth is not free. It's that simple. If you change the truth, it is no +longer true - so the truth is not free! + -- Jules Bean about freeness of documentation +% + Lemme make sure I'm not wasting time here... bcwhite will remove + pkgs that havent been fixed that have outstanding bugs of severity + "important". True or false? + jim: "important" or higher. True. + Then we're about to lose ftp.debian.org and dpkg :) +* netgod will miss dpkg -- it was occasionally useful + We still have rpm.... + -- Seen on #Debian +% +* JHM wonders what Joey did to earn "I'd just like to say, for the record, + that Joey rules." + -- Seen on #Debian +% +The problem here (as someon else stated) is that when multiple dists +use the same package format it only gives a "false sense of compatibility". + -- Stephen Carpenter +% +*** Rince is wagner@schizo.DAINet.de (We have Joey, we have Fun, we have Linux on a Sun) + -- Seen on #Debian +% +... Linux und seine Programme sind damit +so etwas wie ein real existierender Sozialismus der besseren Art... + -- Christian Seel in der Berliner Morgenpost v. 9.3.1997 +% +The most effective has probably been Linux/8086 - that was a joke +that got out of hand. So far out of hand in fact its almost approaching +usability because other folks thought it worth doing - Alistair Riddoch +especially. + -- Alan Cox +% +The only other people who might benefit from Linux8086 would be owners +of PDP/11's and other roomsized computers from the same era. + -- Alan Cox +% +Ha. I say let them try -- even vi+perl couldn't match the power of an +editor which is, after all, its own OS. ;-) + -- Johnie Ingram on debian-devel, about linking vim with libperl.so +% +Being overloaded is the sign of a true Debian maintainer. + -- JHM on #Debian +% + joey--very clever !!! + joey--no wonder that Debian is a good distrib with coder like you + -- Seen on #Debian (referring to my RAID article for the LJ) +% +There are 3 kinds of people: those who can count & those who can't. + -- Unknown source +% +Despite the best efforts of a quantum bigfoot drive (yes I know everyone +told me they suck, now I know they were right) 2.1.109ac1 is now available + -- Alan Cox announcing Linux 2.1.109ac1 +% + Turns out that grep returns error code 1 when there are no matches. + I KNEW that. Why did it take me half an hour? + -- Seen on #Debian +% +It's simply unbelievable how much energy and creativity people have +invested into creating contradictory, bogus and stupid licenses... + --- Sven Rudolph about licences in debian/non-free. +% + partycle: I seriously do need a vacation from this + package. I actually had a DREAM about introducing a + stupid new bug into xbase-preinst last night. That's a + Bad Sign. + -- Seen on #Debian shortly before the release of Debian 2.0 +% + i'm glad Debian finally got into + polar-deep-freeze-we-arent-shitting-you state finally. + -- Seen on #Debian shortly before the release of Debian 2.0 +% + Looks like the channel is back to normal :) + You mean it's not scrolling faster than anyone can read? :) + -- Seen on #Debian after the release of Debian 2.0 +% +Alex Buell: +Or how about a Penguin logo painted in really really trippy +colours, and emblazoned with the word LSD. :o) + +Geert Uytterhoeven: +We already had that one, but unfortunately Russell King fixed that nasty +palette bug in drivers/video/fbcon.c :-) + -- linux-kernel +% +Writing non-free software is not an ethically legitimate activity, +so if people who do this run into trouble, that's good! All businesses +based on non-free software ought to fail, and the sooner the better. + -- Richard Stallman +% +Außerdem noch [..] die Distribution für Puristen, denen technische +Eleganz und Qualität und philosophisch reine Lehre der `freien Software' +über totale Einfachheit geht (Debian) und viele mehr. + -- Anselm Lingnau in de.comp.os.unix.discussion +% +Fehlermeldung von StarOffice: + +Das Dokument wurde fuer den Drucker Generic PostScript Printer formatiert. +Der Drucker ist nicht vorhanden. Soll der Standarddrucker Generic +PostScript Printer verwendet werden? + +Ob Programme schizophren werden koennen? + -- Oliver Bedford +% +No, that's wrong too. Now there's a race condition between the rm and +the mv. Hmm, I need more coffee. + -- Guy Maor on Debian Bug#25228 +% +Perhaps the RBLing (Realtime Black Hole) of msn.com recently, which +prevented a large amount of mail going out for about 4 days, has had a +positive influence in Redmond. They did agree to work on their anti-relay +capabilities at their POPs to get the RBL lifted. + -- Bill Campbell on Smail3-users +% +Microsoft DNS service terminates abnormally when it recieves a response +to a DNS query that was never made. Fix Information: Run your DNS +service on a different platform. + -- bugtraq +% +I am amazed that no-one's based a commercial distribution on Debian +yet - it is by far the most solid UNIX-like OS I've ever installed, +and I've played with HP/UX, Solaris, FreeBSD, BSDi, and SCO (not to +mention OS/2, Novell, Win95/NT) + -- Nathan E. Norman +% +Jim> http://www.novare.net/~eam/kaffe/ +Joey> ^ +Joey> And now we all learn how to write Ean's name and the URL is complete. +Jim> Hah! I noticed that the instead I sent it, and I tried to hit ^g, but + I was too slow. :-) + --- debian-devel +% +Die TeX-Artikel [..] aber doch inzwischen wohl nicht mehr an den +Fingern zweier Hände abzählbar (außer vielleicht von Informatikern, +die bekanntlich mit den Fingern bis 1023 zählen können. + -- Anselm Lingnau +% +And Bruce is effectively building BruceIX + -- Alan Cox +% + I will be known as Ian Black, Ean can be Ian Red, Netgod Ian Blue, + Che gets Ian Yellow, CQ is Ian Purple and Joey is Ian Indigo + -- Some #Debian channel +% +When a float occurs on the same page as the start of a supertabular +you can expect unexpected results. + -- Documentation of supertabular.sty +% +From: Ean Schuessler +The unrecognized minister of propaganda, +E + -- Debian, joking +% +* liw prefers not to have Linus run Debian, because then /me would + have to run Red Hat, just to keep the power balance :) + -- #Debian +% +<\\swing> and if we're playing old distributions... whatever happened to Yggdrasil? :) + \\swing: everybody who tried to pronounce it got their tongue in a knot and choked + -- #Debian +% +I'm telling you that the kernel is stable not because it's a kernel, +but because I refuse to listen to arguments like this. + -- Linus Torvalds +% +> Tut mir Leid, Jost, aber Du bist ein unertraeglicher Troll. +Was soll das? Du *beleidigst* die Trolle! + -- de.comp.os.unix.linux.misc +% +Wenn also die KDE-Arbeit nochmal gemacht wird bei GNOME, hat das die +Entwicklungszeit für ein freies Desktop-System verkürzt. Hast Du auch +irgendwo die passende Algebra zu der Rechnung? + -- Sascha Ziemann in de.comp.os.unix.linux.misc +% +* dpkg ponders: 'C++' should have been called 'D' + -- #Debian +% + The real value of KDE is that they inspired and push the + development of GNOME :-) + -- #Debian +% +* dpkg hands stu a huge glass of vbeer +* Joey takes the beer from stu, you're too young ;) +* Cylord takes the beer from Joey, you're too drunk. +* Cylord gives the beer to muggles. + -- #Debian, celebrating the 5th anniversary +% + Stupid nick highlighting + Whenever someone starts with "stupid" it highlights the nick. Hmm. + -- #Debian +% + And once Diziet/CQ make the formal announcment that LSA + sucks, we can even reduce the Crisis Level rating and move + on to linuxfoundation.org. + -- #Debian +% +* LG loves czech girls. + LG: do they have additional interesting "features" other girls don't have? ;) + -- #Debian +% +The first is to ensure your partner understands that nature has root +privileges - nature doesn't have to make sense. + -- Telsa Gwynne +% +As to house maintenance, does it involve problem solfing? If so, +your hacker can safely be left to deall with the panning (for the +musement value, if nothering ese). + -- Telsa Gwynne +% +Remember: While root can do most everything, there are certain +privileges that only a partner can grant. + -- Telsa Gwynne +% + Where is 'bavaria' proper? I thought it was austria. + -- Seen on #Linux +% +Day X+4 months: Microsoft ships NT 5.0 for Intel.with a big media + event on TV. IBM begins to ship Debian 4.6 as the + standard OS on all machines from mainframe to PC + and announces the move on Slashdot. + -- Christoph Lameter +% +How many chunks could checkchunk check if checkchunk could check chunks? + -- Alan Cox +% +Q: How does a Unix guru have sex? +A: unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;more;yes;umount;sleep + -- unknown source +% +Someone on IRC was very sad about the uptime of his machine wrapping +from 497 days to 0. + -- linux-kernel +% + netgod: 8:42pm is not late. + doogie: its 2:42am in Joeyland + -- #Debian +% +We knew from experience that the essence of communal computing, as +supplied by remote-access, time-shared machines, is not just to type +programs into a terminal instead of a keypunch, but to encourage close +communication. + -- Dennis Ritchie +% +modconf (0.2.37) stable unstable; urgency=medium + [...] + * Eduard Bloch: + - fixed Makefile broken Marcin Owsiany a while ago. The default manpage + has been overwritten with the polish translation. I still wonder why + nobody noticed this before. Closes: #117474 + [...] + -- Eduard Bloch Sun, 28 Oct 2001 12:53:27 +0100 +% +<|ryan|> I don't use deb + u poor man + netgod: heh + apt-get install task-p0rn +% +% +Could somebody drag the Irix team kicking and screaming into the 1980's, +please? + +I realize it might be quite painful for them, but maybe you could buy them +a disco tape, so they'd feel a little bit more at home. + + -- Linus "Stayin' alive, stayin' alive" Torvalds +% +> + +The branden dodges your magical sigh. The branden attacks you with a +slew of words! The branden misses! + + -- Henning Makholm in +% +I don't think 'It's better than hurling yourself into a meat grinder' +is a good rationale for doing something. + -- Andrew Suffield in + <20030905221055.GA22354@doc.ic.ac.uk> on debian-devel +% +< Overfiend> whew. +< Overfiend> I really need to get some sleep. +< Overfiend> but it sure was fun talking guitars, politics, and lesbians. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/linuxcookie b/fortune-mod/datfiles/linuxcookie new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c50aa23 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/linuxcookie @@ -0,0 +1,496 @@ +A Linux machine! because a 486 is a terrible thing to waste! +(By jjs@wintermute.ucr.edu, Joe Sloan) +% +"Absolutely nothing should be concluded from these figures except that +no conclusion can be drawn from them." +(By Joseph L. Brothers, Linux/PowerPC Project) +% +Actually, typing random strings in the Finder does the equivalent of +filename completion. +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands: file +completion vs. the Mac Finder.) +% +After watching my newly-retired dad spend two weeks learning how to make a new +folder, it became obvious that "intuitive" mostly means "what the writer or +speaker of intuitive likes". +(Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, in comp.os.linux.misc, on X the +intuitiveness of a Mac interface.) +% +"All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory..." +(By Larry Wall) +% +And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports +on it, you know they are just evil lies." +(By Linus Torvalds, Linus.Torvalds@cs.helsinki.fi) +% +"...and scantily clad females, of course. Who cares if it's below zero +outside" +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +"And the next time you consider complaining that running Lucid Emacs +19.05 via NFS from a remote Linux machine in Paraguay doesn't seem to +get the background colors right, you'll know who to thank." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +> : Any porters out there should feel happier knowing that DEC is shipping +> : me an AlphaPC that I intend to try getting linux running on: this will +> : definitely help flush out some of the most flagrant unportable stuff. +> : The Alpha is much more different from the i386 than the 68k stuff is, so +> : it's likely to get most of the stuff fixed. +> +> It's posts like this that almost convince us non-believers that there +> really is a god. +(A follow-up by alovell@kerberos.demon.co.uk, Anthony Lovell, to Linus's +remarks about porting) +% +Anyone who thinks UNIX is intuitive should be forced to write 5000 lines of +code using nothing but vi or emacs. AAAAACK! +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands, especially +Emacs.) +% +"Are [Linux users] lemmings collectively jumping off of the cliff of +reliable, well-engineered commercial software?" +(By Matt Welsh) +% +As usual, this being a 1.3.x release, I haven't even compiled this +kernel yet. So if it works, you should be doubly impressed. +(Linus Torvalds, announcing kernel 1.3.3 on the linux-kernel mailing list.) +% +Avoid the Gates of Hell. Use Linux +(Unknown source) +% +Be warned that typing \fBkillall \fIname\fP may not have the desired +effect on non-Linux systems, especially when done by a privileged user. +(From the killall manual page) +% +"Besides, I think [Slackware] sounds better than 'Microsoft,' don't you?" +(By Patrick Volkerding) +% +But what can you do with it? -- ubiquitous cry from Linux-user partner. +(Submitted by Andy Pearce, ajp@hpopd.pwd.hp.com) +% +"By golly, I'm beginning to think Linux really *is* the best thing since +sliced bread." +(By Vance Petree, Virginia Power) +% +/* + * Oops. The kernel tried to access some bad page. We'll have to + * terminate things with extreme prejudice. +*/ +die_if_kernel("Oops", regs, error_code); +(From linux/arch/i386/mm/fault.c) +% +"...Deep Hack Mode--that mysterious and frightening state of +consciousness where Mortal Users fear to tread." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +Dijkstra probably hates me +(Linus Torvalds, in kernel/sched.c) +% +DOS: n., A small annoying boot virus that causes random spontaneous system + crashes, usually just before saving a massive project. Easily cured by + UNIX. See also MS-DOS, IBM-DOS, DR-DOS. +(from David Vicker's .plan) +% +/* + * [...] Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum + * possible RTT. I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP + * to talk to the University of Mars. + * PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented + * ftp to mars will work nicely. + */ +(from /usr/src/linux/net/inet/tcp.c, concerning RTT [retransmission timeout]) +% +"Even more amazing was the realization that God has Internet access. I +wonder if He has a full newsfeed?" +(By Matt Welsh) +% +>Ever heard of .cshrc? +That's a city in Bosnia. Right? +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands.) +% +Fatal Error: Found [MS-Windows] System -> Repartitioning Disk for Linux... +(By cbbrown@io.org, Christopher Browne) +% +How do I type "for i in *.dvi do xdvi i done" in a GUI? +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces.) +% +"How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are for. I only +coded it." +(Attributed to Linus Torvalds, somewhere in a posting) +% +----==-- _ / / \ +---==---(_)__ __ ____ __ / / /\ \ +--==---/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / / /_/\ \ \ +-=====/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ /______\ \ \ +A proud member of TeamLinux \_________\/ +(By CHaley (HAC), haley@unm.edu, ch008cth@pi.lanl.gov) +% +I develop for Linux for a living, I used to develop for DOS. +Going from DOS to Linux is like trading a glider for an F117. +(By entropy@world.std.com, Lawrence Foard) +% +I did this 'cause Linux gives me a woody. It doesn't generate revenue. +(Dave '-ddt->` Taylor, announcing DOOM for Linux) +% +Feel free to contact me (flames about my english and the useless of this +driver will be redirected to /dev/null, oh no, it's full...). +(Michael Beck, describing the PC-speaker sound device) +% +"I don't know why, but first C programs tend to look a lot worse than +first programs in any other language (maybe except for fortran, but then +I suspect all fortran programs look like `firsts')" +(By Olaf Kirch) +% +"I once witnessed a long-winded, month-long flamewar over the use of +mice vs. trackballs...It was very silly." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is a +fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a +high grade for such a design :-) +(Andrew Tanenbaum to Linus Torvalds) +% +"I would rather spend 10 hours reading someone else's source code than +10 minutes listening to Musak waiting for technical support which isn't." +(By Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center) +% +"I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development +That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb. Thank you." +(By Vance Petree, Virginia Power) +% +"I'm an idiot.. At least this one [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.." +(Linus Torvalds in response to a bug report.) + +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +Disquieting ... +(Gonzalo Tornaria in response to Linus Torvalds's mailing about a kernel bug.) + +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +We need to find some new terms to describe the rest of us mere mortals +then. +(Craig Schlenter in response to Linus Torvalds's mailing about a kernel bug.) + +> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. +Surely, Linus is talking about the kind of idiocy that others aspire to :-). +(Bruce Perens in response to Linus Torvalds's mailing about a kernel bug.) +% +I've run DOOM more in the last few days than I have the last few +months. I just love debugging ;-) +(Linus Torvalds) +% +Microsoft Corp., concerned by the growing popularity of the free 32-bit +operating system for Intel systems, Linux, has employed a number of top +programmers from the underground world of virus development. Bill Gates stated +yesterday: "World domination, fast -- it's either us or Linus". Mr. Torvalds +was unavailable for comment ... +(rjm@swift.eng.ox.ac.uk (Robert Manners), in comp.os.linux.setup) +% + if (argc > 1 && strcmp(argv[1], "-advice") == 0) { + printf("Don't Panic!\n"); + exit(42); + } +(Arnold Robbins in the LJ of February '95, describing RCS) +% ++#if defined(__alpha__) && defined(CONFIG_PCI) ++ /* ++ * The meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Plus ++ * this makes the year come out right. ++ */ ++ year -= 42; ++#endif +(From the patch for 1.3.2: (kernel/time.c), submitted by Marcus Meissner) +% +"If the future navigation system [for interactive networked services on +the NII] looks like something from Microsoft, it will never work." +(Chairman of Walt Disney Television & Telecommunications) +% +"If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot +of different places, just write a Unix operating system." +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +"[In 'Doctor' mode], I spent a good ten minutes telling Emacs what I +thought of it. (The response was, 'Perhaps you could try to be less +abusive.')" +(By Matt Welsh) +% +In most countries selling harmful things like drugs is punishable. +Then howcome people can sell Microsoft software and go unpunished? +(By hasku@rost.abo.fi, Hasse Skrifvars) +% +Intel engineering seem to have misheard Intel marketing strategy. The phrase +was "Divide and conquer" not "Divide and cock up" +(By iialan@www.linux.org.uk, Alan Cox) +% +"It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +LILO, you've got me on my knees! +(from David Black, dblack@pilot.njin.net, with apologies to Derek and the +Dominos, and Werner Almsberger) +% +Linux is obsolete +(Andrew Tanenbaum) +% +"Linux poses a real challenge for those with a taste for late-night +hacking (and/or conversations with God)." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +Linux! Guerrilla UNIX Development Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus. +(By mah@ka4ybr.com, Mark A. Horton KA4YBR) +% +"...[Linux's] capacity to talk via any medium except smoke signals." +(By Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center) +% +linux: because a PC is a terrible thing to waste +(ksh@cis.ufl.edu put this on Tshirts in '93) +% +Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste. +(By komarimf@craft.camp.clarkson.edu, Mark Komarinski) +% +linux: the choice of a GNU generation +(ksh@cis.ufl.edu put this on Tshirts in '93) +% +"Linux: the operating system with a CLUE... +Command Line User Environment". +(seen in a posting in comp.software.testing) +% +lp1 on fire +(One of the more obfuscated kernel messages) +% +Microsoft is not the answer. +Microsoft is the question. +NO (or Linux) is the answer. +(Taken from a .signature from someone from the UK, source unknown) +% +'Mounten' wird fuer drei Dinge benutzt: 'Aufsitzen' auf Pferde, 'einklinken' +von Festplatten in Dateisysteme, und, nun, 'besteigen' beim Sex. +(Christa Keil in a German posting: "Mounting is used for three things: +climbing on a horse, linking in a hard disk unit in data systems, and, well, +mounting during sex".) +% +"MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years +of careful development." +(By dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca) +% +"Never make any mistaeks." +(Anonymous, in a mail discussion about to a kernel bug report.) +% +> No manual is ever necessary. +May I politely interject here: BULLSHIT. That's the biggest Apple lie of all! +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces.) +% +Not me, guy. I read the Bash man page each day like a Jehovah's Witness reads +the Bible. No wait, the Bash man page IS the bible. Excuse me... +(More on confusing aliases, taken from comp.os.linux.misc) +% +"Note that if I can get you to \"su and say\" something just by asking, +you have a very serious security problem on your system and you should +look into it." +(By Paul Vixie, vixie-cron 3.0.1 installation notes) +% +Now I know someone out there is going to claim, "Well then, UNIX is intuitive, +because you only need to learn 5000 commands, and then everything else follows +from that! Har har har!" +(Andy Bates in comp.os.linux.misc, on "intuitive interfaces", slightly +defending Macs.) +% +Now, it we had this sort of thing: + yield -a for yield to all traffic + yield -t for yield to trucks + yield -f for yield to people walking (yield foot) + yield -d t* for yield on days starting with t +...you'd have a lot of dead people at intersections, and traffic jams you +wouldn't believe... +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands.) +% +"On a normal ascii line, the only safe condition to detect is a 'BREAK' +- everything else having been assigned functions by Gnu EMACS." +(By Tarl Neustaedter) +% +"On the Internet, no one knows you're using Windows NT" +(Submitted by Ramiro Estrugo, restrugo@fateware.com) +% +Once upon a time there was a DOS user who saw Unix, and saw that it was +good. After typing cp on his DOS machine at home, he downloaded GNU's +unix tools ported to DOS and installed them. He rm'd, cp'd, and mv'd +happily for many days, and upon finding elvis, he vi'd and was happy. After +a long day at work (on a Unix box) he came home, started editing a file, +and couldn't figure out why he couldn't suspend vi (w/ ctrl-z) to do +a compile. +(By ewt@tipper.oit.unc.edu (Erik Troan) +% +> > Other than the fact Linux has a cool name, could someone explain why I +> > should use Linux over BSD? +> +> No. That's it. The cool name, that is. We worked very hard on +> creating a name that would appeal to the majority of people, and it +> certainly paid off: thousands of people are using linux just to be able +> to say "OS/2? Hah. I've got Linux. What a cool name". 386BSD made the +> mistake of putting a lot of numbers and weird abbreviations into the +> name, and is scaring away a lot of people just because it sounds too +> technical. +(Linus Torvalds' follow-up to a question about Linux) +% +Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars has to +be the HP-48 series of calculators. They'll run almost anything. And if they +can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into the serial port and load up the +HP-48 VT-100 emulator. +(By jdege@winternet.com, Jeff Dege) +% +There are no threads in a.b.p.erotica, so there's no gain in using a +threaded news reader. +(Unknown source) +% +"Problem solving under linux has never been the circus that it is under +AIX." +(By Pete Ehlke in comp.unix.aix) +% +quit When the quit statement is read, the bc processor + is terminated, regardless of where the quit state- + ment is found. For example, "if (0 == 1) quit" + will cause bc to terminate. +(Seen in the manpage for "bc". Note the "if" statement's logic) +% +Running Windows on a Pentium is like having a brand new Porsche but only +be able to drive backwards with the handbrake on. +(Unknown source) +% +"sic transit discus mundi" +(From the System Administrator's Guide, by Lars Wirzenius) +% +Sigh. I like to think it's just the Linux people who want to be on +the "leading edge" so bad they walk right off the precipice. +(Craig E. Groeschel) +% +The chat program is in public domain. This is not the GNU public license. If +it breaks then you get to keep both pieces. +(Copyright notice for the chat program) +% +> The day people think linux would be better served by somebody else (FSF +> being the natural alternative), I'll "abdicate". I don't think that +> it's something people have to worry about right now - I don't see it +> happening in the near future. I enjoy doing linux, even though it does +> mean some work, and I haven't gotten any complaints (some almost timid +> reminders about a patch I have forgotten or ignored, but nothing +> negative so far). +> +> Don't take the above to mean that I'll stop the day somebody complains: +> I'm thick-skinned (Lasu, who is reading this over my shoulder commented +> that "thick-HEADED is closer to the truth") enough to take some abuse. +> If I weren't, I'd have stopped developing linux the day ast ridiculed me +> on c.o.minix. What I mean is just that while linux has been my baby so +> far, I don't want to stand in the way if people want to make something +> better of it (*). +> +> Linus +> +> (*) Hey, maybe I could apply for a saint-hood from the Pope. Does +> somebody know what his email-address is? I'm so nice it makes you puke. +(Taken from Linus's reply to someone worried about the future of Linux) +% +The nice thing about Windows is - It does not just crash, it displays a +dialog box and lets you press 'OK' first. +(Arno Schaefer's .sig) +% +The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned. +(Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, in comp.os.linux.misc, on X interfaces.) +% +There are two types of Linux developers - those who can spell, and +those who can't. There is a constant pitched battle between the two. +(From one of the post-1.1.54 kernel update messages posted to c.o.l.a) +% +This message was brought to you by Linux, the free unix. +Windows without the X is like making love without a partner. +Sex, Drugs & Linux Rules +win-nt from the people who invented edlin +apples have meant trouble since eden +Linux, the way to get rid of boot viruses +(By mwikholm@at8.abo.fi, MaDsen Wikholm) +% +"...Unix, MS-DOS, and Windows NT (also known as the Good, the Bad, and +the Ugly)." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +"...very few phenomena can pull someone out of Deep Hack Mode, with two +noted exceptions: being struck by lightning, or worse, your *computer* +being struck by lightning." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +"Waving away a cloud of smoke, I look up, and am blinded by a bright, white +light. It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God. In +a booming voice, He says: "THIS IS A SIGN. USE LINUX, THE FREE UNIX SYSTEM +FOR THE 386." +(Matt Welsh) +% +"We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." +(Linus Torvalds about the superiority of Linux on the Amsterdam +Linux Symposium) +% +We are MicroSoft. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. +(Attributed to B.G., Gill Bates) +% +We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated. +(seen in someone's .signature) +% +We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours! +(Adapted from Pat Paulsen by Joe Sloan) +% +We come to bury DOS, not to praise it. +(Paul Vojta, vojta@math.berkeley.edu, paraphrasing a quote of Shakespeare) +% +We use Linux for all our mission-critical applications. Having the source code +means that we are not held hostage by anyone's support department. +(Russell Nelson, President of Crynwr Software) +% +"What you end up with, after running an operating system concept through +these many marketing coffee filters, is something not unlike plain hot +water." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +What's this script do? + unzip ; touch ; finger ; mount ; gasp ; yes ; umount ; sleep +Hint for the answer: not everything is computer-oriented. Sometimes you're +in a sleeping bag, camping out. +(Contributed by Frans van der Zande.) +% +`When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows", people just stare at +you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*".' +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +"Whip me. Beat me. Make me maintain AIX." +(By Stephan Zielinski) +% +"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk ?" +Microsoft spel chekar vor sail, worgs grate !! +(By leitner@inf.fu-berlin.de, Felix von Leitner) +% +Who wants to remember that escape-x-alt-control-left shift-b puts you into +super-edit-debug-compile mode? +(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands, especially +Emacs.) +% +Why use Windows, since there is a door? +(By fachat@galileo.rhein-neckar.de, Andre Fachat) +% +"World domination. Fast" +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +..you could spend *all day* customizing the title bar. Believe me. I +speak from experience." +(By Matt Welsh) +% +"...you might as well skip the Xmas celebration completely, and instead +sit in front of your linux computer playing with the +all-new-and-improved linux kernel version." +(By Linus Torvalds) +% +Your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a good excuse +for some of the brain-damages of minix. +(Linus Torvalds to Andrew Tanenbaum) +% +I've heard a Jew and a Muslim argue in a Damascus cafe with less passion +than the emacs wars." + -- Ronald Florence in + +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/literature b/fortune-mod/datfiles/literature new file mode 100644 index 0000000..02fbd9b --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/literature @@ -0,0 +1,1324 @@ +A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining +and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. + -- Mark Twain +% +A classic is something that everyone wants to have read +and nobody wants to read. + -- Mark Twain, "The Disappearance of Literature" +% +A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +A hundred years from now it is very likely that [of Twain's works] "The +Jumping Frog" alone will be remembered. + -- Harry Thurston Peck (Editor of "The Bookman"), January 1901. +% +A is for Apple. + -- Hester Pryne +% +A kind of Batman of contemporary letters. + -- Philip Larkin on Anthony Burgess +% +A light wife doth make a heavy husband. + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" +% + A man was reading The Canterbury Tales one Saturday morning, when his +wife asked "What have you got there?" Replied he, "Just my cup and Chaucer." +% +... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he +was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity. + -- Mark Twain +% +A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm) + -- by Charles Dickens + + A lawyer who looks like a French Nobleman is executed in his place. + +The Metamorphosis LITE(tm) + -- by Franz Kafka + + A man turns into a bug and his family gets annoyed. + +Lord of the Rings LITE(tm) + -- by J.R.R. Tolkien + + Some guys take a long vacation to throw a ring into a volcano. + +Hamlet LITE(tm) + -- by Wm. Shakespeare + + A college student on vacation with family problems, a screwy + girl-friend and a mother who won't act her age. +% +A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm) + -- by Charles Dickens + + A man in love with a girl who loves another man who looks just + like him has his head chopped off in France because of a mean + lady who knits. + +Crime and Punishment LITE(tm) + -- by Fyodor Dostoevski + + A man sends a nasty letter to a pawnbroker, but later + feels guilty and apologizes. + +The Odyssey LITE(tm) + -- by Homer + + After working late, a valiant warrior gets lost on his way home. +% +After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. + -- H.L. Mencken, on Shakespeare +% +Alas, how love can trifle with itself! + -- William Shakespeare, "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" +% +All generalizations are false, including this one. + -- Mark Twain +% +All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that +makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and +an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead. + -- Samuel Beckett +% +All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"--a strange complaint to come from +the mouths of people who have had to live. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +"... all the modern inconveniences ..." + -- Mark Twain +% +All things that are, are with more spirit chased than enjoyed. + -- Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice" +% +Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. + -- Mark Twain +% +Always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. + -- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It" +% +"... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often +picturesque liar." + -- Mark Twain +% +An honest tale speeds best being plainly told. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +And do you think (fop that I am) that I could be the Scarlet Pumpernickel? +% +Anyone who has had a bull by the tail knows five or six more things +than someone who hasn't. + -- Mark Twain +% +April 1 + +This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three +hundred and sixty-four. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport. + -- Shakespeare, "King Lear" +% +As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement, +especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously +-- I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being +in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching +after fact and reason. + -- John Keats +% +AWAKE! FEAR! FIRE! FOES! AWAKE! + FEAR! FIRE! FOES! + AWAKE! AWAKE! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Awash with unfocused desire, Everett twisted the lobe of his one remaining +ear and felt the presence of somebody else behind him, which caused terror +to push through his nervous system like a flash flood roaring down the +mid-fork of the Feather River before the completion of the Oroville Dam +in 1959. + -- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton + bad fiction contest. +% +Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint. + -- Mark Twain +% +Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket"--which is +but a manner of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention;" but the wise +man saith, "Put all your eggs in the one basket and--WATCH THAT BASKET." + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Big book, big bore. + -- Callimachus +% +But, for my own part, it was Greek to me. + -- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" +% +By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean. + -- Mark Twain +% +Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. + -- Mark Twain +% +Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. + -- Mark Twain +% +Condense soup, not books! +% +Conscience doth make cowards of us all. + -- Shakespeare +% +Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young June-bug +than an old bird of paradise. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear. Except a +creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely +a loose misapplication of the word. Consider the flea!--incomparably the +bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage. +Whether you are asleep or awake he will attack you, caring nothing for the fact +that in bulk and strength you are to him as are the massed armies of the earth +to a sucking child; he lives both day and night and all days and nights in the +very lap of peril and the immediate presence of death, and yet is no more +afraid than is the man who walks the streets of a city that was threatened by +an earthquake ten centuries before. When we speak of Clive, Nelson, and Putnam +as men who "didn't know what fear was," we ought always to add the flea--and +put him at the head of the procession. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Delay not, Caesar. Read it instantly. + -- Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" 3,1 + +Here is a letter, read it at your leisure. + -- Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice" 5,1 + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to I/O system services.] +% +Delores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever +skipping along smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but oblivious +to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank, and due to an +overdose of flouride as a child which caused her to suffer from chronic +apathy, doomed herself to lie forever on the floor of her life as useless +as an appendix and as lonely as a five-hundred pound barbell in a +steroid-free fitness center. + -- Winning sentence, 1990 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. +% +Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you +nothing. It was here first. + -- Mark Twain +% +"Elves and Dragons!" I says to him. "Cabbages and potatoes are better +for you and me." + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +English literature's performing flea. + -- Sean O'Casey on P.G. Wodehouse +% +Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to be at +fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great caution. Take +the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman; if you have witnesses, you will +find she did it with a knife; but if you take simply the aspect of the pencil, +you will say that she did it with her teeth. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Every cloud engenders not a storm. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +Every why hath a wherefore. + -- William Shakespeare, "A Comedy of Errors" +% +Extreme fear can neither fight nor fly. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Rape of Lucrece" +% +F.S. Fitzgerald to Hemingway: + "Ernest, the rich are different from us." +Hemingway: + "Yes. They have more money." +% +Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is +oblivion. + -- Mark Twain +% +Familiarity breeds contempt -- and children. + -- Mark Twain +% +Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. + -- "Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +For a light heart lives long. + -- Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost" +% +For courage mounteth with occasion. + -- William Shakespeare, "King John" +% +For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels, +each delved into a hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall +was a gate. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Return of the King" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to system overview.] + +% +For there are moments when one can neither think nor feel. And if one can +neither think nor feel, she thought, where is one? + -- Virginia Woolf, "To the Lighthouse" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to powerfail recovery.] +% +For years a secret shame destroyed my peace-- +I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece. +But now I think a thought that brings me hope: +Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope. + -- Justin Richardson. +% +Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both yes and no. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien +% +Gone With The Wind LITE(tm) + -- by Margaret Mitchell + + A woman only likes men she can't have and the South gets trashed. + +Gift of the Magi LITE(tm) + -- by O. Henry + + A husband and wife forget to register their gift preferences. + +The Old Man and the Sea LITE(tm) + -- by Ernest Hemingway + + An old man goes fishing, but doesn't have much luck. +% +Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same procession. +You have seen all of it that is worth staying for when the band and the gaudy +officials have gone by. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must +have somebody to divide it with. + -- Mark Twain +% +Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed +down-stairs a step at a time. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar +% +Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big +enough majority in any town? + -- Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn" +% +Harp not on that string. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else; this is not +advice, it is merely custom. + -- Mark Twain +% +Having nothing, nothing can he lose. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his +argument. + -- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost" +% +He hath eaten me out of house and home. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV" +% +He is now rising from affluence to poverty. + -- Mark Twain +% +He jests at scars who never felt a wound. + -- Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet, II. 2" +% +He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien +% +He that is giddy thinks the world turns round. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew" +% +He was part of my dream, of course -- but then I was part of his dream too. + -- Lewis Carroll +% +Hell is empty and all the devils are here. + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "The Tempest" +% +His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred +to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never +claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. Circum- +stances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit. +Silence, though, could. It was in the days of the rains that their prayers +went up, not from the fingering of knotted prayer cords or the spinning of +prayer wheels, but from the great pray-machine in the monastery of Ratri, +goddess of the Night. The high-frequency prayers were directed upward through +the atmosphere and out beyond it, passing into that golden cloud called the +Bridge of the Gods, which circles the entire world, is seen as a bronze +rainbow at night and is the place where the red sun becomes orange at midday. +Some of the monks doubted the orthodoxy of this prayer technique... + -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light" +% +How apt the poor are to be proud. + -- William Shakespeare, "Twelfth-Night" +% +I do desire we may be better strangers. + -- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It" +% +I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less +than half of you half as well as you deserve. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +I dote on his very absence. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" +% +I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on, +so I woke up from sheer boredom. +% +I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. + -- Mark Twain +% +I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a +week sometimes to make it up. + -- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad" +% +I reverently believe that the maker who made us all makes everything in New +England, but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be +raw apprentices in the weather-clerks factory who experiment and learn how, in +New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for +countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere +if they don't get it. + -- Mark Twain +% +I think we are in Rats' Alley where the dead men lost their bones. + -- T.S. Eliot +% +I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know. + -- Mark Twain +% +I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I +will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all +Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they +teach. Oh, tell me that I may sponge away the writing on this stone! + -- Charles Dickens +% +"I wonder", he said to himself, "what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I +know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must +be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people +I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures and battles." + -- Bastian B. Bux +% +I'll burn my books. + -- Christopher Marlowe +% +I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness; +And from that full meridian of my glory +I haste now to my setting. I shall fall, +Like a bright exhalation in the evening +And no man see me more. + -- Shakespeare +% +If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would +be a merrier world. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien +% +If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use +in reading it at all. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it. + -- Ernest Hemingway +% +If you laid all of our laws end to end, there would be no end. + -- Mark Twain +% +If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. +This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. + -- Mark Twain +% +In a museum in Havana, there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus, +"one when he was a boy and one when he was a man." + -- Mark Twain +% +In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come into +use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather +which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy. + -- Mark Twain +% +In Marseilles they make half the toilet soap we consume in America, but +the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they +have obtained from books of travel. + -- Mark Twain +% +In the first place, God made idiots; this was for practice; then he made +school boards. + -- Mark Twain +% +In the plot, people came to the land; the land loved them; they worked and +struggled and had lots of children. There was a Frenchman who talked funny +and a greenhorn from England who was a fancy-pants but when it came to the +crunch he was all courage. Those novels would make you retch. + -- Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, on the generic Canadian + novel. +% +In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has +shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore ... in the Old +Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred +thousand miles long ... seven hundred and forty-two years from now the +Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long. ... There is +something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of +conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. + -- Mark Twain +% +In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of +24 hours. + -- Mark Twain, on New England weather +% +It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely +the most important. + -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Case of Identity" +% +It is a wise father that knows his own child. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" +% +It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: +freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either. + -- Mark Twain +% +It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man +who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that +there were too many prehistoric toads in it. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +It is often the case that the man who can't tell a lie thinks he is the best +judge of one. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories, +his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the +worst, and so grow gently old all down the unchanging days and die one +day like any other day, only shorter. + -- Samuel Beckett, "Malone Dies" +% +It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. + -- Mark Twain +% +It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion +that makes horse-races. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. +Some think it is the voice of God. + -- Mark Twain +% +Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can read. + -- Mark Twain +% +Kiss me, Kate, we will be married o' Sunday. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew" +% +Lay on, MacDuff, and curs'd be him who first cries, "Hold, enough!". + -- Shakespeare +% +Let him choose out of my files, his projects to accomplish. + -- Shakespeare, "Coriolanus" +% +Let me take you a button-hole lower. + -- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost" +% +Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be +sorry. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Like an expensive sports car, fine-tuned and well-built, Portia was sleek, +shapely, and gorgeous, her red jumpsuit moulding her body, which was as warm +as seatcovers in July, her hair as dark as new tires, her eyes flashing like +bright hubcaps, and her lips as dewy as the beads of fresh rain on the hood; +she was a woman driven -- fueled by a single accelerant -- and she needed a +man, a man who wouldn't shift from his views, a man to steer her along the +right road: a man like Alf Romeo. + -- Rachel Sheeley, winner + +The hair ball blocking the drain of the shower reminded Laura she would never +see her little dog Pritzi again. + -- Claudia Fields, runner-up + +It could have been an organically based disturbance of the brain -- perhaps a +tumor or a metabolic deficiency -- but after a thorough neurological exam it +was determined that Byron was simply a jerk. + -- Jeff Jahnke, runner-up + +Winners in the 7th Annual Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest. The contest is +named after the author of the immortal lines: "It was a dark and stormy +night." The object of the contest is to write the opening sentence of the +worst possible novel. +% +Lord, what fools these mortals be! + -- William Shakespeare, "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" +% +Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to. + -- Mark Twain +% +Many a writer seems to think he is never profound except when he can't +understand his own meaning. + -- George D. Prentice +% +Many enraged psychiatrists are inciting a weary butcher. The butcher is +weary and tired because he has cut meat and steak and lamb for hours and +weeks. He does not desire to chant about anything with raving psychiatrists, +but he sings about his gingivectomist, he dreams about a single cosmologist, +he thinks about his dog. The dog is named Herbert. + -- Racter, "The Policeman's Beard is Half-Constructed" +% +Many pages make a thick book, except for pocket Bibles which are on very +very thin paper. +% +Many pages make a thick book. +% +Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is +particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, +to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. +But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands +shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit +me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. + -- Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol" +% +Must I hold a candle to my shames? + -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" +% + My dear People. + My dear Bagginses and Boffins, and my dear Tooks and Brandybucks, +and Grubbs, and Chubbs, and Burrowses, and Hornblowers, and Bolgers, +Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses and Proudfoots. Also my good +Sackville Bagginses that I welcome back at last to Bag End. Today is my +one hundred and eleventh birthday: I am eleventy-one today!" + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +My only love sprung from my only hate! +Too early seen unknown, and known too late! + -- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet" +% +Never laugh at live dragons. + -- Bilbo Baggins [J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Hobbit"] +% +No group of professionals meets except to conspire against the public at large. + -- Mark Twain +% +No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of +absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. +Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness +within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. +Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and +doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone +of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone. + -- Shirley Jackson, "The Haunting of Hill House" +% +No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture! + -- Sherlock Holmes +% +Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles +as if she laid an asteroid. + -- Mark Twain +% +"Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none." + -- Shakespeare +% +Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. + -- Mark Twain +% +Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +O, it is excellent +To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous +To use it like a giant. + -- Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure", II, 2 +% +October 12, the Discovery. + +It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss +it. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +October. + +This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. + +The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, +December, August, and February. + + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. + -- Shakespeare +% +One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has +only nine lives. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Patch griefs with proverbs. + -- William Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing" +% +Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we ourselves +possess. + -- Gandalf the Grey [J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"] +% +Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; +persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting +to find a plot in it will be shot. By Order of the Author + -- Mark Twain, "Tom Sawyer" +% +question = ( to ) ? be : ! be; + -- Wm. Shakespeare +% +Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of +Congress. But I repeat myself. + -- Mark Twain +% +Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV" +% +Remark of Dr. Baldwin's concerning upstarts: We don't care to eat toadstools +that think they are truffles. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late. + -- Mark Twain +% +ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. +MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide + as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. +% +Seeing that death, a necessary end, +Will come when it will come. + -- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" +% +She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot. + -- Mark Twain +% +Sheriff Chameleotoptor sighed with an air of weary sadness, and then +turned to Doppelgutt and said 'The Senator must really have been on a +bender this time -- he left a party in Cleveland, Ohio, at 11:30 last +night, and they found his car this morning in the smokestack of a British +aircraft carrier in the Formosa Straits.' + -- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton + bad fiction contest. +% +Small things make base men proud. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie; +and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street pops its head +into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently +married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Grand +Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all +fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran +out at the heels of their boots. + -- Samuel Foote +% +So so is good, very good, very excellent good: +and yet it is not; it is but so so. + -- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It" +% +Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more +deadly in the long run. + -- Mark Twain +% +Something's rotten in the state of Denmark. + -- Shakespeare +% +Sometimes I wonder if I'm in my right mind. Then it passes off and I'm +as intelligent as ever. + -- Samuel Beckett, "Endgame" +% +"Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though +ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, +mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, +thou has dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams has +moved amid the world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, +and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate +earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful +water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or +diver never went; has slept by many a sailer's side, where sleepless mothers +would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw'st the locked lovers when +leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting +wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the +murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell +into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed +on unharmed -- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would +have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou has +seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one +syllable is thine!" + -- H. Melville, "Moby Dick" +% +Steady movement is more important than speed, much of the time. So long +as there is a regular progression of stimuli to get your mental hooks +into, there is room for lateral movement. Once this begins, its rate is +a matter of discretion. + -- Corwin, Prince of Amber +% +Stop! There was first a game of blindman's buff. Of course there was. +And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes +in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and +Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The +way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage +on the credulity of human nature. +% +Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind. + -- Wm. Shakespeare +% +Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, +whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through +the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! + -- Captain Ahab, "Moby Dick" +% +Talkers are no good doers. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +Tell the truth or trump--but get the trick. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Tempt not a desperate man. + -- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet" +% +The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power. + -- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" +% +The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd +And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven; +The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth +And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change. +These signs forerun the death or fall of kings. + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "Richard II" +% +The better part of valor is discretion. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV" +% +The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first +half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and +pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who +hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice +for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time +during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it +but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know. + -- Winning sentence, 1986 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. +% +The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest is held ever year at San Jose State +Univ. by Professor Scott Rice. It is held in memory of Edward George +Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), a rather prolific and popular (in his +time) novelist. He is best known today for having written "The Last +Days of Pompeii." + +Whenever Snoopy starts typing his novel from the top of his doghouse, +beginning "It was a dark and stormy night..." he is borrowing from Lord +Bulwer-Lytton. This was the line that opened his novel, "Paul Clifford," +written in 1830. The full line reveals why it is so bad: + + It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents -- except + at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of + wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene + lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty + flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. +% +The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted +sullenly and, buffing her already impeccable nails -- not for the first +time since the journey begain -- pondered snidely if this would dissolve +into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent +with Basil. + -- Winning sentence, 1983 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. +% +The countdown had stalled at 'T' minus 69 seconds when Desiree, the first +female ape to go up in space, winked at me slyly and pouted her thick, +rubbery lips unmistakably -- the first of many such advances during what +would prove to be the longest, and most memorable, space voyage of my +career. + -- Winning sentence, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. +% +The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" +% +The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference +between a mermaid and a seal. + -- Mark Twain +% +The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the +difference between lightning and the lightning bug. + -- Mark Twain +% +The fashion wears out more apparel than the man. + -- William Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing" +% +The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "Henry VI", Part IV +% +The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and +enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to +lend money. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. + -- Mark Twain +% +The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that +procession but carrying a banner. + -- Mark Twain +% +The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first. + -- Blaise Pascal +% +The Least Perceptive Literary Critic + The most important critic in our field of study is Lord Halifax. A +most individual judge of poetry, he once invited Alexander Pope round to +give a public reading of his latest poem. + Pope, the leading poet of his day, was greatly surprised when Lord +Halifax stopped him four or five times and said, "I beg your pardon, Mr. +Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me." + Pope was rendered speechless, as this fine critic suggested sizeable +and unwise emendations to his latest masterpiece. "Be so good as to mark +the place and consider at your leisure. I'm sure you can give it a better +turn." + After the reading, a good friend of Lord Halifax, a certain Dr. +Garth, took the stunned Pope to one side. "There is no need to touch the +lines," he said. "All you need do is leave them just as they are, call on +Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observation +on those passages, and then read them to him as altered. I have known him +much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event." + Pope took his advice, called on Lord Halifax and read the poem +exactly as it was before. His unique critical faculties had lost none of +their edge. "Ay", he commented, "now they are perfectly right. Nothing can +be better." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The Least Successful Collector + Betsy Baker played a central role in the history of collecting. She +was employed as a servant in the house of John Warburton (1682-1759) who had +amassed a fine collection of 58 first edition plays, including most of the +works of Shakespeare. + One day Warburton returned home to find 55 of them charred beyond +legibility. Betsy had either burned them or used them as pie bottoms. The +remaining three folios are now in the British Museum. + The only comparable literary figure was the maid who in 1835 burned +the manuscript of the first volume of Thomas Carlyle's "The Hisory of the +French Revolution", thinking it was wastepaper. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of +the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarian tribe now stacking wood at +her nubile feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic and heroic +Handsomas roared, 'Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my +steel through your last meal!' + -- Winning sentence, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. +% +The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, +Are of imagination all compact... + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" +% +The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that +will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful. + -- Mark Twain +% +The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt. + -- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost" +% + "...The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'!" + "Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to +feel interested. + "No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little +vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is, 'The Aged +Aged Man.'" + "Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called'?" +Alice corrected herself. + "No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is +called 'Ways and Means': but that's only what it is called you know!" + "Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this +time completely bewildered. + "I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is +"A-sitting on a Gate": and the tune's my own invention." + --Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +The notes blatted skyward as they rose over the Canada geese, feathered +rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically pedaling unseen +bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by cruel Nature's maxim, +'Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work,' and at last I knew Pittsburgh. + -- Winning sentence, 1987 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. +% +The only people for me are the mad ones -- the ones who are mad to live, +mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, +the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn +like fabulous yellow Roman candles. + -- Jack Kerouac, "On the Road" +% +The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what +you don't like, and do what you'd rather not. + -- Mark Twain +% + The Priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. +I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go. + A voice, sweetened and sustained, called to him from the sea. +Turning the curve he waved his hand. A sleek brown head, a seal's, far +out on the water, round. Usurper. + -- James Joyce, "Ulysses" +% +The Public is merely a multiplied "me." + -- Mark Twain +% +The ripest fruit falls first. + -- William Shakespeare, "Richard II" +% +The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven. + -- Mark Twain +% +The smallest worm will turn being trodden on. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" +% +The surest protection against temptation is cowardice. + -- Mark Twain +% +The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with +commoner things. It is chief of the world's luxuries, king by the grace of God +over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the +angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because +she repented. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice. + -- Mark Twain +% +There are more things in heaven and earth, +Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. + -- Wm. Shakespeare, "Hamlet" +% +There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a +rising scale of compliment: 1, to tell him you have read one of his books; 2, +to tell him you have read all of his books; 3, to ask him to let you read the +manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his respect; No. 2 +admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you clear into his heart. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature: that of +paying literary men by the quantity they do NOT write. +% +There is always one thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out. + -- Joan Didion, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" +% +There is an old time toast which is golden for its beauty. +"When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend." + -- Mark Twain +% +There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by +ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his +character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler +animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling +complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. + -- Mark Twain +% +There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted +armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter. + -- Ernest Hemingway +% +There's small choice in rotten apples. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew" +% +They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. + -- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost" +% +They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it "da Vinchy". Foreigners +always spell better than they pronounce. + -- Mark Twain +% +Things past redress and now with me past care. + -- William Shakespeare, "Richard II" +% +This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a +little ironic since we may not have one. + -- Arthur Clarke +% +This night methinks is but the daylight sick. + -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" +% +This was the most unkindest cut of all. + -- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" +% +To be or not to be. + -- Shakespeare +To do is to be. + -- Nietzsche +To be is to do. + -- Sartre +Do be do be do. + -- Sinatra +% +Too much is just enough. + -- Mark Twain, on whiskey +% +Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is +nothing but cabbage with a college education. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it. + -- Mark Twain +% +Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues +of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping houses, and the blessed sun himself +a fair, hot wench in flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst +be so superfluous to demand the time of the day. I wasted time and now doth +time waste me. + -- William Shakespeare +% +Wagner's music is better than it sounds. + -- Mark Twain +% +Water, taken in moderation cannot hurt anybody. + -- Mark Twain +% +We know all about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the +bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It seems +almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the +oyster. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is +in it - and stay there, lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot +stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that +is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more. + -- Mark Twain +% +We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength. But there was +also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle Haggard song at a +French restaurant. [...] + I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk +white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I had punched her +boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone told him, "You ride the +bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was lean and tough like a bad +rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he fought me. And when we finished +there were no winners, just men doing what men must do. [...] + "Stop the car," the girl said. + There was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes. She knew about the +woman of the tollway. I knew not how. I started to speak, but she raised an +arm and spoke with a quiet and peace I will never forget. + "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the tollway +belle's for thee." + The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie. +Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured whiskey +onto my granola and faced a new day. + -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway + Competition +% +Well, anyway, I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized +that like most books, it had too many words. The plot was the same one that +all James Bond books have: An evil person tries to blow up the world, but +James Bond kills him and his henchmen and makes love to several attractive +women. There, that's it: 24 words. But the guy who wrote the book took +*thousands* of words to say it. + Or consider "The Brothers Karamazov", by the famous Russian alcoholic +Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's about these two brothers who kill their father. +Or maybe only one of them kills the father. It's impossible to tell because +what they mostly do is talk for nearly a thousand pages. If all Russians talk +as much as the Karamazovs did, I don't see how they found time to become a +major world power. + I'm told that Dostoyevsky wrote "The Brothers Karamazov" to raise +the question of whether there is a God. So why didn't he just come right +out and say: "Is there a God? It sure beats the heck out of me." + Other famous works could easily have been summarized in a few words: + +* "Moby Dick" -- Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize + nature and will kill you. +* "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy. + -- Dave Barry +% +What good is an obscenity trial except to popularize literature? + -- Nero Wolfe, "The League of Frightened Men" +% +What I tell you three times is true. + -- Lewis Carroll +% +What no spouse of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working +when he's staring out the window. +% +When angry, count four; when very angry, swear. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know who have gone +to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened +or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I +cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to +go to pieces like this but we all have to do it. + -- Mark Twain +% +When in doubt, tell the truth. + -- Mark Twain +% +When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes. + -- Dylan Thomas +% +When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all. + -- Roger Zelazny, "Doorways in the Sand" +% +Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last +you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his +Atlantic with his verb in his mouth. + -- Mark Twain "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" +% +Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time +to reform. + -- Mark Twain +% +Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt +of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He +brought death into the world. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +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, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. +Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. + -- Mark Twain +% +Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. + -- Mark Twain +% +Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at the blank sheet of paper until +drops of blood form on your forehead. + -- Gene Fowler +% +Writing is turning one's worst moments into money. + -- J.P. Donleavy +% +"You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive." + -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet" +% + "You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?" + "The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as --" + "My blushes, Watson," Holmes murmured, in a deprecating voice. + "I was about to say 'as he is unknown to the public.'" + -- A. Conan Doyle, "The Valley of Fear" +% +You may my glories and my state dispose, +But not my griefs; still am I king of those. + -- William Shakespeare, "Richard II" +% +You mentioned your name as if I should recognize it, but beyond the +obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a freemason, and +an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about you. + -- Sherlock Holmes, "The Norwood Builder" +% +You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night +to write. + -- Saul Bellow +% +You see, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty +attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool +takes in all the lumber of every sort he comes across, so that the knowledge +which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with +a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it. +Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his +brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing +his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect +order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and +can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every +addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of +the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out +the useful ones. + -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet" +% +You tread upon my patience. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV" +% + You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the +Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the +parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day. + -- Sherlock Holmes +% +Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not +original and the part that is original is not good. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words +since I first called my brother's father dad. + -- William Shakespeare, "Kind John" +% +The mind is its own place, and in itself +Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. + -- John Milton +% +"I understand this is your first dead client," Sabian was saying. The +absurdity of the statement made me want to laugh but they don't call me +Deadpan Allie and lie. + -- Pat Cadigan, "Mindplayers" +% +A morgue is a morgue is a morgue. They can paint the walls with aggressively +cheerful primary colors and splashy bold graphics, but it's still a holding +place for the dead until they can be parted out to organ banks. Not that I +would have cared normally but my viewpoint was skewed. The relentless +pleasance of the room I sat in seemed only grotesque. + -- Pat Cadigan, "Mindplayers" +% +"What's this? Trix? Aunt! Trix? You? You're after the prize! What +is it?" He picked up the box and studied the back. "A glow-in-the-dark +squid! Have you got it out of there yet?" He tilted the box, angling the +little colored balls of cereal so as to see the bottom, and nearly spilling +them onto the table top. "Here it is!" He hauled out a little cream-colored, +glitter-sprinkled squid, three-inches long and made out of rubbery plastic. + -- James P. Blaylock, "The Last Coin" +% +"Good afternoon, madam. How may I help you?" + +"Good afternoon. I'd like a FrintArms HandCannon, please." + +"A--? Oh, now, that's an awfully big gun for such a lovely lady. I +mean, not everybody thinks ladies should carry guns at all, though I +say they have a right to. But I think... I might... Let's have a look +down here. I might have just the thing for you. Yes, here we are! +Look at that, isn't it neat? Now that is a FrintArms product as well, +but it's what's called a laser -- a light-pistol some people call +them. Very small, as you see; fits easily into a pocket or bag; won't +spoil the line of a jacket; and you won't feel you're lugging half a +tonne of iron around with you. We do a range of matching accessories, +including -- if I may say so -- a rather saucy garter holster. Wish I +got to do the fitting for that! Ha -- just my little joke. And +there's *even*... here we are -- this special presentation pack: gun, +charged battery, charging unit, beautiful glider-hide shoulder holster +with adjustable fitting and contrast stitching, and a discount on your +next battery. Full instructions, of course, and a voucher for free +lessons at your local gun club or range. Or there's the *special* +presentation pack; it has all the other one's got but with *two* +charged batteries and a night-sight, too. Here, feel that -- don't +worry, it's a dummy battery -- isn't it neat? Feel how light it is? +Smooth, see? No bits to stick out and catch on your clothes, *and* +beautifully balanced. And of course the beauty of a laser is, there's +no recoil. Because it's shooting light, you see? Beautiful gun, +beautiful gun; my wife has one. Really. That's not a line, she +really has. Now, I can do you that one -- with a battery and a free +charge -- for ninety-five; or the presentation pack on a special +offer for one-nineteen; or this, the special presentation pack, for +one-forty-nine." + +"I'll take the special." + +"Sound choice, madam, *sound* choice. Now, do--?" + +"And a HandCannon, with the eighty-mill silencer, five GP clips, three +six-five AP/wire-fl'echettes clips, two bipropellant HE clips, and a +Special Projectile Pack if you have one -- the one with the embedding +rounds, not the signalers. I assume the night-sight on this toy is +compatible?" + +"Aah... yes, And how does madam wish to pay?" + +She slapped her credit card on the counter. "Eventually." + + -- Iain M. Banks, "Against a Dark Background" +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/love b/fortune-mod/datfiles/love new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d13159e --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/love @@ -0,0 +1,573 @@ +A career is great, but you can't run your fingers through its hair. +% +A kiss is a course of procedure, cunningly devised, for the mutual +stoppage of speech at a moment when words are superfluous. +% +A woman was in love with fourteen soldiers. It was clearly platoonic. +% +Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, +as the wind blows out candles and fans fires. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much +extinguishes it. + -- Hannah More +% +All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most +ridiculous ones. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +Always there remain portions of our heart into which no one is able to enter, +invite them as we may. +% +Bondage maybe, discipline never! + -- T.K. +% +Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance +and without any visible reason. + -- Lord Chesterfield +% +Don't despair; your ideal lover is waiting for you around the corner. +% +Falling in Love + When two people have been on enough dates, they generally fall in +love. You can tell you're in love by the way you feel: your head becomes +light, your heart leaps within you, you feel like you're walking on air, +and the whole world seems like a wonderful and happy place. Unfortunately, +these are also the four warning signs of colon disease, so it's always a +good idea to check with your doctor. + -- Dave Barry +% +Falling in love is a lot like dying. You never get to do it enough to +become good at it. +% +Finish the sentence below in 25 words or less: + + "Love is what you feel just before you give someone a good ..." + +Mail your answer along with the top half of your supervisor to: + + P.O. Box 35 + Baffled Greek, Michigan +% +Give me chastity and continence, but not just now. + -- St. Augustine +% +God is love, but get it in writing. + -- Gypsy Rose Lee +% +"He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mental +effort, he could probably turn the activity into an acceptable perversion." + -- Mick Farren, "When Gravity Fails" +% +He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage -- he won't +encounter many rivals. + -- Georg Lichtenberg, "Aphorisms" +% +Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable. + -- The Wizard of Oz +% +HEY KIDS! ANN LANDERS SAYS: + Be sure it's true, when you say "I love you". It's a sin to + tell a lie. Millions of hearts have been broken, just because + these words were spoken. +% +His heart was yours from the first moment that you met. +% +How much does she love you? Less than you'll ever know. +% +I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so. + -- John Donne +% +I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary +relief to nymphomaniacs. + -- Larry Lee +% +I don't want people to love me. It makes for obligations. + -- Jean Anouilh +% +I love you more than anything in this world. I don't expect that will last. + -- Elvis Costello +% +I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. + -- Roy Croft +% +I loved her with a love thirsty and desperate. I felt that we two might commit +some act so atrocious that the world, seeing us, would find it irresistible. + -- Gene Wolfe, "The Shadow of the Torturer" +% +I never loved another person the way I loved myself. + -- Mae West +% +I think a relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward +or it dies. Well, what we have on our hands here is a dead shark. + -- Woody Allen +% +I used to be Snow White, but I drifted. + -- Mae West +% +I used to think romantic love was a neurosis shared by two, a supreme +foolishness. I no longer thought that. There's nothing foolish in +loving anyone. Thinking you'll be loved in return is what's foolish. + -- Rita Mae Brown +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I did my own thing and now I've got +to undo it." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I have to floss my cat." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I have to stay home and see if I snore." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I never go out on days that end in `Y.'" +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I want to spend more time with my blender." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm attending the opening of my garage door." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm converting my calendar watch from +Julian to Gregorian." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm doing door-to-door collecting for static +cling." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm having all my plants neutered." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm staying home to work on my +cottage cheese sculpture." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but I've been scheduled for a karma transplant." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but my favorite commercial is on TV." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but the last time I went out, I never came back." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but the man on television told me to stay tuned." +% +"I'd love to go out with you, but there are important world issues that +need worrying about." +% +I'd love to kiss you, but I just washed my hair. + -- Bette Davis, "Cabin in the Cotton" +% + "I'll tell you what I know, then," he decided. "The pin I'm wearing +means I'm a member of the IA. That's Inamorati Anonymous. An inamorato is +somebody in love. That's the worst addiction of all." + "Somebody is about to fall in love," Oedipa said, "you go sit with +them, or something?" + "Right. The whole idea is to get where you don't need it. I was +lucky. I kicked it young. But there are sixty-year-old men, believe it or +not, and women even older, who might wake up in the night screaming." + "You hold meetings, then, like the AA?" + "No, of course not. You get a phone number, an answering service +you can call. Nobody knows anybody else's name; just the number in case +it gets so bad you can't handle it alone. We're isolates, Arnold. Meetings +would destroy the whole point of it." + -- Thomas Pynchon, "The Crying of Lot 49" +% +If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question? + -- Lily Tomlin +% +If Love Were Oil, I'd Be About A Quart Low + -- Book title by Lewis Grizzard +% +If only you knew she loved you, you could face the uncertainty of +whether you love her. +% +If you can't be good, be careful. If you can't be careful, give me a call. +% +If you love someone, set them free. +If they don't come back, then call them up when you're drunk. +% +In a great romance, each person basically plays a part that the +other really likes. + -- Elizabeth Ashley +% +In an age when the fashion is to be in love with yourself, confessing to +be in love with somebody else is an admission of unfaithfulness to one's +beloved. + -- Russell Baker +% +In love, she who gives her portrait promises the original. + -- Bruton +% +In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you +want the other person. + -- Margaret Anderson +% +It is far better to be deceived than to be undeceived by those we love. +% +Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody +who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth +about his or her love affairs. + -- Rebecca West +% +Let us live!!! +Let us love!!! +Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!! + +You first. +% +Let's just be friends and make no special effort to ever see each other again. +% +Let's not complicate our relationship by trying to communicate with each other. +% +Lonely is a man without love. + -- Englebert Humperdinck +% +Love -- the last of the serious diseases of childhood. +% +Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. +% +Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the +world has ever seen. +% +Love cannot be much younger than the lust for murder. + -- Sigmund Freud +% +Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to love. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +Love is a grave mental disease. + -- Plato +% +Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra, which suddenly flips +over, pinning you underneath. At night the ice weasels come. + -- Matt Groening, "Love is Hell" +% +Love is always open arms. With arms open you allow love to come and +go as it wills, freely, for it will do so anyway. If you close your +arms about love you'll find you are left only holding yourself. +% +Love is being stupid together. + -- Paul Valery +% +Love is dope, not chicken soup. I mean, love is something to be passed +around freely, not spooned down someone's throat for their own good by a +Jewish mother who cooked it all by herself. +% +Love is in the offing. + -- The Homicidal Maniac +% +Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very +pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love +grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning +and unquenchable. + -- Bruce Lee +% +Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it. + -- Jerome K. Jerome +% +Love is never asking why? +% +Love is not enough, but it sure helps. +% +Love is sentimental measles. +% +Love is staying up all night with a sick child, or a healthy adult. +% +Love is the only game that is not called on account of darkness. + -- M. Hirschfield +% +Love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself. + -- Saint Exupery +% +Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Love IS what it's cracked up to be. +% +Love is what you've been through with somebody. + -- James Thurber +% +Love isn't only blind, it's also deaf, dumb, and stupid. +% +Love means having to say you're sorry every five minutes. +% +Love means never having to say you're sorry. + -- Eric Segal, "Love Story" + +That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. + -- Ryan O'Neill, "What's Up Doc?" +% +Love tells us many things that are not so. + -- Krainian Proverb +% +May your SO always know when you need a hug. +% +"Maybe we should think of this as one perfect week... where we found each +other, and loved each other... and then let each other go before anyone +had to seek professional help." +% +Most people don't need a great deal of love nearly so much as they need +a steady supply. +% +My cup hath runneth'd over with love. +% +Nature abhors a virgin -- a frozen asset. + -- Clare Booth Luce +% + "No, I understand now," Auberon said, calm in the woods -- it was so +simple, really. "I didn't, for a long time, but I do now. You just can't +hold people, you can't own them. I mean it's only natural, a natural process +really. Meet. Love. Part. Life goes on. There was never any reason to +expect her to stay always the same -- I mean `in love,' you know." There were +those doubt-quotes of Smoky's, heavily indicated. "I don't hold a grudge. I +can't." + "You do," Grandfather Trout said. "And you don't understand." + -- Little, Big, "John Crowley" +% +Of all forms of caution, caution in love is the most fatal. +% +Of course it's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well. + -- Charles Bukowski +% +Oh, love is real enough, you will find it some day, but it has one +arch-enemy -- and that is life. + -- Jean Anouilh, "Ardele" +% +On a tous un peu peur de l'amour, mais on a surtout peur de souffrir +ou de faire souffrir. + [One is always a little afraid of love, but above all, one is + afraid of pain or causing pain.] +% +Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings +infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can +grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it +possible for each to see each other whole against the sky. + -- Rainer Rilke +% +One expresses well the love he does not feel. + -- J.A. Karr +% +People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense. + -- Ken Kesey +% +Really?? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!! +% +Sometime when you least expect it, Love will tap you on the shoulder... +and ask you to move out of the way because it still isn't your turn. + -- N.V. Plyter +% +Sometimes love ain't nothing but a misunderstanding between two fools. +% +Sorry never means having your say to love. +% +Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these +days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate +with the people they love; Husbands and wives who can't communicate, children +who can't communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in +these books and plays and so on (and in real life, I might add) spend hours +bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel that if a person can't +communicate, the very _____least he can do is to shut up! + -- Tom Lehrer, "That Was the Year that Was" +% +Support wildlife -- vote for an orgy. +% +That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, +that no one could have loved so before us, and that no one will love +in the same way as us. + -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe +% +That's life for you, said McDunn. Someone always waiting for someone who +never comes home. Always someone loving something more than that thing loves +them. And after awhile you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so it +can't hurt you no more. + -- R. Bradbury, "The Fog Horn" +% + The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time +for Miss Manners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public. + It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance. Miss Manners +has been known to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a +curb, and, in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a +foot or two under the dinner table. Miss Manners also believes that the +sight of people strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand +dresses up a city considerably more than the more familiar sight of +people shaking umbrellas at one another. What Miss Manners objects to +is the kind of activity that frightens the horses on the street... +% +The giraffe you thought you offended last week is willing to be nuzzled today. +% +The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. + -- Blaise Pascal +% +The heart is wiser than the intellect. +% +The little pieces of my life I give to you, with love, to make a quilt +to keep away the cold. +% +The magic of our first love is our ignorance that it can ever end. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +The myth of romantic love holds that once you've fallen in love with the +perfect partner, you're home free. Unfortunately, falling out of love +seems to be just as involuntary as falling into it. +% +The only difference in the game of love over the last few thousand years +is that they've changed trumps from clubs to diamonds. + -- The Indianapolis Star +% +The onset and the waning of love make themselves felt in the uneasiness +experienced at being alone together. + -- Jean de la Bruyere +% +The perfect lover is one who turns into a pizza at 4:00 A.M. + -- Charles Pierce +% +The person you rejected yesterday could make you happy, if you say yes. +% +The seven year itch comes from fooling around during the fourth, fifth, +and sixth years. +% +The story of the butterfly: + "I was in Bogota and waiting for a lady friend. I was in love, +a long time ago. I waited three days. I was hungry but could not go +out for food, lest she come and I not be there to greet her. Then, on +the third day, I heard a knock." + "I hurried along the old passage and there, in the sunlight, +there was nothing." + "Just," Vance Joy said, "a butterfly, flying away." + -- Peter Carey, BLISS +% +The sweeter the apple, the blacker the core -- +Scratch a lover and find a foe! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Ballad of a Great Weariness" +% +The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. +% +There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both plants +and animals. When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis; and when +the lights go out, they turn into animals. But then again, don't we all? +% +There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear. +% +There is only one way to be happy by means of the heart -- to have none. + -- Paul Bourget +% +There's so much to say but your eyes keep interrupting me. +% +Timing must be perfect now. Two-timing must be better than perfect. +% +To be loved is very demoralizing. + -- Katharine Hepburn +% +To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three +parts dead. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +Total strangers need love, too; and I'm stranger than most. +% +True happiness will be found only in true love. +% +Under deadline pressure for the next week. If you want something, it can wait. +Unless it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic... +% +We don't believe in rheumatism and true love until after the first attack. + -- Marie Ebner von Eschenbach +% +What is irritating about love is that it is a crime that requires an accomplice. + -- Charles Baudelaire +% +When your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn +They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem. + -- Leonard Cohen, "Sisters of Mercy" +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but ... + -- I have to floss my cat. + -- I've dedicated my life to linguini. + -- I need to spend more time with my blender. + -- it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People. + -- it's my night to pet the dog/ferret/goldfish. + -- I'm going downtown to try on some gloves. + -- I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products. + -- I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise. + -- I have an appointment with a cuticle specialist. + -- I have some really hard words to look up. + -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting. + -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps. +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but... + -- I have to answer all of my "occupant" letters. + -- None of my socks match. + -- I'm having all my plants neutered. + -- I changed the lock on my door and now I can't get out. + -- My yucca plant is feeling yucky. + -- I'm touring China with a wok band. + -- My chocolate-appreciation class meets that night. + -- I'm running off to Yugoslavia with a foreign-exchange student + named Basil Metabolism. + -- There are important world issues that need worrying about. + -- I'm going to count the bristles in my toothbrush. + -- I prefer to remain an enigma. + -- I think you want the OTHER Peggy/Cathy/Mike/whomever. + -- I feel a song coming on. +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but... + -- I have to draw "Cubby" for an art scholarship. + -- I have to sit up with a sick ant. + -- I'm trying to be less popular. + -- My bathroom tiles need grouting. + -- I'm waiting to see if I'm already a winner. + -- My subconscious says no. + -- I just picked up a book called "Glue in Many Lands" and I + can't seem to put it down. + -- My favorite commercial is on TV. + -- I have to study for my blood test. + -- I've been traded to Cincinnati. + -- I'm having my baby shoes bronzed. + -- I have to go to court for kitty littering. +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but... + -- I'm trying to see how long I can go without saying yes. + -- I'm attending the opening of my garage door. + -- The monsters haven't turned blue yet, and I have to eat more dots. + -- I'm converting my calendar watch from Julian to Gregorian. + -- I have to fulfill my potential. + -- I don't want to leave my comfort zone. + -- It's too close to the turn of the century. + -- I have to bleach my hare. + -- I'm worried about my vertical hold knob. + -- I left my body in my other clothes. +% +Why I Can't Go Out With You: + +I'd LOVE to, but... + -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting. + -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps. + -- I've been scheduled for a karma transplant. + -- I'm staying home to work on my cottage cheese sculpture. + -- It's my parakeet's bowling night. + -- I'm building a plant from a kit. + -- There's a disturbance in the Force. + -- I'm doing door-to-door collecting for static cling. + -- I'm teaching my ferret to yodel. + -- My crayons all melted together. +% +"Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love +you knowing nothing?" + -- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions +% +Without love intelligence is dangerous; +without intelligence love is not enough. + -- Ashley Montagu +% +Wouldn't this be a great world if being insecure and desperate were a turn-on? + -- "Broadcast News" +% +Yeah, there are more important things in life than money, but they won't go +out with you if you don't have any. +% +You shouldn't have to pay for your love with your bones and your flesh. + -- Pat Benatar, "Hell is for Children" +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/magic b/fortune-mod/datfiles/magic new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3244f40 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/magic @@ -0,0 +1,194 @@ +A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally +established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon +or three normal sized billiard balls. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +"A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to admit, +let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact remains that +there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one reason or another, +completely immune to any direct magical spell. It is for this group of +beings that the magician learns the subtleties of using indirect spells. +It also does no harm, in dealing with these matters, to carry a large club +near your person at all times." + -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII +% +An ancient proverb summed it up: when a wizard is tired of looking for +broken glass in his dinner, it ran, he is tired of life. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Chaos is King and Magic is loose in the world. +% +Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they become soggy and hard to +light. +% +Do not throw cigarette butts in the urinal, for they are subtle and +quick to anger. +% +"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and good +with ketchup." +% +Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. + -- Aleister Crowley +% +Eight was also the Number of Bel-Shamharoth, which was why a sensible wizard +would never mention the number if he could avoid it. Or you'll be eight +alive, apprentices were jocularly warned. Bel-Shamharoth was especially +attracted to dabblers in magic who, by being as it were beachcombers on the +shores of the unnatural, were already half-enmeshed in his nets. +Rincewind's room number in his hall of residence had been 7a. He hadn't +been surprised. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Sending of Eight" +% +"How do you know she is a unicorn?" Molly demanded. "And why were you afraid +to let her touch you? I saw you. You were afraid of her." + "I doubt that I will feel like talking for very long," the cat +replied without rancor. "I would not waste time in foolishness if I were +you. As to your first question, no cat out of its first fur can ever be +deceived by appearances. Unlike human beings, who enjoy them. As for your +second question --" Here he faltered, and suddenly became very interested +in washing; nor would he speak until he had licked himself fluffy and then +licked himself smooth again. Even then he would not look at Molly, but +examined his claws. + "If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been +hers and not my own, not ever again." + -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" +% +It is a well known fact that warriors and wizards do not get along, because +one side considers the other side to be a collection of bloodthirsty idiots +who can't walk and think at the same time, while the other side is naturally +suspicious of a body of men who mumble a lot and wear long dresses. Oh, say +the wizards, if we're going to be like that, then, what about all those +studded collars and oiled muscles down at the Young Men's Pagan Association? +To which the heroes reply, that's a pretty good allegation from a bunch of +wimpsoes who won't go near a woman on account, can you believe it, of their +mystical power being sort of drained out. Right, say the wizards, that just +about does it, you and your leather posing pouches. Oh yeah, say the the +heroes, why don't you ... + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +It is well known that *things* from undesirable universes are always seeking +an entrance into this one, which is the psychic equivalent of handy for the +buses and closer to the shops. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% + It seems there's this magician working one of the luxury cruise ships +for a few years. He doesn't have to change his routines much as the audiences +change over fairly often, and he's got a good life. The only problem is the +ship's parrot, who perches in the hall and watches him night after night, year +after year. Finally, the parrot figures out how almost every trick works and +starts giving it away for the audience. For example, when the magician makes +a bouquet of flowers disappear, the parrot squawks "Behind his back! Behind +his back!" Well, the magician is really annoyed at this, but there's not much +he can do about it as the parrot is a ship's mascot and very popular with the +passengers. + One night, the ship strikes some floating debris, and sinks without +a trace. Almost everyone aboard was lost, except for the magician and the +parrot. For three days and nights they just drift, with the magician clinging +to one end of a piece of driftwood and the parrot perched on the other end. +As the sun rises on the morning of the fourth day, the parrot walks over to +the magician's end of the log. With obvious disgust in his voice, he snaps +"OK, you win, I give up. Where did you hide the ship?" +% +Knowledge is power -- knowledge shared is power lost. + -- Aleister Crowley +% +Magic is always the best solution -- especially reliable magic. +% +No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the shoulder blades will seriously +cramp his style. +% +Rincewind had generally been considered by his tutors to be a natural wizard +in the same way that fish are natural mountaineers. He probably would have +been thrown out of Unseen University anyway--he couldn't remember spells and +smoking made him feel ill. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Somewhere, just out of sight, the unicorns are gathering. +% +The default Magic Word, "Abracadabra", actually is a corruption of the +Hebrew phrase "ha-Bracha dab'ra" which means "pronounce the blessing". +% +"The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your +hands and hoping when a rock or a club will do." + -- McCloctnik the Lucid +% + The seven eyes of Ningauble the Wizard floated back to his hood as he +reported to Fafhrd: "I have seen much, yet cannot explain all. The Gray +Mouser is exactly twenty-five feet below the deepest cellar in the palace +of Gilpkerio Kistomerces. Even though twenty-four parts in twenty-five of +him are dead, he is alive. + "Now about Lankhmar. She's been invaded, her walls breached +everywhere and desperate fighting is going on in the streets, by a fierce +host which out-numbers Lankhamar's inhabitants by fifty to one -- and +equipped with all modern weapons. Yet you can save the city." + "How?" demanded Fafhrd. + Ningauble shrugged. "You're a hero. You should know." + -- Fritz Leiber, "The Swords of Lankhmar" +% + "Then what is magic for?" Prince Lir demanded wildly. "What use is +wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?" He gripped the magician's shoulder +hard, to keep from falling. + Schmendrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in +his voice, he said, "That's what heroes are for." +... + "Yes, of course," he [Prince Lir] said. "That is exactly what heroes +are for. Wizards make no difference, so they say that nothing does, but +heroes are meant to die for unicorns." + -- Peter Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" +% +There are those who claim that magic is like the tide; that it swells and +fades over the surface of the earth, collecting in concentrated pools here +and there, almost disappearing from other spots, leaving them parched for +wonder. There are also those who believe that if you stick your fingers up +your nose and blow, it will increase your intelligence. + -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VII +% +Unseen University had never admitted women, muttering something about +problems with the plumbing, but the real reason was an unspoken dread that +if women were allowed to mess around with magic they would probably be +embarrassingly good at it ... + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Using words to describe magic is like using a screwdriver to cut roast beef. + -- Tom Robbins +% + "Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly. "In the past year +strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barley reap +crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their artichoke hearts. +There has been a hot day in December and a blue moon. Calendars are made with +a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon Holstein bore alive two insurance +salesmen. The earth splits and the entrails of a goat were found tied in +square knots. The face of the sun blackens and the skies have rained down +soggy potato chips." + "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito. + "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made good +copy." + -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" +% +Watch Rincewind. + +Look at him. Scrawny, like most wizards, and clad in a dark red robe on +which a few mystic sigils were embroidered in tarnished sequins. Some might +have taken him for a mere apprentice enchanter who had run away from his +master out of defiance, boredom, fear and a lingering taste for +heterosexuality. Yet around his neck was a chain bearing the bronze octagon +that marked him as an alumnus of Unseen University, the high school of magic +whose time-and-space transcendent campus is never precisely Here or There. +Graduates were usually destined for mageship at least, but Rincewind--after +an unfortunate event--had left knowing only one spell and made a living of +sorts around the town by capitalizing on an innate gift for languages. He +avoided work as a rule, but had a quickness of wit that put his +acquaintances in mind of a bright rodent. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +What is a magician but a practising theorist? + -- Obi-Wan Kenobi +% +What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn? + -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" +% +When I say the magic word to all these people, they will vanish forever. +I will then say the magic words to you, and you, too, will vanish -- never +to be seen again. + -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Between Time and Timbuktu" +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/medicine b/fortune-mod/datfiles/medicine new file mode 100644 index 0000000..57b5c86 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/medicine @@ -0,0 +1,423 @@ +A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: + +1. DO NOT EXPECT YOUR DOCTOR TO SHARE YOUR DISCOMFORT. + Involvement with the patient's suffering might cause him to lose + valuable scientific objectivity. + +2. BE CHEERFUL AT ALL TIMES. + Your doctor leads a busy and trying life and requires all the + gentleness and reassurance he can get. + +3. TRY TO SUFFER FROM THE DISEASE FOR WHICH YOU ARE BEING TREATED. + Remember that your doctor has a professional reputation to uphold. +% +A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: + +4. DO NOT COMPLAIN IF THE TREATMENT FAILS TO BRING RELIEF. + You must believe that your doctor has achieved a deep insight into + the true nature of your illness, which transcends any mere permanent + disability you may have experienced. + +5. NEVER ASK YOUR DOCTOR TO EXPLAIN WHAT HE IS DOING OR WHY HE IS DOING IT. + It is presumptuous to assume that such profound matters could be + explained in terms that you would understand. + +6. SUBMIT TO NOVEL EXPERIMANTAL TREATMENT READILY. + Though the surgery may not benefit you directly, the resulting + research paper will surely be of widespread interest. +% +A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: + +7. PAY YOUR MEDICAL BILLS PROMPTLY AND WILLINGLY. + You should consider it a privilege to contribute, however modestly, + to the well-being of physicians and other humanitarians. + +8. DO NOT SUFFER FROM AILMENTS THAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD. + It is sheer arrogance to contract illnesses that are beyond your means. + +9. NEVER REVEAL ANY OF THE SHORTCOMINGS THAT HAVE COME TO LIGHT IN THE COURSE + OF TREATMENT BY YOUR DOCTOR. + The patient-doctor relationship is a privileged one, and you have a + sacred duty to protect him from exposure. + +10. NEVER DIE WHILE IN YOUR DOCTOR'S PRESENCE OR UNDER HIS DIRECT CARE. + This will only cause him needless inconvenience and embarrassment. +% +A distraught patient phoned her doctor's office. "Was it true," the woman +inquired, "that the medication the doctor had prescribed was for the rest +of her life?" + She was told that it was. There was just a moment of silence before +the woman proceeded bravely on. "Well, I'm wondering, then, how serious my +condition is. This prescription is marked `NO REFILLS'". +% +A doctor calls his patient to give him the results of his tests. "I have +some bad news," says the doctor, "and some worse news." The bad news is +that you only have six weeks to live." + "Oh, no," says the patient. "What could possibly be worse than that?" + "Well," the doctor replies, "I've been trying to reach you since +last Monday." +% +A woman physician has made the statement that smoking is neither +physically defective nor morally degrading, and that nicotine, even +when indulged to in excess, is less harmful than excessive petting." + -- Purdue Exponent, Jan 16, 1925 +% +A woman went into a hospital one day to give birth. Afterwards, the doctor +came to her and said, "I have some... odd news for you." + "Is my baby all right?" the woman anxiously asked. + "Yes, he is," the doctor replied, "but we don't know how. Your son +(we assume) was born with no body. He only has a head." + Well, the doctor was correct. The Head was alive and well, though no +one knew how. The Head turned out to be fairly normal, ignoring his lack of +a body, and lived for some time as typical a life as could be expected under +the circumstances. + One day, about twenty years after the fateful birth, the woman got a +phone call from another doctor. The doctor said, "I have recently perfected +an operation. Your son can live a normal life now: we can graft a body onto +his head!" + The woman, practically weeping with joy, thanked the doctor and hung +up. She ran up the stairs saying, "Johnny, Johnny, I have a *wonderful* +surprise for you!" + "Oh no," cried The Head, "not another HAT!" +% +After his legs had been broken in an accident, Mr. Miller sued for damages, +claming that he was crippled and would have to spend the rest of his life +in a wheelchair. Although the insurance-company doctor testified that his +bones had healed properly and that he was fully capable of walking, the +judge decided for the plaintiff and awarded him $500,000. + When he was wheeled into the insurance office to collect his check, +Miller was confronted by several executives. "You're not getting away with +this, Miller," one said. "We're going to watch you day and night. If you +take a single step, you'll not only repay the damages but stand trial for +perjury. Here's the money. What do you intend to do with it?" + "My wife and I are going to travel," Miller replied. "We'll go to +Stockholm, Berlin, Rome, Athens and, finally, to a place called Lourdes -- +where, gentlemen, you'll see yourselves one hell of a miracle." +% +After twelve years of therapy my psychiatrist said something that +brought tears to my eyes. He said, "No hablo ingles." + -- Ronnie Shakes +% +Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +Aquavit is also considered useful for medicinal purposes, an essential +ingredient in what I was once told is the Norwegian cure for the common +cold. You get a bottle, a poster bed, and the brightest colored stocking +cap you can find. You put the cap on the post at the foot of the bed, +then get into bed and drink aquavit until you can't see the cap. I've +never tried this, but it sounds as though it should work. + -- Peter Nelson +% + As a general rule of thumb, never trust anybody who's been in therapy +for more than 15 percent of their life span. The words "I am sorry" and "I +am wrong" will have totally disappeared from their vocabulary. They will stab +you, shoot you, break things in your apartment, say horrible things to your +friends and family, and then justify this abhorrent behavior by saying: +"Sure, I put your dog in the microwave. But I feel *better* for doing it." + -- Bruce Feirstein, "Nice Guys Sleep Alone" +% +At the hospital, a doctor is training an intern on how to announce bad news +to the patients. The doctor tells the intern "This man in 305 is going to +die in six months. Go in and tell him." The intern boldly walks into the +room, over to the man's bedisde and tells him "Seems like you're gonna die!" +The man has a heart attack and is rushed into surgery on the spot. The doctor +grabs the intern and screams at him, "What!?!? are you some kind of moron? +You've got to take it easy, work your way up to the subject. Now this man in +213 has about a week to live. Go in and tell him, but, gently, you hear me, +gently!" + The intern goes softly into the room, humming to himself, cheerily +opens the drapes to let the sun in, walks over to the man's bedside, fluffs +his pillow and wishes him a "Good morning!" "Wonderful day, no? Say... +guess who's going to die soon!" +% +Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your door. +% +Better to use medicines at the outset than at the last moment. +% +Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long +walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They +then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy +health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, +not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find +only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the +others who have tried it. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Cure the disease and kill the patient. + -- Francis Bacon +% +Death has been proven to be 99% fatal in laboratory rats. +% +Dental health is next to mental health. +% +Ever notice that the word "therapist" breaks down into "the rapist"? +Simple coincidence? +Maybe... +% +For my son, Robert, this is proving to be the high-point of his entire life +to date. He has had his pajamas on for two, maybe three days now. He has +the sense of joyful independence a 5-year-old child gets when he suddenly +realizes that he could be operating an acetylene torch in the coat closet +and neither parent [because of the flu] would have the strength to object. +He has been foraging for his own food, which means his diet consists +entirely of "food" substances which are advertised only on Saturday-morning +cartoon shows; substances that are the color of jukebox lights and that, for +legal reasons, have their names spelled wrong, as in New Creemy +Chok-'n'-Cheez Lumps o' Froot ("part of this complete breakfast"). + -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide" +% +Fortune's Exercising Truths: + +1: Richard Simmons gets paid to exercise like a lunatic. You don't. +2. Aerobic exercises stimulate and speed up the heart. So do heart attacks. +3. Exercising around small children can scar them emotionally for life. +4. Sweating like a pig and gasping for breath is not refreshing. +5. No matter what anyone tells you, isometric exercises cannot be done + quietly at your desk at work. People will suspect manic tendencies as + you twitter around in your chair. +6. Next to burying bones, the thing a dog enjoys mosts is tripping joggers. +7. Locking four people in a tiny, cement-walled room so they can run around + for an hour smashing a little rubber ball -- and each other -- with a hard + racket should immediately be recognized for what it is: a form of insanity. +8. Fifty push-ups, followed by thirty sit-ups, followed by ten chin-ups, + followed by one throw-up. +9. Any activity that can't be done while smoking should be avoided. +% +[From an announcement of a congress of the International Ontopsychology +Association, in Rome]: + +The Ontopsychological school, availing itself of new research criteria and +of a new telematic epistemology, maintains that social modes do not spring +from dialectics of territory or of class, or of consumer goods, or of means +of power, but rather from dynamic latencies capillarized in millions of +individuals in system functions which, once they have reached the event +maturation, burst forth in catastrophic phenomenology engaging a suitable +stereotype protagonist or duty marionette (general, president, political +party, etc.) to consummate the act of social schizophrenia in mass genocide. +% +God is dead and I don't feel all too well either.... + -- Ralph Moonen +% +"Good health" is merely the slowest rate at which one can die. +% +Happiness is good health and a bad memory. + -- Ingrid Bergman +% +Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. +% +Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying +of nothing. + -- Redd Foxx +% +His ideas of first-aid stopped short of squirting soda water. + -- P.G. Wodehouse +% +Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in 1929. +Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an operating +table to prevent her interference, he placed a ureteral catheter into +a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of his heart], and +walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took the confirmatory +x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the Nobel Prize. +% +I get my exercise acting as pallbearer to my friends who exercise. + -- Chauncey Depew +% +I got the bill for my surgery. Now I know what those doctors were +wearing masks for. + -- James Boren +% + "I keep seeing spots in front of my eyes." + "Did you ever see a doctor?" + "No, just spots." +% +If a person (a) is poorly, (b) receives treatment intended to make him better, +and (c) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can +convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health. + -- Sir Peter Medawar, "The Art of the Soluble" +% + If I kiss you, that is an psychological interaction. + On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick, +that is also a psychological interaction. + The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not +so friendly. + The crucial point is if you can tell which is which. + -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" +% +If you look like your driver's license photo -- see a doctor. +If you look like your passport photo -- it's too late for a doctor. +% +It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. +It produces a false impression. + -- Oscar Wilde. +% +It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding +a sickness you like. + -- Jackie Mason +% +It's not reality or how you perceive things that's important -- it's +what you're taking for it... +% +Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he +knows what it is. +% +Laetrile is the pits. +% +My doctorate's in Literature, but it seems like a pretty good pulse to me. +% +Neurotics build castles in the sky, +Psychotics live in them, +And psychiatrists collect the rent. +% +Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. + -- Erma Bombeck +% +New England Life, of course. Why do you ask? +% + page 46 +...a report citing a study by Dr. Thomas C. Chalmers, of the Mount Sinai +Medical Center in New York, which compared two groups that were being used +to test the theory that ascorbic acid is a cold preventative. "The group +on placebo who thought they were on ascorbic acid," says Dr. Chalmers, +"had fewer colds than the group on ascorbic acid who thought they were +on placebo." + page 56 +The placebo is proof that there is no real separation between mind and body. +Illness is always an interaction between both. It can begin in the mind and +affect the body, or it can begin in the body and affect the mind, both of +which are served by the same bloodstream. Attempts to treat most mental +diseases as though they were completely free of physical causes and attempts +to treat most bodily diseases as though the mind were in no way involved must +be considered archaic in the light of new evidence about the way the human +body functions. + -- Norman Cousins, + "Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient" +% +Paralysis through analysis. +% +Proper treatment will cure a cold in seven days, but left to itself, +a cold will hang on for a week. + -- Darrell Huff +% +Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents' +shortcomings. + -- Laurence J. Peter, "Peter's Principles" +% +Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself a therapy. + -- Karl Kraus +% +Psychiatry is the care of the id by the odd. +% +Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you. + -- C.G. Jung +% +Psychology. Mind over matter. Mind under matter? It doesn't matter. +Never mind. +% +Pushing 30 is exercise enough. +% +Pushing 40 is exercise enough. +% +Quit worrying about your health. It'll go away. + -- Robert Orben +% +Sigmund's wife wore Freudian slips. +% +Some people need a good imaginary cure for their painful imaginary ailment. +% +Sometimes the best medicine is to stop taking something. +% +Straw? No, too stupid a fad. I put soot on warts. +% +Stress has been pinpointed as a major cause of illness. To avoid overload +and burnout, keep stress out of your life. Give it to others instead. Learn +the "Gaslight" treatment, the "Are you talking to me?" technique, and the +"Do you feel okay? You look pale." approach. Start with negotiation and +implication. Advance to manipulation and humiliation. Above all, relax +and have a nice day. +% +The 80's -- when you can't tell hairstyles from chemotherapy. +% +"... the Mayo Clinic, named after its founder, Dr. Ted Clinic ..." + -- Dave Barry +% +"The molars, I'm sure, will be all right, the molars can take care of +themselves," the old man said, no longer to me. "But what will become +of the bicuspids?" + -- The Old Man and his Bridge +% +The New England Journal of Medicine reports that 9 out of 10 doctors agree +that 1 out of 10 doctors is an idiot. +% +The real reason psychology is hard is that psychologists are trying to +do the impossible. +% +The reason they're called wisdom teeth is that the experience makes you wise. +% +The secret of healthy hitchhiking is to eat junk food. +% +The trouble with heart disease is that the first symptom is often hard to +deal with: death. + -- Michael Phelps +% +The Vet Who Surprised A Cow + In the course of his duties in August 1977, a Dutch veterinary +surgeon was required to treat an ailing cow. To investigate its internal +gases he inserted a tube into that end of the animal not capable of facial +expression and struck a match. The jet of flame set fire first to some +bales of hay and then to the whole farm causing damage estimate at L45,000. +The vet was later fined L140 for starting a fire in a manner surprising to +the magistrates. The cow escaped with shock. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +We have the flu. I don't know if this particular strain has an official +name, but if it does, it must be something like "Martian Death Flu". You +may have had it yourself. The main symptom is that you wish you had another +setting on your electric blanket, up past "HIGH", that said "ELECTROCUTION". + Another symptom is that you cease brushing your teeth, because (a) +your teeth hurt, and (b) you lack the strength. Midway through the brushing +process, you'd have to lie down in front of the sink to rest for a couple +of hours, and rivulets of toothpaste foam would dribble sideways out of your +mouth, eventually hardening into crusty little toothpaste stalagmites that +would bond your head permanently to the bathroom floor, which is how the +police would find you. + You know the kind of flu I'm talking about. + -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide" +% + "Welcome back for you 13th consecutive week, Evelyn. Evelyn, will +you go into the auto-suggestion booth and take your regular place on the +psycho-prompter couch?" + "Thank you, Red." + "Now, Evelyn, last week you went up to $40,000 by properly citing +your rivalry with your sibling as a compulsive sado-masochistic behavior +pattern which developed out of an early post-natal feeding problem." + "Yes, Red." + "But -- later, when asked about pre-adolescent oedipal phantasy +repressions, you rationalized twice and mental blocked three times. Now, +at $300 per rationalization and $500 per mental block you lost $2,100 off +your $40,000 leaving you with a total of $37,900. Now, any combination of +two more mental blocks and either one rationalization or three defensive +projections will put you out of the game. Are you willing to go ahead?" + "Yes, Red." + "I might say here that all of Evelyn's questions and answers have +been checked for accuracy with her analyst. Now, Evelyn, for $80,000 +explain the failure of your three marriages." + "Well, I--" + "We'll get back to Evelyn in one minute. First a word about our +product." + -- Jules Feiffer +% +When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can't +be cured. + -- Anton Chekhov, "The Cherry Orchard" +% +Your digestive system is your body's Fun House, whereby food goes on a long, +dark, scary ride, taking all kinds of unexpected twists and turns, being +attacked by vicious secretions along the way, and not knowing until the last +minute whether it will be turned into a useful body part or ejected into the +Dark Hole by Mister Sphincter. We Americans live in a nation where the +medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe +25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in +seconds if we felt like it. + -- Dave Barry, "Stay Fit & Healthy Until You're Dead" +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/men-women b/fortune-mod/datfiles/men-women new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a9c0da9 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/men-women @@ -0,0 +1,2556 @@ +94% of the women in America are beautiful and the rest hang out around here. +% +A bachelor is a man who never made the same mistake once. +% +A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out +of a divorce. + -- Don Quinn +% +A bachelor is an unaltared male. +% +A bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty +and a boy for ever. + -- Helen Rowland +% +A bad marriage is like a horse with a broken leg, you can shoot +the horse, but it don't fix the leg. +% +A beautiful man is paradise for the eyes, hell for the soul, and +purgatory for the purse. +% +A beautiful woman is a blessing from Heaven, but a good cigar is a smoke. + -- Kipling +% +A beautiful woman is a picture which drives all beholders nobly mad. + -- Emerson +% +A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance +of turning around three times before lying down. + -- Robert Benchley +% +A boy gets to be a man when a man is needed. + -- John Steinbeck +% +A Chicago salesman was about to check into a St. Louis hotel when he noticed +a very charming woman staring admiringly at him. He walked over and spoke +with her for a few minutes, then returned to the front desk, where they checked +in as Mr. and Mrs. + After a very pleasurable three-day stay, the man approached the front +desk and told the clerk he was checking out. In a few minutes, he was handed +a bill for $2500. + "There must be some mistake," the salesman said. "I've been here for +only three days." + "Yes, sir," the clerk replied. "But your wife has been here a month +and a half." +% +A Code of Honour: never approach a friend's girlfriend or wife with mischief +as your goal. There are too many women in the world to justify that sort of +dishonourable behaviour. Unless she's really attractive. + -- Bruce J. Friedman, "Sex and the Lonely Guy" +% +A diplomat is man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never her age. + -- Robert Frost +% +A diplomatic husband said to his wife, "How do you expect me to remember +your birthday when you never look any older?" +% + A domineering man married a mere wisp of a girl. He came back from +his honeymoon a chastened man. He'd become aware of the will of the wisp. +% +A figure with curves always offers a lot of interesting angles. +% +A flashy Mercedes-Benz roared up to the curb where a cute young miss stood +waiting for a taxi. + "Hi," said the gentleman at the wheel. "I'm going west." + "How wonderful," came the cool reply. "Bring me back an orange." +% +A fool and his honey are soon parted. +% +A fox is a wolf who sends flowers. + -- Ruth Weston +% +A gentleman is a man who wouldn't hit a lady with his hat on. + -- Evan Esar + [ And why not? For why does she have his hat on? Ed.] +% +A gentleman never strikes a lady with his hat on. + -- Fred Allen +% +A girl and a boy bump into each other -- surely an accident. +A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident. +But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- *____that ___had __to ____mean _________something*. + -- S. Morganstern, "The Silent Gondoliers" +% +A girl with a future avoids the man with a past. + -- Evan Esar, "The Humor of Humor" +% +A girl's best friend is her mutter. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +A girl's conscience doesn't really keep her from doing anything wrong-- +it merely keeps her from enjoying it. +% +A good man always knows his limitations. + -- Harry Callahan +% +A good marriage would be between a blind wife and deaf husband. + -- Michel de Montaigne +% +A guy has to get fresh once in a while so a girl doesn't lose her confidence. +% +A hammer sometimes misses its mark - a bouquet never. +% +A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted. + -- Helen Rowland +% +A lady is one who never shows her underwear unintentionally. + -- Lillian Day +% +A man always needs to remember one thing about a beautiful woman. + +Somewhere, somebody's tired of her. +% +A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after +that begins to bunch them. + -- Mencken +% +A man arrived home early to find his wife in the arms of his best friend, +who swore how much they were in love. To quiet the enraged husband, the +lover suggested, "Friends shouldn't fight, let's play gin rummy. If I win, +you get a divorce so I can marry her. If you win, I promise never to see +her again. Okay?" + +"Alright," agreed the husband. "But how about a quarter a point +on the side to make it interesting?" +% +A man can have two, maybe three love affairs while he's married. After +that it's cheating. + -- Yves Montand +% +A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself. + -- Du Bois +% +A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished. + -- Zsa Zsa Gabor, "Newsweek" +% +A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him. + -- Brendan Francis +% +A man is like a rusty wheel on a rusty cart, +He sings his song as he rattles along and then he falls apart. + -- Richard Thompson +% +A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +A man may sometimes be forgiven the kiss to which he is not entitled, +but never the kiss he has not the initiative to claim. +% +A man sank into the psychiatrist's couch and said, "I have a +terrible problem, Doctor. I have a son at Harvard and another son at +Princeton; I've just gifted each of them with a new Ferrari; I've got +homes in Beverly Hills, Palm Beach, and a co-op in New York; and I've +got a thriving ranch in Venezuela. My wife is a gorgeous young actress +who considers my two mistresses to be her best friends." + The psychiatrist looked at the patient, confused. "Did I miss +something? It sounds to me like you have no problems at all." + "But, Doctor, I only make $175 a week." +% +A man took his wife deer hunting for the first time. After he'd given her +some basic instructions, they agreed to separate and rendezvous later. Before +he left, he warned her if she should fell a deer to be wary of hunters who +might beat her to the carcass and claim the kill. If that happened, he told +her, she should fire her gun three times into the air and he would come to +her aid. + Shortly after they separated, he heard a single shot, followed quickly +by the agreed upon signal. Running to the scene, he found his wife standing +in a small clearing with a very nervous man staring down her gun barrel. + "He claims this is his," she said, obviously very upset. + "She can keep it, she can keep it!" the wide-eyed man replied. "I +just want to get my saddle back!" +% +A man usually falls in love with a woman who asks the kinds of questions +he is able to answer. + -- Ronald Colman +% +A man was griping to his friend about how he hated to go home after a +late card games. + "You wouldn't believe what I go through to avoid waking my wife," +he said. "First, I kill the engine a block away from the house and coast +into the garage. Then I open the door slowly, take off my shoes, and +tiptoe to our room. But just as I'm about to slide into bed, she always +wakes up and gives me hell." + "I make a big racket when I go home," his friend replied. + "You do?" + "Sure. I honk the horn, slam the door, turn on all the lights, +stomp up to the bedroom and give my wife a big kiss. `Hi, Alice,' I say. +`How about a little smooch for your old man?'" + "And what does she say?" his friend asked in disbelief. + "She doesn't say anything," his buddy replied. "She always pretends +she's asleep." +% +A man was kneeling by a grave in a cemetery, crying and praying very loudly, + "Oh why..eeeee did you die...eeeeee, Oh Why..eeeeee, +why did you Di......eeee" +The caretaker walks up, pardons himself and asks politely, + "Excuse me, sir, but I've been seeing you for hours now, +carrying on at this grave. You must have been very close to the deceased." + "No, I never met him. Oh why....eeeee did you dieeeeee, +why....eeeee did you.." + "Sir, you say you never met this person, yet you carry on so? +Tell, me who is buried here?" + "My wife's first husband." +% +A man was talking to his best friend about his married life. "You know," he +says, "I really trust my wife, and I think she has always been faithful to +me, but there's *always* that doubt. There's *always* that little doubt." + "Yeah, I know what you mean," his friend replies. + "Well, buddy, I've got to leave on a business trip this weekend, +and I wonder... well... would you watch my house while I'm gone? I trust +her, it's just that there's *always* that doubt." + The friend agreed to help out and two weeks later gave his report. + "I've got some bad news for you," says the friend. "The evening +after you left I saw a strange car pull up in front of your house. A man +got out of the car and went in the house and had dinner with your wife. +After dinner they went upstairs and I saw your wife kissing him. Then, he +took off his shirt and she took off her blouse. And then the light went +out." + "*Then* what happened?" said the husband, his eyes opening wide. + "Well, I don't know," replied the friend, "it was too dark to see." + "Damn!" roared the husband. "You see what I mean? There's *always* +that doubt!" +% +A man without a woman is like a statue without pigeons. +% +A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. +% +A man's gotta know his limitations. + -- Clint Eastwood, "Dirty Harry" +% +A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object +in the whole creation. + -- Goldsmith +% +A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman +makes a fool of him in twenty minutes. + -- Frost +% +A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space. + -- Gloria Steinem +% +A pretty woman can do anything; an ugly woman must do everything. +% +A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive questions +your wife asks you for nothing. + -- Joey Adams +% + A pushy romeo asked a gorgeous elevator operator, "Don't all these +stops and starts get you pretty worn out?" "It isn't the stops and starts +that get on my nerves, it's the jerks." +% +A real gentleman never takes bases unless he really has to. + -- Overheard in an algebra lecture. +% +A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who +demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?" +holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. +Yet, added he, none of you can tell where it pinches me. + -- Plutarch +% + A Scotsman was strolling across High Street one day wearing his kilt. +As he neared the far curb, he noticed two young blondes in a red convertible +eyeing him and giggling. One of them called out, "Hey, Scotty! What's worn +under the kilt?" + He strolled over to the side of the car and asked, "Ach, lass, are you +SURE you want to know?" Somewhat nervously, the blonde replied yes, she did +really want to know. + The Scotsman leaned closer and confided, "Why, lass, nothing's worn +under the kilt, everything's in perfect workin' order!" +% +A sharper perspective on this matter is particularly important to feminist +thought today, because a major tendency in feminism has constructed the +problem of domination as a drama of female vulnerability victimized by male +aggression. Even the more sophisticated feminist thinkers frequently shy +away from the analysis of submission, for fear that in admitting woman's +participation in the relationship of domination, the onus of responsibility +will appear to shift from men to women, and the moral victory from women to +men. More generally, this has been a weakness of radical politics: to +idealize the oppressed, as if their politics and culture were untouched by +the system of domination, as if people did not participate in their own +submission. To reduce domination to a simple relation of doer and done-to +is to substitute moral outrage for analysis. + -- Jessica Benjamin, "The Bonds of Love" +% +A sociologist, a psychologist, and a engineer were discussing the +consequences and implications of a married man's having a mistress. The +sociologist's opinion was that it is absolutely and categorically unforgivable +for a married man to forfeit the bond of matrimony, and engage in such lowly +and lustful pursuits. + The psychologist's opinion was that although morally reprehensible, +if a man MUST have a mistress to achieve his full potential as a human being, +then -- well -- he may go ahead and choose to have a mistress, as long as he +is considerate enough to keep this secret from his wife. + The engineer then interjected: "I also believe that, if necessary, +a married man is entitled to a mistress. However, I do not see why the +affair should be concealed from the wife. On the contrary, if the affair +is out in the open, then on Friday evenings he may tell his wife that he +is going to see his mistress, tell his mistress that he is going to be with +his wife, then go to his office and get some work done!" +% +A wife lasts only for the length of the marriage, but an ex-wife is there +*for the rest of your life*. + -- Jim Samuels +% +A woman can look both moral and exciting -- if she also looks as if it +were quite a struggle. + -- Edna Ferber +% +A woman can never be too rich or too thin. +% +A woman did what a woman had to, the best way she knew how. +To do more was impossible, to do less, unthinkable. + -- Dirisha, "The Man Who Never Missed" +% +A woman forgives the audacity of which her beauty has prompted us to be guilty. + -- LeSage +% +A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life to be +thankful for a good one. + -- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings +% +A woman is like your shadow; follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows. + -- Chamfort +% +A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, +it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy. + -- Nietzsche +% +A woman of generous character will sacrifice her life a thousand times +over for her lover, but will break with him for ever over a question of +pride -- for the opening or the shutting of a door. + -- Stendhal +% +A woman shouldn't have to buy her own perfume. + -- Maurine Lewis +% +A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. + -- Gloria Steinem +% +A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. +Therefore, a man without a woman is like a bicycle without a fish. +% +A woman's best protection is a little money of her own. + -- Clare Booth Luce, quoted in "The Wit of Women" +% +A woman's place is in the house... and in the Senate. +% +A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, +should conceal it as well as she can. + -- Jane Austen +% + A young husband with an inferiority complex insisted he was just a +little pebble on the beach. The marriage counselor told him, "If you wish to +save your marriage, you'd better be a little boulder." +% +A young man and his girlfriend were walking along Main Street when she spotted +a beautiful diamond ring in a jewelry-store window. "Wow, I'd sure love to +have that!" she gushed. + "No problem," her companion replied, throwing a brick through the +window and grabbing the ring. + A few blocks later, the woman admired a full-length sable coat. "What +I'd give to own that," she said, sighing. + "No problem," he said, throwing a brick through the window and grabbing +the coat. + Finally, turning for home, they passed a car dealership. "Boy, I'd do +anything for one of those Rolls-Royces," she said. + "Jeez, baby," the guy moaned, "you think I'm made of bricks?" +% +A young man enters the New York branch of Tiffany's on a Friday evening and +walks up to a display case full of pearl necklaces. He turns to a gorgeous +woman, who is obviously windowshopping, looks her straight in the eye and +says, "I can tell by your eyes that you really want that necklace. If you'll +allow me, I'd like to buy it for you." + The woman looks him up and down; he's wearing a nice suit and some +pretty nice jewelry, but she has trouble believing this story. + "Look, this is some kind of put on, right?" + "No, really. You see, I've got quite a lot of money -- so much that +I could never spend it all. I'd really like for you to have it." + The guys whips out his checkbook, writes a check for five figures, +calls over a clerk and hands it to him. The clerk peers at the check, looks +at the young man, looks at the check again. "Very good, sir. I'm afraid I +can't release the necklace immediately, would Monday be all right?" + "That'll be fine, she'll pick it up." the man replies, and walks out +of the store with the woman following him in a daze. + The next Monday the man comes back in and walks up to the counter. +The same clerk hurries over to him and says, "Sir, I'm sorry to have to tell +you this, but your check was returned for insufficient funds." + "I know," the man replies. "I just wanted to thank you for a +terrific weekend." +% +AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!! +You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room! +% +Ain't nothin' an old man can do for me but bring me a message from a young man. + -- Moms Mabley +% +Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them +continues to pay for it. + -- Peggy Joyce +% +Alimony is like buying oats for a dead horse. + -- Arthur Baer +% +Alimony is the curse of the writing classes. + -- Norman Mailer +% +All heiresses are beautiful. + -- John Dryden +% +All husbands are alike, but they have different faces so you can tell +them apart. +% +All most men really want in life is a wife, a house, two kids and a car, +a cat, no maybe a dog. Ummm, scratch one of the kids and add a dog. +Definitely a dog. +% +All the men on my staff can type. + -- Bella Abzug +% +All work and no pay makes a housewife. +% +American culture is based on the automobile, and any young man of promise +is going to own one and want to travel great distances in it. Consequently, +any young woman of aspiration should expect to spend most of her vacations +in a car, probing into unfamiliar corners. She is not required to know how +to drive but she will certainly be expected to read the road map while her +husband drives, and if she can't, or if she's abnormally slow in giving him +help, she's bound to cause trouble. Therefore, you'd think that colleges +which train the bright young women who're going to marry the bright young +men who are going to own the Cadillacs that roar back and forth across this +continent would teach the girls to read maps. None do. They teach a hundred +other useless things, but never a word about the one that will cause the +greatest friction. + -- James Michener, "Space" +% + An airplane pilot got engaged to two very pretty women at the same +time. One was named Edith; the other named Kate. They met, discovered they +had the same fiancee, and told him. "Get out of our lives you rascal. We'll +teach you that you can't have your Kate and Edith, too." +% +An optimist is a man who looks forward to marriage. +A pessimist is a married optimist. +% +"And what do you two think you are doing?!" roared the husband, as he came +upon his wife in bed with another man. The wife turned and smiled at her +companion. + +"See?" she said. "I told you he was stupid!" +% +And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to +have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon +the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let +loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: +in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest +license of a child, and yet been man enough to know its value. + -- Charles Dickens +% +Another greeting card category consists of those persons who send out +photographs of their families every year. In the same mail that brought the +greetings from Marcia and Philip, my friend found such a conversation piece. +"My God, Lida is enormous!" she exclaimed. I don't know why women want to +record each year, for two or three hundred people to see, the ravages wrought +upon them, their mates, and their progeny by the artillery of time, but +between five and seven per cent of Christmas cards, at a rough estimate, are +family groups, and even the most charitable recipient studies them for little +signs of dissolution or derangement. Nothing cheers a woman more, I am afraid, +than the proof that another woman is letting herself go, or has lost control +of her figure, or is clearly driving her husband crazy, or is obviously +drinking more than is good for her, or still doesn't know what to wear. +Middle-aged husbands in such photographs are often described as looking +"young enough to be her son," but they don't always escape so easily, and a +couple opening envelopes in the season of mercy and good will sometimes handle +a male friend or acquaintance rather sharply. "Good Lord!" the wife will say. +"Frank looks like a sex-crazed shotgun slayer, doesn't he?" "Not to me," the +husband may reply. "to me he looks more like a Wilkes-Barre dentist who is +being sought by the police in connection with the disappearance of a choir +singer." + -- James Thurber, "Merry Christmas" +% +Any girl can be glamorous; all you have to do is stand still and look stupid. + -- Hedy Lamarr +% +Any woman is a volume if one knows how to read her. +% +Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot. + -- Groucho Marx +% + "Anything else, sir?" asked the attentive bellhop, trying his best +to make the lady and gentleman comfortable in their penthouse suite in the +posh hotel. + "No. No, thank you," replied the gentleman. + "Anything for your wife, sir?" the bellhop asked. + "Why, yes, young man," said the gentleman. "Would you bring me a +postcard?" +% +As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and +considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless. + +The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, +a separation. + -- Lord Chesterfield, letter to his son, 1763 +% +Asked how she felt being the first woman to make a major-league team, she +said, "Like a pig in mud," or words to that effect, and then turned and +released a squirt of tobacco juice from the wad of rum soaked plug in her +right cheek. She chewed a rare brand of plug called Stuff It, which she +learned to chew when she was playing Nicaraguan summer ball. She told the +writers, "They were so mean to me down there you couldn't write it in your +newspaper. I took a gun everywhere I went, even to bed. *Especially* to +bed. Guys were after me like you can't believe. That's when I started +chewing tobacco -- because no matter how bad anybody treats you, it's not +as bad as this. This is the worst chew in the world. After this, +everything else is peaches and cream." The writers elected Gentleman Jim, +the Sparrow's P.R. guy, to bite off a chunk and tell them how it tasted, +and as he sat and chewed it tears ran down his old sunburnt cheeks and he +couldn't talk for a while. Then he whispered, "You've been chewing this for +two years? God, I had no idea it was so hard to be a woman." + -- Garrison Keillor +% +At last I've found the girl of my dreams. Last night she said to me, +"Once more, Strange, and this time *I'll* be Donnie and *you* be Marie. + -- Strange de Jim +% +Bachelors' wives and old maids' children are always perfect. + -- Nicolas Chamfort +% +Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd +come in and sink my boats. + -- Woody Allen +% +Be circumspect in your liaisons with women. It is better to be seen at +the opera with a man than at mass with a woman. + -- De Maintenon +% +Be prepared to accept sacrifices. Vestal virgins aren't all that bad. +% +Beauty seldom recommends one woman to another. +% +Beauty, brains, availability, personality; pick any two. +% +Before marriage the three little words are "I love you," after marriage +they are "Let's eat out." +% +Behind every successful man you'll find a woman with nothing to wear. +% +Being asked solicitously about the state of her health was becoming bothersome +to the pregnant woman at the cocktail party. And yet another guest went over +and inquired, "Well, how are you feeling these days?" + "Not too well," said the expectant mother. "You know, I've missed +seven or eight periods now and it's beginning to worry me." +% +Being owned by someone used to be called slavery -- now it's called commitment. +% +Benny Hill: Would you like a peanut? +Girl: No, thank you, I don't want to be under obligation. +Benny Hill: You won't be under obligation for a peanut. + It's not as if it were a chocolate bar or something. +% +Bigamy is having one spouse too many. Monogamy is the same. +% +Birds and bees have as much to do with the facts of life as black +nightgowns do with keeping warm. + -- Hester Mundis, "Powermom" +% +Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least +when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years. + -- James Thurber +% +Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men. + -- Kin Hubbard +% +Brigands will demand your money or your life, but a woman will demand both. + -- Samuel Butler +% +By all means marry: If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you +get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. + -- Socrates +% +Changing husbands/wives is only changing troubles. + -- Kathleen Norris +% +Choose in marriage only a woman whom you would choose as a friend if she +were a man. + -- Joubert +% +Courtship to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play. + -- William Congreve +% +Darling: the popular form of address used in speaking to a member of the +opposite sex whose name you cannot at the moment remember. + -- Oliver Herford +% +Dear Miss Manners: +I carry a big black umbrella, even if there's just a thirty percent chance of +rain. May I ask a young lady who is a stranger to me to share its protection? +This morning, I was waiting for a bus in comparative comfort, my umbrella +protecting me from the downpour, and noticed an attractive young woman getting +soaked. I have often seen her at my bus stop, although we have never spoken, +and I don't even know her name. Could I have asked her to get under my +umbrella without seeming insulting? + +Gentle Reader: +Certainly. Consideration for those less fortunate than you is always proper, +although it would be more convincing if you stopped babbling about how +attractive she is. In order not to give Good Samaritanism a bad name, Miss +Manners asks you to allow her two or three rainy days of unmolested protection +before making your attack. +% +Dear Miss Manners: +Please list some tactful ways of removing a man's saliva from your face. + +Gentle Reader: +Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man's saliva on your face. If +the gentleman sprayed you inadvertently to accompany enthusiastic +discourse, you may step back two paces, bring out your handkerchief, and +go through the motions of wiping your nose, while trailing the cloth along +your face to pick up whatever needs mopping along the route. If, however, +the substance was acquired as a result of enthusiasm of a more intimate +nature, you may delicately retrieve it with a flick of your pink tongue. +% +Do not permit a woman to ask forgiveness, for that is only the first +step. The second is justification of herself by accusation of you. + -- DeGourmont +% +Do you think your mother and I should have lived comfortably so long +together if ever we had been married? +% +Don't assume that every sad-eyed woman has loved and lost -- she may +have got him. +% +Don't know what time I'll be back, Mom. Probably soon after she throws me out. +% +Don't marry for money; you can borrow it cheaper. + -- Scottish Proverb +% +Dull women have immaculate homes. +% + During a visit to America, Winston Churchill was invited to a buffet +luncheon at which cold fried chicken was served. Returning for a second +helping, he asked politely, "May I have some breast?" + "Mr. Churchill," replied the hostess, "in this country we ask for +white meat or dark meat." Churchill apologized profusely. + The following morning, the lady received a magnificent orchid from +her guest of honor. The accompanying card read: "I would be most obliged if +you would pin this on your white meat." +% +Economists are still trying to figure out why the girls with the least +principle draw the most interest. +% +Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe. + -- Jackie Mason +% +... eighty years later he could still recall with the young pang of his +original joy his falling in love with Ada. + -- Nabokov +% + Equality is not when a female Einstein gets promoted to assistant +professor; equality is when a female schlemiel moves ahead as fast as a +male schlemiel. + -- Ewald Nyquist +% + Eugene d'Albert, a noted German composer, was married six times. +At an evening reception which he attended with his fifth wife shortly +after their wedding, he presented the lady to a friend who said politely, +"Congratulations, Herr d'Albert; you have rarely introduced me to so +charming a wife." +% +"Even nowadays a man can't step up and kill a woman without feeling +just a bit unchivalrous ..." + -- Robert Benchley +% +Every man who is high up likes to think that he has done it all himself, +and the wife smiles and lets it go at that. + -- Barrie +% +Everybody is given the same amount of hormones, at birth, and +if you want to use yours for growing hair, that's fine with me. +% +Farmers in the Iowa State survey rated machinery breakdowns more +stressful than divorce. + -- Wall Street Journal +% +Feminists just want the human race to be a tie. +% +First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity, no really +self-respecting woman would take advantage of it. + -- George Bernard Shaw, "John Bull's Other Island" +% +Flirting is the gentle art of making a man feel pleased with himself. + -- Helen Rowland +% +For a young man, not yet: for an old man, never at all. + -- Diogenes, asked when a man should marry + +When should a man marry? A young man, not yet; an elder man, not at all. + -- Sir Francis Bacon, "Of Marriage and Single Life" +% +For a young man, not yet: for an old man, never at all. + -- Diogenes, asked when a man should marry + +When should a man marry? A young man, not yet; an elder man, not at all. + -- Sir Francis Bacon, "Of Marriage and Single Life" +% +For I swore I would stay a year away from her; out and alas! +but with break of day I went to make supplication. + -- Paulus Silentarius, c. 540 A.D. +% +For thirty years a certain man went to spend every evening with Mme. ___. +When his wife died his friends believed he would marry her, and urged +him to do so. "No, no," he said: "if I did, where should I have to +spend my evenings?" + -- Chamfort +% +Fortunate is he for whom the belle toils. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #14 + +Low Blows: + Let's say a man and woman are watching a boxing match on TV. One +of the boxers is felled by a low blow. The woman says "Oh, gee. That must +hurt." The man doubles over and actually FEELS the pain. + +Dressing Up: + A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the +garbage, answer the phone, read a book, get the mail. A man will dress up +for: weddings, funerals. Speaking of weddings, when reminiscing about +weddings, women talk about "the ceremony". Men laugh about "the bachelor +party". + +David Letterman: + Men think David Letterman is the funniest man on the face of the +Earth. Women think he is a mean, semi-dorky guy who always has a bad haircut. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #16 + +Relationships: + First of all, a man does not call a relationship a relationship -- he +refers to it as "that time when me and Suzie were doing it on a semi-regular +basis". + When a relationship ends, a woman will cry and pour her heart out to +her girlfriends, and she will write a poem titled "All Men Are Idiots". Then +she will get on with her life. + A man has a little more trouble letting go. Six months after the +breakup, at 3:00 a.m. on a Saturday night, he will call and say, "I just +wanted to let you know you ruined my life, and I'll never forgive you, and I +hate you, and you're a total floozy. But I want you to know that there's +always a chance for us". This is known as the "I Hate You / I Love You" +drunken phone call, that 99% if all men have made at least once. There are +community colleges that offer courses to help men get over this need; alas, +these classes rarely prove effective. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #17 + +Shoes: + The average man has 4 pairs of footwear: running shoes, dress shoes, +boots, and slippers. The average woman has shoes 4 layers thick on the floor +of her closet. Most of them hurt her feet. + +Making friends: + A woman will meet another woman with common interests, do a few things +together, and say something like, "I hope we can be good friends." + A man will meet another man with common interests, do a few things +together, and say nothing. After years of interacting with this other man, +sharing hopes and fears that he wouldn't confide in his priest or +psychiatrist, he'll finally let down his guard in a fit of drunken +sentimentality and say something like, "You know, for someone who's such a +jerk, I guess you're OK." +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #2 + +Desserts: + A woman will generally admire an ornate dessert for the artistic +work it is, praising its creator and waiting a suitable interval before +she reluctantly takes a small sliver off one edge. A man will start by +grabbing the cherry in the center. + +Car repair: + The average man thinks his Y chromosome contains complete repair +manuals for every car made since World War II. He will work on a problem +himself until it either goes away or turns into something that "can't be +fixed without special tools". + The average woman thinks "that funny thump-thump noise" is an +accurate description of an automotive problem. She will, however, have the +car serviced at the proper intervals and thereby incur fewer problems than +the average man. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #4 + +Clothes: + Men don't discard clothes. The average man still has the gym shirt +he wore in high school. He thinks a jacket is "just getting broken in" about +the time it develops holes in the elbows. A man will let new shirts sit on +the shelf in their original packaging for a couple of years before putting +them to use, hoping they'll become more comfortable with age. + Women think clothes are radioactive, with a half-life of one year. +They exercise precautions to avoid contamination by last year's fashions. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #5 + +Trust: + The average woman would really like to be told if her mate is fooling +around behind her back. This same woman wouldn't tell her best friend if +she knew the best friends' mate was having an affair. She'll tell all her +OTHER friends, however. The average man won't say anything if he knows that +one of his friend's mates is fooling around, and he'd rather not know if +his mate is having an affair either, out of fear that it might be with one +of his friends. He will tell all his friends about his own affairs, though, +so they can be ready if he needs an alibi. + +Driving: + A typical man thinks he's Mario Andretti as soon as he slips behind +the wheel of his car. The fact that it's an 8-year-old Honda doesn't keep +him from trying to out-accelerate the guy in the Porsche who's attempting +to cut him off; freeway on-ramps are exciting challenges to see who has The +Right Stuff on the morning commute. Does he or doesn't he? Only his body +shop knows for sure. Insurance companies understand this behavior, and +price their policies accordingly. + A woman will slow down to let a car merge in front of her, and get +rear-ended by another woman who was busy adding the finishing touches to +her makeup. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #6 + +Bathrooms: + A man has six items in his bathroom -- a toothbrush, toothpaste, +shaving cream, razor, a bar of Dial soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn. +The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 437. A man +would not be able to identify most of these items. + +Groceries: + A woman makes a list of things she needs and then goes to the store +and buys these things. A man waits 'til the only items left in his fridge +are half a lime and a Blue Ribbon. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys +everything that looks good. By the time a man reaches the checkout counter, +his cart is packed tighter that the Clampett's car on Beverly Hillbillies. +Of course, this will not stop him from entering the 10-items-or-less lane. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #8 + +Going Out: + When a man says he is ready to go out, it means he is ready to go +out. When a woman says she is ready to go out, it means she WILL be ready +to go out, as soon as she finds her earring, finishes putting on her makeup, +checks on the kids, makes a phone call to her best friend... + +Cats: + Women love cats. Men say they love cats, but when women aren't +looking, men kick cats. + +Offspring: + Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows +about dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends +and favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams. Men are vaguely +aware of some short people living in the house. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #9 + +Laundry: + Women do laundry every couple of days. A man will wear every article +of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants that were hip about eight +years ago, before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, +he will wear a dirty sweatshirt inside out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain +of clothes to the laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at +the laundromat. This is a myth. + +Nicknames: + If Gloria, Suzanne, Deborah and Michelle get together for lunch, +they will call each other Gloria, Suzanne, Deborah and Michelle. But if +Mike, Dave, Rob and Jack go out for a brewsky, they will affectionately +refer to each other as Bullet-Head, Godzilla, Peanut Brain and Useless. + +Socks: + Men wear sensible socks. They wear standard white sweatsocks. +Women wear strange socks. They are cut way below the ankles, have pictures +of clouds on them, and have a big fuzzy ball on the back. +% + Fred noticed his roommate had a black eye upon returning from a dance. +"What happened?" + "I was struck by the beauty of the place." +% + Friends were surprised, indeed, when Frank and Jennifer broke their +engagement, but Frank had a ready explanation: "Would you marry someone who +was habitually unfaithful, who lied at every turn, who was selfish and lazy +and sarcastic?" + "Of course not," said a sympathetic friend. + "Well," retorted Frank, "neither would Jennifer." +% + FROM THE DESK OF + Rapunzel + +Dear Prince: + + Use ladder tonight -- you're splitting my ends. +% +Genuine happiness is when a wife sees a double chin on her husband's +old girl friend. +% + -- Gifts for Men -- + +Men are amused by almost any idiot thing -- that is why professional ice +hockey is so popular -- so buying gifts for them is easy. But you should +never buy them clothes. Men believe they already have all the clothes they +will ever need, and new ones make them nervous. For example, your average +man has 84 ties, but he wears, at most, only three of them. He has learned, +through humiliating trial and error, that if he wears any of the other 81 +ties, his wife will probably laugh at him ("You're not going to wear THAT +tie with that suit, are you?"). So he has narrowed it down to three safe +ties, and has gone several years without being laughed at. If you give him +a new tie, he will pretend to like it, but deep inside he will hate you. + +If you want to give a man something practical, consider tires. More than +once, I would have gladly traded all the gifts I got for a new set of tires. + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +Girls are better looking in snowstorms. + -- Archie Goodwin +% +Girls marry for love. Boys marry because of a chronic irritation that +causes them to gravitate in the direction of objects with certain curvilinear +properties. + -- Ashley Montagu +% +Girls really do know just what they want -- you to figure it out for yourself! +% +Girls who throw themselves at men, are actually taking very careful aim. +% +Give a woman an inch and she'll park a car in it. +% +God created a few perfect heads. The rest he covered with hair. +% +God created woman. And boredom did indeed cease from that moment -- +but many other things ceased as well. Woman was God's second mistake. + -- Nietzsche +% +Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere. +% +Harold had never wanted a woman so much in his life, upon overhearing the +22-year-old beauty remark that he was too old and out of shape for her. The +determined septuagenarian immediately embarked upon a rigorous self-improvement +program. He had his face lifted, bought a toupee, ran five miles every day, +lifted weights and adopted a strict vegetarian diet. Within months, the +rejuvenated man won the young woman's heart, and she agreed to marry him. + On the way out of the chapel, however, Harold was fatally struck +by lightning. Furious, he confronted Saint Peter at the pearly gates. "How +could you do this to me after all the pain I went through?" + "To be honest, Harold," Saint Peter sheepishly replied, "I didn't +recognize you." +% +Hat check girl: + "Goodness! What lovely diamonds!" +Mae West: + "Goodness had nothin' to do with it, dearie." + -- "Night After Night", 1932 +% +Having a baby isn't so bad. If you're a female Emperor penguin in the +Antarctic. She lays the egg, rolls it over to the father, then takes off +for warmer weather where she eats and eats and eats. For two months, the +father stands stiff, without food, blind in the 24-hour dark, balancing +the egg on his feet. After the little penguin is hatched, the mother +sees fit to come home. + -- L.M. Boyd, "Austin American-Statesman" +% +He gave her a look that you could have poured on a waffle. +% +He who enters his wife's dressing room is a philosopher or a fool. + -- Balzac +% +He who is intoxicated with wine will be sober again in the course of the +night, but he who is intoxicated by the cupbearer will not recover his +senses until the day of judgement. + -- Saadi +% +Hey, Jim, it's me, Susie Lillis from the laundromat. You said you were +gonna call and it's been two weeks. What's wrong, you lose my number? +% +High heels are a device invented by a woman who was tired of being kissed +on the forehead. +% +Him: "Your skin is so soft. Are you a model?" +Her: "No," [blush] "I'm a cosmetologist." +Him: "Really? That's incredible... It must be very tough to handle + weightlessness." + -- "The Jerk" +% +His designs were strictly honourable, as the phrase is: that is, to rob +a lady of her fortune by way of marriage. + -- Henry Fielding, "Tom Jones" +% +"Home, Sweet Home" must surely have been written by a bachelor. + -- Samuel Butler +% +Horace's best ode would not please a young woman as much as the mediocre +verses of the young man she is in love with. + -- Moore +% +How much for your women? I want to buy your daughter... how much for +the little girl? + -- Jake Blues, "The Blues Brothers" +% + "How would I know if I believe in love at first sight?" the sexy +social climber said to her roommate. "I mean, I've never seen a Porsche +full of money before." +% +I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, +I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +I began many years ago, as so many young men do, in searching for the +perfect woman. I believed that if I looked long enough, and hard enough, +I would find her and then I would be secure for life. Well, the years +and romances came and went, and I eventually ended up settling for someone +a lot less than my idea of perfection. But one day, after many years +together, I lay there on our bed recovering from a slight illness. My +wife was sitting on a chair next to the bed, humming softly and watching +the late afternoon sun filtering through the trees. The only sounds to +be heard elsewhere were the clock ticking, the kettle downstairs starting +to boil, and an occasional schoolchild passing beneath our window. And +as I looked up into my wife's now wrinkled face, but still warm and +twinkling eyes, I realized something about perfection... It comes only +with time. + -- James L. Collymore, "Perfect Woman" +% +I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life, particularly if he +has income and she is pattable. + -- Ogden Nash +% +I can feel for her because, although I have never been an Alaskan prostitute +dancing on the bar in a spangled dress, I still get very bored with washing +and ironing and dishwashing and cooking day after relentless day. + -- Betty MacDonald +% +I can't mate in captivity. + -- Gloria Steinem, on why she has never married. +% +I come from a small town whose population never changed. Each time a woman +got pregnant, someone left town. + -- Michael Prichard +% +I do enjoy a good long walk -- especially when my wife takes one. +% +"I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I've got hundreds of +people waiting to abuse me." + -- Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters" +% +I GUESS I'LL NEVER FORGET HER. And maybe I don't want to. Her spirit +was wild, like a wild monkey. Her beauty was like a beautiful horse +being ridden by a wild monkey. I forget her other qualities. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I have a hard time being attracted to anyone who can beat me up. + -- John McGrath, Atlanta sportswriter, on women weightlifters. +% +I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and +to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and +support of the woman I love. + -- Edward, Duke of Windsor, 1936, announcing his abdication + of the British throne in order to marry the American + divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson. +% +I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, +and for this reason: I can never be satisfied with anyone who would +be blockhead enough to have me. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +I know the disposition of women: when you will, they won't; when +you won't, they set their hearts upon you of their own inclination. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +I learned to play guitar just to get the girls, and anyone who says they +didn't is just lyin'! + -- Willie Nelson +% +I like being single. I'm always there when I need me. + -- Art Leo +% +I like myself, but I won't say I'm as handsome as the bull that kidnapped +Europa. + -- Marcus Tullius Cicero +% +I like young girls. Their stories are shorter. + -- Tom McGuane +% +I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person +you want to annoy for the rest of your life. + -- Rita Rudner +% +I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I've ever known. + -- Walt Disney +% + I managed to say, "Sorry," and no more. I knew that he disliked +me to cry. + This time he said, watching me, "On some occasions it is better +to weep." + I put my head down on the table and sobbed, "If only she could come +back; I would be nice." + Francis said, "You gave her great pleasure always." + "Oh, not enough." + "Nobody can give anybody enough." + "Not ever?" + "No, not ever. But one must go on trying." + "And doesn't one ever value people until they are gone?" + "Rarely," said Francis. I went on weeping; I saw how little I had +valued him; how little I had valued anything that was mine. + -- Pamela Frankau, "The Duchess and the Smugs" +% +I married beneath me. All women do. + -- Lady Nancy Astor +% +I met a wonderful new man. He's fictional, but you can't have everything. + -- Cecelia, "The Purple Rose of Cairo" +% +I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the +places they do today. + -- Will Rogers +% +I never met a woman I couldn't drink pretty. +% +I read Playboy for the same reason I read National Geographic. To see +the sights I'm never going to visit. +% +I refuse to consign the whole male sex to the nursery. I insist on +believing that some men are my equals. + -- Brigid Brophy +% +I respect the institution of marriage. I have always thought that every +woman should marry -- and no man. + -- Benjamin Disraeli, "Lothair" +% +I sat down beside her, said hello, offered to buy her a drink... and then +natural selection reared its ugly head. +% +I think she must have been very strictly brought up, she's so desperately +anxious to do the wrong thing correctly. + -- Saki, "Reginald on Worries" +% +I think the world is ready for the story of an ugly duckling, who grew up to +remain an ugly duckling, and lived happily ever after. + -- Chick +% +I want to buy a husband who, every week when I sit down to watch "St. +Elsewhere", won't scream, "Forget it, Blanche... It's time for Hee-Haw!" + -- Berke Breathed, "Bloom County" +% +I want to marry a girl just like the girl that married dear old dad. + -- Freud +% +I was in a beauty contest one. I not only came in last, I was hit in +the mouth by Miss Congeniality. + -- Phyllis Diller +% +I wasn't kissing her, I was whispering in her mouth. + -- Chico Marx +% +I will not say that women have no character; rather, they have a new +one every day. + -- Heine +% +I would gladly raise my voice in praise of women, only they won't let me +raise my voice. + -- Winkle +% +I wouldn't marry her with a ten foot pole. +% +I'd probably settle for a vampire if he were romantic enough. +Couldn't be any worse than some of the relationships I've had. + -- Brenda Starr +% +I'd rather have two girls at 21 each than one girl at 42. + -- W.C. Fields +% +I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did. +% +I'm not denyin' the women are foolish: God Almighty made 'em to match the men. + -- George Eliot +% +I'm very old-fashioned. I believe that people should marry for life, +like pigeons and Catholics. + -- Woody Allen +% +I've been in more laps than a napkin. + -- Mae West +% +I've spent almost all of my life with highly intelligent men. They're not +like other men. Their spirit is great and stimulating. They hate strife; +indeed they reject it. Their inventive gifts are boundless. They demand +devotion and obedience. And a sense of humor. I happily gave all of this. +I was lucky to be chosen and clever enough to understand them. + -- Marlene Dietrich, on her friendship with Ernest Hemingway +% +If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner. + -- Tallulah Bankhead +% +If I told you you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me? +% +If it were not for the presents, an elopement would be preferable. + -- George Ade, "Forty Modern Fables" +% +If men acted after marriage as they do during courtship, there would +be fewer divorces -- and more bankruptcies. + -- Frances Rodman +% +If someone were to ask me for a short cut to sensuality, I would +suggest he go shopping for a used 427 Shelby-Cobra. But it is only +fair to warn you that of the 300 guys who switched to them in 1966, +only two went back to women. + -- Mort Sahl +% +If the girl you love moves in with another guy once, it's more than enough. +Twice, it's much too much. Three times, it's the story of your life. +% +If there is any realistic deterrent to marriage, it's the fact that you +can't afford divorce. + -- Jack Nicholson +% +If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the +beginning of our menstrual cycle, when the female hormone is at its +lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that in those few days +women behave the most like the way men behave all month long? + -- Gloria Steinham +% +If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning. + -- Aristotle Onassis +% +If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry. + -- Anton Chekhov +% +If you are looking for a kindly, well-to-do older gentleman who is no +longer interested in sex, take out an ad in The Wall Street Journal. + -- Abigail Van Buren +% +If you give a man enough rope, he'll claim he's tied up at the office. +% +If you marry a man who cheats on his wife, you'll be married to a man who +cheats on his wife. + -- Ann Landers +% +If you MUST get married, it is always advisable to marry beauty. +Otherwise, you'll never find anybody to take her off your hands. +% +If you want me to be a good little bunny just dangle some carats in front +of my nose. + -- Lauren Bacall +% +If you want to be ruined, marry a rich woman. + -- Michelet +% +If you want to read about love and marriage you've got to buy two separate +books. + -- Alan King +% +If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every +word you say, talk in your sleep. +% +If you wish women to love you, be original; I know a man who wore fur +boots summer and winter, and women fell in love with him. + -- Anton Chekhov +% +In buying horses and taking a wife shut your eyes tight and commend +yourself to God. +% +In Christianity, a man may have only one wife. This is called Monotony. +% +In marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of the enemy. +% +In olden times sacrifices were made at the altar -- a practice which is +still continued. + -- Helen Rowland +% +In the midst of one of the wildest parties he'd ever been to, the young man +noticed a very prim and pretty girl sitting quietly apart from the rest of +the revelers. Approaching her, he introduced himself and, after some quiet +conversation, said, "I'm afraid you and I don't really fit in with this +jaded group. Why don't I take you home?"" + "Fine," said the girl, smiling up at him demurely. "Where do you live?" +% +Insanity is considered a ground for divorce, though by the very same +token it is the shortest detour to marriage. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +Is a wedding successful if it comes off without a hitch? +% +Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the +beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get +out, and such as are out wish to get in? + -- Ralph Emerson +% +Isn't it ironic that many men spend a great part of their lives +avoiding marriage while single-mindedly pursuing those things that +would make them better prospects? +% +It [marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair +to get in, and those within despair of getting out. + -- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne +% +It did not occur to me that my being with two men continuously would +interest anyone or arouse anyone's misgivings. I asked for an invitation +for Heinrich too, as often as it seemed possible, when Paulus and I were +invited to a social gathering. I felt the set of rules others lived by +was irrelevant. My childhood attitude -- every attempt to adjust is +hopeless and you might just as well follow your own attitudes -- must have +carried me. + -- Hannah Tillich, "From Time to Time" +% +It doesn't much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find out +next morning it was someone else. + -- Will Rogers +% +It has been justly observed by sages of all lands that although a man may be +most happily married and continue in that state with the utmost contentment, +it does not necessarily follow that he has therefore been struck stone-blind. + -- H. Warner Munn +% + It is always preferable to visit home with a friend. Your parents will +not be pleased with this plan, because they want you all to themselves and +because in the presence of your friend, they will have to act like mature +human beings. + The worst kind of friend to take home is a girl, because in that case, +there is the potential that your parents will lose you not just for the +duration of the visit but forever. The worst kind of girl to take home is one +of a different religion: Not only will you be lost to your parents forever but +you will be lost to a woman who is immune to their religious/moral arguments +and whose example will irretrievably corrupt you. + Let's say you've fallen in love with just such a girl and would like +to take her home for the holidays. You are aware of your parents' xenophobic +response to anyone of a different religion. How to prepare them for the shock? + Simple. Call them up shortly before your visit and tell them that you +have gotten quite serious about somebody who is of a different religion, a +different race and the same sex. Tell them you have already invited this +person to meet them. Give the information a moment to sink in and then +remark that you were only kidding, that your lover is merely of a different +religion. They will be so relieved they will welcome her with open arms. + -- Playboy, January, 1983 +% +It is explained that all relationships require a little give and take. This +is untrue. Any partnership demands that we give and give and give and at the +last, as we flop into our graves exhausted, we are told that we didn't give +enough. + -- Quentin Crisp, "How to Become a Virgin" +% +It is idle to attempt to talk a young woman out of her passion: +love does not lie in the ear. + -- Walpole +% +It is most dangerous nowadays for a husband to pay any attention to his +wife in public. It always makes people think that he beats her when +they're alone. The world has grown so suspicious of anything that looks +like a happy married life. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +It is not necessary to inquire whether a woman would like something for +dessert. The answer is yes, she would like something for dessert, but +she would like you to order it so she can pick at it with your fork. She +does not want you to call attention to this by saying, 'If you wanted a +dessert, why didn't you order one?' You must understand, she has the +dessert she wants. The dessert she wants is contained within yours. + -- Merrill Markoe, "An Insider's Guide to the American Woman" +% +It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to +mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +It is possible that blondes also prefer gentlemen. + -- Maimie Van Doren +% +It takes a smart husband to have the last word and not use it. +% +It was a fine, sweet night, the nicest since my divorce, maybe the nicest +since the middle of my marriage. There was energy, softness, grace and +laughter. I even took my socks off. In my circle, that means class. + -- Andrew Bergman "The Big Kiss-off of 1944" +% +It was raining heavily, and the motorist had car trouble on a lonely country +road. Anxious to find shelter for the night, he walked over to a farmhouse +and knocked on the front door. No one responded. He could feel the water +from the roof running down the back of his neck as he stood on the stoop. +The next time he knocked louder, but still no answer. By now he was soaked +to the skin. Desperately he pounded on the door. At last the head of a +man appeared out of an upstairs window. + "What do you want?" he asked gruffly. + "My car broke down," said the traveler, "and I want to know if you +would let me stay here for the night." + "Sure," replied the man. "If you want to stay there all night, it's +okay with me." +% +It wasn't exactly a divorce -- I was traded. + -- Tim Conway +% +It's a funny thing that when a woman hasn't got anything +on earth to worry about, she goes off and gets married. +% +"It's men like him that give the Y chromosome a bad name." +% +It's not the inital skirt length, it's the upcreep. +% +It's not the men in my life, but the life in my men that counts. + -- Mae West +% +It's the good girls who keep the diaries, the bad girls never have the time. + -- Tallulah Bankhead +% + It's the theory of Jess Birnbaum, of Time magazine, that women with +bad legs should stick to long skirts because they cover a multitude of shins. +% + Joe sat as his dying wife's bedside. + Her voice was little more than a whisper. + "Joe, darling," she breathed, "I've got a confession to make +before I go. I ... I'm the one who took the $10,000 from your safe... +I spent it on a fling with your best friend, Charles. And it was I who +forced your mistress to leave the city. And I am the one who reported +your income-tax evasion to the I.R.S..." + "That's all right, dearest, don't give it a second thought," +whispered Joe. "I'm the one who poisoned you." +% +Just as I cannot remember any time when I could not read and write, I cannot +remember any time when I did not exercise my imagination in daydreams about +women. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Kath: Can he be present at the birth of his child? +Ed: It's all any reasonable child can expect if the dad is present + at the conception. + -- Joe Orton, "Entertaining Mr. Sloane" +% +Keep a diary and one day it'll keep you. + -- Mae West +% +Keep women you cannot. Marry them and they come to hate the way you walk +across the room; remain their lover, and they jilt you at the end of six +months. + -- Moore +% +Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Kissing your hand may make you feel very good, but a diamond and +sapphire bracelet lasts for ever. + -- Anita Loos, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" +% +Lady Nancy Astor: + "Winston, if you were my husband, I'd put poison in your coffee." +Winston Churchill: + "Nancy, if you were my wife, I'd drink it." +% +Lank: Here we go. We're about to set a new record. +Earl: (to the crowd) How about a date? +Lank: We've done it. Earl has set a new record. Turned down by + 20,000 women. + -- Lank and Earl +% +Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can +be tolerated only in race horses and women. + -- Lord Kelvin +% +Let thy maid servant be faithful, strong, and homely. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Let's just say that where a change was required, I adjusted. In every +relationship that exists, people have to seek a way to survive. If you +really care about the person, you do what's necessary, or that's the end. +For the first time, I found that I really could change, and the qualities +I most admired in myself I gave up. I stopped being loud and bossy ... +Oh, all right. I was still loud and bossy, but only behind his back. + -- Kate Hepburn, on Tracy and Hepburn +% +Life begins at the centerfold and expands outward. + -- Miss November, 1966 +% +Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society +being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded responsible +thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money +system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex. + -- Valerie Solanas +% +Life Sucks. Cynical, misanthropic male, 34, looking for soul mate but +certain not to find her. Drop me a note. I'll call you, we'll talk and +I'll ask you out to dinner where I'll probably spend more than I can +afford in a feeble attempt to impress you. Then we'll realize we have +absolutely nothing in common and we'll go our separate ways, more +embittered and depressed than before (if such a thing is possible). +% +Life's too short to dance with ugly women. +% +Like all young men, you greatly exaggerate the difference between one +young woman and another. + -- George Bernard Shaw, "Major Barbara" +% +Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking +for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem. + -- Alan McKay +% +Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Lonely men seek companionship. Lonely women sit at home and wait. +They never meet. +% +Lots of girls can be had for a song. Unfortunately, it often turns out to +be the wedding march. +% +Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real +with the ideal never goes unpunished. + -- Goethe +% +Love is an obsessive delusion that is cured by marriage. + -- Dr. Karl Bowman +% +Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +Love makes fools, marriage cuckolds, and patriotism malevolent imbeciles. + -- Paul Leautaud, "Passe-temps" +% +Macho does not prove mucho. + -- Zsa Zsa Gabor +% +Man and wife make one fool. +% +Many a man has fallen in love with a girl in a light so dim he would +not have chosen a suit by it. + -- Maurice Chevalier +% +Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the +whole girl. + -- Stephen Leacock +% +Many a man who thinks he's going on a maiden voyage with +a woman finds out later that it was just a shake-down cruise. +% +Many a wife thinks her husband is the world's greatest lover. +But she can never catch him at it. +% +Many husbands go broke on the money their wives save on sales. +% +Marriage always demands the greatest understanding of the art of +insincerity possible between two human beings. + -- Vicki Baum +% +Marriage causes dating problems. +% +Marriage is a ghastly public confession of a strictly private intention. +% +Marriage is a great institution -- but I'm not ready for an institution yet. + -- Mae West +% +Marriage is a lot like the army, everyone complains, but you'd be +surprised at the large number that re-enlist. + -- James Garner +% +Marriage is a romance in which the hero dies in the first chapter. +% +Marriage is a three ring circus: engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering. + -- Roger Price +% +Marriage is an institution in which two undertake to become one, and one +undertakes to become nothing. +% +Marriage is based on the theory that when a man discovers a brand of beer +exactly to his taste he should at once throw up his job and go to work +in the brewery. + -- George Jean Nathan +% +Marriage is learning about women the hard way. +% +Marriage is like twirling a baton, turning handsprings, or eating with +chopsticks. It looks easy until you try it. +% +Marriage is low down, but you spend the rest of your life paying for it. + -- Baskins +% +Marriage is not merely sharing the fettucine, but sharing the +burden of finding the fettucine restaurant in the first place. + -- Calvin Trillin +% +Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. + -- Voltaire +% +Marriage is the process of finding out what kind of man your wife would +have preferred. +% +Marriage is the waste-paper basket of the emotions. +% +Marriage, in life, is like a duel in the midst of a battle. + -- Edmond About +% +Marriages are made in heaven and consummated on earth. + -- John Lyly +% +Marry in haste and everyone starts counting the months. +% +Matrimony is the root of all evil. +% +Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence. +% +Men are always ready to respect anything that bores them. + -- Marilyn Monroe +% +Men are those creatures with two legs and eight hands. + -- Jayne Mansfield +% +Men aren't attracted to me by my mind. They're attracted by what I +don't mind... + -- Gypsy Rose Lee +% +Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing they marry later; +for another thing they die earlier. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +Men have as exaggerated an idea of their rights as women have of their wrongs. + -- E.W. Howe +% +Men live for three things, fast cars, fast women and fast food. +% +Men never make passes at girls wearing glasses. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +Men of quality are not afraid of women for equality. +% +Men say of women what pleases them; women do with men what pleases them. + -- DeSegur +% +Men seldom show dimples to girls who have pimples. +% +Men still remember the first kiss after women have forgotten the last. +% +Men who cherish for women the highest respect are seldom popular with them. + -- Joseph Addison +% +Men's magazines often feature pictures of naked ladies. Women's magazines +also often feature pictures of naked ladies. This is because the female +body is a beautiful work of art, while the male body is hairy and lumpy and +should not be seen by the light of day. + -- Richard Roeper, "Men and Women Are Different" +% +Miguel Cervantes wrote Donkey Hote. Milton wrote Paradise Lost, then his +wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained. +% +Moe: Wanna play poker tonight? +Joe: I can't. It's the kids' night out. +Moe: So? +Joe: I gotta stay home with the nurse. +% +Moe: What did you give your wife for Valentine's Day? +Joe: The usual gift -- she ate my heart out. +% +Money and women are the most sought after and the least known of any two +things we have. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Monogamy is the Western custom of one wife and hardly any mistresses. + -- H.H. Munro +% +... most of us learned about love the hard way. Even warnings are probably +useless, for somehow, despite the severest warnings of parents and friends, +hundreds, thousands of women have forgotten themselves at the last minute +and succumbed to the lies, promises, flatteries, or mere attentions of +lusting, lovely men, landing themselves in complicated predicaments from +which some of them never recovered during their entire lives. And I am not +speaking only of your teenaged Midwesterners in 1958; I'm speaking of women +of every age in every city in every year. The notorious sexual revolution +has saved no one from the pain and confusion of love. + -- Alix Kates Shulman +% +My notion of a husband at forty is that a woman should be able to change him, +like a bank note, for two twenties. +% +Never accept an invitation from a stranger unless he gives you candy. + -- Linda Festa +% +Never argue with a woman when she's tired -- or rested. +% +Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never play cards with a man named Doc. +And never lie down with a woman who's got more troubles than you. + -- Nelson Algren, "What Every Young Man Should Know" +% +Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. + -- Phyllis Diller, "Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints" +% +Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own. + -- Nelson Algren +% +Never tell. Not if you love your wife ... In fact, if your old lady walks +in on you, deny it. Yeah. Just flat out and she'll believe it: "I'm +tellin' ya. This chick came downstairs with a sign around her neck `Lay +On Top Of Me Or I'll Die'. I didn't know what I was gonna do..." + -- Lenny Bruce +% +New Year's Eve is the time of year when a man most feels his age, +and his wife most often reminds him to act it. + -- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary +% +No friendship is so cordial or so delicious as that of girl for girl; +no hatred so intense or immovable as that of woman for woman. + -- Landor +% +No man can have a reasonable opinion of women until he has long lost +interest in hair restorers. + -- Austin O'Malley +% +No modern woman with a grain of sense ever sends little notes to an +unmarried man -- not until she is married, anyway. + -- Arthur Binstead +% +No one knows like a woman how to say things that are at once gentle and deep. + -- Hugo +% +No self-made man ever did such a good job that some woman didn't +want to make some alterations. + -- Kim Hubbard +% +No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether +she will or will not be a mother. + -- Margaret H. Sanger +% +No woman can endure a gambling husband, unless he is a steady winner. + -- Lord Thomas Dewar +% +No woman ever falls in love with a man unless she has a better opinion of +him than he deserves. + -- Edgar Watson Howe +% +Nobody really knows what happiness is, until they're married. +And then it's too late. +% +Not every problem someone has with his girlfriend is necessarily due to +the capitalist mode of production. + -- Herbert Marcuse +% +Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable. + -- Plato +% +Of course a platonic relationship is possible -- but only between +husband and wife. +% +Once a woman has given you her heart you can never get rid of the rest of her. + -- Vanbrugh +% + Once upon a time there was a beautiful young girl taking a stroll +through the woods. All at once she saw an extremely ugly bull frog seated +on a log and to her amazement the frog spoke to her. "Maiden," croaked the +frog, "would you do me a favor? This will be hard for you to believe, but +I was once a handsome, charming prince and then a mean, ugly old witch cast +a spell over me and turned me into a frog." + "Oh, what a pity!", exclaimed the girl. "I'll do anything I can to +help you break such a spell." + "Well," replied the frog, "the only way that this spell can be +taken away is for some lovely young woman to take me home and let me spend +the night under her pillow." + The young girl took the ugly frog home and placed him beneath her +pillow that night when she retired. When she awoke the next morning, sure +enough, there beside her in bed was a very young, handsome man, clearly of +royal blood. And so they lived happily ever after, except that to this day +her father and mother still don't believe her story. +% + Once upon a time there were three brothers who were knights +in a certain kingdom. And, there was a Princess in a neighboring kingdom +who was of marriageable age. Well, one day, in full armour, their horses, +and their page, the three brothers set off to see if one of them could +win her hand. The road was long and there were many obstacles along the +way, robbers to be overcome, hard terrain to cross. As they coped with +each obstacle they became more and more disgusted with their page. He was +not only inept, he was a coward, he could not handle the horses, he was, +in short, a complete flop. When they arrived at the court of the kingdom, +they found that they were expected to present the Princess with some +treasure. The two older brothers were discouraged, since they had not +thought of this and were unprepared. The youngest, however, had the +answer: Promise her anything, but give her our page. +% + One evening he spoke. Sitting at her feet, his face raised to her, +he allowed his soul to be heard. "My darling, anything you wish, anything +I am, anything I can ever be... That's what I want to offer you -- not the +things I'll get for you, but the thing in me that will make me able to get +them. That thing -- a man can't renounce it -- but I want to renounce it -- so +that it will be yours -- so that it will be in your service -- only for you." + The girl smiled and asked: "Do you think I'm prettier than Maggie +Kelly?" + He got up. He said nothing and walked out of the house. He never +saw that girl again. Gail Wynand, who prided himself on never needing a +lesson twice, did not fall in love again in the years that followed. + -- Ayn Rand, "The Fountainhead" +% +One girl can be pretty -- but a dozen are only a chorus. + -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Last Tycoon" +% +One is not born a woman, one becomes one. + -- Simone de Beauvoir +% +One man's folly is another man's wife. + -- Helen Rowland +% +One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Only two groups of people fall for flattery -- men and women. +% + People of all sorts of genders are reporting great difficulty, +these days, in selecting the proper words to refer to those of the female +persuasion. + "Lady," "woman," and "girl" are all perfectly good words, but +misapplying them can earn one anything from the charge of vulgarity to a good +swift smack. We are messing here with matters of deference, condescension, +respect, bigotry, and two vague concepts, age and rank. It is troubling +enough to get straight who is really what. Those who deliberately misuse +the terms in a misbegotten attempt at flattery are asking for it. + A woman is any grown-up female person. A girl is the un-grown-up +version. If you call a wee thing with chubby cheeks and pink hair ribbons a +"woman," you will probably not get into trouble, and if you do, you will be +able to handle it because she will be under three feet tall. However, if you +call a grown-up by a child's name for the sake of implying that she has a +youthful body, you are also implying that she has a brain to match. +% +Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the +farm-yard except that children are more troublesome and costly than +chickens and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock. + -- George Bernard Shaw, "Getting Married" +% +Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men +should be happier than others. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Sally: C'mon, Ted, all I'm asking you to do is share your feelings + with me. +Ted: ALL? Do you realize what you're asking? Men aren't trained + to share. We're trained to protect ourselves by not + letting anyone too close. Good grief, if I go around + sharing everything with you, you could hang me out to dry. +Sally: It's called "trust," Ted. +Ted: "Sharing"? "Trust"? You're really asking me to sail into + uncharted waters here. + -- Sally Forth +% +Scientists still know less about what attracts men than they do about +what attracts mosquitoes. + -- Dr. Joyce Brothers, + "What Every Woman Should Know About Men" +% +She always believed in the old adage -- leave them while you're looking good. + -- Anita Loos, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" +% +She been married so many times she got rice marks all over her face. + -- Tom Waits +% +She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to. + -- Gypsy Rose Lee +% +She just came in, pounced around this thing with me for a few years, enjoyed +herself, gave it a sort of beautiful quality and left. Excited a few men +in the meantime. + -- Patrick Macnee, reminiscing on Diana Rigg's + involvement in "The Avengers". +% +She liked him; he was a man of many qualities, even if most of them were bad. +% +She missed an invaluable opportunity to give him a look that you could +have poured on a waffle ... +% +She's learned to say things with her eyes that others waste time putting +into words. +% +She's so tough she won't take 'yes' for an answer. +% +She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong. + -- Mae West +% +So many beautiful women and so little time. + -- John Barrymore +% +So many men; so little time. +% +So many women; so little nerve. +% +So many women; so little time! +% + "So you don't have to, Cindy, but I was wondering if you might +want to go to someplace, you know, with me, sometime." + "Well, I can think of a lot of worse things, David." + "Friday, then?" + "Why not, David, it might even be fun." + -- Dating in Minnesota +% +Some husbands are living proof that a woman can take a joke. +% +Some marriages are made in heaven -- but so are thunder and lightning. +% +Some men are all right in their place -- if they only the knew the right places! + -- Mae West +% +Some men are so interested in their wives' continued happiness that they +hire detectives to find out the reason for it. +% +Some men are so macho they'll get you pregnant just to kill a rabbit. + -- Maureen Murphy +% +Some men feel that the only thing they owe the woman who marries them +is a grudge. + -- Helen Rowland +% +Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry. + -- Gloria Steinem +% +Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. + -- Sigmund Freud +% +Sometimes, when I think of what that girl means to me, it's all I can do +to keep from telling her. + -- Andy Capp +% +Stanford women are responsible for the success of many Stanford men: +they give them "just one more reason" to stay in and study every night. +% +Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but it +needs a very clever woman to manage a fool. + -- Kipling +% +Tehee quod she, and clapte the wyndow to. + -- Geoffrey Chaucer +% +That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +The advantage of being celibate is that when one sees a pretty girl one +does not need to grieve over having an ugly one back home. + -- Paul Leautaud, "Propos d'un jour" +% +The anger of a woman is the greatest evil with which you can threaten your +enemies. + -- Bonnard +% +The average girl would rather have beauty than brains because she knows +that the average man can see much better than he can think. + -- Ladies' Home Journal +% +The average woman must inevitably view her actual husband with a certain +disdain; he is anything but her ideal. In consequence, she cannot help +feeling that her children are cruelly handicapped by the fact that he is +their father. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +The best man for the job is often a woman. +% +The best thing about being bald is, that, when unexpected company arrives, +all you have to do is straighten your tie. +% +The big question is why in the course of evolution the males permitted +themselves to be so totally eclipsed by the females. Why do they tolerate +this total subservience, this wretched existence as outcasts who are +hungry all the time? +% +The chains of marriage are so heavy that it takes two to carry them, and +sometimes three. + -- Alexandre Dumas +% +The days just prior to marriage are like a snappy introduction to a +tedious book. +% + The defense attorney was hammering away at the plaintiff: +"You claim," he jeered, "that my client came at you with a broken bottle +in his hand. But is it not true, that you had something in YOUR hand?" + "Yes," the man admitted, "his wife. Very charming, of course, +but not much good in a fight." +% +The difference between legal separation and divorce is that legal +separation gives the man time to hide his money. +% +The duration of passion is proportionate with the original resistance +of the woman. + -- Honor'e DeBalzac +% +The eternal feminine draws us upward. + -- Goethe +% +The first marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence, +and the second the triumph of hope over experience. +% +The gentlemen looked one another over with microscopic carelessness. +% +The girl who remembers her first kiss now has a daughter who can't even +remember her first husband. +% +The girl who stoops to conquer usually wears a low-cut dress. +% +The girl who swears no one has ever made love to her has a right to swear. + -- Sophia Loren +% +The gods gave man fire and he invented fire engines. They gave him +love and he invented marriage. +% +The happiest time of a person's life is after his first divorce. + -- J.K. Galbraith +% +The heaviest object in the world is the body of the woman you have ceased +to love. + -- Marquis de Lac de Clapiers Vauvenargues +% +The honeymoon is not actually over until we cease to stifle our sighs +and begin to stifle our yawns. + -- Helen Rowland +% +The honeymoon is over when he phones to say he'll be late for supper and +she's already left a note that it's in the refrigerator. + -- Bill Lawrence +% +The husband who doesn't tell his wife everything probably reasons that +what she doesn't know won't hurt him. + -- Leo J. Burke +% +The little girl expects no declaration of tenderness from her doll. +She loves it -- and that's all. It is thus that we should love. + -- DeGourmont +% +The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutang trying to play the violin. + -- Honor'e DeBalzac +% +The man who understands one woman is qualified to understand pretty well +everything. + -- Yeats +% +The mature bohemian is one whose woman works full time. +% +The most common form of marriage proposal: "YOU'RE WHAT!?" +% +The most dangerous food is wedding cake. + -- American proverb +% +The most difficult years of marriage are those following the wedding. +% +The most happy marriage I can imagine to myself would be the union +of a deaf man to a blind woman. + -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge +% +The most important thing in a relationship between a man and a woman +is that one of them be good at taking orders. + -- Linda Festa +% +The most popular labor-saving device today is still a husband with money. + -- Joey Adams, "Cindy and I" +% +The mother of the year should be a sterilized woman with two adopted children. + -- Paul Ehrlich +% +The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a neccessity. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The only real argument for marriage is that it remains the best method +for getting acquainted. + -- Heywood Broun +% +The only really masterful noise a man makes in a house is the noise +of his key, when he is still on the landing, fumbling for the lock. + -- Colette +% +The perfect man is the true partner. Not a bed partner nor a fun partner, +but a man who will shoulder burdens equally with [you] and possess that +quality of joy. + -- Erica Jong +% +The person who marries for money usually earns every penny of it. +% +The prettiest women are almost always the most boring, and that is why +some people feel there is no God. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +The Ruffed Pandanga of Borneo and Rotherham spreads out his feathers in +his courtship dance and imitates Winston Churchill and Tommy Cooper on +one leg. The padanga is dying out because the female padanga doesn't +take it too seriously. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +The six great gifts of an Irish girl are beauty, soft voice, sweet speech, +wisdom, needlework, and chastity. + -- Theodore Roosevelt, 1907 +% +The surest sign that a man is in love is when he divorces his wife. +% +The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing +-- and then marry him. + -- Cher +% +The truth about a woman often lasts longer than the woman is true. +% +The two things that can get you into trouble quicker than anything else +are fast women and slow horses. +% +The way to fight a woman is with your hat. Grab it and run. +% +The woman you buy -- and she is the least expensive -- takes a great +deal of money. The woman who gives herself takes all your time. + -- Balzac +% +There are a few things that never go out of style, and a feminine woman +is one of them. + -- Ralston +% +There are four stages to a marriage. First there's the affair, then there's +the marriage, then children and finally the fourth stage, without which you +cannot know a woman, the divorce. + -- Norman Mailer +% +There are three things I have always loved and never understood -- +art, music, and women. +% +There are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer for them, +or turn them into literature. + -- Stephen Stills +% +There are two times when a man doesn't understand a woman -- before +marriage and after marriage. +% +There goes the good time that was had by all. + -- Bette Davis, remarking on a passing starlet +% +There is a vast difference between the savage and civilized man, but it +is never apparent to their wives until after breakfast. + -- Helen Rowland +% +There is no realizable power that man cannot, in time, fashion the tools +to attain, nor any power so secure that the naked ape will not abuse it. +So it is written in the genetic cards -- only physics and war hold him in +check. And also the wife who wants him home by five, of course. + -- Encyclopadia Apocryphia, 1990 ed. +% +There is no such thing as an ugly woman -- there are only the ones who do +not know how to make themselves attractive. + -- Christian Dior +% +There is not much to choose between a woman who deceives us for another, +and a woman who deceives another for ourselves. + -- Augier +% +There is only one way to console a widow. But remember the risk. + -- Robert Heinlein +% +There's nothing like a girl with a plunging neckline to keep a man on his toes. +% +There's nothing like a good dose of another woman to make a man appreciate +his wife. + -- Clare Booth Luce +% +There's nothing like good food, good wine, and a bad girl. +% +There's one consolation about matrimony. When you look around you can +always see somebody who did worse. + -- Warren H. Goldsmith +% +There's one fool at least in every married couple. +% +There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn +what it is I'll get married again. + -- Clint Eastwood +% +There's too much beauty upon this earth for lonely men to bear. + -- Richard Le Gallienne +% +This guy runs into his house and yells to his wife, "Kathy, pack up your +bags! I just won the California lottery!" + "Honey!", Kathy exclaims, "Shall I pack for warm weather or cold?" + "I don't care," responds the husband. "just so long as you're out +of the house by dinner!" +% +'Tis more blessed to give than receive; for example, wedding presents. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +To be beautiful is enough! if a woman can do that well who should demand +more from her? You don't want a rose to sing. + -- Thackeray +% +To be considered successful, a woman must be much better at her job +than a man would have to be. Fortunately, this isn't difficult. +% +To be successful, a woman has to be much better at her job than a man. + -- Golda Meir +% +To err is human -- but it feels divine. + -- Mae West +% +To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girl friends. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation. + -- St. Augustine +% +To our sweethearts and wives. May they never meet. + -- 19th century toast +% +Today when a man gets married he gets a home, a housekeeper, a cook, a cheering +squad and another paycheck. When a woman marries, she gets a boarder. +% +Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL. + -- Mae West +% +Trust your husband, adore your husband, and get as much as you can in your +own name. + -- Joan Rivers +% +Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of +marriage make her something like a public building. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Two sure ways to tell a REALLY sexy man; the first is, he has a bad memory. +I forget the second. +% +Until Eve arrived, this was a man's world. + -- Richard Armour +% +Valerie: Aww, Tom, you're going maudlin on me ... +Tom: I reserve the right to wax maudlin as I wane eloquent ... + -- Tom Chapin +% +Very few modern women either like or desire marriage, especially after the +ceremony has been performed. Primarily women wish attention and affection. +Matrimony is something they accept when there is no alternative. Really, +it is a waste of time, and hazardous, to marry them. It leaves one open +to a rival. Husbands, good or bad, always have rivals. Lovers, never. + -- Helen Lawrenson, "Esquire" +% +We were happily married for eight months. Unfortunately, we were married +for four and a half years. + -- Nick Faldo +% +We're all looking for a woman who can sit in a mini-skirt and talk +philosophy, executing both with confidence and style. +% +Wedding is destiny, and hanging likewise. + -- John Heywood +% +Wedding rings are the world's smallest handcuffs. +% +Well, it's hard for a mere man to believe that woman doesn't have equal rights. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower +% +What a misfortune to be a woman! And yet, the worst misfortune is not to +understand what a misfortune it is. + -- Kierkegaard, 1813-1855. +% +What do you give a man who has everything? Penicillin. + -- Jerry Lester +% + "What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty teenager +asked her mother. + "Encouragement, dear," she replied. +% +What nonsense people talk about happy marriages! A man can be happy with +any woman so long as he doesn't love her. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +What passes for woman's intuition is often nothing more than man's +transparency. + -- George Nathan +% +What publishers are looking for these days isn't radical feminism. It's +corporate feminism -- a brand of feminism designed to sell books and +magazines, three-piece suits, airline tickets, Scotch, cigarettes and, +most important, corporate America's message, which runs: Yes, women were +discriminated against in the past, but that unfortunate mistake has been +remedied; now every woman can attain wealth, prestige and power by dint +of individual rather than collective effort. + -- Susan Gordon +% +Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half +as good. Luckily this is not difficult. + -- Charlotte Whitton +% +When a girl can read the handwriting on the wall, she may be in the wrong +rest room. +% +When a girl marries she exchanges the attentions of many men for the +inattentions of one. + -- Helen Rowland +% +When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him +keep her. + -- Sacha Guitry +% +When a woman gives me a present I have always two surprises: +first is the present, and afterward, having to pay for it. + -- Donnay +% +When a woman marries again it is because she detested her first husband. +When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +When choosing between two evils, I always like to take the one I've never +tried before. + -- Mae West, "Klondike Annie" +% +When God created two sexes, he may have been overdoing it. + -- Charles Merrill Smith +% +When God saw how faulty was man He tried again and made woman. As to +why he then stopped there are two opinions. One of them is woman's. + -- DeGourmont +% +When I was a young man, I vowed never to marry until I found the ideal +woman. Well, I found her -- but alas, she was waiting for the ideal man. + -- Robert Schuman +% +When I'm good, I'm great; but when I'm bad, I'm better. + -- Mae West +% +When it comes to broken marriages most husbands will split the blame -- +half his wife's fault, and half her mother's. +% +When Marriage is Outlawed, Only Outlaws will have Inlaws. +% +When my freshman roommate at Cornell found out I was Jewish, she was, at +her request, moved to a different room. She told me she didn't think she +had ever seen a Jew before. My only response was to begin wearing a +small Star of David on a chain around my neck. I had not become a more +observing Jew; rather, discovering that the label of Jew was offensive to +others made me want to let people know who I was and what I believed in. +Similarly, after talking to these young women -- one of whom told me that +she didn't think she had ever met a feminist -- I've taken to identifying +myself as a feminist in the most unlikely of situations. + -- Susan Bolotin, "Voices From the Post-Feminist Generation" +% +When one knows women one pities men, but when one studies men, +one excuses women. + -- Horne Tooke +% +When the candles are out all women are fair. + -- Plutarch +% +When the saleman's car broke down, he walked to the nearest farmhouse to ask +if he could stay the night. The farmer agreed to put him up. "I live alone," +he continued, "you can have the bedroom at the top of the stairs, to the +right." + "Oh, never mind," the disappointed salesman said. "I think I'm in +the wrong joke." +% +When there is an old maid in the house, a watch dog is unnecessary. + -- Balzac +% +When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, +most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear +that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition +continuously until death do them part. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +When women kiss it always reminds one of prize fighters shaking hands. + -- H.L. Mencken, "Sententiae" +% +When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do +not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues. + -- Honor'e de Balzac +% +When you're bored with yourself, marry, and be bored with someone else. + -- David Pryce-Jones +% +When you're married to someone, they take you for granted ... when +you're living with someone it's fantastic ... they're so frightened +of losing you they've got to keep you satisfied all the time. + -- Nell Dunn, "Poor Cow" +% +Whenever I date a guy, I think, is this the man I want my children +to spend their weekends with? + -- Rita Rudner +% +Where's the man could ease a heart like a satin gown? + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Satin Dress" +% +Why a man would want a wife is a big mystery to some people. Why a man +would want *___two* wives is a bigamystery. +% +Why isn't there some cheap and easy way to prove how much she means to me? +% +Why won't you let me kiss you goodnight? Is it something I said? + -- Tom Ryan +% +With the end of the football season, a star player for the college team +celebrated the relaxation of team curfew by attending a late-night campus +party. Soon after arriving, he became captivated by a beautiful coed and +eased into a conversation with her by asking if she met many dates at +parties. + "Oh, I have a three point eight, so I'm much more attracted to the +strong academic types than to the dumb party animals," she said. "What's +your G.P.A.?" + Grinning ear to ear, the jock boasted, "I get about twenty-five in +the city and forty on the highway." +% +Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them. + -- Dumas +% +Woman was God's second mistake. + -- Nietzsche +% +Woman was taken out of man -- not out of his head, to rule over him; nor +out of his feet, to be trampled under by him; but out of his side, to be +equal to him -- under his arm, that he might protect her, and near his heart +that he might love her. + -- Henry +% +Woman's advice has little value, but he who won't take it is a fool. + -- Cervantes +% +Women are all alike. When they're maids they're mild as milk: once make 'em +wives, and they lean their backs against their marriage certificates, and +defy you. + -- Jerrold +% +Women are always anxious to urge bachelors to matrimony; is it from charity, +or revenge? + -- Gustave Vapereau +% +Women are just like men, only different. +% +Women are like elephants to me: I like to look at them, but I wouldn't +want to own one. + -- W.C. Fields +% +Women are not much, but they are the best other sex we have. + -- Herold +% +Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more. + -- Stephens +% +Women aren't as mere as they used to be. + -- Pogo +% +Women can keep a secret just as well as men, but it takes more of them +to do it. +% +Women complain about sex more than men. Their gripes fall into two +categories: (1) Not enough and (2) Too much. + -- Ann Landers +% +Women give themselves to God when the Devil wants nothing more to do with them. + -- Arnould +% +Women give to men the very gold of their lives. Possibly; but they +invariably want it back in such very small change. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Women in love consist of a little sighing, a little crying, a little dying +-- and a good deal of lying. + -- Ansey +% +Women reason with the heart and are much less often wrong than men who +reason with the head. + -- DeLescure +% +Women sometimes forgive a man who forces the opportunity, but never a man +who misses one. + -- Charles De Talleyrand-Perigord +% +Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us and are +always bothering us to do something for them. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Women want their men to be cops. They want you to punish them and tell +them what the limits are. The only thing that women hate worse from a man +than being slapped is when you get on your knees and say you're sorry. + -- Mort Sahl +% +Women waste men's lives and think they have indemnified them by a few +gracious words. + -- Honor'e de Balzac +% +Women who want to be equal to men lack imagination. +% +Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are +pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because +they are themselves. + -- Amiel +% +Women's virtue is man's greatest invention. + -- Cornelia Otis Skinner +% +Women, deceived by men, want to marry them; it is a kind of revenge +as good as any other. + -- Philippe De Remi +% +Women, when they are not in love, have all the cold blood of an experienced +attorney. + -- Honor'e de Balzac +% +Women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that he is a +lion with a will of iron. + -- Honor'e de Balzac +% + "You are *so* lovely." + "Yes." + "Yes! And you take a compliment, too! I like that in a goddess." +% +You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing +forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are +avenged fourteen hundred and forty times a day. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +You ask what a nice girl will do? She won't give an inch, but she won't +say no. + -- Marcus Valerius Martialis +% +You can have a dog as a friend. You can have whiskey as a friend. But +if you have a woman as a friend, you're going to wind up drunk and kissing +your dog. + -- foolin' around +% +You can never trust a woman; she may be true to you. +% +You can't kiss a girl unexpectedly -- only sooner than she thought you would. +% +You have only to mumble a few words in church to get married and few words +in your sleep to get divorced. +% +You just know when a relationship is about to end. My girlfriend called me +at work and asked me how you change a lightbulb in the bathroom. "It's very +simple," I said. "You start by filling up the bathtub with water..." +% +You know what we can be like: See a guy and think he's cute one minute, the +next minute our brains have us married with kids, the following minute we see +him having an extramarital affair. By the time someone says "I'd like you to +meet Cecil," we shout, "You're late again with the child support!" + -- Cynthia Heimel, "A Girl's Guide to Chaos" +% +You know you're getting old when you're Dad, and you're measuring your daughter +for camp clothes, and there are certain measurements only her mother is allowed +to take. +% +You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, +are now extinct. + -- M. Somerset Maugham +% +You lived with a man who wore white belts? Laura, I'm disappointed in you. + -- Remington Steele +% +You think Oedipus had a problem -- Adam was Eve's mother. +% +"You're just the sort of person I imagined marrying, when I was little... +except, y'know, not green... and without all the patches of fungus." + -- Swamp Thing +% + Young men and young women may work systematically six days in the +week and rise fresh in the morning, but let them attend modern dances for +only a few hours each evening and see what happens. The Waltz, Polka, +Gallop and other dances of the same kind will be disastrous in their effects +to both sexes. Health and vigor will vanish like the dew before the sun. + It is not the extraordinary exercise which harms the dancer, but +rather the coming into close contact with the opposite sex. It is the +fury of lust craving incessantly for more pleasure that undermines the +soul, the body, the sinews and nerves. Experience and statistics show +beyond doubt that passionate excessive dancing girls can hardly reach +twenty-five years of age and men thirty-one. Even if they reached that +age they will in most instances be broken in health physically and morally. +This is the claim of prominent physicians in this country. + -- Quote from a 1910 periodical +% +Young men want to be faithful and are not; old men want to be faithless and +cannot. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Youth had been a habit of hers so long that she could not part with it. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/miscellaneous b/fortune-mod/datfiles/miscellaneous new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0b21f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/miscellaneous @@ -0,0 +1,1759 @@ +1 bulls, 3 cows. +% +$3,000,000. +% +40 isn't old. If you're a tree. +% + A crow perched himself on a telephone wire. He was going to make a +long-distance caw. +% +A furore Normanorum libera nos, O Domine! + [From the fury of the norsemen deliver us, O Lord!] + -- Medieval prayer +% +A log may float in a river, but that does not make it a crocodile. +% +A pickup with three guys in it pulls into the lumber yard. One of the men +gets out and goes into the office. + "I need some four-by-two's," he says. + "You must mean two-by-four's" replies the clerk. + The man scratches his head. "Wait a minute," he says, "I'll go +check." + Back, after an animated conversation with the other occupants of the +truck, he reassures the clerk, that, yes, in fact, two-by-fours would be +acceptable. + "OK," says the clerk, writing it down, "how long you want 'em?" + The guy gets the blank look again. "Uh... I guess I better go +check," he says. + He goes back out to the truck, and there's another animated +conversation. The guy comes back into the office. "A long time," he says, +"we're building a house". +% +A prediction is worth twenty explanations. + -- K. Brecher +% + A reverend wanted to telephone another reverend. He told the operator, +"This is a parson to parson call." +% +A squeegee by any other name wouldn't sound as funny. +% +A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature +replaces it with. + -- Tennessee Williams +% + A young girl, Carmen Cohen, was called by her last name by her father, +and her first name by her mother. By the time she was ten, didn't know if she +was Carmen or Cohen. +% +According to my best recollection, I don't remember. + -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo +% +Adults die young. +% +African violet: Such worth is rare +Apple blossom: Preference +Bachelor's button: Celibacy +Bay leaf: I change but in death +Camelia: Reflected loveliness +Chrysanthemum, red: I love +Chrysanthemum, white: Truth +Chrysanthemum, other: Slighted love +Clover: Be mine +Crocus: Abuse not +Daffodil: Innocence +Forget-me-not: True love +Fuchsia: Fast +Gardenia: Secret, untold love +Honeysuckle: Bonds of love +Ivy: Friendship, fidelity, marriage +Jasmine: Amiablity, transports of joy, sensuality +Leaves (dead): Melancholy +Lilac: Youthful innocence +Lilly: Purity, sweetness +Lilly of the valley: Return of happiness +Magnolia: Dignity, perseverance + * An upside-down blossom reverses the meaning. +% +Age is a tyrant who forbids, at the penalty of life, all the pleasures of youth. +% +Agree with them now, it will save so much time. +% +Ah, the Tsar's bazaar's bizarre beaux-arts! +% +Ahhhhhh... the smell of cuprinol and mahogany. It excites me to... +acts of passion... acts of... ineptitude. +% +All phone calls are obscene. + -- Karen Elizabeth Gordon +% +All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. + -- Grant Wood +% +Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves. +% +AMAZING BUT TRUE ... + If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end + across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful. +% +AMAZING BUT TRUE ... + There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it + would completely cover the Sahara Desert. +% +Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it. +% +An atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways. + -- Isaac Asimov +% +... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers. +% +And I alone am returned to wag the tail. +% +Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to +exactly the point of most pressure. + -- Milt Barber +% +Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something. +% +Are we not men? +% +As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself." +% +Avec! +% +BAD CRAZINESS, MAN!!! +% +Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward from the +floor -- especially in the dark. +% +Batteries not included. +% +BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts...) +% +BE ALOOF! (There has been a recent population explosion of lerts.) +% +Before I knew the best part of my life had come, it had gone. +% +Being frustrated is disagreeable, but the real disasters in life begin +when you get what you want. +% +Believe everything you hear about the world; nothing is too impossibly bad. + -- Honor'e de Balzac +% +Biggest security gap -- an open mouth. +% +Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic. +% +Blame Saint Andreas -- it's all his fault. +% +Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as Wheels. +% +Blue paint today. + [Funny to Jack Slingwine, Guy Harris and Hal Pierson. Ed.] +% +Boy! Eucalyptus! +% +Boy, that crayon sure did hurt! +% +Bushydo -- the way of the shrub. Bonsai! +% + "But Huey, you PROMISED!" + "Tell 'em I lied." +% +But like the Good Book says... There's BIGGER DEALS to come! +% +By perseverance the snail reached the Ark. + -- Charles Spurgeon +% +CF&C stole it, fair and square. + -- Tim Hahn +% + Chapter VIII + +Due to the convergence of forces beyond his comprehension, Salvatore +Quanucci was suddenly squirted out of the universe like a watermelon +seed, and never heard from again. +% +Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. +% +Confucius say too much. + -- Recent Chinese Proverb +% +Congratulations are in order for Tom Reid. + +He says he just found out he is the winner of the 2021 Psychic of the +Year award. +% +Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why. +% +Custer committed Siouxicide. +% + +"Whatever the missing mass of the universe is, I hope it's not cockroaches!" + -- Mom +% +Death to all fanatics! +% +Depart in pieces, i.e., split. +% +Deprive a mirror of its silver and even the Czar won't see his face. +% +Did I say 2? I lied. +% +Did it ever occur to you that fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing? + +Or that we drive on parkways and park on driveways? +% +Did you hear about the model who sat on a broken bottle and cut a nice figure? +% +Did you know ... + +That no-one ever reads these things? +% +"Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a +conventional thing to happen to him." + -- John Barrymore's dying words +% +Dignity is like a flag. It flaps in a storm. + -- Roy Mengot +% +Dime is money. +% +Do not underestimate the power of the Force. +% +Do not use that foreign word "ideals". We have that excellent native +word "lies". + -- Henrik Ibsen, "The Wild Duck" +% +Do people know you have freckles everywhere? +% +Do students of Zen Buddhism do Om-work? +% + "Do you believe in intuition?" + "No, but I have a strange feeling that someday I will." +% +Do you have lysdexia? +% +Do YOU have redeeming social value? +% +Does a one-legged duck swim in a circle? +% +Don't force it, get a larger hammer. + -- Anthony +% +Don't guess -- check your security regulations. +% +Don't I know you? +% +Don't let your status become too quo! +% +Don't quit now, we might just as well lock the door and throw away the key. +% +Don't speak about Time, until you have spoken to him. +% +Don't worry -- the brontosaurus is slow, stupid, and placid. +% +Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac; you can always take something for it. +% +Double! +% +Dr. Jekyll had something to Hyde. +% +Dr. Livingston? +Dr. Livingston I. Presume? +% +Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. +% +Dreams are free, but there's a small charge for alterations. +% +Drop that pickle! +% +Drop the vase and it will become a Ming of the past. + -- The Adventurer +% +Duckies are fun! +% +Ducks? What ducks?? +% +Dungeons and Dragons is just a lot of Saxon Violence. +% + During a fight, a husband threw a bowl of Jello at his wife. She had +him arrested for carrying a congealed weapon. + In another fight, the wife decked him with a heavy glass pitcher. +She's a women who conks to stupor. +% +Dyslexia means never having to say that you're ysror. +% +Dyslexics have more fnu. +% +DYSLEXICS OF THE WORLD, UNTIE! +% +"Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun." + -- Jeff Berner +% +Editing is a rewording activity. +% +Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +Events are not affected, they develop. + -- Sri Aurobindo +% +Ever wonder why fire engines are red? + +Because newspapers are read too. +Two and Two is four. +Four and four is eight. +Eight and four is twelve. +There are twelve inches in a ruler. +Queen Mary was a ruler. +Queen Mary was a ship. +Ships sail the sea. +There are fishes in the sea. +Fishes have fins. +The Finns fought the Russians. +Russians are red. +Fire engines are always rush'n. +Therefore fire engines are red. +% +Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. +% +Every day it's the same thing -- variety. I want something different. +% +Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it. +% +Every time you manage to close the door on Reality, it comes in through the +window. +% +Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. + -- Beckett +% +Everything bows to success, even grammar. +% +Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous". +% +Everything might be different in the present if only one thing had +been different in the past. +% +Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. +% +Everything should be built top-down, except this time. +% +Everything takes longer, costs more, and is less useful. + -- Erwin Tomash +% +Everything you know is wrong! +% +Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. + -- Aldous Huxley +% +Facts, apart from their relationships, are like labels on empty bottles. + -- Sven Italla +% + "Fantasies are free." + "NO!! NO!! It's the thought police!!!!" +% +Far duller than a serpent's tooth it is to spend a quiet youth. +% +Fats Loves Madelyn. +% +Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupuncture +on a rock. + -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981 +% +Five bicycles make a volkswagen, seven make a truck. + -- Adolfo Guzman +% +Flame on! + -- Johnny Storm +% +Fly me away to the bright side of the moon ... +% +For a holy stint, a moth of the cloth gave up his woolens for lint. +% +For thee the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers. + -- Titus Lucretius Carus +% +Force it!!! +If it breaks, well, it wasn't working anyway... +No, don't force it, get a bigger hammer. +% +FORCE YOURSELF TO RELAX! +% +Forest fires cause Smokey Bears. +% +Fortune's graffito of the week (or maybe even month): + + Don't Write On Walls! + + (and underneath) + + You want I should type? +% +Fortune's Office Door Sign of the Week: + + Incorrigible punster -- Do not incorrige. +% + "Found it," the Mouse replied rather crossly: "of course you know +what 'it' means." + "I know what 'it' means well enough, when I find a thing," said the +Duck: "it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the +archbishop find?" +% +From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. +That is the point that must be reached. + -- F. Kafka +% +Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. + -- H.H. Williams +% +General notions are generally wrong. + -- Lady M.W. Montagu +% +Give me a Plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh dome, and a place +to stand, and I will drain the world. +% +GIVE UP!!!! +% +Given my druthers, I'd druther not. +% +Gloffing is a state of mine. +% +Go 'way! You're bothering me! +% +Go away, I'm all right. + -- H.G. Wells' last words. +% +Go climb a gravity well! +% +Goals... Plans... they're fantasies, they're part of a dream world... + -- Wally Shawn +% +God is Dead. + -- Nietzsche +Nietzsche is Dead. + -- God +Nietzsche is God. + -- Dead +% +God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place. +% +God isn't dead. He just doesn't want to get involved. +% +God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh. +% +God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal. + -- Samuel Butler +% +God, I ask for patience -- and I want it right now! +% +Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance. +% +Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.) +% +Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length. +% +Happy feast of the pig! +% +Hard reality has a way of cramping your style. + -- Daniel Dennett +% +Have at you! +% +Have the courage to take your own thoughts seriously, for they will shape you. + -- Albert Einstein +% + "Have you lived here all your life?" + "Oh, twice that long." +% +Have you locked your file cabinet? +% +Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a +crack in your sidewalk? +% +"He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions." +% +He who spends a storm beneath a tree, takes life with a grain of TNT. +% +Hedonist for hire... no job too easy! +% +Help a swallow land at Capistrano. +% +Help stamp out and abolish redundancy and repetition. +% +HELP! Man trapped in a human body! +% +HELP! MY TYPEWRITER IS BROKEN! + -- E. E. CUMMINGS +% +Here there be tygers. +% +"His eyes were cold. As cold as the bitter winter snow that was falling +outside. Yes, cold and therefore difficult to chew..." +% +Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..." +% +Honk if you love peace and quiet. +% +Housework can kill you if done right. + -- Erma Bombeck +% +How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all? +% +How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers? +% +How come we never talk anymore? +% +How come wrong numbers are never busy? +% +How kind of you to be willing to live someone's life for them. +% +How much of their influence on you is a result of your influence on them? +% +How untasteful can you get? +% +Huh? +% +I always wake up at the crack of ice. + -- Joe E. Lewis +% +I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater. +% +I can read your mind, and you should be ashamed of yourself. +% +I can relate to that. +% +I can resist anything but temptation. +% +I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less. +% +I despise the pleasure of pleasing people whom I despise. +% +I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem. + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% +"I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path." + -- Ronald Mabbitt +% +I don't understand you anymore. +% +I don't wish to appear overly inquisitive, but are you still alive? +% +I enjoy the time that we spend together. +% +I exist, therefore I am paid. +% +I fear explanations explanatory of things explained. +% +I feel sorry for your brain... all alone in that great big head... +% +"I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words." +% +I hate quotations. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +I hate trolls. Maybe I could metamorph it into something else -- like a +ravenous, two-headed, fire-breathing dragon. + -- Willow +% +I have a terrible headache, I was putting on toilet water and the lid fell. +% +I have become me without my consent. +% +I have more hit points that you can possible imagine. +% +I have seen the Great Pretender and he is not what he seems. +% +I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it. +% +I hear the sound that the machines make, and feel my heart break, just +for a moment. +% +I hear what you're saying but I just don't care. +% +I know it all. I just can't remember it all at once. +% +I know you think you thought you knew what you thought I said, +but I'm not sure you understood what you thought I meant. +% +I know you're in search of yourself, I just haven't seen you anywhere. +% +I live the way I type; fast, with a lot of mistakes. +% +I love treason but hate a traitor. + -- Gaius Julius Caesar +% +I never did it that way before. +% +"I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis!" + -- Royal Floyd Mengot (Klaus) +% + [I plan] to see, hear, touch, and destroy everything in my path, +including beets, rutabagas, and most random vegetables, but excluding yams, +as I am absolutely terrified of yams... + Actually, I think my fear of yams began in my early youth, when many +of my young comrades pelted me with same for singing songs of far-off lands +and deep blue seas in a language closely resembling that of the common sow. +My psychosis was further impressed into my soul as I reached adolescence, +when, while skipping through a field of yams, light-heartedly tossing flowers +into the stratosphere, a great yam-picking machine tore through the fields, +pursuing me to the edge of the great plantation, where I escaped by diving +into a great ditch filled with a mixture of water and pig manure, which may +explain my tendency to scream, "Here come the Martians! Hide the eggs!" every +time I have pork. But I digress. The fact remains that I cannot rationally +deal with yams, and pigs are terrible conversationalists. +% +I predict that today will be remembered until tomorrow! +% +I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person. +% +I saw what you did and I know who you are. +% +I smell a wumpus. +% +I thought YOU silenced the guard! +% +I understand why you're confused. You're thinking too much. + -- Carole Wallach. +% +I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure. +% +I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance. +% +I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure. +% +I want to reach your mind -- where is it currently located? +% +I will always love the false image I had of you. +% +I will make you shorter by the head. + -- Elizabeth I +% +I will never lie to you. +% +I will not forget you. +% +I wouldn't be so paranoid if you weren't all out to get me!! +% +I'd be a poorer man if I'd never seen an eagle fly. + -- John Denver + +[I saw an eagle fly once. Fortunately, I had my eagle fly swatter handy. Ed.] +% +I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. +% + "I'm dying," he croaked. + "My experiment was a success," the chemist retorted . + "You can't really train a beagle," he dogmatized. + "That's no beagle, it's a mongrel," she muttered. + "The fire is going out," he bellowed. + "Bad marksmanship," the hunter groused. + "You ought to see a psychiatrist," he reminded me. + "You snake," she rattled. + "Someone's at the door," she chimed. + "Company's coming," she guessed. + "Dawn came too soon," she mourned. + "I think I'll end it all," Sue sighed. + "I ordered chocolate, not vanilla," I screamed. + "Your embroidery is sloppy," she needled cruelly. + "Where did you get this meat?" he bridled hoarsely. + -- Gyles Brandreth, "The Joy of Lex" +% +I'm glad I was not born before tea. + -- Sidney Smith (1771-1845) +% +I'm going to raise an issue and stick it in your ear. + -- John Foreman +% +I'm not laughing with you, I'm laughing at you. +% +I'm not offering myself as an example; every life evolves by its own laws. +% +I'm not prejudiced, I hate everyone equally. +% +I'm not proud. +% +I'm not tense, just terribly, terribly alert! +% +I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday life. +% +I'm so broke I can't even pay attention. +% +I've Been Moved! +% +I've been there. +% +I've enjoyed just about as much of this as I can stand. +% +Identify your visitor. +% +Idleness is the holiday of fools. +% +"If a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far." + -- Paul White +% +If all men were brothers, would you let one marry your sister? +% +If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane. +% +If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something. +% +If God is dead, who will save the Queen? +% +If God is One, what is bad? + -- Charles Manson +% +If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive! + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +If I don't see you in the future, I'll see you in the pasture. +% +If I love you, what business is it of yours? + -- Johann van Goethe +% +If it doesn't smell yet, it's pretty fresh. + -- Dave Johnson, on dead seagulls +% +If it pours before seven, it has rained by eleven. +% +If it wasn't so warm out today, it would be cooler. +% +If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done. +% +If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. +% +If life is merely a joke, the question still remains: for whose amusement? +% +If life isn't what you wanted, have you asked for anything else? +% +If rabbits' feet are so lucky, what happened to the rabbit? +% +If the ends don't justify the means, then what does? + -- Robert Moses +% +If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something +to do with a shortage of flowers. + -- Doug Larson + + [Not to mention, butterfly would be flutterby. Ed.] +% +If the future isn't what it used to be, does that mean that the past +is subject to change in times to come? +% +If the grass is greener on other side of fence, consider what may be +fertilizing it. +% +If the meanings of "true" and "false" were switched, then this sentence +would not be false. +% +If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances +are 50-50 it will. +% +If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? + -- Art Hoppe +% +If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same? +% +If we see the light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of an +oncoming train. + -- Robert Lowell +% +If you are going to walk on thin ice, you may as well dance. +% +If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse. +% +If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one. + -- John Galsworthy +% +If you have nothing to do, don't do it here. +% +If you knew what to say next, would you say it? +% +If you know the answer to a question, don't ask. + -- Petersen Nesbit +% +If you stick your head in the sand, one thing is for sure, you're gonna +get your rear kicked. +% +If you're right 90% of the time, why quibble about the remaining 3%? +% +Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. + -- Jules de Gaultier +% +Imagine what we can imagine! + -- Arthur Rubinstein +% +Immanuel doesn't pun, he Kant. +% +Immanuel Kant but Kubla Khan. +% +In case of fire, stand in the hall and shout "Fire!" + -- The Kidner Report +% +In my end is my beginning. + -- Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots +% +In the war of wits, he's unarmed. +% +In this world, truth can wait; she's used to it. +% +Include me out. +% +Indecision is the true basis for flexibility. +% +Indifference will certainly be the downfall of mankind, but who cares? +% +Insomnia isn't anything to lose sleep over. +% +Is death legally binding? +% +Isn't air travel wonderful? Breakfast in London, dinner in New York, +luggage in Brazil. +% +It has long been known that birds will occasionally build nests in the +manes of horses. The only known solution to this problem is to sprinkle +baker's yeast in the mane, for, as we all know, yeast is yeast and nest +is nest, and never the mane shall tweet. +% +It is a lesson which all history teaches wise men, to put trust in ideas, +and not in circumstances. + -- Emerson +% +It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck? +One in a million, perhaps. +% +It is better to be bow-legged than no-legged. +% +It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark. +% +It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end. + -- Leonardo da Vinci +% +It is easier to run down a hill than up one. +% +It is the business of the future to be dangerous. + -- Hawkwind +% +It is very difficult to prophesy, especially when it pertains to the future. +% +It isn't easy being a Friday kind of person in a Monday kind of world. +% +It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out. +% +It occurred to me lately that nothing has occurred to me lately. +% +"It was a virgin forest, a place where the Hand of Man had never set foot." +% +It was one of those perfect summer days -- the sun was shining, a breeze +was blowing, the birds were singing, and the lawn mower was broken ... + --- James Dent +% +It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps +I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I +don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and +the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual +charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its +novelty. Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but +yours are kept forever -- unread. One of them will last a reasonable +man a lifetime. + -- Thomas Aldrich +% +It wasn't that she had a rose in her teeth, exactly. It was more like +the rose and the teeth were in the same glass. +% +It would save me a lot of time if you just gave up and went mad now. +% +It'll be a nice world if they ever get it finished. +% +It's a .88 magnum -- it goes through schools. + -- Danny Vermin +% +It's amazing how much better you feel once you've given up hope. +% +It's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing. +% +It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth +have both failed. + -- Kim Hubbard +% +Joe's sister puts spaghetti in her shoes! +% +Join the march to save individuality! +% +Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed. + -- Irene Peter +% +Just give Alice some pencils and she will stay busy for hours. +% +Kilroe hic erat! +% +Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic. +% +Kissing a fish is like smoking a bicycle. +% +Knocked, you weren't in. + -- Opportunity +% +Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions. + -- Henry N. Camp +% +L'hazard ne favorise que l'esprit prepare. + -- L. Pasteur +% +La-dee-dee, la-dee-dah. +% +Lake Erie died for your sins. +% +Language is a virus from another planet. + -- William Burroughs +% +Laughing at you is like drop-kicking a wounded humming bird. +% +Lemmings don't grow older, they just die. +% +Let he who takes the plunge remember to return it by Tuesday. +% +Let me put it this way: today is going to be a learning experience. +% +Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these. + -- Ovid (43 B.C. - A.D. 18) +% +Let's remind ourselves that last year's fresh idea is today's cliche. + -- Austen Briggs +% +Life -- Love It or Leave It. +% +Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge. + -- Paul Gauguin +% +Life is both difficult and time-consuming. +% +Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut. +% +Life is just a bowl of cherries, but why do I always get the pits? +% +Life is like a simile. +% +Life is like an analogy. +% +Life is not for everyone. +% +Life would be tolerable but for its amusements. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +Like winter snow on summer lawn, time past is time gone. +% +Littering is dumb. + -- Ronald Macdonald +% +Live fast, die young, and leave a flat patch of fur on the highway! + -- The Squirrels' Motto (The "Hell's Angels of Nature") +% +Look out! Behind you! +% +Look! Before our very eyes, the future is becoming the past. +% +Lookie, lookie, here comes cookie... + -- Stephen Sondheim +% +Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying "BOOGA, BOOGA!" +% +Lost interest? It's so bad I've lost apathy. +% +Love the sea? I dote upon it -- from the beach. +% +Luck can't last a lifetime, unless you die young. + -- Russell Banks +% +Madness takes its toll. +% +Man who falls in blast furnace is certain to feel overwrought. +% +Man who falls in vat of molten optical glass makes spectacle of self. +% +Man who sleep in beer keg wake up sticky. +% +Marigold: Jealousy +Mint: Virute +Orange blossom: Your purity equals your loveliness +Orchid: Beauty, magnificence +Pansy: Thoughts +Peach blossom: I am your captive +Petunia: Your presence soothes me +Poppy: Sleep +Rose, any color: Love +Rose, deep red: Bashful shame +Rose, single, pink: Simplicity +Rose, thornless, any: Early attachment +Rose, white: I am worthy of you +Rose, yellow: Decrease of love, rise of jealousy +Rosebud, white: Girlhood, and a heart ignorant of love +Rosemary: Remembrance +Sunflower: Haughtiness +Tulip, red: Declaration of love +Tulip, yellow: Hopeless love +Violet, blue: Faithfulness +Violet, white: Modesty +Zinnia: Thoughts of absent friends + * An upside-down blossom reverses the meaning. +% +May a hundred thousand midgets invade your home singing cheesy lounge-lizard +versions of songs from The Wizard of Oz. +% +May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts. +% +May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits. +% +May your camel be as swift as the wind. +% +May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a +Thousand Caramels. +% +Meester, do you vant to buy a duck? +% +Memory should be the starting point of the present. +% +Mene, mene, tekel, upharsen. +% +Metermaids eat their young. +% +Microbiology Lab: Staph Only! +% +Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images. + -- Jean Cocteau +% +Moebius strippers never show you their back side. +% +Moebius always does it on the same side. +% +Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life. +% +Most burning issues generate far more heat than light. +% +Most general statements are false, including this one. + -- Alexander Dumas +% +Mother Earth is not flat! +% +Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like. + -- Arnold Bennett +% +Mount St. Helens should have used earth control. +% +Must be getting close to town -- we're hitting more people. +% +My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my +life there. +% +My, how you've changed since I've changed. +% +'Naomi, sex at noon taxes.' I moan. +Never odd or even. +A man, a plan, a canal, Panama. +Madam, I'm Adam. +Sit on a potato pan, Otis. +Sit on Otis. + -- The Mad Palindromist +% +Never be afraid to tell the world who you are. + -- Anonymous +% +Never use "etc." -- it makes people think there is more where there is not +or that there is not space to list it all, etc. +% +Never volunteer for anything. + -- Lackland +% +New members are urgently needed in the Society for Prevention of +Cruelty to Yourself. Apply within. +% +Nietzsche is pietzsche, but Schiller is killer, and Goethe is moethe. +% +No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. + -- William Blake +% +No guts, no glory. +% +No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up. +% +No matter how much you do you never do enough. +% +No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep +awake all day. + -- Nietzsche +% +No yak too dirty; no dumpster too hollow. +% +Nobody ever died from oven crude poisoning. +% +Non-Determinism is not meant to be reasonable. + -- M.J. 0'Donnell +% +Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades. +% +Nostalgia is living life in the past lane. +% +Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. +% +Not to laugh, not to lament, not to curse, but to understand. + -- Spinoza +% +Nothing can be done in one trip. + -- Snider +% +Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up. +% +Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. + -- Michel de Montaigne +% +Nothing is so often irretrievably missed as a daily opportunity. + -- Ebner-Eschenbach +% +Nothing lasts forever. +Where do I find nothing? +% +NOTICE: + +-- THE ELEVATORS WILL BE OUT OF ORDER TODAY -- + +(The nearest working elevator is in the building across the street.) +% +Now there's a violent movie titled, "The Croquet Homicide," or "Murder +With Mallets Aforethought." + -- Shelby Friedman, WSJ. +% +Nudists are people who wear one-button suits. +% +O imitators, you slavish herd! + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +O.K., fine. +% +Odets, where is thy sting? + -- George S. Kaufman +% +Oh yeah? Well, I remember when sex was dirty and the air was clean. +% +Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes. +% +Oh, wow! Look at the moon! +% +Once I finally figured out all of life's answers, they changed the questions. +% +Onward through the fog. +% +Operator, please trace this call and tell me where I am. +% +Our houseplants have a good sense of humous. +% +Our problems are so serious that the best way to talk about them is +lightheartedly. +% +Over the years, I've developed my sense of deja vu so acutely that now +I can remember things that *have* happened before ... +% +Paranoid Club meeting this Friday. Now ... just try to find out where! +% +Pardon me while I laugh. +% +Paul Revere was a tattle-tale. +% +Peace be to this house, and all that dwell in it. +% +Phone call for chucky-pooh. +% +Piece of cake! + -- G.S. Koblas +% +Plastic... Aluminum... These are the inheritors of the Universe! +Flesh and Blood have had their day... and that day is past! + -- Green Lantern Comics +% +Please help keep the world clean: others may wish to use it. +% +Please remain calm, it's no use both of us being hysterical at the same time. +% +Predestination was doomed from the start. +% +Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future. + -- Niels Bohr +% +Preserve the old, but know the new. +% +Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too long. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Progress was all right. Only it went on too long. + -- James Thurber +% +Punning is the worst vice, and there's no vice versa. +% +Pyros of the world... IGNITE !!! +% +QED. +% +Quack! + Quack!! Quack!! +% +Question: Is it better to abide by the rules until they're changed or +help speed the change by breaking them? +% +Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened! +% +Quod erat demonstrandum. + [Thus it is proven. For those who wondered WTF QED means.] +% +Rainy days and automatic weapons always get me down. +% +Rainy days and Mondays always get me down. +% +Reality -- what a concept! + -- Robin Williams +% +Remember that there is an outside world to see and enjoy. + -- Hans Liepmann +% +Remember the... the... uhh..... +% +Remember, drive defensively! And of course, the best defense is a good offense! +% +Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get +another chance later on. +% +Ring around the collar. +% +Rubber bands have snappy endings! +% +Safety Third. +% +Sailors in ships, sail on! Even while we died, others rode out the storm. +% +Sank heaven for leetle curls. +% +Santa Claus is watching! +% +Santa's elves are just a bunch of subordinate Clauses. +% +Satire does not look pretty upon a tombstone. +% +Save the bales! +% +Save the Whales -- Harpoon a Honda. +% +Save the whales. Collect the whole set. +% +See, these two penguins walked into a bar, which was really stupid, 'cause +the second one should have seen it. +% +She has an alarm clock and a phone that don't ring -- they applaud. +% +She's genuinely bogus. +% + "Sheriff, we gotta catch Black Bart." + "Oh, yeah? What's he look like?" + "Well, he's wearin' a paper hat, a paper shirt, paper pants and +paper boots." + "What's he wanted for?" + "Rustling." +% +Shirley MacLaine died today in a freak psychic collision today. Two freaks +in a van [Oh no!! It's the Copyright Police!!] Her aura-charred body was +laid to rest after a eulogy by Jackie Collins, fellow member of SAFE [Society +of Asinine Flake Entertainers]. Excerpted from some of his more quotable +comments: + + "Truly a woman of the times. These times, those times..." + "A Renaissance woman. Why in 1432..." + "A man for all seasons. Really..." + +After the ceremony, Shirley thanked her mourners and explained how delightful +it was to "get it together" again, presumably referring to having her now dead +body join her long dead brain. +% +Sight is a faculty; seeing is an art. +% +Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves. + -- Thomas Carlyle +% +Silence is the only virtue you have left. +% +Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to work. +% +Sleep is for the weak and sickly. +% +Smear the road with a runner!! +% +Solipsists of the World... you are already united. + -- Kayvan Sylvan +% +Some changes are so slow, you don't notice them. Others are so fast, +they don't notice you. +% +Some parts of the past must be preserved, and some of the future prevented +at all costs. +% +Some people live life in the fast lane. You're in oncoming traffic. +% +Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car. + -- Evan Davis +% +Someday you'll get your big chance -- or have you already had it? +% +Someday, Weederman, we'll look back on all this and laugh... It will +probably be one of those deep, eerie ones that slowly builds to a +blood-curdling maniacal scream... but still it will be a laugh. + -- Mister Boffo +% +Somehow I reached excess without ever noticing when I was passing through +satisfaction. + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% +Somehow, the world always affects you more than you affect it. +% +Sometimes, too long is too long. + -- Joe Crowe +% +Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. + -- Carl Sagan +% +Sooner or later you must pay for your sins. +(Those who have already paid may disregard this cookie). +% +Sorry. I forget what I was going to say. +% +Sorry. Nice try. +% +Stability itself is nothing else than a more sluggish motion. +% +Stamp out philately. +% +Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down. +% +Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly. +% +Stop me, before I kill again! +% +Support the Girl Scouts! + (Today's Brownie is tomorrow's Cookie!) +% +Take it easy, we're in a hurry. +% +Take what you can use and let the rest go by. + -- Ken Kesey +% +Tempt me with a spoon! +% +Thank you for observing all safety precautions. +% +That's odd. That's very odd. Wouldn't you say that's very odd? +% +That's what she said. +% +The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech. + -- Clifton Fadiman +% +The beauty of a pun is in the "Oy!" of the beholder. +% +The best prophet of the future is the past. +% +The cart has no place where a fifth wheel could be used. + -- Herbert von Fritzlar +% +The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, +and lo! now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. + -- H.D. Thoreau +% +The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life. +% +The difference between this place and yogurt is that yogurt has a live culture. +% +The eagle may soar, but the weasel never gets sucked into a jet engine. +% +The executioner is, I hear, very expert, and my neck is very slender. + -- Anne Boleyn +% +The fact that it works is immaterial. + -- L. Ogborn +% +... the flaw that makes perfection perfect. +% +The future isn't what it used to be. (It never was.) +% +The future lies ahead. +% +The future not being born, my friend, we will abstain from baptizing it. + -- George Meredith +% +The grass is always greener on the other side of your sunglasses. +% +The groundhog is like most other prophets; it delivers its message and then +disappears. +% +The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue, a custom +whereof the memory of man runneth not howsomever to the contrary, nohow. +% +The important thing to remember about walking on eggs is not to hop. +% + "The jig's up, Elman." + "Which jig?" + -- Jeff Elman +% +The Killer Ducks are coming!!! +% +The last person who said that (God rest his soul) lived to regret it. +% +The luck that is ordained for you will be coveted by others. +% +The Martian Canals were clearly the Martian's last ditch effort! +% +The mosquito exists to keep the mighty humble. +% +The most important things, each person must do for himself. +% +The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to +cringe. +% +The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because +it isn't here. + -- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley) +% +The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness. + -- Wittgenstein. +% +The pollution's at that awkward stage. Too thick to navigate and too +thin to cultivate. + -- Doug Sneyd +% +The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go +to erase it. + -- Glaser and Way +% +The reader this message encounters not failing to understand is cursed. +% +The rose of yore is but a name, mere names are left to us. +% +The sheep died in the wool. +% +The sheep that fly over your head are soon to land. +% +The shortest distance between any two puns is a straight line. +% +The sixth sheik's sixth sheep's sick. + [so say said sentence sextuply...] +% +The sky is blue so we know where to stop mowing. + -- Judge Harold T. Stone +% +The tree in which the sap is stagnant remains fruitless. + -- Hosea Ballou +% +The whole earth is in jail and we're plotting this incredible jailbreak. + -- Wavy Gravy +% +The whole world is a scab. The point is to pick it constructively. + -- Peter Beard +% +The world really isn't any worse. It's just that the news coverage +is so much better. +% +The world wants to be deceived. + -- Sebastian Brant +% +The worst part of valor is indiscretion. +% +Then, gently touching my face, she hesitated for a moment as her incredible +eyes poured forth into mine love, joy, pain, tragedy, acceptance, and peace. +"'Bye for now," she said warmly. + -- Thea Alexander, "2150 A.D." +% +There are no rules for March. March is spring, sort of, usually, March +means maybe, but don't bet on it. +% +There are three things I always forget. Names, faces -- the third I +can't remember. + -- Italo Svevo +% +There are two kinds of pedestrians... the quick and the dead. + -- Lord Thomas Rober Dewar +% +There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know +nothing about. +% +There is a natural hootchy-kootchy to a goldfish. + -- Walt Disney +% +There is always someone worse off than yourself. +% +There is always something new out of Africa. + -- Gaius Plinius Secundus +% +There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. +% +There is nothing new except what has been forgotten. + -- Marie Antoinette +% +There seems no plan because it is all plan. + -- C.S. Lewis +% +There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get +any worse. +% +There's nothing very mysterious about you, except that +nobody really knows your origin, purpose, or destination. +% +They finally got King Midas, I hear. Gild by association. +% +They just buzzed and buzzed...buzzed. +% +Think big. Pollute the Mississippi. +% +Think honk if you're a telepath. +% +Think sideways! + -- Ed De Bono +% +This is NOT a repeat. +% +This is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. And now you know why. +% +This must be morning. I never could get the hang of mornings. +% +This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't. + -- Douglas Hofstadter +% +This sentence does in fact not have the property it claims not to have. +% +This sentence no verb. +% +Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is +irksome and three minutes is a long time. + -- A.E. Houseman +% +Three o'clock in the afternoon is always just a little too late or a little +too early for anything you want to do. + -- Jean-Paul Sartre +% +Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% +Time will end all my troubles, but I don't always approve of Time's methods. +% +Tis man's perdition to be safe, when for the truth he ought to die. +% +To generalize is to be an idiot. + -- William Blake +% +To love is good, love being difficult. +% +To see you is to sympathize. +% +"To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?" +% +Topologists are just plane folks. + Pilots are just plane folks. + Carpenters are just plane folks. + Midwest farmers are just plain folks. + Musicians are just playin' folks. + Whodunit readers are just Spillane folks. +Some Londoners are just P. Lane folks. +% +Trouble always comes at the wrong time. +% +Trouble strikes in series of threes, but when working around the house the +next job after a series of three is not the fourth job -- it's the start of +a brand new series of three. +% +True to our past we work with an inherited, observed, and accepted vision of +personal futility, and of the beauty of the world. + -- David Mamet +% +Two cars in every pot and a chicken in every garage. +% +Use a pun, go to jail. +% +Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time. + -- Pericles +% +Wanna buy a duck? +% +Wasting time is an important part of living. +% +We have ears, earther...FOUR OF THEM! +% +We have lingered long enough on the shores of the Cosmic Ocean. + -- Carl Sagan +% +We must die because we have known them. + -- Ptah-hotep, 2000 B.C. +% +We'll cross that bridge when we come back to it later. +% +Welcome to the Zoo! +% +Well thaaaaaaat's okay. +% +Well, the handwriting is on the floor. + -- Joe E. Lewis +% +Well, we'll really have a party, but we've gotta post a guard outside. + -- Eddie Cochran, "Come On Everybody" +% +What causes the mysterious death of everyone? +% +What color is a chameleon on a mirror? +% + "What did you do when the ship sank?" + "I grabbed a cake of soap and washed myself ashore." +% +What does "it" mean in the sentence "What time is it?"? +% +What excuses stand in your way? How can you eliminate them? + -- Roger von Oech +% +What happens when you cut back the jungle? It recedes. +% +What is the sound of one hand clapping? +% +What soon grows old? Gratitude. + -- Aristotle +% + "What time is it?" + "I don't know, it keeps changing." +% +What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. + -- Wittgenstein +% +What will you do if all your problems aren't solved by the time you die? +% +What you want, what you're hanging around in the world waiting for, is for +something to occur to you. + -- Robert Frost + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to AST's.] +% +What!? Me worry? + -- Alfred E. Newman +% +What's all this brouhaha? +% +What's so funny? +% +"What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?" + -- The Doctor +% +Whatever became of eternal truth? +% +When a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far! +% +When a cow laughs, does milk come out of its nose? +% +When a fly lands on the ceiling, does it do a half roll or a half loop? +% +When does later become never? +% +When eating an elephant take one bite at a time. + -- Gen. C. Abrams +% +When pleasure remains, does it remain a pleasure? +% +When the English language gets in my way, I walk over it. + -- Billy Sunday +% +When things go well, expect something to explode, erode, collapse or +just disappear. +% +When you dial a wrong number you never get a busy signal. +% +When you're down and out, lift up your voice and shout, "I'M DOWN AND OUT"! +% +When you're ready to give up the struggle, who can you surrender to? +% +When your memory goes, forget it! +% +Where am I? Who am I? Am I? I +% +Where will it all end? Probably somewhere near where it all began. +% +Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. + -- Wittgenstein +% +Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares? +% +Whip it, whip it good! +% +Who are you? +% +Who dat who say "who dat" when I say "who dat"? + -- Hattie McDaniel +% +Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot? +% +Who will take care of the world after you're gone? +% +Why are you so hard to ignore? +% +Why do seagulls live near the sea? 'Cause if they lived near the bay, +they'd be called baygulls. +% +Why does a ship carry cargo and a truck carry shipments? +% +Why is it called a funny bone when it hurts so much? +% +Why is it taking so long for her to bring out all the good in you? +% +Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet? + -- Lily Tomlin +% +Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is? +% +Why would anyone want to be called "Later"? +% +Without adventure, civilization is in full decay. + -- Alfred North Whitehead +% +Would that my hand were as swift as my tongue. + -- Alfieri +% +Would you care to drift aimlessly in my direction? +% +Would you care to view the ruins of my good intentions? +% +WRONG! +% +You auto buy now. +% +You can cage a swallow, can't you, + but you can't swallow a cage, can you? +Girl, bathing on Bikini, eyeing boy, + finds boy eyeing bikini on bathing girl. +A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama! + -- The Palindromist +% +You can get there from here, but why on earth would you want to? +% + "You've got to think about tomorrow!" + "TOMORROW! I haven't even prepared for *_________yesterday* yet!" +% +Zeus gave Leda the bird. +% +Well, I think we should get some bricks and some bats, and show him +the *true* meaning of Christmas!' + -- Bernice, "Designing Women", 12/2/91. +% +I used to have nightmares that the Grinch's dog would kidnap me and make me +dress up in a halter-top and hot pants and listen to Burl Ives records. + -- Robin, "Anything But Love", 12/18/91. +% +[ ] Safeguard this message - it is an important historical document. +[ ] Delete after reading -- Subversive Literature. +[ ] Ignore and go back to what you were doing. +% +Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? + -- Socrates' last words +% +I am tired of fighting...The old men are all dead...The little children +are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the +hills and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are...Hear +me, my Chiefs!! I am tired: my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun +now stands, I will fight no more. Chief Joseph, (Nez Perce) +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/news b/fortune-mod/datfiles/news new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a70f38 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/news @@ -0,0 +1,260 @@ +A help wanted add for a photo journalist asked the rhetorical question: + +If you found yourself in a situation where you could either save +a drowning man, or you could take a Pulitzer prize winning +photograph of him drowning, what shutter speed and setting would you use? + -- Paul Harvey +% +A Hen Brooding Kittens + A friend informs us that he saw at the Novato ranch, Marin county, +a few days since, a hen actually brooding and otherwise caring for three +kittens! The gentleman upon whose premises this strange event is transpiring +says the hen adopted the kittens when they were but a few days old, and that +she has devoted them her undivided care for several weeks past. The young +felines are now of respectable size, but they nevertheless follow the hen at +her cluckings, and are regularly brooded at night beneath her wings. + -- Sacramento Daily Union, July 2, 1861 +% + A journalist, thrilled over his dinner, asked the chef for the recipe. +Retorted the chef, "Sorry, we have the same policy as you journalists, we +never reveal our sauce." +% +A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed +on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new +game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the +pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly +along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their +heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn +around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite +direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the +paper reports "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin +colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins +fall over gently onto their backs. + -- Audobon Society Magazine +% +A New Way of Taking Pills + A physician one night in Wisconsin being disturbed by a burglar, and +having no ball or shot for his pistol, noiselessly loaded the weapon with +small, hard pills, and gave the intruder a "prescription" which he thinks +will go far towards curing the rascal of a very bad ailment. + -- Nevada Morning Transcript, January 30, 1861 +% +A newspaper is a circulating library with high blood pressure. + -- Arthure "Bugs" Baer +% +A prominent broadcaster, on a big-game safari in Africa, was taken to a +watering hole where the life of the jungle could be observed. As he +looked down from his tree platform and described the scene into his +tape recorder, he saw two gnus grazing peacefully. So preoccupied were +they that they failed to observe the approach of a pride of lions led +by two magnificent specimens, obviously the leaders. The lions charged, +killed the gnus, and dragged them into the bushes where their feasting +could not be seen. A little while later the two kings of the jungle +emerged and the radioman recorded on his tape: "Well, that's the end of +the gnus and here, once again, are the head lions." +% +"A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked +out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon." + -- Steel City News +% +A young girl once committed suicide because her mother refused her a new +bonnet. Coroner's verdict: "Death from excessive spunk." + -- Sacramento Daily Union, September 13, 1860 +% +Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +After two or three weeks of this madness, you begin to feel As One with +the man who said, "No news is good news." In twenty-eight papers, only +the rarest kind of luck will turn up more than two or three articles of +any interest... but even then the interest items are usually buried deep +around paragraph 16 on the jump (or "Cont. on ...") page... + +The Post will have a story about Muskie making a speech in Iowa. The +Star will say the same thing, and the Journal will say nothing at all. +But the Times might have enough room on the jump page to include a line +or so that says something like: "When he finished his speech, Muskie +burst into tears and seized his campaign manager by the side of the neck. +They grappled briefly, but the struggle was kicked apart by an oriental +woman who seemed to be in control." + +Now that's good journalism. Totally objective; very active and straight +to the point. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72" +% +All newspaper editorial writers ever do is come down from the hills after +the battle is over and shoot the wounded. +% +An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +"... And remember: if you don't like the news, go out and make some of +your own." + -- "Scoop" Nisker, KFOG radio reporter Preposterous Words +% +And that's the way it is... + -- Walter Cronkite +% +Earth Destroyed by Solar Flare -- film clips at eleven. +% +Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it. +% +Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for that +rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. + -- Erwin Knoll +% +FLASH! +Intelligence of mankind decreasing. +Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the .... +% +... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, +and you would not have been informed. +% +I only know what I read in the papers. + -- Will Rogers +% +I read the newspaper avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction. + -- Aneurin Bevan +% +I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens +who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known +something of what has been passing in their time. + -- H. Truman +% +If I were to walk on water, the press would say I'm only doing it +because I can't swim. + -- Bob Stanfield +% +If you lose your temper at a newspaper columnist, he'll get rich, +or famous or both. +% +In a medium in which a News Piece takes a minute and an "In-Depth" +Piece takes two minutes, the Simple will drive out the Complex. + -- Frank Mankiewicz +% +Isn't it conceivable to you that an intelligent person could harbor +two opposing ideas in his mind? + -- Adlai Stevenson, to reporters +% +Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism +in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with +the ignorance of the community. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Journalism is literature in a hurry. + -- Matthew Arnold +% +Journalism will kill you, but it will keep you alive while you're at it. +% +Most rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who +can't talk for people who can't read. + -- Frank Zappa +% +My father was a God-fearing man, but he never missed a copy of the +New York Times, either. + -- E.B. White +% +Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance. + -- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977 +% + *** NEWSFLASH *** + +Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven! +% +"No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in that kind of paper." + -- Mike Royko on the Chicago Sun-Times after it was + taken over by Rupert Murdoch +% +Of what you see in books, believe 75%. Of newspapers, believe 50%. And of +TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears a blazer. +% + Once Again From the Top + +Correction notice in the Miami Herald: "Last Sunday, The Herald erroneously +reported that original Dolphin Johnny Holmes had been an insurance salesman +in Raleigh, North Carolina, that he had won the New York lottery in 1982 and +lost the money in a land swindle, that he had been charged with vehicular +homicide, but acquitted because his mother said she drove the car, and that +he stated that the funniest thing he ever saw was Flipper spouting water on +George Wilson. Each of these items was erroneous material published +inadvertently. He was not an insurance salesman in Raleigh, did not win the +lottery, neither he nor his mother was charged or involved in any way with +vehicular homicide, and he made no comment about Flipper or George Wilson. +The Herald regrets the errors." + -- "The Progressive", March, 1987 +% +One of the signs of Napoleon's greatness is the fact that he once had a +publisher shot. + -- Siegfried Unseld +% +People who are funny and smart and return phone calls get much better +press than people who are just funny and smart. + -- Howard Simons, "The Washington Post" +% +Photographing a volcano is just about the most miserable thing you can do. + -- Robert B. Goodman + [Who has clearly never tried to use a PDP-10. Ed.] +% + Reporters like Bill Greider from the Washington Post and Him +Naughton of the New York Times, for instance, had to file long, detailed, +and relatively complex stories every day -- while my own deadline fell +every two weeks -- but neither of them ever seemed in a hurry about +getting their work done, and from time to time they would try to console +me about the terrible pressure I always seemed to be laboring under. + Any $100-an-hour psychiatrist could probably explain this problem +to me, in thirteen or fourteen sessions, but I don't have time for that. +No doubt it has something to do with a deep-seated personality defect, or +maybe a kink in whatever blood vessel leads into the pineal gland... On +the other hand, it might be something as simple & basically perverse as +whatever instinct it is that causes a jackrabbit to wait until the last +possible second to dart across the road in front of a speeding car. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" +% +The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +The American Dental Association announced today that most plaque tends +to form on teeth around 4:00 PM in the afternoon. + +Film at 11:00. +% +The most important service rendered by the press is that of educating +people to approach printed matter with distrust. +% +"The New York Times is read by the people who run the country. The +Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country. The +National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running +the country ..." + -- Robert J Woodhead +% +The only qualities for real success in journalism are ratlike cunning, a +plausible manner and a little literary ability. The capacity to steal +other people's ideas and phrases ... is also invaluable. + -- Nicolas Tomalin, "Stop the Press, I Want to Get On" +% +The world really isn't any worse. It's just that the news coverage +is so much better. +% + "Then you admit confirming not denying you ever said that?" + "NO! ... I mean Yes! WHAT?" + "I'll put `maybe.'" + -- Bloom County +% +This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. Had there been an +actual emergency, then you would no longer be here. +% +This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. If this had been an +actual emergency, do you really think we'd stick around to tell you? +% +This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life, you +would have received further instructions as to what to do and where to go. +% +Warning: Listening to WXRT on April Fools' Day is not recommended for +those who are slightly disoriented the first few hours after waking up. + -- Chicago Reader 4/22/83 +% +You know the great thing about TV? If something important happens +anywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of the day or night, +you can always change the channel. + -- Jim Ignatowski +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/Makefile b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/Makefile new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a78738 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/Makefile @@ -0,0 +1,52 @@ + +OCOOKIES_UNROTATED=drugs misandry privates sex astrology ethnic \ + miscellaneous racism songs-poems black-humor hphobia misogyny \ + religion vulgarity definitions limerick politics riddles zippy \ + cookie fortunes linux art atheism debian + +OCOOKIES_ROTATED= + +OCOOKIES=$(OCOOKIES_UNROTATED) $(OCOOKIES_ROTATED) + +STRFILE=../../util/strfile +ROT=../../util/rot + + +all: ocookies-stamp + +ocookies-stamp: rotated-stamp + rm -f *.dat + for i in $(OCOOKIES) ; do $(STRFILE) -x $$i || exit $$? ; done + touch ocookies-stamp + +rotated-stamp: recoded-stamp + for i in $(OCOOKIES_UNROTATED) ; \ + do $(ROT) < unrotated/$$i > $$i || exit $$? ; ln -s $$i $$i.u8; done + touch rotated-stamp + +recoded-stamp: + for i in $(OCOOKIES_UNROTATED) ; \ + do \ + if [ ! -f unrotated/$$i.old ]; then \ + cp unrotated/$$i unrotated/$$i.old ; \ + fi; \ + recode latin1..u8 unrotated/$$i; \ + done + touch recoded-stamp + +install: + install -m 0755 -d $(OCOOKIEDIR) + for i in $(OCOOKIES) ; \ + do install -m 0644 $$i $$i.dat $(OCOOKIEDIR) || exit $$? ; \ + cp -d $$i.u8 $(OCOOKIEDIR) ; \ + done + +clean: + rm -f ocookies-stamp rotated-stamp recoded-stamp *.dat $(OCOOKIES_UNROTATED) + rm -f *u8 + for i in $(OCOOKIES_UNROTATED) ; do \ + if [ -f unrotated/$$i.old ] ; then \ + mv unrotated/$$i.old unrotated/$$i; \ + fi; \ + done + diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/art b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/art new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cfa9ea0 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/art @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +X-rated movies are all alike ... the only thing they leave to the +imagination is the plot. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/astrology b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/astrology new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c337f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/astrology @@ -0,0 +1,289 @@ +AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 - Feb. 18) + A friend will step forward and confide in you about your breath. Rely + on your outgoing personality and winning smile to get you into a lot + of trouble. Be relaxed, things will change. Look for a pink slip on + payday. Stop wetting your bed. +% +AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 - Feb. 18) + You are the type of person who never has enough money to do what + you want. Don't expect things to get any better today, either. + As a matter of fact they might get worse. Intensify your + relationship with your bank and any friends you have who might be + able to lend you a few bucks. +% +AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 - Feb. 18) + You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. + You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be + careless and impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over + and over again. People think you are stupid. +% +ARIES (Mar. 21 - Apr. 19) + Be cheerful today. People who don't like you will outnumber those + who do. You have warts. Focus on domestic status, financial matters, + and venereal disease. Look for involvement with Libra or Aquarius + natives; probably a fistfight with one of each. +% +ARIES (Mar. 21 - Apr. 19) + You are a wonderfully interesting, honest, hard-working person + and you should make many new friends, but you won't because you've + got a mean streak in you a mile wide. +% +ARIES (Mar. 21 - Apr. 19) + You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You + are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are + not very nice. +% +Astrology... just a bunch of Taurus. +% +CANCER (June 21 - July 22) + This is a good time for those of you who are rich and happy, + but a poor time for those of you born under this sign who are + poor and unhappy. To tell you the truth, any day is tough + when you're poor and unhappy. +% +CANCER (June 21 - July 22) + You are sympathetic and understanding to other people's problems. + They think you are a sucker. You are always putting things off. + That's why you'll never make anything of yourself. Most welfare + recipients are Cancer people. +% +CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 - Jan. 19) + Follow your instincts. You are much too scatterbrained to do anything + else, such as think. Romance is in the air, but not for you, so forget + it. That pimple on the end of your nose will get worse. +% +CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 - Jan. 19) + Play your hunches. This is a day when luck will play an important + part in your life. If you were smarter, you wouldn't need so much + luck and you wouldn't be reading your horoscope, either. You are + a suspicious person, and it will occur to you that astrologers + don't know what they're talking about any more than your Aunt Martha. +% +CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 - Jan. 19) + You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do + much of anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn + of any importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for + too long as they tend to take root and become trees. +% +GEMINI (May 21 - June 20) + A day to take the initiative. Put the garbage out, for + instance, and pick up the stuff at the dry cleaners. Watch + the mail carefully, although there won't be anything good + in it today, either. +% +GEMINI (May 21 - June 20) + Good news and bad news highlighted. Enjoy the good news while you + can; the bad news will make you forget it. You will enjoy praise + and respect from those around you; everybody loves a sucker. A short + trip is in the stars, possibly to the men's room. +% +GEMINI (May 21 - June 20) + You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you because + you are bisexual. However, you are inclined to expect too much + for too little. This means you are cheap. Geminis are known for + committing incest. +% +I do not take drugs -- I am drugs. + -- Salvador Dali +% +LEO (Jul. 23 - Aug. 22) + You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are pushy. + Most Leo people are bullies. You are vain and dislike honest + criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people are thieves. +% +LEO (Jul. 23 - Aug. 22) + Your determination and sense of humor will come to the fore. Your + ability to laugh at adversity will be a blessing because you've got + a day coming you wouldn't believe. As a matter of fact, if you can + laugh at what happens to you today, you've got a sick sense of humor. +% +LEO (Jul. 23 - Aug. 22) + Your presence, poise, charm and good looks won't even help you today. + Look over your shoulder; an ugly person may be following you. Be on + your toes. Brush your teeth. Take Geritol. +% +LIBRA (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22) + Major achievements, new friends, and a previously unexplored way + to make a lot of money will come to a lot of people today, but + unfortunately you won't be one of them. Consider not getting out + of bed today. +% +LIBRA (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22) + You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with reality. + If you are a man, you are more than likely gay. Chances for + employment and monetary gains are excellent. Most Libra women + are prostitutes. All Libra people die of venereal disease. +% +LIBRA (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22) + Your desire for justice and truth will be overshadowed by your + desire for filthy lucre and a decent meal. Be gracious and + polite. Someone is watching you, so stop staring like that. +% +PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20) + Take the high road, look for the good things, carry the American + Express card and a weapon. The world is yours today, as nobody + else wants it. Your mortgage will be foreclosed. You will probably + get run over by a bus. +% +PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20) + You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being followed + by the CIA or FBI. You have minor influence over your associates + and people resent your flaunting of your power. You lack confidence + and you are generally a coward. Pisces people do terrible things to + small animals. +% +PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20) + You will get some very interesting news of a promotion today. It + will go to someone in the office you dislike and will be the job + you wanted. Don't lend anyone a car today. You don't have a car. +% +SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21) + Move slowly today, be deliberate. Indications are for bleeding + ulcers. Drink milk. Try not to be your usual offensive and + obnoxious self. Call your mother. +% +SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21) + You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless + tendency to rely on luck since you lack talent. The majority + of Sagittarians are drunks or dope fiends or both. People + laugh at you a great deal. +% +SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21) + Your efforts to help a little old lady cross a street will + backfire when you learn that she was waiting for a bus. Subdue + impulse you have to push her out into traffic. +% +SCORPIO (Oct. 23 - Nov 21.) + You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You will + achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of + ethics. Most Scorpio people are murdered. +% +SCORPIO (Oct. 23 - Nov. 21) + Friends abound today, seeking repayment of past loans. Smile. Check + for concealed weapons. Your natural cheerfulness makes others want + to throw up. Knock it off. +% +SCORPIO (Oct. 23 - Nov. 21) + You will receive word today that you are eligible to win a million + dollars in prizes. It will be from a magazine trying to get you to + subscribe, and you're just dumb enough to think you've got a chance + to win. You never learn. +% +TAURUS (Apr. 20 - May 20) + Let your self-confidence and determination shine, and people will + find you boorish and headstrong. Travel, promotion, and romance + highlighted, if you live long enough. Don't take any wooden nickels. +% +TAURUS (Apr. 20 - May 20) + Take advantage of this opportunity to get a little extra sleep, + because you're going to miss the bus again today anyway. You will + decide to lose weight today, just like yesterday. +% +TAURUS (Apr. 20 - May 20) + You are practical and persistent. You have a dogged determination + and work like hell. Most people think you are stubborn and bull + headed. You are a Communist. +% +Those who believe in astrology are living in houses with foundations of +Silly Putty. + -- Dennis Rawlins +% +VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sep. 22) + Get it in writing. Be careful. You are surrounded by lechers and + assholes; birds of a feather flock together. Trust no one. People + will not be offended, because they've come to recognize you for the + paranoid neurotic that you are. Your dentures are loose. +% +VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sept. 22) + Learn something new today, like how to spell or how to count + to ten without using your fingers. Be careful dressing this + morning. You may be hit by a car later in the day and you + wouldn't want to be taken to the doctor's office in some of + that old underwear you own. +% +VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sept. 22) + You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nitpicking is + sickening to your friends. You are cold and unemotional and + sometimes fall asleep while making love. Virgos make good bus + drivers. +% +YOUR FOAMY FUTURE + by Miss Fortune + +AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 - Feb. 18) + You have nothing better to think about than what to wear and what + type of champagne to take to the neighbors Halloween Party. Just take + beer! Don't try to copy the "Joneses", pull them up to your level and + remember, in California Hoalloween is redundant anyhow. + +PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20) + Focus on strengthening friendships this Fall. You find others are + fascinated by your intelligence, your wit, your drinking ability, and + your bank account. Just make sure you realize it's far more impressive + when other discover your good qualities without your help. +% +YOUR FOAMY FUTURE + by Miss Fortune + +ARIES (Mar. 21 - Apr. 19) + Matters are not good, where you health is concerned. This Fall, be + sure to "walk groundly, talk profoundly, drink roundly, and sleep + soundly" and you will live all the days of your life. + +TAURUS (Apr. 20 - May 20) + You spent a fortune on beer this past summer and now find yourself + in a deep depression because you can't afford even one of your favorite + brewskis. Don't fret too much, Taurus. To get back on your feet + simply miss two car payments. + +GEMINI (May 21 - June 21) + You think you're falling in love with a person who has a lot in + common with yourself. You both prefer ales, you've both tried your + hand at homebrewing, and you both want to visit every new brewpub that + opens. Sounds impressive but remember you really don't know your + partner until you meet in court. +% +YOUR FOAMY FUTURE + by Miss Fortune + +CANCER (June 22 - July 22) + You've been awarded a clean bill of health this month and you feel you + owe it all to the excessive amount of Vitamin B, Iron, and Malt you get + in your beer. Being healthy is admirable but don't you think you're + going to feel stupid one day lying in a hospital dying of nothing? + +LEO (July 23 - Aug. 22) + You will soon acquire a large sum of money and will be in seventh + heaven as you head to the nearest Liquor Barn and buy all the beer they + have in stock. Whoever said money couldn't buy happiness didn't know + where to shop. + +VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sept. 22) + Your late night, beer drinking, "life in the fast lane" parties are + affecting your job production the next morning. You feel a nine to + five job is not for a "party animal" such as yourself and may feel + the need for a career change. Just remember, people who work sitting + down get paid more than people who work standing up. +% +YOUR FOAMY FUTURE + by Miss Fortune + +SCORPIO (Oct. 24 - Nov. 21) + "Hard work never killed anybody, but why take the chance?" is your + motto. You don't do much other than sleep, eat, down brewskis, and + watch TV. Your friends and family are constantly pestering you to + clean up your act. But it's OK, Scorpio. A kick in the ass is at + least one step forward. + +SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21) + You've been on a diet for two weeks and all you've lost is two weeks. + My advice is to drink copius amounts of beer just to get the thought + of food out of your mind. Remember, a good reducing exercise consists + of placing both hands against the table edge and pushing back. + +CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 - Jan. 19) + Remember that day you had one beer too many and did something + extremely foolish? Now your friends are coming and going and your + enemies accumulating. Cheer up! All is not lost. It's better to + be hated for what you are than loved for what you're not. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/atheism b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/atheism new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c958df5 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/atheism @@ -0,0 +1,14255 @@ + I don't care if it rains or freezes + Long as I have my plastic Jesus + Riding on the dashboard of my car + Through my trials and tribulations + And my travels through the nations + With my plastic Jesus I'll go far + + Plastic Jesus, plastic Jesus + Riding on the dashboard of my car + I'm afraid he'll have to go + His magnets ruin my radio + And if I have a wreck He'll leave a scar + + Riding down a thoroughfare + With his nose up in the air + A wreck may be ahead but he don't mind + Trouble coming He don't see + He just keeps his eye on me + And any other thing that lies behind + + Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus + Riding on the dashboard of my car + Though the sunshine on His back + Make Him peel, chip and crack + A little patching keeps Him up to par + + When pedestrians try to cross + I let them know who's boss + I never blow the horn or give them warning + I ride all over town + trying to run them down + And it's seldom that they live to see the morning + + Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus + Riding on the dashboard of my car + His halo fits just right + And I use it for a sight + And they'll scatter or they'll splatter near and far + + When I'm in a traffic jam + He don't care if I say "damn" + I can let all sorts of curses roll + Plastic Jesus doesn't hear + For he has a plastic ear + The man who invented plastic saved my soul + + Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus + Riding on the dashboard of my car + Once His robe was snowy white + Now it isn't quite bright + Stained by the smoke of my cigar + + If I weave around at night + And the police think I'm tight + They'll never find my bottle though they ask + Plastic Jesus shelters me + For his head comes off you see + He's hollow and I use Him for a flask + + Plastic Jesus, Plastic Jesus + Riding on the dashboard of my car + Ride with me and have a dram + Of the blood of the Lamb + Plastic Jesus is a holy bar. + + ["Plastic Jesus", circa 1969, sign-on + song of disk jockey Don Imis] +% +I don't care if it rains or freezes +Long as I've got my plastic jesus +Sitting on the dashboard of my car +Comes in colors pink and pleasant +Glows in the dark cause it's iridescent +Take it with you when you travel far. + +Get yourself a sweet madonna +Dressed in rhinestones sitting on a +Pedestal of abalone shell +Going ninety I aint scary +Cause I've got the virgin mary +Telling me that I won't go to hell. + [Paul Newman, in "Cool Hand Luke"] +% +Frisbeetarianism, n.: + + The belief that when you die, your soul goes up + on the roof and gets stuck. +%% +God is real, unless declared integer. +% +God is love +Love is blind +Ray Charles is blind +Therefore, Ray Charles is God +% +Hindu speaking to a "Born again" christian: +"Of course I am born again. And again and again and again." +% + A preacher's wife proofread his Sunday sermon and wrote next + to one paragraph: "Weak point--shout loud". +% +If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions? +% +Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that +each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice. +% +"Never join a religion that has a water slide." +% +"...but when you come to Heritage USA, remember to bring your Bible + and your VISA card - because the Bible is the Holy Truth, and God + doesn't take American Express." +% +At a recent PTL convention, the hotel reported that over 80% of the +conventionites watched at least one x-rated movie on the hotel's ppv cable... +% +"There are no saints, only unrecognized villains." +% +"For god so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, + that whosoever would believe in him would believe in anything." +% +"I don't mind those who are born again, just as long as + they don't think that they get twice as many rights." +% + And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?" + +They replied,"You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of +our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very +selfhood revealed." + + And Jesus replied, "What?" +% +"The only difference between God and Adolf Hitler + is that God is more proficient at genocide." +% + : #... + : # + :#####: + # : + # : + ...# : +% +"Jesus died to take our wibbles away, + so now we can go to zonk." +% +Humanity's first sin was faith; the first virtue was doubt. +% +Why be born again, when you can just grow up? +% +What a f iend we have in Jesus! +% +Blasphemy is a blast for me. +% +If you ask the wrong questions you +get answers like '42' or 'God'. +% +Keep Christ out of Christmas +% +Any belief worth having must survive doubt. +% +Traveller: God has been mighty good to your fields, Mr. Farmer. +Farmer: You should have seen how he treated them when I wasn't around. +% +Explaining the unknown by means of the unobservable +is always a perilous business. +% +It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature +and affect to despise it are among its worst and least pleasant examples. +% +Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. +You may both be wrong. +% +"I think I'll believe in Gosh instead of God. If you don't + believe in Gosh too, you'll be darned to heck." +% + + B + R + DEATH + I + N + ! + +% +Jesus -- The other white meat! +% +I love Jesus, Yes I do. Baked or broiled or in a stew... +% +Bend over for the rod and staff of Jesus! +% +The Pope has just declared that Jesus is now +an infinitly long tube of white paste. +% +Obey Psalms 137:9! +% +Jesus is coming! Wear your rubbers! +% +The only mortals who ever entered Barad-dur and came back unharmed in body and +soul were a pair of Iluvatar's Witnesses. Only days after their visit Sauron +realized that the "Minas Tirith" he had bought from them was only a pamphlet. +% +Jesus was adopted. +% +Trinity -- a three for one sale on deities +% +Surgeon General's Warning: Quitting Religion Now +Greatly Increases the Chances of World Peace. +% +Jesus rose from the dead and the apostles +came unto him saying "How's Elvis?" +% +If "he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword" holds true, then +jesus the carpenter met his end properly. After all, he was nailed to a +piece of wood, wasn't he? +% +Losing your faith is a lot like losing your virginity +you don't realise how irritating it was 'til it's gone. +% +Waco, Pensacola, The World Trade Center, Hebron, The Spanish +Inquisition, "Eat my flesh, and drink my blood" . . . + + Don't the Religiously-Correct just wanna' kill ya'? +% +Archeologists near mount Sinai have discovered what is believed to +be a missing page from the Bible and is believed to read 'To my +darling Candy. All characters portrayed within this book are fictitous +and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental'. +% +They found Noah's ark, but there was a sign on it: +'Made in Hong Kong' " +% +Jesus is real! I saw him at a party last week, he was +playing quarters with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny +% +Religious reasons do not excuse violence: they accuse religion. +% +Evolution is both fact and theory. +Creationism is neither. +% + Power corrupts; +Absolute power corrupts absolutely; + God is all-powerful. + Draw your own conclusions +% +Atheism makes sense for America +% +Theists think all gods but theirs are false. +Atheists simply don't make an exception for the last one. +% +I went to church to confess my sins to God +And then I realized there was no God and I had no sins. +% +Jesus Christ: Imaginary Playmate to Millions of Adults! +% +It seems odd that those who scoff at sun worshippers +are apt to worship a vacuum. +% +Organized religion is responsible for the brainwashing of millions of +young children too young to know the difference between reality and the +fantasies of millions. + Save Yourself. Drop Christianity. +% +FAITH - + An attitude fostered by individuals in high places in + order to ensure the subservience of those in their charge. +% +A zealot's stones will break my bones, but gods will never hurt me. +% +Nine out of ten priests who have tried Camels, prefer young boys. +% +Autumn wind: Where there are humans +gods, Buddha-- you'll find flies, +lies, lies, lies and Buddhas. + --Shiki --Issa +% +nullifidian n. & a. (Person) having no religious faith or belief, +f. med. L nullifidius fr L nullus none + fides faith; see IAN +% +freethinker n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of +reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. +% +On the sixth day God created man +On the seventh day, man returned the favor. +% +A society without religion is like a crazed psychopath without a loaded .45 +% +Fundamentalism means never having to say "I'm wrong." +% +Christianity: The understanding that "God" is the name we give to the +answer (which we do not know) to the question, "Why is there anything at +all?" - and that Christ is the self-expression of God; the view that - +against the appearances - we are loved in the universe. +% +"Faith is to the human what sand is to the ostrich" +% +"Try new Post Jesus (tm) breakfast cereal! Chock full of bland, +tasteless little bread wafers made from 100% Jesus for that +full-body of Christ taste. Goes great with a little red wine." +% +Wouldn't it be funny if Elvis came back instead of Jesus? +% +Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; +Give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish +% +May theists be shaved with Ockham's Razor! +% +Two hands working do more than a thousand clasped in prayer +% +Why does the Vatican have lightning rods? +% +Some have for fundies then evangelists passed +Turned preachers next and proved plain fools at last. +% + ___/|__ _ + \ \_/ / Have you forgotten about Jesus? + < >LOGIC _ < Isn't it about time you did? + /_____/ \_\ +% +If Jesus loves me, why doesn't he ever send me flowers? +% + It's your god. + They're your rules. + *You* go to hell. +% +I once believed in god. I got better. +% +Faith - the ability to believe the ridiculous for the sublime. +% +The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." +The Wise Man Says it to the World. +% +Christ died for my sins, descended into Hell, and rose again + On the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures... + And all I got was this lousy t-shirt. +% +If a member of McDonalds' staff was God: +"OK, one Universe. Uh, you want fries with that?" +% +Bumper sticker seen: + Geez if you believe in Honkus. +% + ********************************************************** + * WARNING: To prevent the risk of insanity, do not * + * open the bible's cover. No user understandable * + * material inside. Please refer counseling to * + * qualified mental health personnel. * + ********************************************************** +% +Garbage In -- Gospel Out +% +A clash of doctrine is not a disaster - it is an opportunity. +% +Every absurdity has a champion to defend it. +% +Vique's Law: + A man without a religion is like a fish without a bicycle. +% +Man created God in his own image. +% +God did not create the world in 7 days. +He screwed around for 6 days and then pulled an all-nighter. +% +Jesus loves the Ku Klux Klanners, +Jesus loves the KKK, +Pointy hats and flowing robes, +Burning crosses, homophobes! +Jesus loves the Klanners of the world! +% +Moses: the self-proclaimed meekest of all men even though he allegedly +spoke face to face with God and gave us the so-called Ten Commandments +(though they aren't really ten in number); the man who wrote (or +edited) the account of his own death and burial; the man who -- +according to himself -- was God's spokesperson in the same way that +Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, -- and a parcel of others -- +claim to speak for God. +% +In Ottawa the xians put up an "abortion stills a beating heart" +poster outside the local abortion clinic. Someone wrote over it: +"A christian with a gun stills a beating heart." +% +"Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe + something your intellect would otherwise cause + you to reject -- otherwise there's no need for faith." +% +A slippery day in the Bible: +When Balam went through +Jerusalem on his ass. +% +Theology: The study of elaborate verbal disguises for non-ideas. +% +God: The Immutable Chameleon; whenever the need is felt by one of his + followers, He obligingly recreates himself to suit the occasion. +% +The mind of the fundamentalist is like the pupil of the eye: +the more light you pour on it, the more it will contract. +% +Q: Jesus was renowned for his ability to heal. What was the + one affliction that proved to malignant for his cure? +A: Christianity +% +Jesus loves you all, and can't wait to +control you like a small household pet +% +Religion is the work of the Devil +% +Never make a god of your religion +% +You Go Yahweh - and I'll go Mine! +% +God hated the world so much that he sent his only +son so that whoever does not believe in him will +perish and be denied eternal life. +% +Christianity is not a religion; it's an industry. +% +=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= +Goofy and Mickey are going to burn in eternal +Hellfire for sharing an insurance policy!. Details +this Sunday at you local Southern Baptist Church. +Witch burning and pot luck supper to follow the services. +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= +% +"Belief in heaven is very difficult without + a greedy desire for it: All scams need a hook." +% +"Humanity sees its reflection in the mirrors that surround it, + and thus gratified, calls this image perfect, good, merciful, + omniscient, omnipresent, holy, just, and above all, love. So + enchanted are these hairless apes with this, that they invent + a special word for it: 'God'." +% +I have to go take a christian. I need to find some apostle to wipe +my god with, first. I hope I don't get any jesus on my fingers. +% +All jesus could do was turn water into wine. +Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers - could JC do that? +% + _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ +|_____|_____|_____| Let Us Keep a _|_____|_____|_____| +|__|_____|_____|__ Wall of Separation _|_____|_____|__| +|_____|_____|_____|____ Between ____|_____|_____|_____| +|__|_____|_____|___ Church and State __|_____|_____|__| +|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____| +|__|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|__| +% +The scientist yearns to find and eventually know the truth; +The religious man wants the truth to fit his preconceived mold. +So, as a result... +The scientist alters his perception to conform to the facts; +The religious man tries to change the facts to conform to his beliefs. +% +INRI: Idiots Need Reassuring Ideologies +% +Religions are what dreams are made of. +% +All Gods were immortal. +% +For many, faith is a suitable substitute for +knowledge, as death is for a difficult life. +% +In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in the +instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible +one. In that case we believe the former as part of the latter. +% +Christian humility is preached by the clergy, +but practiced only by the lower classes. +% +The Christian lives in a nightmare and thinks it is a pleasant dream. +% +Whatever we cannot easily understand we call God: +this saves much wear and tear on the brain tissues. +% +Reason is, of all things in the world, the most hurtful to a reasoning +human being. God only allows it to remain with those he intends to +damn, and his goodness takes it away from those he intends to save or +render useful in the Church . . . If reason had any part in religion, +what then would become of faith? +% +To the philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy +are far less dangerous than their virtues. +% +The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next. +% +It's a happy bishop who hasn't got a saint in his diocese. +% +It is no accident that the symbol of a bishop is a crook, +and the sign of an archbishop is a double-cross. +% +Consider the ignorance of the average fundamentalist. Then realize that +by definition fully half of them must be even dumber than that. +% + +SUNDAY SERMON + +A technician, wrapped in a stiff, white smock, + takes an albino rat from the big crate + delivered just that morning, puts it in + the God Model Box, leaves and locks the room. +The box, with random corners and angles, + is monitored by a ceiling mounted + video camera. +A switch mounted in one corner is well + protected by spring wire traps, barriers + and rat repellent. +The switch delivers an electric shock + when touched by the rat. +The experiment lasts 24 hours + or so, depending on the whim and will + of the technician. +If during that time, the rat sits on the + switch for thirty or forty seconds, + the technician will set it free in the + field behind the fence. +Otherwise, he will restrain the rat in + a vice and slowly pull off its tail and + its legs, one by one, then skin it and leave + it to die + slowly. + +Little is learned in this experiment + either by the rat or the technician + who is not at all surprised that none of + rats ever perform the required task. +But the technician does get to skin a + lot of rats, and he likes to hear them squeal. + +% +JESUS IS COMING! +Are you going to spit or swallow? +% +"We preach peace, forgiveness, tolerance and love. We practice vengeance, + persecution, hatred and domination. My personal beliefs are supported and + validated by my convictions. + Oh, and never forget .... my religion is truth, yours is a lie." + [Religion, paraphrased (unknown)] +% +JWs: "If we were to tell you that there is an army of angels waiting + in Heaven, and on the Day of Judgement they will be unleashed upon + the world to slay all the unbelievers, what would your response be?" +Response: "Pre-emptive nuclear strike." +% +The Religious Right aren't, and Scientific Creationism isn't. +% +There is no God but our God +The humble Christians say. +There is no God but our God. +To Him alone we pray. + +What of the others by the score, +Gods just as great and mighty. +Of Allah, Odin, Jove and Thor, +Venus and Aphrodite. + +If to the one alone we pray, +And He is just a faker (fakir?), +There surely will be Hell to pay +When we meet our maker. + +So, good Christians take my advice. +Don't be so egotistic. +And on occasion in your prayers +Address some other mystic. + +Remember there have been a score, +A hundred, thousands, maybe more. +To say there is but one God +Might make the others sore. + +Good Christians believe in one God. +Myself, I must confess, +Am not so very different. +I believe in just one less. +% +"If the Bible proves that God exists then + comic books prove the existence of Superman." + [Seen on the #Atheism IRC] +% +A Humanist or an Athiest can't tell you to +go to hell but a Christian can and will. +% +Out of convicted rapists, 57% admitted to reading +pornography. 95% admitted to reading the Bible. +% +You'll never find a dead Christian +in a foxhole who didn't pray. +% +The Holy Father is neither +% +If the baby goes to heaven +And the doctor goes to hell +If the woman gets forgiveness +What's the problem pray tell!? +% +Read the Buy-Bull +% +Although it is said that faith can move mountains, +experience has shown that dynamite works better. +% +> + L L +% +Religion is to rationality as bullshit is to horsepower. +% +The greater your ignorance, the more evidence +you have for the existence of God! +% + __________ + / _______ \ + / \ \ _ \ \ + | / \ \ | | | + | | _\ \|__ | | + | ||__\ \__|| | + | | |\ \ | | + | | | \ \ | | + | | | |\ \| | + | | |_| \ \ | + \ \_______\ / + \__________/ + +% +"Mysticism is a disease of the mind." +% +"As long as Baptists can stagger to the polls, there + will never be liquor by the drink in this town." +% +"If God had wanted us to make sense, + He would have existed." +% +Several thousand years ago, a small tribe of ignorant near-savages wrote +various collections of myths, wild tales, lies, and gibberish. Over the +centuries, these stories were embroidered, garbled, mutilated, and torn +into small pieces that were then repeatedly shuffled. Finally, this material +was badly translated into several languages successively. The resultant text, +creationists feel, is the best guide to this complex and technical subject. +% + The last time we mixed + religion and government +people were burned at the stake. + -- bumper sticker +% +Find God? Why, is God missing? +% +Freedom is the Distance Between Church and State +% +To Hell With the Baptists, I'm Going to Disney Land +% +Focus on Your Own Damn Family +% +Wise Men Still Seek Him...Apparently, He's lost. +% +Jesus Loves Me, Yes I Know / +For the Voices Tell Me So. +% +When The Religious Right Takes Over, We'll All Live In Iran +% +Welcome to Burger God: Have it YAHWEH! +% +Want to know what happens after death? +Go look at some dead things. +% +Public prayer...Don't Stand for it! +% +A mystic is someone who wants to understand +the universe, but is too lazy to study physics +% +I am a demo religious meme which has been replicated here. +You will be blessed if you copy me and pass me on to infect +the next mind. And damned if you don't. +% +Jesus - Myth or Legend? +% +Re: God... +1) The emperor has no clothes. +2) There is no emperor. +% +Christians believe that the most wonderful thing that can happen to them +is to go to Heaven, but few of them are in a hurry to make the trip. +% +Religion is a major weapon in the war against reality. +% +Help preserve your child's belief in Santa Claus. Tell him or her +that Santa will send them to hell if they don't believe in him. +% +There are none more ignorant and useless, +than they that seek answers on their knees, +with their eyes closed. +% +God inspires men to preach what sounds like bullshit. +Men who preach the bullshit admit it sounds like bullshit. +God punishes those who hear the bullshit and characterize it as +bullshit. If God has a problem with that, it's His own damn fault. +% +"If, as they say, God spanked this town + For being much too frisky, + Why did He burn His churches down + And save Hotaling's Whiskey?" + [Poem on 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, in which + the city's largest whiskey distillery was left unscathed] +% +"If god doesn't like the way I live, + Let him tell me, not you." + [As seen on a button] +% +Person 1: Solomon had many horses, he had many wives; he did + exactly the opposite of what the bible says... +Person 2: He was the wisest of men..." + [transcript of actual talk show] +% +God wanted to have a holiday, so He asked St. Peter for suggestions on +where to go. + "Why not go to Jupiter?" asked St. Peter. + "No, too much gravity, too much stomping around," said God. + "Well, how about Mercury?" + "No, it's too hot there." + "Okay," said St. Peter, "What about Earth?" + "No," said God, "They're such horrible gossips. When I was +there 2000 years ago, I had an affair with a Jewish woman, and they're +still talking about it." +% +Christianity: Safer than a lobotomy, but just as effective. +% +Once purged of the insanity, plagiarisms, illegalities, +contradictions, and the perverse, the Bible could be +printed on match book covers while increasing it's usefulness. +% +A metaphysician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat +that isn't there, and a theologian is one who finds the cat. +% +The Christians have fathers who aren't fathers, mothers who aren't mothers, +brothers who aren't brothers, and sisters who aren't sisters, they swear +off sex, and then try to explain "family values" to the rest of us. +% +Atheism and truth, 2 words 1 meaning. +% +Cogito, ergo non credo. +% +Exploring the universe through meditation is like +studying human relationships through masturbation. +% +A god's primary function is to confirm for us deeply held beliefs that +we can't let go of, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. When +you are totally and absolutely convinced of something fundamentally +unreasonable, it helps to believe you have divine guidance. +% +At one point in time, many of us actually had Jesus as +our personal lord and saviour. Unfortunately, we later +had to dismiss him for incompetence, gross negligence, +misconduct and consistent failure to show up for work. +% +The Fundamentalist +== Knows no greater joy than the sound of his own voice. +== Knows no greater terror than the god he creates in his own image. +== Knows no greater evil than an unfettered mind. +== Knows no greater blasphemy than being told "NO." +% +religion is a socio-political institution for the control +of people's thoughts, lives, and actions; based on +ancient myths and superstitions perpetrated through +generations of subtle yet pervasive brainwashing." +% +"Probably get his dumb ass nailed to a cross..." + [Response to WWJD (What Would + Jesus Do) paraphernalia] +% +"When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, + and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove + as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense." + [Edward Abbey (from Voice Crying in the Wilderness)] +% +"The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages-- + as if the savages weren't dangerous enough already." + [Edward Abbey] +% +"Fantastic doctrines (like Christianity or Islam or Marxism) require + unanimity of belief. One dissenter casts doubt on the creed of millions. + Thus the fear and hate; thus the torture chamber, the iron stake, the + gallows, the labor camp, the psychiatric ward." + [Edward Abbey] +% +"Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination." + [Edward Abbey] +% +"We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government + can constitutionally force a person 'to profess a belief or disbelief in any + religion.' Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements + which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those + religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those + religions founded on different beliefs." + [School District of Abington TP. PA. v. Schempp/Murray v. Curlett, 1963] +% +"The world holds two classes of men -- intelligent men + without religion, and religious men without intelligence." + [Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri (973-1057; Syrian poet)] +% +"Who made who?" + [AC/DC] +% +"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. + That unalterable rule applies both to God and man." + [John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (Lord Acton) in + a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, April 5,1887] +% +"Thought is one of the manifestations of human energy, and among + the earlier and simpler phases of thought, two stand conspicuous + -- Fear and Greed. Fear, which, by stimulating the imagination, + creates a belief in an invisible world, and ultimately develops a + priesthood; and Greed, which dissipates energy in war and trade." + [Brooks Adams (1848-1927), The Law of Civilization and Decay] +% +"The power of the priesthood lies in the submission to a creed. + In their onslaughts on rebellion they have exhausted human torments; + nor, in their lust for earthly dominion, have they felt remorse, + but rather joy, when slaying Christ's enemies and their own." + [Brooks Adams, The Emancipation of Massachusetts] +% +"If Atheism is a religion, then health is a disease!" + [Clark Adams] +% +"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having + to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" + [Douglas Adams] +% +"I refuse to prove that I exist" says God, "for proof denies + faith, and without faith, I am nothing." +"Oh," says man, "but the Babel Fish is a dead give-away, isn't + it? It proves You exist, and so therefore You don't. Q.E.D." +"Oh, I hadn't thought of that." says God, who promptly vanishes + in a puff of logic. + [Douglas Adams, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"] +% +"Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do + irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. + This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion." + [Scott Adams, "The Dilbert Principle"] +% +"Eat a big plate of jambalya, head off to the can, and meditate + on this, "defecating is more productive than praying." + [Todd Adamson] +% +"Walking on water is easy. It is what we do for a + living. You just have to know where the rocks are. + Step from rock to rock, and those on the shore will + think you are performing a miracle." + [advice from professional prophets] +% +"A spokesman for the Lyon Group, producers of _Barney and + Friends_, denied that Barney is an instrument of Satan." + [the Advocate, spring 1994] +% +"The truth which makes men free is for the most + part the truth which men prefer not to hear." + [Herbert Agar, "A Time for Greatness" 1942] +% +"When you see a cross sticking in the ground, that usually means that + someone is buried there, or someone got killed there. Perhaps, by + wearing that cross around their neck, what they're saying is that + they're dead from the neck up? That would explain a *lot* of things." + [Wayne Aiken, on AACHAT] +% +"Faith in God and seventy-five cents will get you a cup of coffee." + [Wayne Aiken] +% +"The so-called religious right of the Republican Party- the Christian + right, they call themselves, although in my view they are neither + Christian nor right- is after a totalitarian state." + [Edward Albee, interview in Progressive August 1996 issue] +% +"Had I been present at the creation of the world, + I would have proposed some improvements." + [Alfonso X (Alfonso the Wise; + 1226-1284; King of Castile)] +% +"Sensible men no longer belive in miracles; they + were invented by priests to humbug the peasants." + [King Alfonso] +% +"Goodnight, thank you, and may your god go with you" + [Dave Allen, Irish Comedian, + at the end of all of his shows] +% +"Most of us spend the first 6 days of each week sowing wild oats, + then we go to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure." + [Fred Allen] +% +"Religions change; beer and wine remain" + [Harvey Allen] +% +"...And no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers. No matter how assured + we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful + inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions. This is true in religion as + it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except fanatics and the naive. + As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in our own time, we might be + advised to leave them to heaven. They will not, unfortunately, do us the + same courtesy. They attack us and each other, and whatever their + protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody record of history makes clear + that they are easily disposed to restore to the sword. My own belief in + God, then, is just that -- a matter of belief, not knowledge. My respect + for Jesus Christ arises from the fact that He seems to have been the + most virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth. But even well-educated Christians + are frustated in their thirst for certainty about the beloved figure + of Jesus because of the undeniable ambiguity of the scriptural record. + Such ambiguity is not apparent to children or fanatics, but every + recognized Bible scholar is perfectly aware of it. Some Christians, alas, + resort to formal lying to obscure such reality." + [Steve Allen] +% +"As I argued in "Beloved Son", a book about my son Brian and the subject + of religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction + in the methods of rational thought will be to make sudden mindless + conversions -- to anything -- less likely. Brian now realizes this and + has, after eleven years, left the sect he was associated with. The + problem is that once the untrained mind has made a formal commitment to + a religious philosophy -- and it does not matter whether that philosophy + is generally reasonable and high-minded or utterly bizarre and + irrational -- the powers of reason are suprisingly ineffective in + changing the believer's mind." + [Steve Allen] +% +"One social evil for which the New Testament is + clearly in part responsible is anti-Semitism." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen, on + the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"There is not the slightest question but that the God of the Old + Testament is a jealous, vengeful God, inflicting not only on the + sinful pagans but even on his Chosen People fire, lighting, + hideous plagues and diseases, brimstone, and other curses." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen, on + the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"There are hundreds of millions who believe the Messiah has come. + If he did, then it is unfortunately the case that his heroic + sacrifice and death have had no effect whatsoever on the very + problem his coming might have been expected to address, for + history demonstrates, beyond question, that we Christians have + been just as dangerous, singly and en masse, as non-Christians." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen, on + the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"The Bible has been interpreted to justify such evil practices as, for + example, slavery, the slaughter of prisoners of war, the sadistic murders + of women believed to be witches, capital punishment for hundreds of + offenses, polygamy, and cruelty to animals. It has been used to encourage + belief in the grossest superstition and to discourage the free teaching + of scientific truths. We must never forget that both good and evil flow + from the Bible. It is therefore not above criticism." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen, on + the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"Ideas have consequences, and totally erroneous + ideas are likely to have destructive consequences." + [Steve Allen, "More Steve Allen, + on the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"God is by definition the holder of all possible knowledge, it + would be impossible for him to have faith in anything. Faith, + then, is built upon ignorance and hope." + [Steve Allen, "More Steve Allen, + on the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"No actual tyrant known to history has ever been guilty of + one-hundredth of the crimes, massacres, and other atrocities + attributed to the Deity in the Bible." + [Steve Allen, "More Steve Allen, + on the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"If...we assume that there is no God, it follows that morality is even + more important than if there is a Deity. If God exists, his unlimited + power can certainly redress imbalances in the scale of human justice. + But if there is no God, then it is up to man to be as moral as he can." + [Steve Allen] +% +"It is not hardness of heart or evil passions that drive certain + individuals to atheism, but rather a scrupulous intellectual honesty." + [Steve Allen, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"If you pray for rain long enough, it eventually does fall. + If you pray for floodwaters to abate, they eventually do. + The same happens in the absence of prayers." + [Steve Allen, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"To those who wish to punish others--or at least to see them punished, if + the avengers are too cowardly to take matters in to their own hands-- the + belief in a fiery, hideous hell appears to be a great source of comfort." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen, on + the Bible Religion & Morality"] +% +"An all-powerful being would have the power to punish a sinner, by any means + he might choose to employ. However, the Scriptures not only attribute to + God a horrible vengefulness but also suggest that God is incredibly stupid. + It would be stupid if an individual, intent on punishing a sinner or group + of them, expended his destructive energy not only on those who it might be + said deserved such punishment but also on enormous numbers of innocent people + who simply had the bad luck to be in the physical proximity of evildoers. + To argue that God works in this way is to put him precisely on the same moral + plane as those modern terrorists who, to kill a particular individual or + small group, will place a bomb on an airplane in the full knowledge that in + addition to the five or six intended victims all the other occupants, in whom + the terrorists have no particular interest, will be killed." + [Steve Allen, "More Steve Allen on + the Bible Religion, & Morality"] +% +"Believing that the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God, certain human + beings are prepared to suspend not only reason but even common sense about + any and all passages found within, no matter how vile or bloodthirsty." + [Steve Allen, "More Steve Allen on + the Bible Religion, & Morality"] +% +"Another philosopher suggests that saying prayers is equivalent + to believing that the universe is governed by a Being who changes + his mind if you ask him to." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen On the + Bible, Religion and Morality," 1990] +% +"In every single instance where churchmen placed themselves squarely + athwart the path of science, as regards a particular knotty question, + the religious forces were eventually defeated for the very sound + reason that they were wrong." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen On the + Bible, Religion and Morality," 1990] +% +"In less than an hour, the Parliament of Toulouse, France publicly burned + 400 unfortunate women, having convicted them of crimes that existed only in + the deluded minds of their sentences. Five hundred women were burned at the + stake in the city of Geneva in one month, and approximately a thousand were + murdered in the Italian province of Como. A French judge, over the course of + 16 years, could boast that he had sentenced some 800 women to the stake. + This entire vast atrocity was said to be "justified" by the Bible. In + reality, it is the Bible that is blackened by such crimes." + [Steve Allen, "Steve Allen On the + Bible, Religion and Morality," 1990] +% +"Not only is God dead, but just try to find a plumber on weekends." + [Woody Allen] +% +"As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably + because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on." + [Woody Allen] +% +"How can I believe in God when just last week I got my + tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?" + [Woody Allen] +% +"I do not believe in an afterlife, although + I am bringing a change of underwear." + [Woody Allen] +% +"We face the nineties with a Court that relegates First Amendment + rights to the level of any law, a Justice Department quite willing + to establish first- and second-class citizenship determined by + religious belief....a Christian arrogance and exclusivism reminiscent + of earlier centures of religious persecution." + [Robert S. Alley, "Christian Exclusivism and + Second-Class Citizenship", in Free Inquiry] +% +"If we encounter in a personality fear of divine punishment as the sole + sanction for right doing, we can be sure we are dealing with a childish + conscience, with a case of arrested development." + [Gordon W. Allport, "Becoming"] +% +"Imagine encouraging [a child] to participate in such 'twisted' rituals + and worshiping of tortuous crucifixes and such like this from birth. + No wonder we have so many hateful and sadistic people in our society." + [Brent Allsop 10-27-95 (news:alt.atheism)] +% +"Immaculate deceptions going on every day, still you + follow the clowns who give the circus away" + [The Almighty] +% +"Is God something that exists 'out there," beyond, and independent of us? + Or is God merely the product of an inherited human perception, the + manifestation of an evolutionary adaptation, a coping mechanism that + emerged in our species in order to enable us to survive our unique and + otherwise debilitating awareness of death?" + [Matthew Alper, "The God Part of the Brain", Rogue + Press, Brooklyn NY, 1999, on the back cover] +% +"Adam was deceived by Eve, not Eve by Adam.....it is right + that he whom that woman induced to sin should assume the + role of guide lest he fall again through feminine instability." + [St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, letter 63, 396] +% +"More than half the world is hungry and the environment of the world is + deteriorating rapidly because of over-population. Any action which impedes + efforts to halt the world population perpetuates the misery in which millions + now live and promotes death by starvation of millions this year and many more + millions in the next few decades. + It has been stated by Roman Catholics that the Pope is not evil, but + simply unenlightened, and we must agree. But, whatever the motives, the evil + consequences of his encyclical are manifest... + (conclusion) The world must quickly come to realize that Pope Paul VI has + sanctioned the deaths of countless numbers of human beings with his misguided + and immoral encyclical. The fact that this incredible document was put forth + in the name of a religious figure whose teachings embodies the highest respect + for the value of human dignity and life should serve to make the situation + even more repugnant to mankind." + [American Association for the Advancement of Science, + Signed by about 2000 Scientists, Dallas, 1968, + on Pope Paul VI's "Humanae Vitae" encyclical] +% +"Prayer won't cure AIDS. Research will." + [Public service advertisement of the American + Foundation for AIDS Research, dropped because + of complaints by religionists, from + Freethought Today, March 1997] +% +"In order to see Christianity, one + must forget almost all Christians." + [Henri F. Amiel] +% +"A belief is not true because it is useful." + [Henri Frederic Amiel] +% +"I acted alone on God's orders." + [Yigal Amir, assassin of + Yitzak Rabin, Israeli PM] +% +"Father says bow your head, + Like the Good Book says. + I think the Good Book is + missing some pages..." + [Tori Amos] +% +"This whole Christian theology thing is that god came down to experience + life through his son. Well, how's he experiencing life if he doesn't get + laid? Give me a break. And why would he not get laid, as he created the + apparatus in the first place?" + [Tori Amos, interview in _Vox_, May, 1994, by Steve Maline] +% +"I got enough guilt to start my own religion" + [Tori Amos] +% +"I always thought I'd make a good girlfriend for Jesus" + [Tori Amos] +% +"I used to get really pissed off that my life was so dictated by when this + Jesus guy was born and when he was dying every year. I felt really resentful + that I couldn't get on with my own life because I was so busy with his." + [Tori Amos] +% +"God sometimes you just don't come through + God sometimes you just don't come through + Do you need a woman to look after you? + God sometimes you just don't come through + + You make pretty daisies pretty daisies love + I gotta find what you're doing about things here + A few witches burning + Get a little toasty here + Gotta find why you always go when the wind blows + Tell me you're crazy maybe then I'll understand + You got your 9 iron in the back seat just in case + Heard you've gone south + Well babe you love your new 4 wheel + I gotta find why you always go when the wind blows + + Will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky fall + Will you even tell her if you decide to make the sky" + + [Tori Amos, "God" from the "Under the Pink" album] +% +"that kind of god is always man-made + they made him up then wrote a book + to keep you on your knees" + [Skunk Anansie, "Selling Jesus"] +% +"Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is + not a god but a great rock and the sun a hot rock." + [Anaxagorus, ca. 475 BC] +% +"No, no, no -- you don't argue with concepts. You have to claim + Dogma, and therefore leave no room for rational thought." + [Kevin J. Anderson, _Flashback_] +% +"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. + Religion is answers that may never be questioned." + [Anemones] +% +"People whose history and future were threatened each day by extinction + considered that it was only by divine intervention that they were able + to live at all. I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest + existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human being become more + affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material + scale, God descends the scale of respectability at a commensurate speed." + [Maya Angelou, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", p. 101] +% +"Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know he is." + [Jean Anouilh (1910-87) French dramatist, playwright] +% +"Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent and + the serpent didn't have a leg to stand on." + [Anonymous] +% +"There are ten church members by inheritance for every one by conviction." + [Anonymous] +% +"A good rule for interpretation is: 'If the literal sense makes good + sense, seek no other sense lest you come up with nonsense'" + [Anonymous] +% +"Since the Bible and the church are obviously mistaken in telling us + where we came from, how can we trust them to tell us where we are going?" + [Anonymous] +% +"Unfalsifiable propositions are not amenable to any method at all. + If they were, then religions would be able to find a way to resolve + internal conflicts over differing versions of their unfalsifiables + without resorting to schism, excommunication, torture, or jihad. + In science, however, there are no permanent schisms, because there + is a recognized final court of appeal, namely the universe itself." + [Anonymous] +% +"I believe that there is no God, but that matter is God and God is + matter; and that it is no matter whether there is any God or no." + [Anon., "The Unbeliever's Creed," 1754] +% +"A cardinal doctrine in the Christian faith is total depravity." + [Letter to the editor, Antelope Valley + Press, Lancaster CA, June 20, 1998] +% +"I distrust those people who know so well what + God wants them to do because I notice it always + coincides with their own desires." + [Susan B. Anthony] +% +"To no form of religion is woman + indebted for one impulse of freedom..." + [Susan B. Anthony] +% +"I was born a heretic. I always distrust people who know + so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows." + [Susan B. Anthony] +% +"Stating the 'The Constitution guarantess that government may not coerce + anyone to support or participate in religious exercises,' the court held + the First Amendment is violated by including clerical members who offer + prayer as part of an official school graduation ceremony, even though + attendance was supposedly voluntary. The court concluding that attendance + was in a real sense obligatory with the students indiced to conform." + [Lee v. Weisman (1992, U S) 120 L Ed 2d 467, 112 S Ct 2649, from + the 1996 pocket part for the book "Modern Constitutional Law, + Vol. I: The Individual And The Government", by Chester J. Antieau] +% +"...our constitutional tradition, from the Declaration of Independence and + the first inaugural address of Washington... down to the present day, has, + with a few aberrations, see Church of Holy Trinity v. United States, + 143 U.S. 457, 12 S.Ct. 511, 36 L.Ed. 226 (1892), ruled out of order + government-sponsored endorsement of religion--even when no legal coercion + is present, and indeed even when no ersatz, "peer-pressure" psycho-coercion + is present--where the endorsement is sectarian, in the sense of specifying + details upon which men and women who believe in a benevolent, omnipotent + Creator and Ruler of the world are known to differ (for example, the + divinity of Christ)." + [Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, + _Lee v. Weisman_, 505 U.S. 577, 641 (1992)] +% +"We are asked to recognize the existence of a practice of nonsectarian prayer, + prayer within the embrace of what is known as the Judeo-Christian tradition, + prayer which is more acceptable than one which, for example, makes explicit + references to the God of Israel, or to Jesus Christ, or to a patron saint. + There may be some support, as an empirical observation, to the statement of + the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, picked up by Judge Campbell's + dissent in the Court of Appeals in this case, that there has emerged in this + country a civic religion, one which is tolerated when sectarian exercises are + not. Stein, 822 F.2d at 1409; 908 F.2d 1090, 1098-1099 (CA1 1990) + (Campbell, J., dissenting) (case below); see also Note, Civil Religion and + the Establishment Clause, 95 Yale L.J. 1237 (1986). If common ground can be + defined which permits once conflicting faiths to express the shared conviction + that there is an ethic and a morality which transcend human invention, the + sense of community and purpose sought by all decent societies might be + advanced. But though the First Amendment does not allow the government to + stifle prayers which aspire to these ends, neither does it permit the + government to undertake that task for itself." + [Supreme Court, Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992)] +% +"The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority + is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of + the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven + days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from + the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the + Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one + 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that ... + The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat + lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., + Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the + Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E) temperature of the earth (-300K), + gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed... + (However) Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall + have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake + of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the + boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than + Hell at 445C." + [From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972] +% +"For it is a much more serious matter to corrupt faith, through which comes the + soul's life, than to forge money, through which temporal life is supported. + Hence if forgers of money or other malefactors are straightway justly put to + death by secular princes, with much more justice can heretics, immediately + upon conviction, be not only excommunicated but also put to death." + [Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Summa Theologica] +% +"As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, + for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a + perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman + comes from defect in the active power...." + [Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica,Q92, art. 1, Reply Obj. 1] +% +"I suggest that the anthropomorphic god-idea is not a harmless infirmity + of human thought, but a very noxious fallacy, which is largely responsible + for the calamities the world is at present enduring" + [William Archer (1856-1924), _Theology and War_] +% +"To me it seems that mankind can never achieve its highest potentialities + till it has thrown off the incubus of historic (and prehistoric) religion..." + [William Archer (1856-1924), "Is the Battle,Won?"] +% +"'Theocracy' has always been the synonym for a bleak and + narrow, if not a fierce and blood-stained tyranny." + [William Archer (1667-1735)] +% +"If you were taught that elves caused rain, every + time it rained, you'd see the proof of elves." + [Ariex] +% +"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. + Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom + they consider godfearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less + easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side." + [Aristotle (384-322 BCE), "Politics"] +% +"Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard + to their form but with regard to their mode of life." + [Aristotle, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"(R)eligious teaching has had effects the precise opposite + of those commonly held to be its prerogative - the advocacy + of truth and high conduct." + [Dr. Henry Edward Armstrong, "The Outlook for Reason"] +% +"In a pluralistic society, no group, no matter how numerous or powerful, + has a right to prescribe a set of beliefs or a code of ethics for all." + [Bishop James Armstrong, United Methodist Church, Address, + Phoenix, Arizona February 4, 1975, from Menendez and Doerr, + The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom] +% +"Nothing is more humbling than to look with a strong magnifying glass at an + insect so tiny that the naked eye sees only the barest speck and to discover + that nevertheless it is sculpted and articulated and striped with the same + care and imagination as a zebra. Apparently it does not occur to nature + whether or not a creature is within our range of vision, and the suspicion + arises that even the zebra was not designed for our benefit." + [Rudolf Arnheim] +% +"All the biblical miracles will at last + disappear with the progress of science." + [Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)] +% + "Miracles do not happen." + [Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, + last words of preface to 1883 edition] +% +"It is almost impossible to exaggerate the proneness of the human mind + to take miracles as evidence, and to seek for miracles as evidence." + [Matthew Arnold, "Literature and Dogma"] +% +"We are only fabulous + beasts, after all." + [John Ashbery] +% +"Whatever the Life-Goddess Eve was originally like, she appears in + Genesis as a Hebrew Pandora, the villainess in a story about the origin + of human misfortune....She has dwindled to being merely the first woman, + a troublemaker, created from a rib of the senior and dominant first man." + [Geoffrey Ashe, "The Virgin," 1976] +% +"I've come to the conclusion that there can be little or no dialogue + between 'proclaimers of truth' (religious and secular ideologues) + and 'discoverers of truth' (empiricists). The former tend to debate, + the latter tend to discuss." + [Edward H. Ashment] +% +"Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to + be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always + been premature, and it remains premature today." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, + totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries + since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most + uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would + make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their + feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries + and homes. I personally resent it bitterly and warn the people of Canada..." + [Isaac Asimov, Canadian Atheists Newsletter, 1994] +% +"To rebel against a powerful political, economic, religious, or social + establishment is very dangerous and very few people do it, except, perhaps, + as part of a mob. To rebel against the "scientific" establishment, however, + is the easiest thing in the world, and anyone can do it and feel enormously + brave, without risking as much as a hangnail. Thus, the vast majority, who + believe in astrology and think that the planets have nothing better to do + than form a code that will tell them whether tomorrow is a good day to close + a business deal or not, become all the more excited and enthusiastic about + the bilge when a group of astronomers denounces it." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"...if I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose +to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the +pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous +atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose +every deed is foul, foul, foul." + [Isaac Asimov, _I. Asimov: A Memoir_] +% +"As it happens, Josephus, who mentions John the Baptist, does not mention + Jesus. There is, to be sure, a paragraph in his history of the Jews which + is devoted to Jesus, but it interrupts the flow of the discourse and seems + suspiciously like an afterthought. Scholars generally believe this to + have been an insertion by some early Christian editor who, scandalized + that Joesphus should talk of the period without mentioning the Messiah, + felt the insertion to be a pious act." + [Isaac Asimov, _Asimov's Guide To The Bible_ ISBN 0-517-34582-X] +% +"Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying + and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the + popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for + removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism." + [Isaac Asimov, "On Religiosity", Free Inquiry] +% +"We owe it to ourselves as respectable human beings, as thinking human + beings, to do what we can to make humanity more rational...Humanists + recognize that it is only when people feel free to think for themselves, + using reason as their guide, that they are best capable of developing + values that succeed in satisfying human needs and serving human interests." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"It is rather remarkable that such a deed would be overlooked when + many more far less wicked deeds of Herod were carefully described." + [Isaac Asimov, "Guide to the Bible", on Herod's allegedly + killing all young male children to prevent the messiah] +% +"No other country has as diverse religious groups as the U.S., which + has at least 52 major denominations with memberships exceeding 100,000. + The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches lists 223 sects, cults, + and denominations, not counting groups such as the First Church of + Christ, Scientist, which provide no membership statistics." + [Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts] +% +"Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is + something you dreamt up after being drunk all night." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"I certainly don't believe in the mythologies of our society, in heaven and + hell, in God and angels, in Satan and demons. I've thought of myself as an + 'atheist,' but that simply described what I didn't believe in, not what I + did. Gradually, though, I became aware there was a movement called 'humanism,' + which used that name because, to put it most simply, humanists believe that + human beings produced the progressive advance of human society and also the + ills that plague it. They believe that if the ills are to be alleviated, it + is humanity that will have to do the job. They disbelieve in the influence + of the supernatural on either the good or the bad of society." + [Isaac Asimov, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"The fundamentalists deny that evolution has taken place; they deny that + the earth and the universe as a whole are more than a few thousand years + old, and so on. There is ample scientific evidence that the fundamentalists + are wrong in these matters, and that their notions of cosmogony have about + as much basis in fact as the Tooth Fairy has." + [Isaac Asimov, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"I am not responsible for what other people think. I am responsible only + for what I myself think, and I know what that is. No idea I've ever come + up with has ever struck me as a divine revelation. Nothing I have ever + observed leads me to think there is a God watching over me." + [Isaac Asimov, "Religiosity", from Isaac + Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine Jan. 1992] +% +"The bible must be seen in a cultural context. It didn't just + happen. These stories are retreads. But, tell a Christian that + -- No, No! What makes it doubly sad is that they hardly know + the book, much less its origins." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole + life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the + tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"Naturally, since [the Sumerians] didn't know what caused the flood + anymore than we do, they blamed the gods. (That's the advantage of + religion. You're never short an explanation for anything.)" + [Isaac Asimov, in essay "The Last Man on Earth", + 1982, reprinted in his essay collection "The + Tyrannosaurus Prescription"] +% +"...anger is the common substitute for logic among those who + have no evidence for what they desperately want to believe." + [Isaac Asimov, in essay "Hobgoblin", 1980, reprinted in + his essay collection "The Tyrannosaurus Prescription"] +% +"Every religion seems like a fantasy to outsiders, + but as holy truth to those of the faith." + [Isaac Asimov, in essay "Is Fantasy Forever", + 1982, reprinted in his essay collection + "The Tyrannosaurus Prescription"] +% +"Properly read, the Bible is the most + potent force for atheism ever conceived." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. + You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then. + Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe." + [Isaac Asimov & Robert Silverberg _Nightfall_] +% +"It seems to me that it's insulting to human beings to imply that + only a system of rewards and punishments can keep you a decent + human being...I have a conscience. It doesn't depend on religion." + [Isaac Asimov] +% +"It's rather a shame. Now that the creationists are deprived of their + chance of burning people at the stake, their best argument is gone." + [Isaac Asimov, "Life and Time," 1979] +% +"It is precisely because it is fashionable for Americans to know no science, + even though they may be well educated otherwise, that they so easily fall + prey to nonsense. They thus become part of the armies of the night, the + purveyors of nitwittery, the retailers of intellectual junk food, the + feeders on mental cardboard, for their ignorance keeps them from + distinguishing nectar from sewage." + [Isaac Asimov, "The Armies of the Night"] +% +"Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight + for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued + defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the + rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual + we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand + who hug superstition to their breasts." + [Isaac Asimov, when asked why he fights religion with no hope for victory] +% +"In medieval times, church bells were often consecrated to ward off + evil spirits. Because thunderstorms were attributed to the work + of demons, the bells would be rung in an attempt to stop the storms. + Lots of bellringers were killed by lightning." + ["Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts" © 1979] +% +"We will inevitably recede into the backwater of civilization, and + those nations that retain opened scientific thought will take over the + leadership of the world and the cutting edge of human advancement. I + don't suppose that the creationists really plan the decline of the + United States, but their loudly expressed patriotism is as + simpleminded as their "science." If they succeed, they will, in their + folly, achieve the opposite of what they say they wish." + [Isaac Asimov, 'The "Threat" of Creationism', + essay in "Science and Creationism," 1984 + http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/azimov_creationism.html] +% +"My aim is to argue that the universe can come into existence without + intervention, and that there is no need to invoke the idea of a + Supreme Being in one of its numerous manifestations." + [Peter William Atkins, preface to _The Creation_] +% +"Someone with a fresh mind, one not conditioned by upbringing and + environment, would doubtless look at science and the powerful + reductionism that it inspires as overwhelmingly the better mode of + understanding the world, and would doubtless scorn religion as + sentimental wishful thinking. Would not that same uncluttered mind also + see the attempts to reconcile science and religion by disparaging the + reduction of the complex to the simple as attempts guided by + muddle-headed sentiment and intellectually dishonest emotion?" + [P.W. Atkins, "The Limitless Power of Science" essay in "Nature's + Imagination", John Cornwell, ed.; 1995 Oxford University Press, p.123] +% +"Religion closes off the central questions of existence by attempting to + dissuade us from further enquiry by asserting that we cannot ever hope to + comprehend. We are, religion asserts, simply too puny. Through fear of + being shown to be vacuous, religion denies the awesome power of human + comprehension. It seeks to thwart, by encouraging awe in things unseen, + the disclosure of the emptiness of faith. Religion, in contrast to + science, deploys the repugnant view that the world is too big for our + understanding. Science, in contrast to religion, opens up the great + questions of being to rational discussion, to discussion with the + prospect of resolution and elucidation. Science, above all, respects the + power of the human intellect. Science is the apotheosis of the intellect + and the consummation of the Rennaissance. Science respects more deeply + the potential of humanity than religion ever can." + [P.W. Atkins, "The Limitless Power of Science" essay in "Nature's + Imagination", John Cornwell, ed.; 1995 Oxford University Press, p.125] +% +"It's a vacuous answer . . . To say that 'God made the world' is + simply a more or less sophisticated way of saying that we don't + understand how the universe originated. A god, in so far as it + is anything, is an admission of ignorance." + [Peter Atkins, British Association + for the Advancement of Science] +% +"I enjoy a little christian-bashing, now and then." + [Atlanta Freethought Society member survey] +% +"People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are + not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves + and taking responsibility for what they know." + [Brook Atkinson, "Once Around the Sun"] +% +"Atheists!? I bet you're feeling a right bunch of charlies..... + And Christians!? Over here please. Yes, you see, I'm afraid + that the jews were right after all." + [Rowan Atkinson as The Devil (or 'Toby') + welcoming new arrivals to Hell] +% +"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make + empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made + a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the + bonds of Hell." + [Saint Augustine] +% +"Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and + the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and + even their sizes and distances,... and this knowledge he holds with + certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful + for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, + claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all + that we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, which people see as + ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn." + [St. Augustine, "De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim" + (The Literal Meaning of Genesis)] +% +"I feel that nothing so casts down the manly mind from + it's height as the fondling of women and those bodily + contacts which belong to the married state." + [St. Augustine, De Trinitate 7.7] +% +"All diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to demons; + chiefly do they torment freshly-baptized Christians, + yea, even the guiltless new-born infants." + [Saint Augustine (354-430)] +% +"It is indeed better (as no one ever could deny) that men should be led to + worship God by teaching, than that they should be driven to it by fear of + punishment or pain; but it does not follow that because the former course + produces the better men, therefore those who do not yield to it should be + neglected. For many have found advantage (as we have proved, and are daily + proving by actual experiment), in being first compelled by fear or pain, so + that they might afterwards be influenced by teaching, or might follow + out in act what they had already learned in word." + [St. Augustine, Treatise on the + Correction of the Donatists (417), p.214] +% +"Nothing is so much to be shunned as sex relations." + [St. Augustine (354-430), "Soliloquies"] +% +"Women should not be enlightened or educated in any way. + They should, in fact, be segregated as they are the cause + of hideous and involuntary erections in holy men." + [St. Augustine] +% +"This then is not God, if thou has comprehended it; + but if this be God, thou hast not comprehended it." + [St. Augustine, "Sermo LII"] +% +"It is impossible that there should be inhabitants on the + opposite side of the Earth, since no such race is recorded + by Scripture among the descendants of Adam." + [St. Augustine, from "The Dark Side of Christian + History" by Linda Ellerbe, 1995, Morningstar Books] +% +"Any woman who does not give birth to as many + children as she is capable is guilty of murder." + [St. Augustine] +% +"If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in + thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, + which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in + self-delusion and ignorance which does harm." + [Marcus Aurelius] +% +"God loves all his children, by gum. + That don't mean he won't incinerate some. + Can't you feel those hot flames licking you..." + [Austin Lounge Lizards, "Jesus Loves Me"] +% +"A prevalent fallacy is the assumption that a proof of an after-life would + also be a proof of the existence of a deity. This is far from being the case. + If - as I hold -there is no good reason to believe that a god either created + or presides over this world, there is equally no good reason to believe that + a god created or presides over the next world, on the unlikely supposition + that such a thing exists." + [Sir A.J. Ayer, in the Sunday Telegraph, Aug. 28, 1988, pg. 5] +% +"The fact that people have religious experiences is interesting from + the psychological point of view, but it does not in any way imply that + there is such a thing as religious knowledge...Unless he can formulate + his "knowldege" in propositions that are empirically verifiable, we + may be sure that he is deceiving himself." + [A.J. Ayer, "Language, Truth and Logic"] +% +"Religious Cult: The church down the street from yours." + [_B.C._ cartoon, 30 April 1994] +% +"The earth is flat, and anyone who disputes this claim + is an atheist who deserves to be punished." + [Muslim religious edict, 1993 + Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz + Supreme religious authority, Saudi Arabia] +% +"For they heard that command of our Creator, if they truly listened to + His instructions to be responsible stewards, then their entire framework + of human rationalizations for tearing apart Act comes to naught" + [U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, using + religious arguments to defend the 1973 Endangered Species + Act from conservatives who wish to limit or abolish it] +% +"The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and + not when they miss and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other." + [Sir Francis Bacon] +% +"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to + laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral + virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all + these, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men...the + master of superstition is the people; and arguments are fitted to + practice, in a reverse order." + [Sir Francis Bacon "Of Superstition"] +% +"A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint." + [Francis Bacon] +% +"The trinitarian believes a virgin to be + the mother of a son who is her maker." + [Sir Francis Bacon, quoted in "2000 Years of + Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to + Doubt", by James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"People prefer to believe what they prefer to be true." + [Francis Bacon] +% +"Hey Brother Christian with your high and mighty errand + Your actions speak so loud I can't hear a word you're saying(...) + Hey Moral Soldier you've got righteous proclamations + And precious tomes to fuel your pulpy conflagrations" + [Bad Religion, "I want to conquer the world"] +% +"I don't know what stopped Jesus Christ + from turning every hungry stone into bread, + And I don't remember hearing how Moses reacted + when the innocent first born sons lay dead, + Well I guess God was a bit more demonstrative + back when he flamboyantly parted the sea, + Now everybody's praying, Don't prey on me." + [Bad Religion, "Don't Pray on Me", + on the Recipe for Hate album] +% +"And I want to conquer the world, + Give all the idiots a brand new religion..." + [Bad Religion] +% +"Life ever-after is what they're in business for + See them brandish the key to their kingdom's door + It's persuasive upon a part of you and me + But not overwhelming as they wish it to be + If no one believed in faery tales + There's nothing they could do but fail" + [Bad Religion, "Operation Rescue"] +% +"No one really knows why we die + No one gets a break, so we try + Ignoring mortality, we worship mediocrity + And wait to see what happens up on high" + [Bad Religion, "In so Many Ways"] +% +"Speak of Truth with a mighty voice + But politics are your real choice + Hire men to change the Law + Protect and serve with one small flaw + The Voice of God is government!" + [Bad Religion] +% +"So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will + always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them + it is unwise and their conscience that it is wrong." + [Walter Bagehot, Literary Studies] +% +"When someone comes and proselytizes for another god or another final authority + (and by the way, that god may be man)--when someone tries to undermine the + commitment to Jehovah which is fundamental to the civil order of a godly + state--then that person needs to be restrained by the magistrate. However, + this does not mean that individuals should be punished for holding heretical + views, the views that Baptists think are heretical or Lutherans think are + heretical and so forth. It simply means that those who will not acknowledge + Jehovah as the ultimate authority behind the civil law code which the + magistrate is enforcing would be punished and repressed. You would, therefore, + be open, I believe, to hold Muslim views or Hindu views in the privacy of your + own home, provided it was not a Christian home that you've now come into to + subvert and draw away from Jehovah. You would be able to hold these views as a + private conviction. But you would not be allowed to proselytize and undermine + the order of the state. Before people who are non-theonomists get too terribly + upset about this view, I would at least ask them to reflect on this fact: + every civil order protects its foundations." + [Greg Bahnsen, Christian Reconstructionist, in "An Interview + with Greg L. Bahnsen," Calvinism Today, Jan. 1994, p. 23] +% +"On the other hand, in a theonomic society the civil government would + promote virtues that it often works against today. It would reinstitute + laws protecting the observance of the Sabbath." + [Greg Bahnsen, God and Politics, ed. by Gary Scott Smith, + (New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1989), p. 263] +% +"For Christianity, the world must be regarded as the "creation" of a + kind of Superman, a person possessing all the human excellences to an + infinite degree and none of the human weaknesses, Who has made man in His + image, a feeble, mortal, foolish copy of Himself. In creating the universe, + God acts as a sort of playwright-cum-legislator-cum-judge-cum-executioner." + [Kurt E. M. Baier, "The Meaning of Life"] +% +"...Jesus was almost certainly not 'of Nazareth'. An overwhelming + body of evidence indicates that Nazareth did not exist in biblical + times. The town is unlikely to have appeared before the third century." + [Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, _The Messianic Legacy_] +% +"Why is it that Christianity more than any other of the + world's religions has succumbed to the racist disease?" + [John Austin Baker, the former Bishop of Salisbury UK, + Theology and Racism, quoted by Edward Patey, Dean of + Liverpool Cathedral in "Questions for Today", 1986, p81] +% +"It's not listed in the Bible, but my spiritual gift, my specific + calling from God, is to be a television talk-show host." + [James Bakker] +% +"I wake up every morning and I wish I were dead, and so does Jim." + [Tammy Fae Bakker] +% +"...and now we're down to our last $37,000." + + "But just last week you said you were down to your last $50,000, + what happened to $13,000 since then?" + +"Uh...um...I don't know." + [Tammy Fae Bakker] +% +"You can educate yourself right out of a relationship with God." + [Tammy Faye Bakker (1942-), U.S. television evangelist, + former co-host of PTL TV ministry and wife of Jim Bakker + who was imprisoned for defrauding his followers. + From "Observer" (London), 28 Feb. 1988] +% +"There's times when I just have to quit thinking... and + the only way I can quit thinking is by shopping." + [Tammy Faye Bakker, in "And I Quote," + by Ashton Applewhite, 1992] +% +"I take Him shopping with me. I say, "OK, Jesus, help me find a bargain." + [Tammy Faye Bakker, from "Food for Thought," + internet collection by Jack Tourette] +% +"You don't have to be dowdy to be a Christian." + [Tammy Faye Bakker, "Newsweek," 8 Jun. 1987] +% +"I always say shopping is cheaper than a psychiatrist." + [Tammy Faye Bakker, in "And I Quote," + by Ashton Applewhite, 1992] +% +"A Boss in Heavan is the best excuse for a boss on earth, + therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished." + [Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin (1814-1876) Russian + anarchist, atheist author, and founder of Nihilism, + from "God and the State", 1874] +% +"The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; + it is the most decisive negation of human liberty and necessarily + ends in the enslavement of mankind both in theory and practice. He + who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about + the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity." + [Mikhail Bakunin, from "Federalism, + Socialism, and Anti-Theologism"] +% +"All religions, with their gods, demigods, prophets, messiahs + and saints, are the product of the fancy and credulity of men + who have not yet reached the full development and complete + personality of their intellectual powers." + [Mikhail A. Bakunin, "God and the State" (Dieu et l'etat) + 1874, from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first free-thinker and + emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and + obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and + humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge." + [Bakunin, _God and the State_ (1874)] +% +"A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute + condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I + reverse the phrase of Voltaire and say, 'if God really + existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.'" + [Mikhail Bakunin, "God and the State", 1874] +% +"If God is, man is a slave; now, man can and + must be free; then, God does not exist." + I defy anyone whomsoever to avoid this circle; + now, therefore, let all choose." + [Mikhail Bakunin, "God and the State", 1874] +% +"They [religious idealists] say in a single breath: "God and the liberty + of man," "God and the dignity, justice, equality, fraternity, prosperity + of men" -- regardless of the fatal logic by virtue of which, if God + exists, all these things are condemned to nonexistence. For, if God is, + he is necessarily the eternal, supreme, absolute master, and, if such a + master exists, man is a slave. Now, if he is a slave, neither justice, + nor equality, nor fraternity, nor prosperity are possible for him. In + vain, flying in the face of good sense and all the teachings of history, + do they represent their God as animated by the tenderest love of human + liberty. A master, whoever he may be and however liberal he may desire + to show himself, remains none the less always a master." + [Mikhail Bakunin, "God and the State", 1874] +% +"With the name of God they imagine that they can establish fraternity among + men, and on the contrary, they create pride, contempt; they sow discord, + hatred, war; they establish slavery. For with God came the different + degrees of divine inspiration; humanity is divided into men highly inspired, + less inspired, uninspired. All are equally insignificant before God, it is + true; but compared with each other, some are greater than others; not only + in fact- which would be of no consequence, because inequality in fact is + lost in the collectivity when it cannot cling to some legal fiction or + institution- but by the divine right of inspiration, which immediately + establishes a fixed, constant, petrifying inequality. The highly inspired + must be listened to and obeyed by the less inspired, and the less inspired + by the uninspired. Thus we have the principle of authority well established, + and with it the two fundamental institutions of slavery: Church and State." + [Mikhail Bakunin, "Church and State", 1872, p. 53] +% +"For ten centuries Christianity, armed with the omnipotence of the Church + and State and opposed by no competition, was able to deprave, debase, and + falsify the mind of Europe. It had no competitors, because outside the + Church there was neither thinkers nor educated persons. It along taught, + it alone spoke and wrote, it alone taught." + [Mikhail Bakunin, "Church and State", 1872, p. 78] +% +"The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, + of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, + we will be slaves on earth." + [Mikhail A. Bakunin, "God and the State," from + James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"Christianity is the complete negation of common sense and sound reason." + [Mikhail A. Bakunin, God and the State, from + James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"All temporal or human authority proceeds directly from spiritual authority. + But authority is the negation of liberty. God, or rather the fiction of God, + is thus the sanction and the intellectual and moral cause of all the slavery + on earth, and the liberty of men will not be complete, unless it will + have completely annihilated the inauspicious fiction of a heavenly master." + [Mikhail A. Bakunin, Oeuvres, Vol. I, p. 283] +% +"Replacing the cult of God by respect and love of humanity, we + proclaim human reason as the only criterion of truth; human + conscience as the basis of justice; individual and collective + freedom as the only source of order in society." + [Bakunin, "Revolutionary Catechism" in _Bakunin on Anarchy_] +% +"...the Bible as we have it contains elements that are scientifically + incorrect or even morally repugnant. No amount of "explaining away" + can convince us that such passages are the product of Divine Wisdom." + [Bernard J. Bamberger, _The Story of Judaism_] +% +"Love your drag, honey, but did you know your purse is on fire?" + [Tallulah Bankhead, to the censer preceding + the bishop up the aisle at Catholic service] +% +"Reason shapes the future, but superstition infects the present." + [Iain M Banks] +% +"The very concept of sin comes from the bible. Christianity offers to + solve a problem of its own making! Would you be thankful to a person + who cut you with a knife in order to sell you a bandage?" + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"How happy can you be when you think every action and + thought is being monitored by a judgmental ghost?" + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"You can cite a hundred references to show that the biblical God is a + bloodthirsty tyrant, but if they can dig up two or three verses that say + "God is love," they will claim that *you* are taking things out of context!" + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never + again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and + suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. + Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal + torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. + Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love + that iscontingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is + respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a + healthy, unafraid human being." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"I have something to say to the religionist who feels atheists never say + anything positive: You are an intelligent human being. Your life is + valuable for its own sake. You are not second-class in the universe, + deriving meaning and purpose from some other mind. You are not inherently + evil--you are inherently human, possessing the positive rational potential + to help make this a world of morality, peace and joy. Trust yourself." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"There is joy in rationality, happiness in clarity of mind. + Freethought is thrilling and fulfilling--absolutely essential + to mental health and happiness." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"It's not easy to change world views. Faith has its own momentum and belief + is comfortable. To restructure reality is traumatic and scary. That is why + many intelligent people continue to believe: unbelief is an unknown." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"For my money, I'll bet on reason and humanistic kindness. Even if I am wrong + I will have enjoyed my life, the existence of which is under little dispute." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"The longer I have been an atheist, the more amazed + I am that I ever believed Christian notions." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"Not thinking critically, I assumed that the "successful" prayers + were proof that God answers prayer while the failures were proof + that there was something wrong with me." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"To think that the ruler of the universe will run to my assistance + and bend the laws of nature for me is the height of arrogance." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"Without "The Law of Moses" would we all be wandering around like little gods, + stealing, raping, and spilling blood whenever our vanity was offended?" + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, + singing, "yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I + believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down. down. + Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it." + [ex-preacher Dan Barker] +% +"Just say NO to religion." + [Dan Barker] +% +"You keep accusing me of blasphemy all of the time, + But I cannot be convicted of a victimless crime." + [Dan Barker] +% +"You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, + demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people + walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive + stories, and you say that _we_ are the ones that need help?" + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"] +% +"Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. 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 Former evangelist, author, critic] +% +"I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of God. + That should be all that needs to be said about it: no evidence, no belief." + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist"] +% +"If the answers to prayer are merely what God wills all along, then why pray?" + [Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist"] +% +"We were blood brothers, pals forever. He was my very best friend. + Nobody else could see him. I now know he was just pretend." + [Dan Barker] +% +"I threw out all the bath water, and there was no baby there." + [Dan Barker, referring to the Bible in a debate, 1989] +% +"God is the anthropomorphized Aesop character who represents the + culmination of all the guilt (i.e. vulnerability) we feel whenever + our own megalomaniacal self-support structure (sense of internal reality + control) fails to distract us from the dread of our imminent demise." + [Br0d Barkett] +% +"If there were a god, there would be no need for religion. + If there were not a god, there would be no need for religion." + [Ron Barrier, Rbargodnow@aol.com] +% +"There is no such thing as a god. If such a creature existed, + belief would be rendered unnecessary, and the entire system + of organized religion would collapse." + [Ron Barrier, Rbargodnow@aol.com] +% +"Atheism - Your Gain, No Pain!" + [Ron Barrier] +% +"God is a placebo for your own mortality." + [Robert Barron] +% +"In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians + called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka" + and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People + passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy + Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!" + [Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"] +% +"In fact, when you get right down to it, almost every explanation + Man came up with for *anything* until about 1926 was stupid." + [Dave Barry] +% +"Pretty rowdy behavior for Jesus. He'd get a buzz off + the beer and go squealing out of the parking lot." + [Bartender in Waco, TX] +% +"If you have seen me cross myself, it was to Science, Art and Nature." + [Bela Bartok] +% +"There should be absolutely no 'Separation of Church and State' in America." + [David Barton, president of Wallbuilders and a close ally of + the Christian Coalition, 1994 Anti-Defamation League Report] +% +"After all, any religion that can get numerous Christians to ignore a simple + and direct command from jesus in the name of "context" obviously is going + to have a hard time with teaching better morality to everybody else. + Maybe this explains the widespread explosion of religion in America and + the widespread rise in hatefulness, racism, right winged savagery, and + widespread lack of honesty." + [William Barwell, wbarwell@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM] +% +"If a man achieves or suffers change in premises which are deeply + embedded in his mind, he will surely find that the results of that + change will ramify throughout his whole universe." + [Gegory Bateson] +% +"We are engaged in a social, political, and cultural war. There's a lot of talk + in America about pluralism. But the bottom line is somebody's values will + prevail. And the winner gets the right to teach our children what to believe." + [Gary Bauer, religious-right Family Research Council] +% +"Do you want 'Transvestite Coming Out Week?' 'Sado-masochist Coming + Out Week?' People can do all sorts of things in the privacy of their + bedrooms, and they will bear the consequences of what they do. But I + don't understand this insistence in putting it in our face." + [Gary Bauer, Pres., Family Research Council and 2000 US + Presidential candiate, from USA Today Oct. 15, 1999] +% +"Cockroach: An ugly, greasy, universally reviled, six-legged freeloader + with a fondness for procreation and leftovers. One of nature's + all-time success stories, suggesting that God must love an obscene joke." + [adapted from Rick Bayan's The Cynic's Dictionary Hearst Books, N.Y., 1992] +% +"All the idols made by man, however terrifying they may be, are in + point of fact subordinate to him, and that is why he will always have + it in his power to destroy them." + [Simone de Beauvoir, "The Second Sex", 1949] +% +"Man enjoys the great advantage of having a god endorse the code he writes; + and since man exercises a sovereign authority over women it is especially + fortunate that this authority has been vested in him by the Supreme Being. + For the Jews, Mohammedans and Christians among others, man is master by + divine right; the fear of God will therefore repress any impulse towards + revolt in the downtrodden female." + [Simone de Beauvoir, "The Second Sex", 1949] +% +"I cannot be angry at God, in whom I do not believe." + [Simone de Beauvoir, from James A. + Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"Hey Butt-Head check this book out! There's a talking snake, + a naked chick, then some guy puts a leaf on his SCHLONG!!" + [Beavis and Butt-Head Do America] +% +"Christ came, and Christianity arose...But originating in Judaism, which + knew woman only as a being bereft of all rights, and biased by the Biblical + conception which saw in her the source of all evil, Christianity preached + contempt for women." + [August Bebel, "Woman and Socialism", 1893] +% +"We aim in the domain of politics at republicanism; in the + domain of economics at socialism; in the domain of what + is today called religion, at atheism." + [August Bebel, Summary of Views] +% +"Enough of acting the infant who has been told so often how he was found under + a cabbage that in the end he remembers the exact spot in the garden and the + kind of life he led there before joining the family circle." + [Samuel Beckett] +% +"There was never such a gigantic lie told as the fable of the Garden of Eden." + [Henry Ward Beecher, early American preacher, from + "What Great Men Think Of Religion" by Ira Cardiff] +% +"Applaud, friends, the comedy is over." + [Beethoven's sarcastic remarks after a priest's last rites as he + lay dying in 1827; the priest had been summoned by religious + friends. Fellow composer Joseph Haydn considered Beethoven an + atheist. As quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, Famous People with + the Courage to Doubt", by James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America + and to the republic for which it stands, + one nation, + indivisible, + with liberty and justice for all." + [Francis Bellamy, 1892] +% +"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous + as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin." + [Cardinal Bellarmino 1615, during the trial of Galileo] +% +"To affirm that the Sun ... is at the centre of the universe and only rotates + on its axis without going from east to west, is a very dangerous attitude and + one calculated not only to arouse all Scholastic philosophers and theologians + but also to injure our holy faith by contradicting the Scriptures" + [Cardinal Bellarmino, 17th Century Church Master Collegio Romano, + who imprisoned and tortured Galileo for his astronomical works] +% +"We are told by the church that we have accomplished nothing... Is it a + small thing to make men truly free, to destroy the dogmas of ignorance, + prejudice and power, the poisoned fables of superstition, and drive from + the beautiful face of earth the fiend of fear?" + [D.M. Bennett, _Champions of the Church_] +% +"Faith - the ability to believe the ridiculous for the sublime." + [Rich Bennett] +% +"No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to + establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion." + [Jeremy Bentham, Constitutional Code from George + Seldes, The Great Quotations 1967, p. 813] +% +"Miracles happen to those who believe in them. Otherwise + why does not the Virgin Mary appear to Lamaists, Mohammedans, + or Hindus who have never heard of her." + [Bernard Berenson (1865-1959), + New York Times Book Review] +% +"Homo sapiens, the only creature endowed with reason, is also + the only creature to pin its existence on things unreasonable." + [Henri Bergson, "Two Sources + of Morality and Religion," 1935] +% +"For what is it but an exquisite and priceless chance of salvation + due to God alone, that the omnipotent should deign to summon to + His service, as though they were innocent, murderers, ravishers, + adulterers, perjurers, and those guilty of every crime?" + [St. Bernard, appeal for recruits for the Second Crusade, + quoted by Brooks Adams, _The Law of Civilization and + Decay_ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1943), p. 144] +% +"The Christian glories in the death of a pagan, + because thereby Christ himself is glorified." + [Saint Bernard of Clairvaux] +% +"Culture is powerfully conservative. It enforces obedience to authority, + the authority of parents, of history, of custom, of superstition." + [Richard Bernstein, "Dictatorship of Virtue"] +% +"The proper place for the study of religious beliefs is in a church or temple, + at home, or in a course on comparative religions, but not in a biology + class. There is no place in our world for an ideology that seeks to close + minds, force obedience, and return the world to a paradise that never was. + Students should learn that the universe can be confronted and understood, + that ideas and authority should be questioned, that an open mind is a good + thing. Education does not exist to confirm people's superstitions, and + children do not learn to think when they are fed only dogma." + [Tim Berra, "Evolution and the Myth of Creationism"] +% +"Fundamentalists long for the return of a more moral America, an America + that may never have been. All around them they see what they perceive as + declining morality and spirituality. They reason that if humans share + ancestry with the other animals, we have no reason to behave as anything + other than animals. This view neglects the fact that humans are the only + known animals with the ability to contemplate the consequences of their own + actions. It also fails to recognize that there is a great deal of good in + the world, the nightly news notwithstanding. Crime existed long before the + theory of evolution, even before the writing of the Bible, and biologists + do not like crime any more than the creationists do. Evolutionary theory is + not a license to run amok, and neither is a belief in the literal + interpretation of the Bible a guarantor of moral behavior." + [Tim Berra, "Evolution and the Myth of Creationism"] +% +"About 200 B.C. mystery cults began to appear in Rome just as they had + earlier in Greece. Most notable was the Cybele cult centered on Vatican + hill ... Associated with the Cybele cult was that of her lover, Attis + (the older Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, or Orpheus under a new name). He + was a god of ever-reviving vegetation. Born of a virgin, he died and was + reborn annually. The festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday + and culminated after three days in a day of rejoicing over the resurrection." + [Gerald L. Berry, "Religions of the World"] +% +"Modern societies march towards morality in + proportion as they leave religion behind." + [Paul Bert] +% +"[N]o philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a + message to the world as this good news of Atheism." + [Annie Besant, "The Gospel of Atheism"] +% +"I do not believe in God. My mind finds no grounds on which to build up a + reasonable faith. My heart revolts against the spectre of an Almighty + Indifference to the pain of sentient beings. My conscience rebels against + the injustice, the cruelty, the inequality, which surround me on every + side. But I believe in Man. In man's redeeming power; in man's remoulding + energy; in man's approaching triumph, through knowledge, love and work." + [Annie Besant (1847-1933)] +% +"Never yet has a God been defined in terms which were not palpably + self-contradictory and absurd; never yet has a God been described + so that a concept of Him was made possible to human thought." + [Annie Besant] +% +"I think it was Whitehead who said that religion is whatever a + person does when alone. I'd say that religion is whatever a + person does with their life. In either case, the national + religion of America is television and jacking off." + [Carl Bettis] +% +"While it cannot be proved retrospectively that any experience of possession, + conversion, revelation, or divine ecstasy was merely an epileptic discharge, + we must ask how one differentiates "real transcendence" from neuropathies + that produce the same extreme realness, profundity, ineffability, and sense + of cosmic unity. When accounts of sudden religious conversions in TLEs + (temporal-lobe epileptics) are laid alongside the epiphanous revelations of + the religious tradition, the parallels are striking. The same is true of + the recent spate of alleged UFO abductees. Parsimony alone argues against + invoking spirits, demons, or extraterrestrials when natural causes will + suffice." + [Barry L. Beyerstein, "Neuropathology and the Legacy of Spiritual + Possession", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 3, pg. 255] +% +"As a man can drink water from any side of a full tank, so the skilled + theologian can wrest from any scripture that which will serve his purpose." + [Bhagavad Gita [The Lord's Song] (250 B.C.-A.D. 250)] +% +"If you love god, burn a church" + [Jello Biafra] +% +"...balance the budget? Tax religion." + [Jello Biafra] +% +"Can God fill teeth?" + [Jello Biafra] +% +"Christianity is like tying a rubber hose around + your common sense and shooting up with God." + [Jello Biafra] +% +"See god? That is the easiest thing in the world. He always + appears to me in the bottom of the tenth glass of beer... and + sometimes as a beautiful, young, female nude." + [theologian Franz Bibfeldt on the reality of visions] +% +"It is of course always best to be led by god, and have him + personally whisper into your ear. Only, when it is the devil + talking he will tell you he is god, for the devil is a crafty + liar. So you never know who is talking to you." + [German-born Theologian Franz Bibfeldt + in his magnum opus "Vielleicht"] +% +"Any idiot can believe in Jesus H. Christ. To truly understand all + that confusion in the gospels takes a real contortionist scholar." + [Franz Bibfeldt, German theologian] +% +"What, me worry about the historical Jesus? The gospel writers made up their + story; the church fathers invented the virgin birth on the winter solstice; + the pope thought up the immaculate conception; so I can imagine any damn + thing I please about Jesus, or the Spook, or about the big guy himself." + [Theologian Franz Bibfeldt, on how to write religious history] +% +"Christianity: + An invisible and all-knowing friend of mine made our male ancestor out of + dirt, and made our female ancestor out of his rib, but our ancestors were + tempted by a snake which was actually an enemy of my invisible friend and + they ate a forbidden apple, so now all of us go to burn forever after we + die unless we believe that my friend's son's blood is on us and in us and + that this son died and rose zombie-like from the dead and floated up to + heaven and sent his ghost to live inside of us. He is coming soon!" + [Biblical Errancy list] +% +Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of + a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +"Religions are conclusions for which the + facts of nature supply no major premises." + [Ambrose Bierce, "Collected Works" (1912)] +% +Evangelist, n., + A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as + assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbours. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Scriptures: The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished + from the false and profane writings on which all other + faiths are based. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Religion, n: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to + Ignorance the Nature of the Unknowable. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Christian, n.: + One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired + book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who + follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent + with a life of sin. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks + without knowledge, of things without parallel. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Infidel: In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian + religion; in Constantinople, one who does. + [Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), American author] +% +"Ocean: A body of water occupying 2/3 of a world made + for man -- who has no gills." + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of + their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while + you expound on yours. + [Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) American author] +% +Clergyman, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual + affairs as a method of better his temporal ones. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to + meditate upon the sin of idleness. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary] +% +Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +Irreligion. The principal one of the great faiths of the world. + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +"The pig is taught by sermons and epistles, + To think the god of swine has snout and bristles." + [Ambrose Bierce, "The Devils Dictionary"] +% +"Immortality, A toy which people cry for, + And on their knees apply for, + Dispute, contend and lie for, + And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for." + [Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)] +% +"Funeral: a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by + enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an + expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears." + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +"Mammon: the god of the world's leading religion." + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +"Prophecy: the art and practice of selling one's + credibility for future delivery." + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +"Revelation: a famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed + all that he knew. The revealing is done by the + commentators, who know nothing." + [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911] +% +"Take not God's name in vain -- select + A time when it will have effect." + [Ambrose Bierce, "The + Devil's Dictionary"] +% +"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment + of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." + [First Amendment, Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution] +% +"The true fanatic is a theocrat, someone who sees himself as acting on + behalf of some superpersonal force: the Race, the Party, History, the + proletariat, the Poor, and so on. These absolve him from evil, hence + he may safely do anything in their service. + [Lloyd Billingsley. "Religion's Rebel + Son: Fanaticism in Our Time"] +% +"Religion is a means of exploitation employed by the strong against + the weak; religion is a cloak of ambition, injustice and vice." + [Georges Bizet, letter to Edmond Galabert, 1866] +% +"None of the people who claim to have found God have given us any reason + to accept that they have, indeed, found anything but their own delusions." + [Kelsey Bjarnason] +% +"One would no more join Christianity to show love and acceptance + than one would become a Nazi to show racial tolerance." + [Kelsey Bjarnason] +% +"Never before have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded + perversity! Have you ever considered a career in the Church?" + [Black Adder II] +% +Witchsmeller: "You are a witch." + Edmund: "You are a quack." +Witchsmeller: "A what?" + Edmund: "Quack, QUACK". +Witchsmeller: [turning to crowd] "BEHOLD how the evil spirit + of the duck speaks through him. He is indeed a witch" +Crowd: "Burn him, burn him!" + [Black Adder, starring Rowan Atkinson as Edmund, Duke of Edinburgh, + accused of being a witch by the Witchsmeller Pursuivant] +% +"Babble about 'The wages of sin' serves to cover up 'the sin of wages'. We + want rights, not rites -- sex, not sects. Only Eros and Eris belong in our + pantheon. Surely the Nazarene necrophile has had his revenge by now. + Remember, pain is just God's way of hurting you." + [Bob Black, "The Abolition of Work"] +% +"The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at + least this: neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. + Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer + one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go + to or remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a + belief or disbelief in any religion." + [U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, Majority opinion + Everson v. Board of Education 330 U.S. 1 (1947)] +% +"No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious + beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or nonattendance." + [U.S. Supreme Court justice Hugo Black, Majority opinion + Everson v. Board of Education 330 U.S. 1 (1947)] +% +"No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any + religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, + or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion." + [Hugo L. Black, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, majority opinion + in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)] +% +"Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, + participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups + and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against + establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of + separation between church and state.'" + [Hugo L. Black, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, majority opinion + in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)] +% +"The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and + state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We + could not approve the slightest breach." + [Hugo L. Black, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, + majority opinion in Everson v. Board of + Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947),last words] +% +"Its first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of + government and religion tends to destroy government and degrade religion." + [Justice Black, US Supreme Court Justice, on the 1st Amendment] +% +"[The First Amendment] requires the state to be a neutral in + its relations with groups of believers and non-believers." + [Justice Black, lead opinion, Everson v. + Board of Education, 330 US 1 (1947)] +% +"The manifest object of the men who framed the institutions of this country, + was to have a _State without religion_, and a _Church without politics_ -- + that is to say, they meant that one should never be used as an engine for + any purpose of the other, and that no man's rights in one should be tested + by his opinions about the other. As the Church takes no note of men's + political differences, so the State looks with equal eye on all the modes + of religious faith. ... Our fathers seem to have been perfectly sincere in + their belief that the members of the Church would be more patriotic, and the + citizens of the State more religious, by keeping their respective functions + entirely separate." + [Chief Justice of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania + Jeremiah S. Black, from "Essays and Speeches," 1885, p. 53] +% +"Well I don't want no preacher telling me about the god in the sky + No I don't want no one to tell me where I'm gonna go when I die + I wanna live my life with no people telling me what to do + I just believe in myself, 'cause no one else is true" + [O. Osbourne/T. Iommi/W. Ward/T. Butler, From "Under the Sun/ + Every Day Comes and Goes" Black Sabbath. _Sabbath Vol 4_] +% +"It's hard for me to believe that in the year 2000 I am walking + into court to defend my daughter against charges of witchcraft." + [Tim Blackbear, in Tulsa World 10/28/2000, whose + daughter was expelled from Oklahoma public school + and forbidden to wear Wiccan symbols amid charges + that she had cast "spells" on teachers] +% +"The Bible doesn't forbid suicide. It's Catholic directive, + intended to slow down their loss of martyrs." + [Ellen Blackstone] +% +"Superstition is the religion of feeble minds." + [Edmund Blake (1729-1797)] +% +"Whenever I think of how religion started, I picture some frustrated + old man making out a list of all the ways he could gain power, until + he finally came up with the great solution of constant fear and guilt, + then he leaped up and started planning a new wardrobe." + [Steve Blake] +% +"The ancient poets animated all objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them + by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, + mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous + senses could perceive. And particularly they studied the genius of each + city & country, placing it under its mental deity; Till a system was formed, + which some took advantage of, & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize + or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began priesthood; + Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales. + And at length they pronounc'd that the Gods had order'd such things. + Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast." + [William Blake, from "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"] +% +"As the caterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs + on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys." + [William Blake, from "Proverbs of Hell"] +% + THE GARDEN OF LOVE + + I went to the Garden of Love, + And saw what I never had seen: + A Chapel was built in the midst, + Where I used to play on the green. + + And the gates of this Chapel were shut, + And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door; + So I turn'd to the Garden of Love + That so many sweet flowers bore; + + And I saw it was filled with graves, + And tomb-stones where flowers should be; + And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, + And binding with briars my joy and desires. + [William Blake, from "Songs of Experience"] +% + A LITTLE BOY LOST + + "Nought loves another as itself, + Nor venerates another so, + Nor is it possible to thought + A greater than itself to know: + + "And Father, how can I love you + Or any of my brothers more? + I love you like the little bird + That picks up crumbs around the door." + + The Priest sat by and heard the child, + In trembling zeal he seiz'd his hair: + He led him by his little coat, + And all admir'd the priestly care. + + And standing on the altar high, + "Lo! what a fiend is here!" said he, + "One who sets reason up for judge + Of our most holy Mystery." + + The weeping child could not be heard, + The weeping parents were in vain; + They strip'd him to his little shirt, + And bound him in an iron chain; + + And burn'd him in a holy place, + Where many had been burn'd before: + The weeping parents wept in vain. + Are such things done on Albion's shore? / england's + + [William Blake, from "Songs of Experience"] +% +"Prisons are built with stones of Law, + Brothels with bricks of Religion." + [William Blake, "The Marriage + of Heaven and Hell"] +% +"Religions are not revealed: they are evolved. If a religion were revealed + by God, that religion would be perfect in whole and in part, and would be as + perfect at the first moment of its revelation as after ten thousand years of + practice. There has never been a religion which fulfills those conditions." + [Robert Blatchford, "God and My Neighbor," 1903] +% +"The Christians were the first to make the existence of Satan a dogma + of the church. What is the use in a Pope if there is no Devil?" + [Elena Blavatsky] +% +"There has never been a religion in the annals of the + world with such a bloody record as Christianity." + [Elena Blavatsky] +% +"Religion is like chemotherapy, it may solve one + problem, but it can cause a million more." + [John Bledsoe] +% +"Anti-intellectualism among millenarians and Bible Literalists is a + recurrent phenomenon, but no other religious movement in America ever + has been as programatically set against its intellect as are Jehovah's + Witnesses. The Fundamentalist majority wing of the Southern Baptist + Convention are devotees of pure reason compared to Jehovah's Witnesses." + [Harold Bloom, The American Religion, pg. 162] +% +"Sure, there's still war in the Balkans, but the Supreme Being + of the universe seems to have become shallow and spends all his + time intervening in sporting events." + [John Bloom (aka Joe Bob Briggs), + comment after the Super Bowl] +% +"Though there are a number of rather savage apocalyptic scenarios current + among American Fundamentalists, I am aware of none quite so inhumane as the + Jehovah's Witnesses' accounts of the End of our Time. There is something + peculiarly childish in these Watchtower yearnings: they remind me of why very + small children cannot be left alone with wounded and suffering household pets." + [Harold Bloom, The American Religion, pg. 169-170] +% +"There is a God, but He drinks" + [Blore] +% +"At the first evidence of the onset of cyclic events + pertaining to seventeen for the first, then obviously + we reserve green hurt sliding down the billiard house + on the second corner after dinner. Other than that, + blue interspersed with flying bats.......... + + The above is an example of what bleater-logic sounds + like to me." + [bob ] +% +"Gilles de Rais supposedly sodomized, mutilated, and murdered more + than 700 children. At his trial he told of his usual procedure of + sexually assaulting boys, cutting open their chests and burying his face + in their lungs, and opening their abdomens and handling their intestines. + He also confessed to necrophilia with the dismembered bodies and to + attempted intercourse with a fetus he cut out of a pregnant woman. + At his trial de Rais REPENTED, and the bishop of Nantes WAS FORCED + TO RECEIVE HIM BACK INTO THE CHURCH." + [_Bodies_Under_Siege_ p.9-10] +% +"Considering all the evil that exists in the world, the fact that all + of religion's condemnation is focused on expressing disapproval of + two people loving each other proves just how evil religion is." + [Jan deBoer] +% +"Everything is more or less organized matter. To think + so is against religion, but I think so just the same." + [Napoleon Bonapart] +% +"If I had to choose a religion, the sun as + the universal giver of life would be my god." + [Napoleon Bonaparte] +% +"How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when + one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of surfeit, + he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an + authority which declares 'God wills it thus.' Religion is + excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet." + [Napoleon Bonaparte] +% +"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." + [Napoleon Bonaparte] +% +"I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly + that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet + they lay their hands on everything they can get." + [Napoleon Bonaparte] +% +"Religion divides us, while it is our human + characteristics that bind us to each other." + [Sir Hermann Bondi, interview + in Free Inquiry magazine] +% +"...I will never understand why the advent of tourists and beer is + considered damaging to the culture [of the Bahinemo people in Papua + New Guinea] while introducing Jesus is not. These people have survived + centuries with their own beliefs, invoking their own gods." + [Richard A. Boni of Budapest, Hungary, in letter + to the editor, National Geographic, June 1994] +% +"I want to boldly affirm Uncle Tom. The black community + must stop criticizing Uncle Tom. He is a role model." + [Wellington Boone, editorial board member of New Man, the + Promise Keepers' official magazine, in Breaking Through, p. 77] +% +"All women have been sexually abused by the Bible teachings, and institutions + set on set on its fundamentalist interpretations. There would be no need + for the women's movement if the church and Bible hadn't abused them." + [Father Leo Booth] +% +"One must keep in mind that religious liberty did not come easily. It + did not simply ripen and fall to nonChristians as a gift. It had to be + fought for in the legislative halls, in constitutional conventions and + in the courts. What has been achieved, easily can be lost." + [Morton Borden, Reason magazine June, 1987, from Menendez + Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom] +% +"'Believing' cannot tip the scales in making a historical judgment about + whether something really happened. I can choose to believe that George + Washington threw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock, but my believing + that he did it has nothing to do with whether or not he really did to it. + So also with the story of Jesus walking on the water: Believing that he did + it has nothing to do with whether he really did do it. 'Belief' cannot be + the basis for historical conclusion; it has no direct relevance." + ["Faith and Scholarship" by Marcus J. Borg + August, 1993 issue of _Bible Review_] +% +"3. Interpreting the Bible: All reading of Scripture (including a literalist + approach) involves subjective interpretation. For example, to read the + stories of Jesus' birth as literal historical accounts involves an act of + interpretation just as much as reading them as symbolic narratives (namely, + it involves a decision to read them literally). The recognition that all + interpretations are subjective does not, however, mean that all are equally + good. About any interpretation, one may ask (or be asked), "what have you + got to go on? Why do you read it that way?" + ["Faith and Scholarship" by Marcus J. Borg + August, 1993 issue of _Bible Review_] +% +"If God has made the world a perfect mechanism, He has at least + conceded so much to our imperfect intellect that in order to predict + little parts of it, we need not solve innumerable differential + equations, but can use dice with fair success." + [Max Born] +% +"Freedom is the distance between church and state." + [John Boston] +% +"Pray, and all your sins are hooked upon the sky. + Pray, and the heathen lie will disappear. + Prayers, they hide the saddest views, + Believing the strangest things, Loving the alien." + [David Bowie] +% +"The Boy Scouts of America maintain that no member can grow into the + best kind of citizen without recognizing his obligation to God." + [Boy Scouts of America, statement on membership form] +% +"The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the + universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and + blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship..." + [Boy Scouts of America policy, 1970] +% +"No man is much good unless he believes in God and obeys + His laws. So every Scout should have religion." + [BSA Scouting Handbook, first edition] +% +"...Any organization could profit from a 10-year-old member with + enough strength of character to refuse to swear falsely." + [New York Times editorial, 12/12/93, on the Boy Scouts' refusing + membership to Mark Welsh, who would not sign a religious oath] +% +"Those that scaped the fire were slaine with the sword; some hewed to peeces, + others rune throw with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatche, + and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this + time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fyer, and the + streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stincke and sente + there of, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers + thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to inclose + their enemise in their hands, and gave them so speedy a victory over so + proud and insulting an enimie." + [William Bradford, "History of the Plymouth Plantation", on the + massacre of the friendly Pequot Indians by Puritans in 1637; + their village had been set on fire and 900 men, women, and + children were slaughtered as they tried to escape the flames.] +% +"The word heretic ought to be a term of honour..." + [Charles Bradlaugh] +% +"The atheist does not say "there is no God," but he says "I know not what + you mean by God; I am without idea of God; the word 'God' is to me a sound + conveying no clear or distinct affirmation." ... The Bible God I deny; the + Christian God I disbelieve in; but I am not rash enough to say there is no + God as long as you tell me you are unprepared to define God to me." + [Charles Bradlaugh, "A Plea for Atheism", 1864] +% +"The Atheist does not say "there is no god", but he says "I do not know what + you mean by god; I am without the idea of god; the word god is to me a + sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny god, because + I cannot deny that of which I have no conception and the conception of which + by its affirmer is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to me." + [Charles Bradlaugh, _National Review_, Nov. 25, 1883] +% +"I cannot follow you Christians; for you try to crawl through your + life upon your knees, while I stride through mine on my feet." + [Charles Bradlaugh] +% +"As an unbeliever, I ask leave to plead that humanity has been a real + gainer from scepticism, and that the gradual and growing rejection of + Christianity - like the rejection of the faiths which preceeded it - + has in fact added, and will add, to man's happiness and well-being." + [Charles Bradlaugh, "Humanity's Gain from Unbelief," 1889] +% +"Atheists would teach men to be moral now, not because God offers as an + inducement reward by and by, but because in the virtuous act itself + immediate good is insured to the doer and the circle surrounding him." + [Charles Bradlaugh, "A Plea for Atheism", 1864] +% +"If it stood alone it would be almost sufficient to plead asjustification + for heresy the approach towards equality and liberty for the utterance + of all opinions achieved because of growing unbelief." + [Charles Bradlaugh, "Humanity's Gain from Unbelief," 1889] +% +"If special honor is claimed for any, then heresy + should have it as the truest servitor of humankind." + [Charles Bradlaugh, speech in London, September 25, 1881, + from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"Oh great, but not necessarily superior, being who dwells beyond this plane of + existence and who is accessible only through prayer, meditation, or crystals, + we salute you without thereby acknowledging that you are entitled to greater + respect than that accorded any other endangered species. We hope to pass + through your plane of existence at some point on our psychic journey to the + same exalted status as marine mammals or even snail darters. Moreover, to the + extent your design for the universe coincides with the U.S. Constitution and + includes low-cost access to cable, we ask you to provide us our minimum daily + requirement of essential vitamins and nutrients consistent with FDA + guidelines, and when judging us be duly mindful or our status as victim, which + provides full justification for what might appear on superficial examination + to be felonious. In the same vein, we will endeavor to excuse and forgive those + who have transgressed against us, with the possible exception of our parents, + teachers, policemen and clergy about whom we have just resurrected disturbing + memories. We ask all this in the name of your prophet --------. (Here on + alternating weeks substitute names drawn from the consensus of the class. Some + suggestions for early in the year: L. Ron Hubbard, Ayatollah Khomeini, + Patricia Ireland, Mike Wallace.)" + [John F. Bramfeld, a lawyer in Urbana, Ill., as printed in "Wall + Street Journal" Pg A-18 Thurs, Jan 12, 1995, contemplating what + would happen to school prayer after it was filtered through the + apparatus of politically correct educrats.] +% +"The world presents enough problems if you believe it to be a world of law + and order; do not add to them by believing it to be a world of miracles." + [U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis] +% +"In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued + above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, + and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their + self-esteem are likely to be heroic exceptions." + [Nathaniel Branden, _The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem_, + Bantam Books, (New York, 1994), p. 296] +% +"If, in any culture, children are taught, 'We are all equally + unworthy in the sight of God' - + +"If, in any culture, children are taught, 'You are born in sin + and are sinful by nature' - + +"If children are given a message that amounts to 'Don't think, + don't question, *believe*' - + +"If children are given a message that amounts to 'Who are you to + place your mind above that of the priest, the minister, the rabbi?' - + +"If children are told, 'If you have value it is not because of anything + you have done or could ever do, it is only because God loves you' - + +"If children are told, 'Submission to what you cannot understand + is the beginning of morality' - + +"If children are instructed, 'Do not be "willful", self-assertiveness + is the sin of pride' - + +"If children are instructed, 'Never think that you belong to yourself' - + +"If children are informed, 'In any clash between your judgement and that + of your religious authorities, it is your authorities you must believe', - + +"If children are informed, 'Self-sacrifice is the foremost + virtue and the noblest duty' - + +"- then *consider what will be the likely consequences for the + practice of living consciously, or the practice of self-assertiveness, + or any of the other pillars of healthy self-esteem*." + + [Nathaniel Branden, _The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem_, + Bantam Books, (New York, 1994), p. 295-296] +% +"Whether one believes in a God, and whether one believes we are God's children, + is irrelevant to the issue of what self-esteem requires. Let us imagine that + there is a God and that we are his/her/its children. In this respect, then, + we are all equal. Does it follow that everyone is or should be equal in + self-esteem, regardless of whether anyone lives consciously or unconsciously, + responsibly or irresponsibly, honestly or dishonestly? Earlier in this book + we saw that this is impossible. There is no way for our mind to avoid + registering the choices we make in the way we operate and no way for our + sense of self to remain unaffected. If we are children of God, the question + remains: What are we going to do about it? What are we going to make of it? + Will we honor our gifts or betray them? If we betray ourselves and our + powers, if we live mindlessly, purposelessly, and without integrity, can + we buy our way out, can we acquire self-esteem, by claiming to be God's + relatives? Do we imagine we can thus relieve ourselves of personal + responsiblity? + [Nathaniel Branden, _The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem_, + Bantam Books, (New York, 1994), p. 108-109] +% +"Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts + every day the devastation wrought by the teachings of religion." + [Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D. Psychologist, + author The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem] +% +"You go back and tell Brigham Young that I'll give up the Lord's + money when he sends me a receipt signed by the Lord, and no sooner." + [Sam Brannan, as quoted in "California Saints" p. 153] +% +"My response to the statement that AIDS is God's punishment + against homosexuals is that in that case, God has very bad aim." + [David Bratman] +% +"Answer Just one question for me. Assume I am the leader on a country. I + invade a neighboring country and conquer it. I order all the men killed. + I order all the boys killed. I have all the women checked for virginity, + those that aren't I have killed. The remaining virgin girl children I + split up and let my soldiers do to them what they will, keeping a good + portion of the best looking ones for my own use." The question is: Under + what circumstances would it be good and moral to do the above? And the + answer is: Because God commanded it. I'm sure you are hoping for another + holy war, so you can finally get laid." + ["Johnny Bravo", on alt.atheism] +% +"Entering the city [Jerusalem, July 15, 1099], our pilgrims pursued and killed + Saracens up to the Temple of Solomon, in which they had assembled and where + they gave battle to us furiously for the whole day so that their blood flowed + throughout the whole temple. Finally, having overcome the pagans, our + knights seized a great number of men and women, and the killed whom they + wished and whom they wished they let live.... Then, rejoicing and weeping + from extreme joy, our men went to worship at the sepulchre of jour Saviour + Jesus and thus fulfilled their pledge to Him.... They also ordered that all + the Saracen dead should be thrown out of the city because of the extreme + stench, for the city was almost full of their cadavers. The live Saracens + dragged the dead out before the gates and made piles of them, like houses. + No one has ever heard of or seen such a slaughter of pagan peoples since + pyres were made of them like boundary marks, and no one except God knows + their number." + [Histoire anonyme de la premiere croisade, L. Brehier, ed. + Paris: Champion, 1924 (From The Portable Medieval Reader, + Ed. James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin)] +% +"But in what sense can [the United States] be called a Christian nation? + Not in the sense that Christianity is the established religion or the + people are compelled in any manner to support it. On the contrary, the + Constitution specifically provides that 'congress shall make no law + respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise + thereof.' Neither is it Christian in the sense that all its citizens are + either in fact or in name Christians. On the contrary, all religions have + free scope within its borders. Numbers of our people profess other + religions, and many reject all. Nor is it Christian in the sense that a + profession of Christianity is a condition of holding office or otherwise + engaging in public service, or essential to recognition either politically + or socially. In fact, the government as a legal organization is independent + of all religions." + [Justice David Brewer, "The United States: A Christian Nation", 1905. + Brewer is famous for his remarks in the non-legally binding Obiter Dictum + from the 1892 Holy Trinity Church v. U.S. decision which states that "this + is a Christian nation", frequently cited as "proof" by groups seeking to + amend the Constitution to endorse Christianity. Brewer wrote this to + clarify his position regarding the law. From "Why the Christian Right Is + Wrong about Separation of Church & State." by Robert Boston, pg. 84-85] +% +"No myth of miraculous creation is so + marvelous as the face of man's evolution." + [Robert Briffault (1876-1948) + "Rational Education",1930] +% +"I find homosexuality disgustingly disturbing. This calls God + and his designs into question. I feel a strong sense of fear + for anyone who questions God's designs." + [Arizona State Rep. Debra Brimhall (R-Snowflake) + quoted in Arizona Republic, Feb. 4, 1999] +% +"There is no faith, however respectable, no interest, however + legitimate, which must not accommodate itself to the progress + of human knowledge and bend before truth." + [Paul Broca] +% +"If God dislikes gay so much, how come he picked Michaelangelo, + a known homosexual, to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling while + assigning Anita to go on TV and push orange juice?" + [Greg R. Broderick] +% +"Rationalism is the explanation of the world as human adventure, and it is + not less human because it is an intellectual adventure--it is more human. + Why do those who belittle science always behave as if the mind were the + least human of our gifts? The inquiring mind is the godhead of man." + [Joseph Bronowski] +% +"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to + explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy." + [David Brooks, "The Necessity of Atheism"] +% +"There is no stopping the world's tendency to throw off imposed restraints, + the religious authority that is based on the ignorance of the many, the + political authority that is based on the knowledge of the few." + [Van Wyck Brooks, The Nation, 14 August 1954] +% +"I hope you don't like my posts...that is the intent!" + [Brother Orchid, demonstrating how to be christian] +% +"The pursuit of happiness belongs to us, but we + must climb around or over the church to get it." + [Heywood Broun (1888-1939)] +% +"God, as some cynic has said, is always on + the side which has the best football coach." + [Heywood Broun] +% +"Once again decent citizens will be able to enter this house of worship, + kneel down in front of a nearly-naked man hanging from a wooden apparatus + by a series of gruesome body piercings, and engage in their bizarre + practices of ritualized blood-drinking and cannibalism without being + assaulted by graphic images of attractive young women with bare breasts." + [A. Whitney Brown, "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central] +% +"I do not see how anyone could come fresh to the Bible and see any regard + for human life at all in the early parts. From the extermination of every + living thing outside the ark to the ethnic cleansing of the promised land, + the story is one of utter disregard to human life except when it suits God's + purposes..... it does not license anyone to preach on the excellence of the + Ten Commandments asa sort of constitution document for modern society." + [Andrew Brown, religious correspondent for + the Independent, a national UK paper] +% +"If the Bible is mistaken in telling us where we came from, + how can we trust it to tell us where we're going?" + [Justin Brown] +% +"My lesbianism is an act of Christian charity. + All those women out there are praying for a + man, and I'm giving them my share." + [Rita Mae Brown] +% +"There are many extraordinary tales from antiquity, including women with snakes + for hair, creatures whose gaze turns you to stone, creatures with equine + bodies and human torsos, many accounts of people rising from the dead, lots of + tales of magic, and numerous accounts of physical encounters with fantastic + beings. Ancient people were a superstitious, scientifically primitive lot, + and believed in many things that today we know are silly. I find it bizarre + that so many people see nothing suspicious about the extraordinary or + supernatural claims of the bible, yet don't hesitate to express disbelief in + equally well documented claims of minotaurs, basilisks, and wizards." + [Scott Brown] +% +"There's nothing shameful in acknowledging that you don't have the answers + to every question about life. Just accept the fact that you know only a + fraction of what's going on in the world. You don't have to attach + explanations in terms of a special revelation of God's will, a glimpse + at the supernatural, evidence of a conspiracy, or anything else." + [Harry Browne, "How I Found Freedom in an + Unfree World", Avon Books, 1973, p. 151] +% +"I have ever believed, and do now know, that there are witches; they + that doubt them do not only deny them, but [all] spirits, and are + obliquely and upon consequence a sort, not of infidels, but of atheists." + [Sir Thomas Browne, "Religio Medici"] +% +"If Jesus had been killed 20 years ago, Catholic school children would be + wearing little Electric Chairs around their necks instead of crosses" + [Lenny Bruce] +% +"He is a born again christian. The trouble is, + he suffered brain damage during rebirth." + [Lenny Bruce] +% +"Morality becomes hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers + suffering or dying in connection with unwanted pregnancies and + illegal abortions--and unwanted children living in misery." + [Gro Harlem Brundtland, at the Cairo population conference] +% +"It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses + or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not + change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people. + [Giordano Bruno (1548-burned at the stake,1600)] +% +"You pronounce sentence upon me with greater fear than I receive it." + [Giordano Bruno to his inquisitors] +% +"Who so itcheth to Philosophy must set to + work by putting all things to doubt." + [Giordano Bruno, "The Threefold Leas and + Measure of the Three Speculative Sciences + and the Principle of Many Practical Arts"] +% +"A pious man is one who would be an atheist if the king were." + [Jean de La Bruy re (1645-1696)] +% +"If we have to give up either religion or education, + we should give up education." + [William Jennings Bryan] +% +"All the ills from which America suffers can be traced to the + teaching of evolution." + [William Jennings Bryan] +% +"If the Bible had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it." + [William Jennings Bryan] +% +"The parents have a right to say that no teacher paid by their money shall + rob their children of faith in God and send them back to their homes + skeptical, or infidels, or agnostics, or atheists." + [William Jennings Bryan, testifying at the Scopes trial, July 16, 1925] +% +"As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically + reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children." + [Anita Bryant, 1977] +% +"The atheist staring from his attic window is + often nearer to God than the believer caught + up in his own false image of God." + [Martin Buber] +% +"An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support." + [John Buchan (1875-1940) + British author, statesman] +% +"Who are beneficiaries of the Court's protection? Members of various + minorities including criminals, atheists, homosexuals, flag burners, + illegal immigrants (including terrorists), convicts, and pornographers." + [US Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, Address + to the Heritage Foundation, January 29, 1996] +% +"And how can we ever again succeed in educating children to become + moral men and women if, in America's public schools, we consciously + deny them all religious instruction, and deny them access to that + primary source of morality, God's own word. The Bible is the one book + from which they are expressly not allowed to be taught." + [US Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, + "The City and The Crusade", Commencement + Address for Christendom College, May 6, 1996] +% +"What's the Christian-bashing all about? Simple- a struggle for the + soul of America is under way, a struggle to determine whose views, + values, beliefs and standards will serve as the basis of law." + [US Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, + Washington Times, June 15, 1995] +% +"And it is, I am persuaded, not some deep-seated love of the downtrodden + Xhosa or Zulu that has caused America's press and clergy to insist upon + the most severe of sanctions upon South Africa. (After all, Ndebele, Hutu, + Tutsi, Ibo and countless tribal peoples have been massacred in far greater + numbers in modern Africa, without a peep of protest from these same sources.) + + The spirit driving the anti-apartheid coalition worldwide is not love at + all; it is hatred, and not just hatred of apartheid, but hatred of the Boer, + hatred of Botha, his party and people, hatred of the 19th century idea they + embody - the idea that the Christian West, because of the superiority of + its values and the civilization those values produced, has an inherent + right to rule over other peoples." + [Patrick J. Buchanan. "Why has Appeal + of Communism Endured for So Many?"] +% +"In a GQ profile of Pat Buchanan, journalist John Judis asks the presidential + candidate his views about teaching creationism in school. 'Look, my view is, + I believe God created heaven and earth,' said Buchanan. 'I think this: What + ought to be taught as fact is what is known as fact. I don't believe it is + demonstrably true that we have descended from apes. I don't believe it. I + do not believe all that." + [Leah Garchik, San Francisco Chronicle, 27 November 1995] +% +"Our culture is superior. Our culture is superior because our + religion is Christianity and that is the truth that makes men free." + [US Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, speech to the Christian + Coalition, Sept. 1993, as reported in ADL Report, 1994] +% +"We need to do more than win an election or win the House or + win the presidency, my friends: we need to make this beloved + country of ours God's country once again." + [Pat Buchanan at the Christian Coalition 1995 + Road to Victory Conference, as reported in + the October 1995 issue of Church and State] +% +"Education must be founded upon knowledge, not upon faith; and religion + itself should be taught in the public schools only as religious history..." + [Friederich Buchner, "Man in the Past, Present, and Future"] +% +"Therefore man does not stand outside or above + nature, but wholly and thoroughly in her midst..." + [Ludwig Buchner, "Force and Matter"] +% +"I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front + line of defense against the anti-Christ of Communism." + [Frank Buchman (1878-1961), U.S. evangelist. + New York World-Telegram (25 Aug. 1936)] +% +"I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings. + Like Confucius of old, I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and + the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels." + [Pearl S. Buck] +% +"Be born anywhere, little embryo novelist, but do not be + born under the shadow of a great creed, not under the + burden of original sin, not under the doom of Salvation." + [Pearl S. Buck, Advice to Unborn Novelists] +% +"That the system of morals expounded in the New Testament contained no + maxim which had not been previously enunciated, and that some of the most + beautiful passages in the apostolic writings are quotations from Pagan + authors, is well known to every scholar.... To assert that Christianity + communicated to man moral truths previously unknown, argues on the part + of the asserted either gross ignorance or wilful fraud." + [Henry Thomas Buckle, "History of Civilization," Vol. I, p. 129] +% +"As long as men refer the movements of the comets to the immediate finger + of God, and as long as they believe that an eclipse is one of the modes + by which the deity expresses his anger, they will never be guilty of the + blasphemous presumption of attempting to predict such supernatural + appearances. Before they could dare to investigate the causes of these + mysterious phenomena, it is necessary that they should believe, or at all + events that they should suspect, that the phenomena themselves were capable + of being explained by the human mind." + [Buckle, "History of Civilization," vol. I, p. 345] +% +"If you can impress any man with an absorbing conviction of the supreme + importance of some moral or religious doctrine; if you can make him + believe that those who reject that doctrine are doomed to eternal + perdition; if you then give that man power, and by means of his + ignorance blind him to the ulterior consequences of his own act,-he + will infallibly persecute those who deny his doctrine." + [Henry Thomas Buckle, "History of Civilization in England"] +% +"Be not misled by reports or tradition or common opinion. Be not misled by + proficiency in the scriptures, nor by speculation and conclusions, nor by + attractive theories and favorite ideas, nor by impressions of personal merits + (of the teacher) and not by the authority of some master. But rather, + Kalamas, when you discern yourselves: these things are unprofitable, these + things are blameworthy, these things are censured by the wise; these things, + when performed and undertaken are conducive to misfortune and sorrow, indeed + do you then reject them." + +"...And when you discern yourselves: these things are profitable, these things + are not blameworthy, these things are praised by the wise; these things, when + performed and undertaken are conducive to good fortune and happiness, indeed + do you then accept them." + [G. Buddha, from the Anguttara Nikaya] +% +"Believe nothing, O monks, merely because you have been told it ... or + because it is traditional, or because you yourselves have imagined it. + Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for + the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you + find to be conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings + -- that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide." + [Buddha [Siddhartha Gautama] (?563-?483 BCE), founder of Buddhism] +% +"Believe not because some old manuscripts are produced, believe not + because it is your national belief, believe not because you have + been made to believe from your childhood, but reason truth out, and + after you have analyzed it, then if you find it will do good to one + and all, believe it, live up to it and help others to live up to it." + [Buddha] +% +"Xianity: the braindead, educating the clueless on how to show the + blind how to tell the mute how to witness to the deaf so they can + galvanize the paraplegic into lifelong slavery to a non-existent god" + ["Budikka", on alt.atheism] +% +"Jesus Christ: A common exclamation indicating surprise, + disgust, anger or bewilderment." + [Chaz Bufe, The American Heretic's Dictionary] +% +"Agnostic, n. A person who feels superior to atheists by merit + of his ignorance of the rules of logic and evidence." + [Chaz Bufe, The American Heretic's Dictionary] +% +"Fundamentalist, n. One in whom something is fundamentally wrong - most + commonly lack of reasoning ability and vicious intolerance toward those + not sharing the fundamentalist's delusions. Thus, fundamentalists are + especially intolerant of those able to draw obvious conclusions from + observed facts, those who refuse to seek shelter in comforting falsehoods, + and those who wish to lead their own lives. Members of the fundamentalist + subspecies known as "Slack-Jawed Drooling Idiots" have been known to give + so much of their income to "electronic churches" that they subsist on Alpo + at the end of the month. In herds, fundamentalists are about as useful to + society as wandering bands of baboons brandishing machetes." + [Charles Bufe "The American Heretic's Dictionary"] +% +"Religion, religion. Oh, there's a fine line + between Saturday night and Sunday morning... + Where's the church, who took the steeple, + Religion's in the hands of some crazy ass people, + Television preachers with bad hair and dimples, + The God's honest truth is, it's not that simple." + ["Fruitcakes", Jimmy Buffett] +% +"Armies of Bible scholars and theologians have for centuries + found respected employment devising artful explanations of + the Bible often not really meaning what it says." + [J.S. Bullion, Jr., U.S. freethinker, writer] +% +"The attack on the peasant economy was accompanied by a fierce campaign + against the Orthodox Church, the center of traditional peasant culture, + which was seen by the Stalinist leadership as one of the main obstacles + to collectivization." + [Alan Bullock, "Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives" (Alfred A. Knopf, + 1992, ISBN 0-394-58601-8), p. 264, in the chapter "Stalin's Revolution", + showing that Stalin's motivation for destroying churches was because + of their threat to his political plans and not communistic "atheism"] +% +"Of greater significance was the reconciliation with the Russian Orthodox + Church, the traditional bastion of Russian nationalism and the tsarist + regime, which now became associated with the cult of Stalin and resumed + its role as a state church." + [Alan Bullock, "Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives" (Alfred A. Knopf, + 1992, ISBN 0-394-58601-8), chapter, "Stalin's New Order," pp 906-907, + on Stalin's wartime reconciliation with the church, showing that the + the "atheism" of the communist party had nothing to do with the + treatment accorded religions or the religious during Stalin's regime] +% +"We have an *eclectic* tradition in the United States... Christians of + various stripes are part of this, as are humanists and agnostics, but + this does not make the United States a Christian nation or even a Judeo- + Christian one. We are a mixed accumulation of our past, and it is the + Christian dogmatists, not the secularists, who are the major threat to + our pluralistic democratic tradition." + [Vern Bullough, "Do We Have a Judeo- + Christian Heritage?" in Free Inquiry] +% +"It's called faith. Faith is believing something + that no one in his right mind would believe." + [Archie Bunker, "All in the Family" sitcom by Norman Lear, + replying to Michael's questioning why God would tell women + that they should go forth and multiply and then prohibit + pain killers in child birth] +% +"God and Country are an unbeatable team; they + break all records for oppression and bloodshed." + [Luis Buquel] +% +"If someone were to prove to me-right this minute-that God, in all his + luminousness, exists, it wouldn't change a single aspect of my behavior." + [Luis Buquel (1900-1983), Spanish filmmaker. + My Last Sigh, ch. 15 (1983)] +% +"The idea that a good God would send people to a burning Hell is utterly + damnable to me. The ravings of insanity! Superstition gone to seed! + I don't want to have anything to do with such a God. No avenging + Jewish God, no satanic devil, no fiery hell is of any interest to me." + [Luther Burbank, address to Science + League of San Francisco, Dec. 1924] +% +"All my work in the field of science and research has come through a change + in my earlier opinions on religion. Growth is the law of life. Orthodoxy + is the death of scientific effort." + [Luther Burbank, from "Burbank the Infidel" by Joseph Lewis] +% +"Do not feed children on maudlin sentimentalism or dogmatic religion; give + them nature... Do not terrify them in early life with the fear of an after- + world. Never was a child made more noble and good by the fear of a hell." + [Luther Burbank, "The Training of the Human Plant," 1907] +% +"Most people's religion is what they want to believe, not what they + do believe. And very few of them stop to examine its foundations." + [Luther Burbank quoted by Edgar Waite, also in "2000 Years + of Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", + by James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"Those who take refuge behind theological barbed wire fences, quite often + wish they could have more freedom of thought, but fear the change to the + great ocean of scientific truth as they would a cold bath plunge." + [Luther Burbank, "Why I Am an Infidel," 1926] +% +"I have learned from Nature that dependence on unnatural beliefs + weakens us in the struggle and shortens our breath for the race." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"The time has come for honest men to denounce + false teachers and attack false gods." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"Science, unlike theology, never leads to insanity." + [Luther Burbank as quoted by Joseph McCabe] +% +"This should be enough for one who lives for truth and service + to his fellow passengers on the way. No avenging Jewish God, + no satanic devil, no fiery hell is of any interest to me." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"The scientist is a lover of truth for the very + love of truth itself, wherever it may lead." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"Let us read the Bible without the ill-fitting colored spectacles + of theology, just as we read other books, using our own judgment + and reason, listening to the voice within, not to the noisy babel + without. Most of us possess discriminating reasoning powers. Can + we use them or must we be fed by others like babes?" + [Luther Burbank] +% +"Prayer may be elevating if combined with work, and they who + labor with head, hands or feet have faith and are generally + quite sure of an immediate and favorable reply." + [Luther Burbank quoted by Joseph Lewis] +% +"Nature is not personal. She is the compound of all these processes which + move through the universe to effect the results we know as Life and of + all the ordinances which govern that universe and that make Life continuous. + She is no more the Hebrew's Jehovah than she is the Physicist's Force; she + is as much Providence as she is Electricity; she is not the Great Pattern + any more than she is the Blind Chance." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"I do not believe what has been served to me to believe. + I am a doubter, a questioner, a skeptic." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"However, when it can be proved to me that there is immortality, + that there is resurrection beyond the gates of death, then will + I believe. Until then, no." + [Luther Burbank quoted by Edgar Waite] +% +"Religion grows with the intelligence of man, but all religions of the + past and probably all of the future will sooner or later become petrified + forms instead of living helps to mankind. Until that time comes, however, + if religion of any name or nature makes man more happy, comfortable, and + able to live peaceably with his brothers, it is good." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"But as a scientist I cannot help feeling that all religions are on + a tottering foundation. None is perfect or inspired. As for their + prophets, there are as many today as ever before, only now science + refuses to let them overstep the bounds of common sense." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly + damnable to me. I don't want to have anything to do with such a God. But + while I cannot conceive of such a God, I do recognize the existence of a + great universal power -- a power which we cannot even begin to comprehend + and might as well not attempt to. It may be a conscious mind, or it may + not. I don't know. As a scientist I should like to know, but as a man, + I am not so vitally concerned." + [Luther Burbank] +% +"As for Christ -- well, he has been most outrageously belied. His followers, + like those of many scientists and literary men, have so garbled his words + and conduct that many of them no longer apply to present life. Christ was + a wonderful psychologist. He was an infidel of his day because he rebelled + against the prevailing religions and government. I am a lover of Christ as + a man, and his work and all things that help humanity, but nevertheless + just as he was an infidel then, I am an infidel today." + [Luther Burbank quoted by Edgar Waite] +% +"If a person's personal religious beliefs are sacred, they + should not be peddled door-to-door like Girl Scout Cookies." + [Marilyn Burge] +% +"The language of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment is at best opaque, + particularly when compared with other portions of the Amendment. Its authors + did not simply prohibit the establishment of a state church or a state + religion, an area history shows they regarded as very important and fraught + with great dangers. Instead they commanded that there should be "no law + respecting an establishment of religion." A law "respecting" the proscribed + result, that is, the establishment of religion, is not always easily + identifiable as one violative of the Clause. A given law might not establish + a state religion but nevertheless be one "respecting" that end in the sense + of being a step that could lead to such establishment and hence offend + the First Amendment." + [Chief Justice Warren Burger, writing for + the majority in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971] +% +"It is hard to say whether the doctors of law or divinity have + made the greater advances in the lucrative business of mystery." + [Edmund Burke, A Vindication of Natural Society, 1757] +% +"Bertrand Russell viewed faith as, on the whole, contemptible. If religious + persons were honest and rational, they would not be religious--with that I + agree. But I'm not certain that it's always the fault of the believer that + he cannot abandon his absurd fairytales and fables. I often view the + religious person not with scorn, but with pity--with the same pity that one + would regard a heroin addict or a delusional psychotic. There comes an odd + sinking in my stomach when someone confesses to me his faith, as if he'd + just told me he was ill with a terminal disease." + [J. S. Burke, "Why Religion Persists"] +% +"It must be admitted that so-called evangelical scholars aren't out to + seek any kind of historical truth about the New Testament; rather, they + are out to justify their narrow literalist interpretations... but in the + light of scholarship more careful and critical than theirs, they should + rightly come to grief, as I did when I first sought to justify my former + Christian beliefs with examination of the scriptures. Almost without + exception, they confuse second-hand accounts with first-hand accounts, + and mere tradition with the pronouncements of apostles. Many uncritically + accept any word of the Church Fathers that could possibly be construed + to support their view. _Ad hoc_ defines evangelical musings on the New + Testament, and I have good doubts about the honesty of anyone who takes + their talk seriously." + [J. S. Burke, "An Examination of the Wellsian Thesis"] +% +"In Biblical terms, my biggest sin is answering the fool. I debate + creationists, evangelical 'scholars', and assorted theists who declare + that _their_ version of the ontological argument works." + [J. S. Burke, Usenet post] +% +"If members of the early Christian church ever came into + contact with any Christian living today, each side would, + no doubt, condemn the other as heretical." + [J. S. Burke, "Why Religion Persists"] +% +"The popular notion that witches were burned is quite false. In fact, no + witches were burned at any time in Salem or anywhere else in America. Nor + were witches by any means all women; in fact, they were not all even human + beings. Two dogs were actually put to death in Salem for 'witchcraft.' + The means of execution in all cases, including the unfortunate dogs, was by + hanging, with one exception: an old man named Giles Corey. ...Corey's death + was by 'pressing'; heavy stones were placed upon his chest in an attempt to + force him to plead [he protected his kin by refusing to plead either way]. + ...Nor was the witchcraft hysteria confined to Salem; Andover, Massachusetts, + was caught up in it before the affair had run its course, and at least one + witch was found in Maine. Salem was not, as a matter of fact, even the first + to hang a witch. An old woman in Boston had confessed to witchcraft and been + hanged in 1688, four years before the first execution in Salem." + [Tom Burnam, The Dictionary of Misinformation, 1975] +% +"Why has a religious turn of mind always a + tendancy to narrow and harden the heart?" + [Robert Burns] +% +"God knows, I'm not the thing I should be, + Nor am I even the thing I could be, + But twenty times I rather would be + An atheist clean, + Than under gospel colours hid be + Just a screen." + [Robert Burns, "Epistle + to the Rev. John McMath] +% +"Her people had no gods, only devils - which answer just as good + a purpose among the ignorant and superstitious as do gods among + the educated and superstitious." + [Edgar Rice Burroughs, "Tarzan and the Ant Men"] +% +"Everyone was fooled except Obebe, who was old and wise and did not + believe in river devils, and the witch doctor who was old and wise + and did not believe in them either, but realized that they were + excellent things for his parishioners to believe in." + [Edgar Rice Burroughs, "Tarzan and the Ant Men"] +% +"Science has done more for the development of western civilization in + one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred years." + [John Burroughs (1837-1921) + American naturalist, _The Light of Day_] +% +"Man is, and always has been, a maker of gods. It has been the most + serious and significant occupation of his sojourn in the world." + [John Burroughs] +% +"It is always easier to believe than to deny. + Our minds are naturally affirmative." + [John Burroughs] +% +"When I look up into the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what + it is I really see there, I am constrained to say, 'there is no god'." + [John Burroughs (1837-1921) + American naturalist, _The Light of Day_] +% +"Science makes no claim to infallibility; it + leaves that claim to be made by theologians." + [John Burroughs (1837-1921), from Thomas + S. Vernon, Great Infidels, M&M Press, 1989] +% +"In fact they recapitulate the story of Christianity word for word, like the + inevitable course of some unsightly disease: criminal ignorance, brutish + stupidity, self-righteous bigotry, paranoid fear of outsiders. For the + cultist, psychiatrists, the media, Government agencies have become Satan + incarnate. Like the fundamental Christians, they have to be _right_." + [William S. Burroughs] +% +"If you're gonna do business with a religious son of a bitch.. + GET IT IN WRITING. His word ain't worth shit, not with the good + Lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal" + [William S. Burroughs, from the CD + "Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales"] +% +"Now Christianity sounded good at first to the naive convert. Love, + peace, and charity - what's wrong with that? I'll tell you what's + wrong - a series of unprecedented horrors perpetrated by so called + Christians: The Inquisition, the Conquistadors, the American Indian + wars, slavery, Hiroshima and the present-day Bible Belt." + [William S. Burroughs] +% +"Any belief in Creators or Purpose is wishful thinking. And when you point + out that perhaps ALL thinking is wishful, reactions of intense irritation + give evidence that we are not dealing with logic but with faith." + [William S. Burroughs] +% +"I think there are innumerable gods. What we on earth call God is + a little tribal God who has made an awful mess. Certainly forces + operating through human consciousness control events." + [William S. Burroughs. Interview in Writers at Work + (Third Series, ed. by George Plimpton, 1967)] +% +"The more I study religions the more I am convinced + that man never worshipped anything but himself" + [Sir Richard F. Burton] +% +"There is no Heaven, there is no Hell; + These are the dreams of baby minds; + Tools of the wily Fetisheer, + To fright the fools his cunning blinds." + [Richard Francis Burton, The Kasidah] +% +"One religion is as true as another." + [Robert Burton (1577-1640), + The Anatomy of Melancholy] +% +"It is a common saying that thought is free. A man can never be hindered from + thinking whatever he chooses so long as he conceals what he thinks. The + working of his mind is limited only by the bounds of his experience and the + power of his imagination. But this natural liberty of private thinking is of + little value. It is unsatisfactory and even painful to the thinker himself, + if he is not permitted to communicate his thoughts to others, and it is + obviously of no value to his neighbors. Moreover it is extremely difficult + to hide thoughts that have any power over the mind. If a man's thinking leads + him to call in question ideas and customs which regulate the behaviour of + those about him, to reject the beliefs which they hold, to see better ways of + life than those they follow, it is almost impossible for him, if he is + convinced of the truth of his own reasoning, not to betray by silence, chance + words, or general attitude that he is different from them and does not share + their opinions. Some have preferred, like Socrates, some would prefer today, + to face death rather than conceal their thoughts. Thus freedom of thought, + in any valuable sense, includes freedom of speech." + [J.B. Bury, "A History of Freedom of Thought", 1913] +% +"[T]he ideal of progress, freedom of thought, and + the decline of ecclesiastical power go together." + [J. B. Bury, "A History of Freedom of Thought," 1913, from + Menendez and Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom] +% +"No, I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor + should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God." + [Republican Presidential Nominee George Bush, 1987 + to reporter Rob Sherman at Chicago's O'Hare airport] +% +"Abraham Lincoln said he couldn't handle the job except on his knees. + Have you found recourse to God in prayer often in your presidency?" + +"You have to. I don't believe that an atheist could be President of the + United States - anybody that did not have something bigger than himself + or herself. And faith is the answer, and I've said this to friends. To some + degree religion for me has been a private thing. But I can tell you that + when the going is tough, and even when it's not - in our family we say our + prayers. We say our prayers at meals and we say our prayers when we go to + bed. Barbara and I do. But it's something that the more I'm there, the + more I understood what Lincoln meant." + [President George Bush, in a August 27, 1992 "700 Club" interview] +% +"I don't think witchcraft is a religion. I would hope the military + officials would take a second look at the decision they made." + [Texas Governor George W. Bush, on the US military's + decision to allow Wiccans at Fort Hood to practice + their religion, Good Morning America show, June 24, 1999] +% +"Therefore, I, George W. Bush, Governor of Texas, do hereby proclaim + June 10, 2000, Jesus Day in Texas and urge the appropriate recognition + whereof, + In official recognition whereof, + I hereby affix my signature this + 17th day of April, 2000." + [Texas Governor George W. Bush, "Jesus Day 2000" Proclamation] +% + "Our priorities is our faith." +[George W. Bush, Greensboro, N.C., Oct. 10, 2000] +% +"Our new faith-based laws have removed government as + a roadblock to people of faith who hear the call." + [George W. Bush, September, 2000] +% +"Awe is a large flower, but a short-lived one. Besides, when God cracks + a joke or two and clearly hopes you'll ask him over for a drink, you + lose respect. If God wants worship, he'd better stay lonely. If he + wants love, he'll have to eat shit with the rest of us." + [Jack Butler, "Nightshade", p. 107] +% +"God:" The word that comes after "go-cart." + [Samuel Butler (1835-1902), English author] +% +"An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have + heard one side of the case. God has written all the books." + [Samuel Butler, "Notebooks"] +% +"It is death, and not what comes after death, + that men are generally afraid of." + [Samuel Butler] +% +"As an instrument of warfare against vice, or as a tool + for making virtue, Christianity is a mere flint implement." + [Samuel Butler, Note-Books, c. 1890] +% +"Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world + dreams of, but he has wisely refrained from saying whether they are good + things or bad things. It might perhaps be as well if the world were to + dream of, or even become wide awake to, some of the things that are + being wrought by prayer." + [Samuel Butler, _The Way of All Flesh_] +% +"Religion is the interest of the churches + That sell in other worlds in this to purchase." + [Samuel Butler] +% +"Not only were a good many of the revolutionary leaders more deist than + Christian, the acutal number of church members was rather small. Perhaps + as few as five percent of the populace were church members in 1776" + [Lynn R. Buzzard, Exec Dir of Christian Legal Society, as quoted in + _They Haven't Got a Prayer_, Elgin IL: David C. Cook, 1982, p. 81] +% +"I fear your Lordship has been reading religious + publications of the sensational and morbid type." + [Donn Byrne, "Tale of the Gypsy Horse"] +% +"Believing is easier than thinking. Hence + so many more believers than thinkers." + [Bruce Calvert] +% +"God foreordained, for His own glory and the display of His attributes + of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of + their own, to eternal salvation and another part, in just punishment + of their sin, to eternal damnation." + [John Calvin, "Institutes of the Christian Religion," 1536] +% +"We are all made of mud, and as this mud is not just on the hem of our + gown, or on the sole our boots, or in our shoes. We are full of it, + we are nothing but mud and filth both inside and outside." + [John Calvin, attacking mankind] +% +"We may rest assured that God would never have suffered + any infants to be slain except those who were already + damned and predestined for eternal death." + [John Calvin, rationalizing the slaughter + of infants in the Old Testament] +% +"No efficiency. No accountability. I tell you, + Hobbes, it's a lousy way to run a universe." + [Calvin & Hobbes comic] +% +"It's hard to be religious when certain people + are never incinerated by bolts of lightning." + [Calvin, "Calvin and Hobes" strip by Bill Waterson] +% +"Mom and dad say I should make my life an example of the principles + I believe in. But every time I do, they tell me to stop it." + [Calvin & Hobbes] +% +Calvin: Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being + dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man? +Hobbes: I'm not sure that man needs the help. + [Calvin & Hobbes comic by Bill Waterson] +% +Calvin: Well. I've decided I *do* believe in Santa Claus, + no matter how preposterous he sounds. +Hobbes: What convinced you? +Calvin: A simple risk analysis. I want presents. *Lots* of presents. + Why risk not getting them over a matter of belief? Heck, + I'll believe anything they want. +Hobbes: How cynically enterprising of you. +Calvin: It's the spirit of Christmas. + [Calvin & Hobbes comic by Bill Waterson] +% +"It does not pay a prophet to be too specific." + [L. Sprague de Camp] +% +"There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but + many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral." + [Rev. Alexander Campbell] +% +"A one sentence definition of mythology? +"Mythology" is what we call someone else's religion." + [Joseph Campbell] +% +"The priests used to say that faith can move mountains, and + nobody believed them. Today the scientists say that they + can level mountains, and nobody doubts them." + [Joseph Campbell] +% +"The night of December 25, to which date the Nativity of Christ was + ultimately assigned, was exactly that of the birth of the Persian savior + Mithra, who, as an incarnation of eternal light, was born the night of + the winter solstice (then dated December 25) at midnight, the instant + of the turn of the year from increasing darkness to light." + [Joseph Campbell, _The Mythic Image_, Bollingen + Series C, Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 33] +% +"...god is a metaphor for that which trancends all + levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that" + [Joseph Campbell, American mythologist (1904-1987)] +% +"Too many of our best scholars, themselves indoctrinated from infancy in a + religion of one kind or another based upon the Bible, are so locked into + the idea of their own god as a supernatural fact - something final, not + symbolic of transcendence, but a personage with a character and will of + his own - that they are unable to grasp the idea of a worship that is not + of the symbol but of its reference, which is of a mystery of much greater + age and of more immediate inward reality than the name-and-form of any + historical ethnic idea of a deity, whatsoever...and is of a sophistication + that makes the sentimentalism of our popular Bible-story theology seem + undeveloped." + [Joseph Campbell, American mythologist (1904-1987)] +% +"What gods are there, what gods have there ever + been, that were not from man's imagination?" + [Joseph Campbell, "Myths to Live By" (1972)] +% +"Creation 'scientists' must be aware that the informed workers in literary + interpretation and in physical and biological sciences regard their stance + as irresponsible, and that in the scholarly world as well as in the schools + they are doing irreparable damage to the Christian cause." + [Prof. Ken Campbell, Australian National University, in + St. Mark's Review 137 (Autumn, 1989) (Anglican)] +% +"I don't know whether this world has a meaning which transcends it. + But I do know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible + for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean + to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch - what resists + me - that is what I understand. And these two certainties - my appetite + for the absolute and for unity, and the impossibility of reducing this + world to a rational and reasonable principle - I also know that I cannot + reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without + bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my + condition?" + [Albert Camus (1913-1960), "The Myth of Sisyphus"] +% +"It is a matter of persisting. At a certain point on his path the absurd + man is tempted. History is not lacking in either religions or prophets, + even without gods. He is asked to leap. All he can reply is that he + doesn't fully understand, that it is not obvious. Indeed, he does not want + to do anything but what he fully understands. He is assured that this is + the sin of pride, but he does not understand the notion of sin; that + perhaps hell is in store, but he has not enough imagination to visualize + that strange future; that he is losing immortal life, but that seems to + him an idle consideration. An attempt is made to get him to admit his + guilt. He feels innocent. To tell the truth, that is all he feels -- + his irreparable innocence. This is what allows him everything. Hence, + what he demands of himself is to live /solely/ with what he knows, to + accommodate himself with what is, and to bring in nothing that is not + certain. He is told that nothing is. But this at least is certainty. + And it is with this that he is concerned: he wants to find out if it + is possible to live without /appeal/." + [Albert Camus, "An Absurd Reasoning"] +% +"If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not + so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another + life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life." + [Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"] +% +"Every one who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an indictable + offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years." + [Criminal Code of Canada sec. 296(1)] +% +"Most religions do not make men better, only warier." + [Elias Canetti] +% +"The Lord is not my shepherd + As I am not a sheep" + [Peter Canning] +% +"But I don't know a soul who doesn't maintain two separate + lists of doctrines - the ones that they believe that they + believe; and the ones that they actually try to live by" + [Orson Scott Card, Jan. 2001, "Shadow of the Hegemon"] +% +"And by the time they took him, it was too late. To raise Peter and + Valentine in our faith. If you don't teach children when they're little, + it's never really inside them. You have to hope they'll come to it later, + on their own. It can't come from the parents, if you don't begin when + they're little." +"Indoctrinating them." +"That's what parenting is," said Mrs. Wiggin. "Indoctrinating your + children in the social patterns that you want them to live by. The + intellectuals have no qualms about using the schools to indoctrinate + our children in their foolishness." + [Orson Scott Card, Jan. 2001, "Shadow of the Hegemon") +% +"U.S. Adults (Gallup): humans didn't evolve, 46 percent; evolution + guided by God, 40; evolution occurred by itself, 10 percent." + [Quoted by Adam L. Carley, Free Inquiry, Fall 1994] +% +"The whole of religion has been one uniform curse to the human race..." + [Richard Carlile, "As to God"] +% +"The enemy with whom I have to grapple is one with whom no peace can be + made. Idolatry will not parley; superstition will not treat on covenant. + They must be uprooted for public and individual safety." + [Richard Carlisle] +% +"I would never want to be a member of a group whose + symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood". + [George Carlin] +% +"We created god in our own image and likeness!" + [George Carlin] +% +"I credit that eight years of grammar school with nourishing me in a + direction where I could trust myself and trust my instincts. They + gave me the tools to reject my faith. They taught me to question and + think for myself and to believe in my instincts to such an extent + that I just said, 'This is a wonderful fairy tale they have going here, + but it's not for me.'" + [George Carlin, in the _New York Times_ 20 August 1995, pg. 17. + He attended Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, but left + during his sophomore year in 1952 and never went back to school. + Before that he attended a Catholic grammar school, Corpus + Christi, which he called "an experimental school."] +% +"If churches want to play the game of politics, + let them pay admission like everyone else" + [George Carlin] +% +"This is a lttle prayer dedicated to the separation of church and state. + I guess if they are going to force those kids to pray in schools they + might as well have a nice prayer like this: + Our Father who art in heaven, and to the republic for which it stands, + thy kingdom come, one nation indivisible as in heaven, give us this day + as we forgive those who so proudly we hail. Crown thy good into temptation + but deliver us from the twilight's last gleaming. Amen and Awomen." + [George Carlin, on "Saturday Night Live"] +% +"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. + My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on + their own, so both of them together is certain death." + [George Carlin] +% +"Religion convinced the world that there's an invisible man in the + sky who watches everything you do. And there's 10 things he doesn't + want you to do or else you'll to to a burning place with a lake of + fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you! ...And he needs + money! He's all powerful, but he can't handle money!" + [George Carlin, on Politically Incorrect, May 29, 1997] +% +"The only good thing ever to come out of religion was the music." + [George Carlin, _Brain Droppings_] +% +"I've begun worshipping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike + some other gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It's there for me every + day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, + light, food, a lovely day. There's no mystery, no one asks for money, I don't + have to dress up, and there's no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, + I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly + offered to "God" are all answered at about the same 50-percent rate." + [George Carlin, "Brain Droppings"] +% +"A man came up to me on the street and said "I used to be messed up out of + my mind on drugs but now I'm messed up out of my mind on Jeeesus Chriiist." + [George Carlin] +% +"I have as much authority as the pope, I just + don't have as many people who believe it." + [George Carlin, "Brain Droppings"] +% + "Jesus was a cross dresser" +[George Carlin, "Brain Droppings"] +% +"I finally accepted Jesus. not as my personal savior, + but as a man I intend to borrow money from." + [George Carlin, "Brain Droppings"] +% +"Instead of school busing and prayer in schools, which are both controversial, + why not a joint solution? Prayer in buses. Just drive these kids around all + day and let them pray their fuckn' empty little heads off." + [George Carlin, "Brain Droppings"] +% +"When it comes to BULLSHIT...BIG-TIME, MAJOR LEAGUE BULLSHIT... + you have to stand IN AWE, IN AWE of the all time champion of + false promises and exaggerated claims, religion." + [George Carlin] +% +"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about + it, religion has actually convinced people that there's an INVISIBLE + MAN...LIVING IN THE SKY...who watches every thing you do, every minute + of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten special things + that he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, + he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture + and anguish where he will send to live and suffer and burn and choke and + scream and cry for ever and ever 'til the end of time...but he loves you." + [George Carlin, "Brain Droppings"] +% +"I want you to know, when it comes to believing in god- I really tried. I + really really tried. I tried to believe that there is a god who created + each one of us in his own image and likeness, loves us very much and + keeps a close eye on things. I really tried to believe that, but I gotta + tell you, the longer you live, the more you look around, the more you + realize...something is FUCKED-UP. Something is WRONG here. War, disease, + death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption + and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is NOT good + work. If this is the best god can do, I am NOT impressed. Results like + these do not belong on the resume of a supreme being. This is the kind + of shit you'd expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just + between you and me, in any decently run universe, this guy would have + been out on his all-powerful-ass a long time ago." + [George Carlin] +% +"Trillions and trillions of prayers every day asking and begging and pleading + for favors. 'Do this' 'Gimme that' 'I want a new car' 'I want a better job'. + And most of this praying takes place on Sunday. And I say fine, pray for + anything you want. Pray for anything. But...what about the divine plan? + Remember that? The divine plan. Long time ago god made a divine plan. Gave + it a lot of thought. Decided it was a good plan. Put it into practice. And + for billion and billions of years the divine plan has been doing just fine. + Now you come along and pray for something. Well, suppose the thing you want + isn't in god's divine plan. What do you want him to do? Change his plan? + Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a divine plan. What's + the use of being god if every run-down schmuck with a two dollar prayer book + can come along and fuck up your plan? And here's something else, another + problem you might have; suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you + say? 'Well it's god's will. God's will be done.' Fine, but if it gods will + and he's going to do whatever he wants to anyway; why the fuck bother praying + in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me. Couldn't you just + skip the praying part and get right to his will?" + [George Carlin] +% +"You know who I pray to? Joe Pesci. Joe Pesci. Two reasons; first of all, + I think he's a good actor. Ok. To me, that counts. Second; he looks like + a guy who can get things done. Joe Pesci doesn't fuck around. Doesn't + fuck around. In fact, Joe Pesci came through on a couple of things that + god was having trouble with. For years I asked god to do something about + my noisy neighbor with the barking dog. Joe Pesci straightened that + cock-sucker out with one visit." + [George Carlin] +% +"I noticed that of all the prayers I used to offer to god, and all the prayers + that I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answer at about the same 50% rate. + Half the time I get what I want. Half the time I don't. Same as god 50/50. + Same as the four leaf clover, the horse shoe, the rabbit's foot, and the + wishing well. Same as the mojo man. Same as the voodoo lady who tells your + fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles. It's all the same; 50/50. So just + pick your superstitions, sit back, make a wish and enjoy yourself. And for + those of you that look to the Bible for it's literary qualities and moral + lessons; I got a couple other stories I might like to recommend for you. You + might enjoy The Three Little Pigs. That's a good one. It has a nice happy + ending. Then there's Little Red Riding Hood. Although it does have that one + x-rated part where the Big-Bad-Wolf actually eats the grandmother. Which I + didn't care for, by the way. And finally, I've always drawn a great deal of + moral comfort from Humpty Dumpty. The part I liked best: ...and all the + king's horses, and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again. + That's because there is no Humpty Dumpty, and there is no god. None. + Not one. Never was. No god." + [George Carlin] +% +"Religion is kind of like wearing lifts in your shoes. If it helps + you to feel better about yourself or whatever, fine, I don't have + a problem with that. Just don't ask me to wear your shoes." + [George Carlin] +% +"Here's another question I've been pondering- What is all this shit about + Angels? Have you herd this? 3 out of 4 people belive in Angels. Are you + FUCKING STUPID? Has everybody lost their mind? You know what I think it is? + I think it's a massive, collective, psychotic chemical flashback for all + the drugs smoked, swallowed, shot, and obsorbed rectally by all Americans + from 1960 to 1990. 30 years of street drugs will get you some fucking + Angels my friend! + + What about Goblins, huh? Doesn't anybody belive in Goblins? You never + hear about this.. Except on Halloween and then it's all negative shit. + And what about Zombies? You never hear from Zombies! That's the trouble + with Zombies, they're unreliable! I say if you're going to go for the + Angel bullshit you might as well go for the Zombie package as well.." + [George Carlin, "You are all Diseased"] +% +"I used to be Irish Catholic, now i'm American. You know, you grow" + [George Carlin] +% +"God -- + it's a wonderful idea. + It's a nice fantasy. + It's a way of keeping people in line. + It's a way of controlling people. + There is as much proof of the existence of God -- + or even evidence, forget proof. + There's as much evidence for the existence of God as + there is for the existence for UFSs and extraterrestrials. + And yet, if you mention them for a moment, you're + considered outside, beyond the pale, you're a kook, + you're marginalized, you're crazy. + If you mention -- + if you don't love God, then you're -- + there's something wrong with you." + [George Carlin, on the "Politically Incorrect show, 5/16/2001 + http://abc.go.com/primetime/politicallyincorrect/ + transcripts/transcript_20010516.html] +% +"Never attribute to Devil-worshipping conspiracies what opportunism, + emotional instability, and religious bigotry are sufficient to explain." + [Shawn Carlson, Ph.D.] +% +"If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They + would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it." + [Thomas Carlyle] +% +"Just in the ratio knowledge increases, faith decreases." + [Thomas Carlyle, English writer] +% +"Having a reasonable grounding in statistics and probability and + no belief in luck, fate, karma, or god(s), the only casino game + that interests me is blackjack." + [John Carmack, programmer/cofounder + of id software. (Doom, Quake)] +% +"That's why the religious people are so freaked out about the + Internet, not because of the smut but because NO religion can + stand up to access to information." + [Robert Carr, Lamprey Systems + http://members.aol.com/lampreysys/index.html] +% +"I don't believe in God. My god is patriotism. Teach a man + to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life." + [Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919] +% +"How do you steam clams? Make fun of their religion." + [Johnny Carson, stand-up monologue + on NBC's "The Tonight Show"] +% +"I'm not in favor of the government mandating a prayer in school because our + country was founded on the fact that no particular religious faith would + have ascendance over or preferential treatment over any other." + [U.S. President Jimmy Carter] +% +"I realized that a psychological need for belief also + resulted from childhood indoctrination, and that it + had all the characteristics of addiction." + [Neal Cary, American Atheists + National Outreach Director] +% +"Take a hard look at the Grand Canyon. Try to explain that through evolution." + [Freddie Cash, net.fundie.idiot] +% +"You know, having finally met the Good Lord, I think I can honestly say + that He's a bit of a prick." +"Yeah, I know. Son of a bitch keeps running away from me." + [Cassidy and Custer, "Preacher" comics] +% +"I never saw a contradiction between the ideas that sustain me and the + ideas of that symbol, of that extraordinary figure. [Jesus Christ]" + [Fidel Castro, Cuban communist leader] +% +"Both the Magisterium of the Church...and the moral sense of the + faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that + masturbation is an intrisically and gravely disordered action. + The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, + outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." + ["Catechism of the Catholic Church", 1994] +% +"We [Catholics] are also under an obligation to keep secrets faithfully. + And sometimes the easiest way to fulfill that duty is to say what is + false, or to tell a lie." + [Catholic Encyclical X, 195] +% +"So that a false statement knowingly made to one who has a + right to the truth will not be a lie." + [Catholic Encyclical IX, 471] +% +"If, therefore, the Catholic Church also claims the right of dogmatic + intolerance with regard to her teachings, it is unjust to reproach her + for exercising this right...She regards dogmatic intolerance not alone + as her contestable right, but also as a sacred duty...According to + Romans 8:11, the secular authorities have the right to punish, especially + grave crimes with death; consequently, 'heretics may be not only + excommunicated, but also justly put to death.'" + [The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911 Edition, Vol. 14, pp.776,768] +% +"I can imagine no greater misfortune for a cultured people than to see in + the hands of the rulers not only the civil, but also the religious power." + [Caius Valerius Catullus, Roman poet 87-54 BC] +% + Here in hell's hammock just thinking up deviltry + planet-wide panic's a hat that's so old + i'd rather write about her in my diary + could she be mine without selling her soul + dirty deeds from a demon seed + don't excite me any more + is there one girl, just one girl who says + i'm bigger than jesus now + and i love her + i'm bigger than jesus now + up above her + i'm stage dining off the church of the holier than thou + and i'm bigger than jesus now + + he's got his uptight white virginal followers + i've got these metal chicks dumber than rocks + dated one once but i hated the music + and all her ex-boyfriends were there on the bus + it's never good to be "understood" + by a girl in acid wash + and god only knows what it is that i really want + guess i could ask but he's not the best confidant + puts me down in the biblical sense + in this basement apartment with hell-to-pay rent + is there one girl, just one girl who says.... + + [The Caulfields, "Devil's Diary"] +% +"I hear stories from the chamber, + how Christ was born into a manger, + like some ragged stranger. + He died upon the cross, and might I say, + it seems so fitting in its way, + he was a carpenter by trade, + or at least that's what I'm told." + [Nick Cave "The Mercy Seat"] +% +"This is my religious problem: it would be wonderful to believe in the most + fundamental way. It would make life easier, it would explain everything, it + would give meaning where none is apparent, it would make tragedies bearable. + If I went to a revival meeting, I have no doubt I could be one of the first + to go down on his knees. It seems as if the only religion worth having is the + simplest possible religion. But something about the fact that all it takes to + make it so is deciding it IS so puts me off. Knowing it could instantly make + me much happier makes it somehow unworthy of having." + [Dick Cavett interview, on his lack of religious faith] +% +"...I hope there is a God for Grandpa Richards's sake, + but don't much care if there is one for mine." + [Cavett by Dick Cavett and Christopher Porterfield + (New York: Bantam Books, 1974), pp. 56-7. Cavett's + grandfather was a fundamentalist Baptist minister] +% +"The order of creation in the Bible is woefully incorrect and + violates even the most simple and obvious rules of natural science." + [Charles Cazeau, U.S. professor of geology] +% +"Taking its root in the lower classes, the religion continues to spread + among the vulgar: nay, one can even say it spreads because of its vulgarity + and the illiteracy of its adherents. And while there are a few moderate, + reasonable, and intelligent people who interpret its beliefs allegorically, + yet it thrives in its purer form among the ignorant." + [Celsus, on the spread of Christianity, + _True Discourse_, c. 170 CE] +% +"Christians, it is needless to say, utterly detest each other. They + slander each other constantly with the vilest forms of abuse and cannot + come to any sort of agreement in their teaching. Each sect brands its + own, fills the head of its own with deceitful nonsense, and makes + perfect little pigs of those it wins over to its side." + [Celsus (2nd Century C.E.)] +% +"By simple common sense I don't believe in God, in none." + [Charlie Chaplin, in "Manual of a Perfect Atheist" by Rius] +% +"We found that we didn't have much problem with him [J.C.], + it was his followers we found questionable". + [Graham Chapman, discussing making of "Life of Brian"] +% +"Kneeling is not an heroic attitude. It more becomes the fearful slave + than the brave free man.....These stories of men becoming pious when + terrified confirm our conviction that fear begot the gods." + [Charles ??, in The Truth Seeker, July 1942] +% +"Education and religion are two things not regulated by supply and demand. + The less of either the people have, the less they want." + [Charlotte Observer, 1897] +% +"In God we rust." +[Gordon Charrick] +% +"It is usually when men are at their most religious that they + behave with the least sense and the greatest cruelty." + [Ilka Chase] +% +"One must be impressed by the zealous concern of today's consumer for what he + consumes. there has been a veritable renaissance of such interest in light of + the current realization that many products do not live up to their names and + claims. But it is not yet widely reconized that religion, like many of these + products, also can be useless and even dangerous, at least from a psychiatric + point of view...I am concerned, therefore, with the effects that religion can + be shown to have on mental health as well as on mental illness." + [Eli S. Chese] +% +"I am not espousing atheism or any other religious stance. I am merely setting + down a series of conclusions based upon the observations of case histories + that are representative of literally thousands of others..they are, rather, + typical cases seen every day in the offices of privately practicing + psychiatrists and on the wards of most mental health facilities. ...The range + of emotional difficulty in these patients varies from the existence of subtle + disturbances to major ones in which at times the person does not know who he + is but, rather, thinks that he is Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, or God. + In each instance... tenacious religious beliefs can be an active thread + interwoven into the tapestry of a disturbed thinking process..." + [Eli S. Chese] +% +"This world was not molded by a supreme being, and + anyone who thinks so is just full of themselves." + [ChesterNutzo@yahoo.com, more at his + website: http://chesternutzo.8m.com/] +% +"To downgrade the human mind is bad theology." + [C. K. Chesterton] +% +"The villa's and the chapel's where + I learned with little labor + The way to love my fellow man + And hate my next-door neighbor." + [C. K. Chesterton] +% +"From time to time, as we all know, a sect appears in our midst announcing + that the world will very soon come to an end. Generally, by some slight + confusion or miscalculation, it is the sect that comes to an end." + [G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)] +% +"Let's leave religion to the televangelists. + After all, they're the professionals." + [Cheviot, "Max Headroom"] +% +"My answers are in a blade of grass, in a swath of cobalt blue sky, in + the intricacies of language and social interaction, in glowing dots on + a phosphor screen, in the stratified remains of an Israeli tell, in the + procession of the equinoxes, in the genetic makeup of drosophilia.... + They are physical, touchable, testable and repeatable. Not one of these + answers requires a supernatural force to sustain it or justify it." + ["Chib" on Usenet] +% +"...once a person admits to not believing in God, this raises the + question of whether or not that person believes in America...." + [Chief spokesman for national office of the Boy Scouts] +% +"Worship the gods as if they were present." + [Motto inscribed on door of Chinese temple] +% +"The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history" + [Noam Chomsky] +% +"When society is in decline, people are bound to turn to belief + in gods; when a man is foolish, he eagerly prays for good luck." + [Wang Chong (A.D. 27-91), early Chinese materialist + philosopher, quoted in "China Reconstructs", Feb. 1988, p. 60] +% +"Knowing what to render unto Caesar and what unto God requires wisdom of + any president. Candidates who reduce religion to a sound bite may not + understand that....[W]e hope the candidates exercise restraint by wearing + religion more in their heart than on their sleeves. The US, after all, + is electing a president, not a preacher, who will run a country, not a + church. Faith is a personal guide best seen in action." + [Christian Science Monitor editorial on the 2000 elections] +% +"Laughter does not seem to be a sin, but it leads to sin." + [St. John Chrysostom, "Homilies"] +% +"Among all the savage beasts, none is so bestial as the woman." + [St. John Chrysostom] +% +"We must not hold back in the battle for children's minds" + [Church of England spokesman] +% +"Today, Jesus' name is used to divide us, to make us intolerant, + bigoted, hateful. There is nowhere Jesus could be born today + were he would feel comfortable. Jesus is being betrayed by the + people who claim to believe in him." + [F. Forrester Church, Unitarian minister and author of + _God and Other Famous Liberals_, quoted in Life Magazine, + Dec. 1994 "Jesus" issue] +% + "History aside, the almost universal opinion that one's own religious +convictions are the reasoned outcome of a dispassionate evaluation of all the +major alternatives is almost demonstrably false for humanity in general. If +that really were the genesis of most people's convictions, then one would +expect the major faiths to be distributed more or less randomly or evenly over +the globe. But in fact they show a very strong tendency to cluster...which +illustrates what we all suspected anyway: that social forces are the primary +determinants of religious belief for people in general. To decide scientific +questions by appeal to religious orthodoxy would therefore be to put social +forces in place of empirical evidence..." + [Paul Churchland,"_Matter and Consciousness: A + Contemporary Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind_] +% +"I wonder that a soothsayer doesn't laugh + whenever he sees another soothsayer." + [Marcus Tullius Cicero] +% + "Tuez-les tous! Dieu reconnaitra les siens!" +"Kill them all; for the Lord knoweth them that are His." + [Arnaud-Amaury, Abbot of Citeaux and Papal Legate, 1209, + referring to 2 Tim. 2.19, when asked how to distinguish + between Catholics and Cathars by Crusaders attacking the + city of Beziers. Story by Caesarius of Heisterbach in + "Dialogue on Miracles", also "Broadview Book of Medieval + Anecodotes", p. 227-228] +% +"Well, I'm all packed and ready to go. I'm an aged agnostic, + unafraid of death and undeluded with thoughts of life hereafter." + [Gregory Clark] +% +"In the relationship between man and religion, the state + is firmly committed to a position of neutrality." + [Thomas Campbell Clark] +% +"...[T]his court has rejected unequivocally the contention that the + Establishment Clause [of the First Amendment] forbids only + governmental preference of one religion over another." + [Justice Tom Clark, lead opinion, School Dist. of + Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 US 203 (1963)] +% +"It is insisted that, unless the [practices of school prayer] are permitted, + a 'religion of secularism' is established in the schools. We agree, of + course, that the State may not establish a 'religion of secularism' in + the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus + 'preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe' + Zorach v. Clauson supra at 314. We do not agree, however, that this + decision in any sense has that effect." + [Justice Tom Clark, Opinion for the Court in School + District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania v. + Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963) at 255.] +% +"It may be that our role on this planet is + not to worship God, but to create him." + [Arthur C. Clarke] +% +"You don't believe in organized religion, yet a major theme + in so many of your works seems to be a quest for God." + +"Yes, in a way--a quest for ultimate values, whatever they are. + My objection to organized religion is the premature conclusion + to ultimate truth that it represents..." + [Arthur C. Clarke, in _Playboy_ interview with Ken Kelly, + 1986, from _Arthur C. Clarke: The Authorized Biography_ + by Neil McAleer, Contemporary Books, 1992] +% +"You will find men like him in all of the world's religions. They know + that we represent reason and science, and, however confident they may + be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not + necessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. + Science can destroy a religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving + its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the + nonexistance of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now." + [Arthur C. Clarke, "Childhood's End"] +% +"I would defend the liberty of concenting adult creationists + to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in + the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to + protect the young and innocent." + [Arthur C. Clarke] +% +"A faith that cannot survive collision with + the truth is not worth many regrets." + [Arthur C. Clarke] +% +"The statement that God created man in his own image is ticking + like a time bomb in the foundations of Christianity." + [Arthur C. Clarke] +% +"I have encountered a few "creationists" and because they were usually + nice, intelligent people, I have been unable to decide whether they + were _really_ mad, or only pretending to be mad. If I was a religious + person, I would consider creationism nothing less than blasphemy. Do its + adherents imagine that God is a cosmic hoaxer who has created that whole + vast fossil record for the sole purpose of misleading mankind?" + [Arthur C. Clarke, June 5, 1998, in the essay + "Presidents, Experts, and Asteroids," pp 1532-3] +% +"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." + [Arthur C. Clarke, "Clarke's Third Law" from "Profiles of + the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible"] +% +"When I was last in New York I met Woody Allen and I agree with him: "I'm + not frightened of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens.' + When I joined the RAF they put me down as C of E. I got hold of the man + handling the paperwork and made them change it to "pantheist'. Now I say + I'm a crypto-Buddhist, but I'm anti-mysticism and I have a long-standing + bias against organised religion. I don't believe in God or an afterlife." + [Arthur C. Clarke, interview, http://www.smh.com.au/ + news/0012/21/entertainment/entertain1.html] +% +"If only more Christians read their bibles there'd be less Christians." + [Derek W. Clayton] +% +"For what is hairy is by nature drier and warmer than what is bare; + therefore, the male is hairier and more warm blooded than the female; + the uncastrated, than the castrated; the mature than the immature." + [Clement of Alexandria, church father, Paedagogus 3.3] +% +"Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman." + [St. Clement of Alexandria from The Tutor, as quoted + in "The Natural Inferiority" of Women compiled by + Tama Starr (New York: Poseidon Press, 1991) p. 45.] +% +"Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative + positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our + civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours." + [Grover Cleveland, 1905] +% +"Saying your prayers could be a health hazard according to a report in the + Medical Journal of Australia. Dr. Margaret T. Taylor traced a case of lead + poisoning to the rosary beads an eight-year-old girl was in the habit of + kissing. Dr. Taylor suggested that lead poisoning from the same source could + account for anemia among nuns and other members of the Catholic faith." + [Cleveland Press, as quoted in _True Facts_] +% +"It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to + believe anything upon insufficient evidence." + [W. K. Clifford essay + "The Ethics of Belief"] +% +"If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of + afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in + his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men + that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those + questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it--the life + of that man is one long sin against mankind. " + [W. K. Clifford, "Ethics of Belief"] +% +"We are a people of faith. We have been so secure in that faith + that we have enshrined in our Constitution protection for people + who profess no faith. And good for us for doing so. That is + what the First Amendment is all about. " + [Pres. Bill Clinton] +% +"Sometimes I think the environment in which we operate is too secular. + That fact that we have freedom of religion doesn't mean we need to try + to have freedom from religion. It doesn't mean that those of us who + have faith shouldn't frankly admit that we are animated by that faith." + [Pres. Bill Clinton] +% +"The Bible is the authoritative Word of God and contains all truth." + [Pres. Bill Clinton, at a prayer breakfast] +% +"I ask you this whole week to pray for me and pray for the members of + Congress; ask us not to turn away from our ministry. Our ministry is + to do the work of God here on earth" + [Pres. Bill Clinton] +% +"One of the ugly realities of this world is that it is possible to grow + old without ever learning anything besides religious superstitions." + [Clothaire] +% +"Thou shalt have one God only; who would be at the expense of two?" + [Arthur Hugh Clough, The Latest Decalogue] +% +"You read the Bible in your own special ways + you're fond of quoting certain things it says + Mouth full of righteousness and wrath from above + When do we hear about forgiveness and love?" + [Bruce Cockburn, "Gospel of Bondage"] +% +"If life were to be found on a planet, then it would also have + been contaminated by original sin and would require salvation." + [Piero Coda, theology professor in Rome, in a statement to + the Vatican, as reported by Ecumenical News International] +% +"A Roman Catholic priest and theologian has called on his church to + consider the possibility of evangelizing extraterrestrials, according + to published reports. After two Swiss astronomers said they had + discovered the first planet in a solar system similar to Earth's, + Piero Coda, a theology professor in Rome, said any beings living + on the planet would be in need of salvation." + [Associated Baptist Press article, as quoted Jennifer Graham, + Knight-Ridder Newspaper, in "Mork from Ork is going to hell? Some + scholars say extraterrestrials would be tainted by original sin."] +% +"There is no 'Complete Idiots Guide to + Creationism,' but perhaps one is not needed." + [Andrei Codrescu, on NPR Aug. 25, 1999, monologue + on the "Complete Idiot" and "For Dummies" books] +% +"The devil and God are components of a Siamese twin. Neither has any + existence apart from the other. In denying the existence of the one, + Christians have helped to kill the other. If there need to be no fear + of hell, people may well ask what is the attraction of heaven? Gods and + devils were born together. Gods and devils will die together." + [Chapman Cohen, "The Devil", Pamphlets for the People, no. 6] +% +"Regularity in Nature is not proof of the control of Nature by a Divine + intelligence; it is rather the reverse. If something- call it matter, + or ether, or x - exists, it must operate in accordance with its innate + qualities; and so long as this x remains uncontrolled, its manifestations + will continue unchallenged- in other words, there will be "order". The + same causes, the same results. That is the manifest signs of a natural + "order" that knows nothing of God." + [Chapman Cohen] +% +"Now, primitive man is neither a metaphysician nor an idealist. He does not + concern himself with the origin and destiny of the universe, nor even with + its nature, except so far as his necessities compel him to form some + conclusions as to the nature of the forces around him. His gods are in no + sense a creation of an "idealising faculty," they are the most concrete + matter-of-fact expressions. It is not even a question of morality. He does + not say, "Let us make gods in the interest of morality and the higher life"; + it is the sheer pressure of facts upon an uninformed mind that leads him to + believe in those extra-natural beings, whose anger he is bound to placate." + [Chapman Cohen] +% +"Freethinkers who accompany their statement of unbelief with a "wistful + regret"... express their unbelief in so mournful a manner as to furnish + some little support to the religious theorist. But the fully-fledged + Atheist will not live up to the character. Instead of weeping, he laughs. + Instead of being miserable, he is happy. Instead of regretting the loss + of his old faith, he unblushingly declares his joy of having got rid of it. + Insted of being grateful for the sympathy of the Christian, he confounds + his impertinence and expresses his sympathy with the deluded believer by + seeking to convince him of the error of his ways." + [Chapman Cohen] +% +"Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by + a whiff of science or a dose of common sense." + [Chapman Cohen] +% +"Who knows the origin of religion? Certainly not the one who + believes in it. Understanding and belief are quite antagonistic. + The man who understands religion does not believe in it, the + man who believes in it does not understand it." + [Chapman Cohen, "Essays in Freethinking"] +% +"If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good." + [Morris Cohen] +% +"A whole generation started the day with prayer and ended up not + benefiting very much from it. After all, it was not 7-year-olds + who gathered stoned and naked at Woodstock." + [Richard Cohen] +% +"Ignorance is the mother of devotion." + [Dean Henry Cole] +% +"He who begins by loving Christianity more than Truth, will proceed + by loving his sect or church better than Christianity, and end in + loving himself better than all." + [Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), English poet, critic. + Aids to Reflection, "Moral and Religious Aphorisms," aph. 25 + (1825; repr. in Works, vol. 1, ed. by Professor Shedd, 1853)] +% +"To doubt has more of faith ... than that blank negation + of all such thoughts and feelings which is the lot of + the herd of church-and-meeting trotters." + [Samuel Taylor Coleridge] +% +"Christianity demands entire subordination to its edicts. + Until the majority of the people are emancipated from + authority over their minds, we are not safe." + [Lucy Colman, abolitionist, in her autobiography, + "Reminiscences" (1891), p. 7, from James A. Haught, + ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"A religion that has a personal God, outside of humanity, to worship and to + please, is quite apt to get appointed an official to regulate the people, + and particularly to execute punishment adequate to the offense committed + against an Infinite Ruler of the Universe. Humanity so likes authority, + it seems sometimes as if it gloated upon the sufferings of its fellows." + [Lucy Colman] +% +"We are approaching a time when Christians, especially, may have to + declare the social contract between Enlightenment rationalists and + biblical believers -- which formed the basis of the Constitution written + at our nation's founding-- null and void because it has been breached." + [Charles Colson, ex-Watergate crook/prison evangelist] +% +"He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, + but by no means that he was not a fool." + [Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832), + English author & clergyman, "Lacon"] +% +"Some reputed saints that have been canonized ought to have been cannonaded." + [Charles Caleb Colton, "Lacon", from James A. + Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"All theological tendencies, whether Catholic, Protestant, or Deist, really + serve to prolong and aggravate our moral anarchy, because they hinder the + diffusion of that social sympathy and breadth of view without which we can + never attain fixity of principle and regularity of life." + [August Comte, from "General View of + Positivism," a published speech] +% +"I told the priest- + "don't count on + any second coming. + God got his ass kicked + the first time he + came down here slumming + He had the balls to come, + the gall to die and then + forgive us- + No, I don't wonder why + I wonder what he thought + it would get us." + [Concrete Blonde, "tomorrow, Wendy" + from "Bloodletting" album, 1991] +% +"Do unto another what you would have him do unto you, and do not + do unto another what you would not have him do unto you. Thou + needest this law alone. It is the foundation of all the rest." + [Confucious' version of the "Golden Rule", + predating the Christian version by 500 years] +% +"(9) Phyllis receives Holy Communion this morning without fasting. For the + past five weeks she has been a patient in the hospital. She is not in + danger of death, and will not be discharged from the hospital for a week + or ten days. At 7:00 o'clock [sic] this morning the nurse gave her a glass + of orange juice and some medicine; at 8 o'clock she enjoyed a glass of milk. + The priest came with Holy Communion at 8:30 and permits [sic] her to receive + without fasting. Please explain matters." + [Connell, Rev. Francis J., C.SS.R., S.T.D. The New Confraternity + Edition Revised Baltimore Catechism No. 3. The Text of the official + revised edition, 1949, with summarizations of doctrine and study helps. + Benziger Bros. Inc., New York, 1949. Study Helps, page 220] +% +"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; + men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." + [Joseph Conrad] +% +"For every age is fed on illusions, lest men should + renounce life early, and the human race come to an end." + [Joseph Conrad] +% +"Skepticism... is the agent of truth." + [Joseph Conrad] +% +"Christianity has lent itself with amazing facility + to cruel distortion . . . and has brought an infinity + of anguish to innumerable souls on this earth." + [Joseph Conrad (Korzeniowski), Polish-born + English author (1857-1924)] +% +"And I just want to say...anyone who quotes the bible...that's bullshit. + Because the bible is a book that has fucked up the world more than any + other single book. A book that was written by a bunch of male chauvinists." + [Consolidated, "Dominion"] +% +"No person who denies the being of God shall hold any + office [in] the civil departments of this State, nor + be competent to testify as a witness in any court." + [Constitution of the State of Arkansas, Art. 19, + Sec.1; violates the US Constitutional prohibition + against religious tests for public office, and + was ignored by Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton] +% +"Surprisingly, recent research suggests that a religious person is more likely + to commit a crime than a non-religious person. One can even argue that the + more religious the society, the more likely it is to have high crime rates." + ["Religion and Crime: Do They Go Together?", by Lisa Conyers + and Philip D. Harvey, Summer 1996 issue of _Free Inquiry_] +% +"In the beginning, God created the Baptists. And the Baptists looked + at themselves and said: We good. And God saw it was too late. And + on the 8th day God said, OK Murphy, you take over. I disbelieved + in reincarnation in my last life, too." + [coolsig.com website, August 4, 1999] +% +"Surely, it would be fascinating to have a real encounter with + another intelligence [i.e., an alien]. I think we'd have to + consider whether we should baptize him." + [Rev. Chris Corbally, Catholic astronomer, scientist] +% +"Screw guilt, I could have sex with 10 men and it + wouldn't bother me, I'm an atheist!" + [Adam Corolla, host of MTV's "Loveline" show, + responding to a licensed minister who couldn't + suppress his feelings of homosexuality] +% +"As "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make one drink," so also, + "You can drag a Christian to the truth, but you can't make one think." + [Delmar Coughlin] +% +"The problem with Protestantism is that it's not + quite silly enough to be rejected out of hand." + [R. Craig Coulter] +% +"I am a prophet sent by God to declare the destruction + of the United States because of abortion." + [Michael Courtney, net.fundie] +% +A man said to the Universe, +"Sir, I exist!" +"However," replied the Universe, +"The fact has not created in me +A sense of obligation." + [Stephen Crane, Poem 96 + from _War_Is_Kind_, 1899] +% +"Why does god cause tornados and train wrecks?" + [Crash Test Dummies] +% +"Out of your palaces, princes and queens + Out of your churches, you clergy, you christs + I'll neither live nor die for your dreams + I'll make no subscription to your paradise + JESUS DIED FOR HIS OWN SINS, NOT MINE" + [Crass] +% +"When God the Son squeezed energy into atoms, he squeezed and held the atom so + tightly that there were no unstable elements and therefore no radioactivity. + At the fall [of Adam and Eve], He relaxed His grip slightly... which affected + every atom and allowed some to become unstable, i.e., radioactivity! + [Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1982] +% +"Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. + For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are + told--and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The + characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the + characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for + territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings + fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, + which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when + our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume + we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. + Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion." + [Michael Crichton in "The Lost World"] +% +"When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a + woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of + the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?" + [Quentin Crisp] +% +"It was man who first made men believe in gods." + [Critias (480-403 B.C.E.)] +% +"Philosophy removes from religion all reason for existing." + [Benedetto Croce, "Aesthetic", quoted by Will Durant] +% +"Keep your faith in God, but keep your powder dry." + [Oliver Cromwell] +% +"I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on awaking; I drank + and danced all night with Doubt, and found her a virgin in the morning." + [Aleister Crowley, _The Book of Lies_] +% +"If one were to take the bible seriously, one would go mad. + But to take the bible seriously, one must be already mad." + [Aleister Crowley] +% +"There are no atheists in the foxholes." + [William Thomas Cummings, + _Field_Sermon_on_Bataan_ (1942)] +% +"The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is + that someday they might force their beliefs on us." + [Mario Cuomo] +% +"If the theists all shut up, the + gods would be speechless." + [Robert Curry, on HolySmoke] +% +"Virgins give birth all the time! + Yeah. They just don't tip the stork." + [Robert Curry] +% +"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: + Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners... But for + that very reason, I was shown mercy so that in me... Jesus + Christ might display His unlimited patience as an example + for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. + Now to the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, + be honor and glory forever and ever." + [Jeffrey Dahmer, convicted serial killer, in a statement + to the court, Milwaukee, WI, February 17, 1992] +% +"The great danger of these religious charlatans lies in their unremitting + attack on the separation of church and state in an effort to legislate + their theological beliefs. Whether they are motivated from the desire for + personal aggrandizement and greed, or sincere but misplaced superstition, + they pose a very real danger to the liberties of all Americans." + [Joseph L. Daleiden, "The Final Superstition: A Critical + Evaluation of Judeo-Christian Legacy", p.439] +% +"Despite the suppression of thought, as humankind became more sophisticated + in its knowledge of the workings of nature, it was only natural that some + people began to question the efficacy of the priests and their magical + rituals. Indeed, as people became aware of natural causes, they began to + question the very existence of the gods themselves. The priests' answer to + this skepticism was twofold: invoking the power of the state to exterminate + dangerous freethought, and concurrently developing even more complex, + serpentine, theological logic. Many philosophers were not taken in by this + specious reasoning. They demonstrated that, fundamentally, all theology and + metaphysics is pseudolearning, a semantic sleight of hand to give the + appearance that superstitious beliefs have an intellectual, rational + foundation. They further showed that, by definition, God, if he existed, + would be unknowable. Yet theology--bolstered by the semantic alchemy of + metaphysics--attempted to discuss God as if he could be discovered by + reason or experience." + [Joseph L. Daleiden, "The Final Superstition: A Critical + Evaluation of Judeo-Christian Legacy", p.385] +% +"In the final analysis all theology, whether Christian or otherwise, is a + marvelous excercise in logic based on premises that are no more verifiable-- + or reasonable-- than astrology, palmistry, or belief in the Easter Bunny. + Theology pretends to search for truth, but no method could lead a person + farther away from the truth than that intellectual charade. The purpose of + theology is first and foremost to perpetuate the religious status quo. + Religion, in turn, seeks to maintain the social stability necessary for + its own preservation." + [Joseph L. Daleiden, "The Final Superstition: A Critical + Evaluation of Judeo-Christian Legacy", p.386] +% +"One does not need to puzzle long over why religionists hate atheists so + venomously. Atheist stir up the suppressed doubts of believers to the point + of producing anguish. This is the anguish that incited believers to burn + heretics and atheists at the stake in olden times to remove the source of + the unsettling, disturbing doubts that plagued the believers." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Most atheist do waste their lives battling against the unconquerable monster + of religion--a monster impervious to the spears of reason, impenetrable by + the bullets of logic, and insensible to even the thrust of common sense." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"You make money promoting religion; you only spend money promoting atheism." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"The positive and negative reinforcements of religion verses atheism + tell quite a story. First of all, most religions promise you Heaven + and promise that your enemies will be punished in Hell. What these + promises amount to is an assurance of justice, one of humankind's + greatest longings. Atheism promises nothing." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Everybody's life is a tragedy but the life of an atheist seems especially + tragic. When the atheist dies he realizes that his whole life was in + vain, that he entered a world that reeked with the stench of religion and + leaves it still holding his nose." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"People like the authority figures and moral absolutes of religion to guide + them so they can know the right path to trod in a very confusing world. + They like to feel that they are walking on the solid rock of infallible + religion rather than on the shifting sands of tentative science and moral + relativity. People also like the warm, loving acceptance by religious + groups, and emotional fulfillment that gives them a closer feeling to God + and their church. And mysticism just by itself seems to fulfill a deep, + primitive emotional need for most humans." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"The average person in fulfilling his need to believe, in yielding to + the urge of his herd instinct and in reaping the many advantages religion + offers is following the path of the least resistance and greatest reward." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"The religionists apologize that although the Bible was inspired by God, + it was, unfortunately, written by ancient, ignorant, half-civilized people." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Immature and defenseless children are early indoctrinated with religious + ideas by their parents, grandparents, Sunday school teachers, etc. By + adulthood they become convinced that they possess the truth, and spend + the rest of their lives elaborating and defending their religion." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Pragmatists are correct in observing that people fare better in any society + by accepting the society's religion, mores, values; by conforming rather + than by dissenting. People living in a religious community find that they + fit in better, adjust more easily, prosper better, feel more secure and + are happier if they accept the prevailing religion." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"The common behavior of believers in proclaiming their beliefs + repetitiously and with emotional intensity is in itself evidence of doubt. + They wish to overwhelm their doubts with decibels and iteration." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"It logically follows that the small sects, which feel the most + alone and least supported in their views, work the hardest for + new converts to dispel their nagging doubts." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"People, upon finding the "truth," spend the remainder of their lives + defending it. Christianity protects itself against the doubting of its + theology by making doubting one of its greatest sins. By contrast, + doubting is the greatest virtue of science." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Liberals who have actually read the Bible rationalize their adherence + to Christianity by saying that the Bible doesn't really mean what it + says. In calling themselves Christians, they are appropriating a + hallowed name and applying it to a made-up religion of their own." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Personal dishonesty seems to be a necessary basis for religion. That + is understandable. Children are indoctrinated with a code of behavior + that is instinctually impossible to follow. So they regularly violate + the code and to avoid punishment cover up the violations by lying. + For them, lying becomes part of their religion." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"From the earliest Christian times, the Church has defended itself against + exposure of its fraudulent nature by persecuting scientist, torturing + dissidents, censoring literature, burning blasphemers, brainstuffing the + laity--in every way possible keeping the populace steeped in ignorance, + terrorized by fear and subjugated to the Church." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Even a religion like Christianity purportedly created to + champion the poor and downtrodden was later taken over by + the rich and powerful for their own benefit." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"It logically follows that if Christianity is true, then reason + if false. If human reason is false, how does one account for + the great marvels created by science based on human reason?" + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"If reason be a gift of Heaven, and we can say as much of faith, Heaven + has certainly made us two gifts not only incompatible, but in direct + contradiction to each other. In order to solve the difficulty, we are + compelled to say either that faith is a chimera or that reason is useless." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Believers are interested in fulfilling emotional and spiritual needs, not + intellectual needs. In some cases one might as well try to use reason an + a dog. For many people God is primarily a warm feeling. How can one argue + with a warm feeling. Arguing with someone who places reason below faith + and biblical authority is blowing against the wind." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"One finds it inexplicable that an all-powerful God would try to make his + will known to the world by revealing himself to such few people. It + was revelation only to those few; to the rest of the world and future + generations it was hearsay--passed by word of mouth for many generations. + Yet such hearsay is the very foundation of Judeo-Christianity." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"One wonders why God would choose a Bible to reveal himself + thousands of years before the invention of the printing + press and at a time when few people could read." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"While God routinely punishes the innocent, he perversely rewards the guilty. + According to one Christian scheme of salvation the worst sinners, no matter + how much raping, robbing, swindling, murdering and mutilating they have done + in their rotten lifetime, can get into Heaven by merely acknowledging God's + son Jesus as their Savior; they can enjoy eternal bliss right along with + good people who have earned it." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"The advances of science have not been accepted gracefully. They have + been denounced by the church and resisted by the populace. The leaders + of scientific discovery have been vilified, harassed, persecuted, tortured, + imprisoned and executed. But the weight of evidence and practical results + piled up by science is invincible--something that many of today's + fundamentalists still haven't learned." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"With science unable to give us the answers, religion steps in and fills + the gap of our ignorance with nonsense, fantasies and pretentious lies. + Prophets and priests rush in where scientists fear to tread." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Religionists claim that their truth is absolute and rock solid, while + scientists concede that their truth is tentative and relative." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"God, being accredited as responsible for everything we cannot + explain otherwise, becomes the symbol of our ignorance." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"What could be more negative thinking than belief that sex and procreation, + without which there could be no life on Earth, are dirty and sinful! Our + obsession with sex and morality has produced a sexually sick, sadistic, + perverted, frustrated, aggressive, violence-prone society." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Another benefit of religion is the raising of one's self-esteem--the + feeling that one is superior to soulless lower animals as well as + superior to nonbelievers because one is saved and chosen for eternity." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"It is little wonder that these generally ignorant, seedy, morally shoddy + types (televangelists) achieve amazing success. They are treated as + sacrosanct by a government fearful of offending religion. Not held + financially accountable as are other businessmen, and enjoying religious + exemptions from various taxes and from numerous government regulations, + they easily amass millions of dollars from a gullible public." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"The really incredible part of Christian theology is God's demanding after + perpetrating his brutal crimes and injustices on humankind and ordering + his own son murdered--demanding that humankind honor him, worship him, + kneel down to him, and sing his praises day and night forever." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Much of humankind's intellectual and emotional struggle has been + not for truth, but against truth. The advance of science has been + sporadically fought against for thousands of years." + [C. W. Dalton, "The Right Brain and Religion"] +% +"Without doubt you are not sane." + [Tage Danielsson] +% +"The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and + fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are + drifting side by side to our common doom." + [Clarence Darrow] +% +"I believe that religion is the belief in future life + and in God. I don't believe in either. I don't believe + in God as I don't believe in Mother Goose." + [Clarence Darrow, speech, Toronto, 1930, + quoted in "Manual of a Perfect Atheist" by Rius] +% +"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know + what many ignorant men are sure of." + [Clarence Darrow] +% +"The fact that there is a general belief in + a future life is no evidence of its truth." + [Clarence Darrow] +% +"Even many of those who claim to believe in immortality still tell themselves + and others that neither side of the question is susceptible of proof. Just + what can these hopeful ones believe that the word "proof" involves? The + evidence against the persistence of personal consciousness is as strong as + the the evidence for gravitation, and much more obvious. It is as convincing + and unassailable as the proof of the destruction of wood or coal by fire. + If it is not certain that death ends personal identity and memory, then + almost nothing that man accepts as true is susceptible as proof." + [Clarence Darrow, "The Myth of Immortality"] +% +"They were allowed to stay there on one condition, and that is + that they didn't eat of the tree of knowledge. That has been + the condition of the Christian church from then until now. + They haven't eaten as yet, as a rule they do not." + [Clarence Seward Darrow, American lawyer (1857-1938)] +% +"To think is to differ." + [Clarence Darrow, + Scopes trial, July 1925] +% +"I say that religion is the belief in future life + and in God. I don't believe in either." + [Clarence Darrow, interview, + N.Y. Times, 19 April 1936] +% +"The origin of the absurd idea of immortal life is easy to discover; + it is kept alive by hope and fear, by childish faith, and by cowardice." + [Clarence Darrow] +% +"In spite of all the yearnings of men, no one can produce a single + fact or reason to support the belief in God and in personal immortality." + [Clarence Darrow, The Sign, May 1938] +% +"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt." + [Clarence Darrow] +% +"If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach + in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the + private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the + hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the + newspapers... Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always + feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; + tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the + magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the + setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners + and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the + sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to + bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind." + [Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925] +% +"People are such damned idiots, they know a little about biology. They + know, for instance that you can produce a fat hog or a thin hog and + they get to believing that you can produce wise men. A preacher is + just as apt to produce a criminal as anyone else - more so, perhaps. + Children don't like to stay around preacher's houses. They run away." + [Clarence Darrow, quoted in The + Houston Press, Mar. 11, 1931] +% +"If that story [Creation] was necessary to keep me out of + hell and put me in heaven -- necessary for my life -- I + wouldn't believe it because I couldn't believe it." + [Clarence Darrow] +% +"On the ordinary view of each species having been + independently created, we gain no scientific explanation..." + [Charles Darwin] +% +"I can hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if + so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not + believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best + friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine." + [Charles Darwin] +% +"For myself, I do not believe in any revelation. As + for a future life, every man must judge for himself + between conflicting vague probabilities." + [Charles Darwin] +% +"The assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as + an argument for His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we + should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of cruel and + malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for the + belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent Diety." + [Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man"] +% +"I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation... + Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. + The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since + doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct." + [Charles Darwin] +% +"I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to + me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity + & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is + best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follows + from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to + avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science. I may, + however, have been unduly biassed by the pain which it would give some + members of my family, if I aided in any way direct attacks on religion." + [Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man", p.645] +% +"On seeing the marsupials in Australia for the first time and + comparing them to placental mammals: "An unbeliever ...might + exclaim 'Surely two distinct Creators must have been at work'" + [Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man", p. 178] +% +"..we can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole + systems of universe[s,] to be governed by laws, but the smallest + insect, we wish to be created at once by special act" + [Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man", p. 218] +% +"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would + have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of + their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars." + [Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man", p. 479] +% +"The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by + us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic." + [Charles Darwin, "Life and Letters"] +% +"Now must we overlook the probability of the constant inculcation in a + belief in God on the minds of children, producing so strong and perhaps + an inherited effect on their brains not fully developed, that it would + be as difficult for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a + monkey to throw off its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake." + [Charles Darwin] +% +"For my part I would as soon be descended from a baboon...as from a + savage who delights to torture his enemies...treats his wives like + slaves...and is haunted by the grossest superstitions." + [Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man"] +% +"If women reaching their sexual peak at age 34 while men reach it + at 18 is not proof that God is a woman, then I don't know what is." + [Peter David] +% +"People who are bitter and hateful about slavery are obviously bitter and + hateful against God and his word, because they reject what God says and + embrace what mere humans say concerning slavery. This humanistic + thinking is what the abolitionists embraced." + [Alabama State Senator Charles Davidson, citing + biblical defenses of slavery, 1996] +% + gullibility + arrogance +Unshakable faith = ------------ + common sense + + [Scott Davies (scottd@cory.EECS.Berkeley.EDU) + on alt.atheism.moderated] +% +"The fact that the ontological argument reeks of logical trickery belies its + philosophical force. It has in fact been taken very seriously by many + philosophers over the years, including briefly by the atheistic Bertrand + Russell. Nevertheless, even theologians have not generally been prepared to + defend it. One problem lies with the treatment of "existence" as if it were + a property of things, like mass or color. Thus the argument obliges one to + compare the concepts of gods-that-really-exist and gods-that-don't-really- + exist. But existence is not the sort of attribute to be placed alongside + normal physical properties. I can meaningfully talk about having five + little coins and six big coins in my pocket, but what does it mean for me + to say that I have five existing coins and six nonexistent coins?" + [Paul Davis, "The Mind of God", on the + "ontological" argument for God's existence] +% +"There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the + existence of a "hottest part" implies a temperature difference, and any + marginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat + engine and make some other part of hell comfortably cool. This is + obviously impossible." + [Richard Davisson] +% +"Consider the idea of God. We do not know how it arose in the meme pool. + Probably it originated many times by independent 'mutation.' In any case, + it is very old indeed. How does it replicate itself? By the spoken and + written word, aided by great music and great art. Why does it have such + high survival value? Remember that 'survival value' here does not mean + value for a gene in a gene pool, but value for a meme in a meme pool. The + question really means: What is it about the idea of a god that gives it its + stability and penetrance in the cultural environment? The survival value of + the god meme in the meme pool results from its great psychological appeal. + It provides a superficially plausible answer to deep and troubling + questions about existence. It suggests that injustices in this world may be + rectified in the next. The 'everlasting arms' hold out a cushion against + our own inadequacies which, like a doctor's placebo, is none the less + effective for being imaginary. There are some of the reasons why the idea + of God is copied so readily by successive generations of individual brains. + God exists, if only in the form of a meme with high survival value, or + infective power, in the environment provided by human culture." + [Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"] +% +"Another meme of the religious meme complex is called faith. It means blind + trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence. The story + of Doubting Thomas is told, not so that we shall admire Thomas, but so that + we can admire the other apostles in comparison. Thomas demanded evidence. + Nothing is more lethal for certain kinds of meme than a tendency to look + for evidence. The other apostles, whose faith was so strong that they did + not need evidence, are held up to us as worthy of imitation. The meme for + blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious + expedient of discouraging rational inquiry." + [Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"] +% +"Blind faith can justify anything. In a man believes in a different god, or + even if he uses a different ritual for worshipping the same god, blind + faith can decree that he should die - on the cross, at the stake, skewered + on a Crusader's sword, shot in a Beirut street, or blown up in a bar in + Belfast. Memes for blind faith have their own ruthless ways of propagating + themselves. This is true of patriotic and political as well as religious + blind faith." + [Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"] +% +"I think what attracts me about the Electric Monk is that it's such + an eloquent example of the futility of belief for belief's sake. I + mean there's only any point in believing something if it's true." + [Richard Dawkins, interview with Douglas Adams] +% +"And it's not just faith itself: it's the idea that faith is a virtue and the + less evidence there is, the more virtuous it is. You can actually quote, + well, Tertullian for example: "It is certain because it is impossible." + Sir Thomas Brown, actually seeking for more difficult things to believe, + because things for which there is mere evidence are just too easy, and it's + no test of his faith. In order to have a test of your faith, you must be + asked to believe really daft things like the transubstantiation, you know, + the blood of Christ turning into wine, and stuff... That is so manifestly + absurd that you've got to be a really great believer, in the class of the + Electric Monk, in order to believe it..... You're actually showing off your + believing credentials by the ability to believe something like that... + If it were an easy thing to believe, substantiated by facts, then it + wouldn't be any great achievement." + [Richard Dawkins, interview with Douglas Adams] +% +"The level of awe that you get by contemplating the modern scientific view of + the universe: deep time (by which I mean geological time), deep space, and + what you could call deep complexity, living things..... that level of awe is + just orders of magnitude greater and more awe-inspiring than the sort of + pokey medieval world-view which the church still actually has. I mean, they + sort of pay lip-service to the scientific world-view, but if you listen to + what they say on Thought For The Day [a religious program on BBC Radio] and + things like that, it is medieval. It's a small world, a small universe, with + the sky up there, very little advance since that time. So I yield to nobody + in my awe for the universe and for life, but I also have a deep desire to + understand it, in terms of what makes it work, what makes it tick, and not + to take refuge in spurious non-explanations like "I just believe it + because I believe it," that sort of thing." + [Richard Dawkins, interview with Douglas Adams] +% +"On the contrary, if the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, + meaningless tragedies like the crashing of this bus [full of children + from a Roman Catholic school and for no apparent reason but with wholesale + loss of life] are exactly what we should expect, along with equally + meaningless _good_ [italics in original] fortune. Such a universe would + be neither evil nor good in intention. It would manifest no intentions of + any kind. In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, + some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, + and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The + universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if + there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good, nothing + but blind, pitiless indifference." + [Richard Dawkins, _River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of + Life_, 1995, BasicBooks, New York; ISBN 0-465-01606-5 + Also quoted in "God's Utility Function", pg 85, November, + 1995 _Scientific American_] +% +"Science offers us an explanation of how complexity (the difficult) arose + out of simplicity (the easy). The hypothesis of God offers no worthwhile + explanation for anything, for it simply postulates what we are trying to + explain. It postulates the difficult to explain, and leaves it at that. + We cannot prove that there is no God, but we can safely conclude the He + is very, very improbable indeed." + [Richard Dawkins, from the _New Humanist_, the Journal + of the Rationalist Press Association, Vol 107 No 2] +% +"The analogy between telescope and eye, between watch and living organism, is + false. All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the + blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way. A true + watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their + interconnections, with a future purpose in his mind's eye. Natural selection, + the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which + we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful + form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. + It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at + all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the + blind watchmaker." + [Richard Dawkins, _The Blind Watchmaker_ + (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987), p. 5] +% +"The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only + theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the + existence of organized complexity." + [Richard Dawkins, _The Blind Watchmaker_ + (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987), p. 317] +% +"In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with + extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and + our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, + our ... nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, + evangelists, and quacks. We need to replace the automatic credulity + of childhood with the constructive skepticism of adult science." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"I have just discovered that without her father's consent this + sweet, trusting, gullible six-year-old is being sent, for weekly + instruction, to a Roman Catholic nun. What chance has she?" + [Richard Dawkins, "Viruses of the Mind"] +% +"The second requirement of a virus-friendly environment --- that it should + obey a program of coded instructions --- is again only quantitatively less + true for brains than for cells or computers. We sometimes obey orders from + one another, but also we sometimes don't. Nevertheless, it is a telling fact + that, the world over, the vast majority of children follow the religion of + their parents rather than any of the other available religions. Instructions + to genuflect, to bow towards Mecca, to nod one's head rhythmically towards + the wall, to shake like a maniac, to ``speak in tongues'' --- the list of + such arbitrary and pointless motor patterns offered by religion alone is + extensive --- are obeyed, if not slavishly, at least with some reasonably + high statistical probability." + [Richard Dawkins, "Viruses of the Mind"] +% +"The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the + simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry." + [Richard Dawkins, "Viruses of the Mind"] +% +"With so many mindbytes to be downloaded, so many mental codons to be + replicated, it is no wonder that child brains are gullible, open to + almost any suggestion, vulnerable to subversion, easy prey to Moonies, + Scientologists and nuns. Like immune-deficient patients, children are + wide open to mental infections that adults might brush off without effort." + [Richard Dawkins, "Viruses of the Mind"] +% +"If you have a faith, it is statistically overwhelmingly likely that it + is the same faith as your parents and grandparents had. No doubt soaring + cathedrals, stirring music, moving stories and parables, help a bit. + But by far the most important variable determining your religion is the + accident of birth. The convictions that you so passionately believe + would have been a completely different, and largely contradictory, set + of convictions, if only you had happened to be born in a different place. + Epidemiology, not evidence." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Out of all of the sects in the world, we notice an uncanny coincidence: + the overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one that their parents + belong to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favour, the best + miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained glass, + the best music: when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available + religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing, compared to + the matter of heredity. This is an unmistakable fact; nobody could + seriously deny it. Yet people with full knowledge of the arbitrary nature + of this heredity, somehow manage to go on believing in *their* religion, + often with such fanaticism that they are prepared to murder people who + follow a different one." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Hot on the heels of its magnanimous pardoning of Galileo, the Vatican has now + moved with even more lightning speed to recognise the truth of Darwinism." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Religious people split into three main groups when faced + with science. I shall label them the "know-nothings", + the "know-alls", and the "no-contests." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"It is often said, mainly by the "no-contests", that although there is no + positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against + his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first + sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of + Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same + could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at + the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't *prove* + that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?" + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"I suspect that today if you asked people to justify their belief in God, + the dominant reason would be scientific. Most people, I believe, think + that you need a God to explain the existence of the world, and especially + the existence of life. They are wrong, but our education system is such + that many people don't know it. " + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"A universe with a God would look quite different from a universe without + one. A physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look different." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"The trouble is that God in this sophisticated, physicist's sense bears no + resemblance to the God of the Bible or any other religion. If a physicist + says God is another name for Planck's constant, or God is a superstring, we + should take it as a picturesque metaphorical way of saying that the nature + of superstrings or the value of Planck's constant is a profound mystery. + It has obviously not the smallest connection with a being capable of + forgiving sins, a being who might listen to prayers, who cares about + whether or not the Sabbath begins at 5pm or 6pm, whether you wear a veil + or have a bit of arm showing; and no connection whatever with a being + capable of imposing a death penalty on His son to expiate the sins of + the world before and after he was born. " + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"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] +% +"Science offers us an explanation of how complexity (the difficult) + arose out of simplicity (the easy). The hypothesis of God offers + no worthwhile explanation for anything, for it simply postulates + what we are trying to explain." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Thus the creationist's favourite question "What is the use of half an + eye?" Actually, this is a lightweight question, a doddle to answer. + Half an eye is just 1 per cent better than 49 per cent of an eye..." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Certainly I see the scientific view of the world as incompatible with + religion, but that is not what is interesting about it. It is also + incompatible with magic, but that also is not worth stressing. What is + interesting about the scientific world view is that it is true, + inspiring, remarkable and that it unites a whole lot of phenomena + under a single heading." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Religions do make claims about the universe--the same kinds of + claims that scientists make, except they're usually false." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"Who will say with confidence that sexual abuse is more + permanently damaging to children than threatening them + with the eternal and unquenchable fires of hell?" + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"I am against religion because it teaches us to + be satisfied with not understanding the world." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"We no longer have to resort to superstition when faced with the deep + problems: Is there a meaning to life? What are we for? What is man?" + [Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"] +% +"They express a preference for 'natural' methods of population + limitation, and a natural method is exactly what they are going + to get. It is called starvation." + [Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"] +% +"There is no spirit-driven life force, no throbbing, heaving, + pullulating, protoplasmic, mystic jelly. Life is just bytes + and bytes and bytes of digital information." + [Richard Dawkins, "River Out of Eden"] +% +"Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they + get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not." + [Richard Dawkins, "River Out of Eden"] +% +"This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that + things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply + callous - indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose." + [Richard Dawkins, "River Out of Eden"] +% +"If there is only one Creator who made the tiger and the lamb, + the cheetah and the gazelle, what is He playing at? Is he a + sadist who enjoys spectator blood sports? ... Is he manuvering + to maximize David Attenborough's television ratings?" + [Richard Dawkins, "River Out of Eden"] +% +"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should + expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil + and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference." + [Richard Dawkins, "River Out of Eden"] +% +"If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be + no doctors, but witch doctors, no transport faster than horses, no computers, + no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all + the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice + the difference? Even bad achievements of scientists, the bombs, and sonar- + guided whaling vessels *work*! The achievements of theologians don't do + anything, don't affect anything, don't mean anything. What makes anyone think + that "theology" is a subject at all?" + [Richard Dawkins, "The Emptiness of Theology", + Op-Ed article in Free Inquiry, Spring 1998] +% +"Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, + to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against + fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight + to heaven. What a weapon! Religious faith deserves a chapter to itself in + the annals of war technology, on an even footing with the longbow, the + warhorse, the tank, and the hydrogen bomb." + [Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"] +% +Telegraph: "For God to create the universe he would have to be hyper- + intelligent. But intelligence only evolves over time. Is that + about the strength of it?" + +Dawkins: "It's worse than that, the argument for God starts by assuming + what it is attempting to explain -- intelligence, complexity, it + comes to the same thing -- and so it explains nothing. God is a + non-explanation. Whereas evolution by natural selection /is/ an + explanation. It really does start simply and become complex." + + [Sunday Telegraph (UK) interview with Richard Dawkins, Sept. 26, 1999] +% +"Evolution should be one of the first things you learn + at school... and what do they [children] get instead? + Sacred hearts and incense. Shallow, empty religion." + [Sunday Telegraph (UK) interview with + Richard Dawkins, Sept. 26, 1999] +% +"Then there are those who really do believe, but take very good care to + separate their religion off in a separate part of their mind. They don't + let clashing thoughts ever literally clash. Either they do it by only + thinking about religion on Sunday, or they somehow manage to keep their + religious thoughts separate from their scientific ones. Those are the + ones I find least easy to understand. And then, of course, there are + those who just aren't very bright." + [Richard Dawkins, "A Trick of Light: + Richard Dawkins on Science and Religion"] +% +"The Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the raising of Lazarus, even the Old + Testament miracles, all are freely used for religious propaganda, and they + are very effective with an audience of unsophisticates and children. Every + one of these miracles amounts to a violation of the normal running of the + natural world. Theologians should make a choice. You can claim your own + magisterium, separate from science's but still deserving of respect. But in + that case, you must renounce miracles. Or you can keep your Lourdes and your + miracles and enjoy their huge recruiting potential among the uneducated. But + then you must kiss goodbye to separate magisteria and your high-minded + aspiration to converge with science..." + [Richard Dawkins, "Snake Oil and Holy Water," + in Forbes magazine, Oct. 4, 1999] +% +"Convergence? Only when it suits. To an honest judge, the alleged marriage + between religion and science is a shallow, empty, spin-doctored sham." + [Richard Dawkins, "Snake Oil and Holy Water," + in Forbes magazine, Oct. 4, 1999] +% +"Testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to get a woman in this + world might be desperate enough to go for 72 private virgins in the next." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"To fill a world with religion... is like littering the streets + with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used." + [Richard Dawkins] +% +"I don't need religious bumfucks anymore, anymore..." + [Dayglo Abortions] +% +All religions make me wanna throw up +All religions make me sick +All religions make me wanna throw up +All religions suck + +The all claim that they have the truth +That'll set you free +Just give 'em all your money and they'll set you free +Free for a fee + +They all claim that they have "the Answer" +When they don't even know the Question +They're just a bunch of liars +They just want your money +They just want your consciousness + +All religions suck +All religions make me wanna throw up +All religions suck +All religions make me wanna BLEAH! + +They really make me sick +They really make me sick +They really make me ILL! + + ["Religious Vomit", Dead Kennedys (from "In God We + Trust, Inc.", Alternative Tentacles VIRUS 5), 1981] +% + + MORAL MAJORITY + +You call yourselves the Moral Majority +We call ourselves the people of the real world +Trying to rub us out, but we're going to survive +God must be dead, if you're alive + +You say, "God loves you. Come and buy the Good News" +Then you buy the president and swimming pools +If Jesus don't save 'till we're lining your pockets +God must be dead, if you're alive + +Circus-tent con men and Southern belle bunnies +Milk your emotions then they steal your money +It's the new dark ages with the fascists toting bibles +Cheap nostalgia for the Salem Witch Trials + +Stodgy ayatollahs in their double-knit ties +Burn lots of books so they can feed you their lies +Masturbating with a flag and a bible +God must be dead if you're alive + +Blow it out your ass, Jerry Falwell +Blow it out your ass, Jessie Helms +Blow it out your ass, Ronald Regan +What's wrong with a mind of my own? + +You don't want abortions you want battered children +You want to ban the pill as if that solves the problem +Now you wanna force us to pray in school +God must be dead if you're such a fool + +You're planning for a war with or without Iran +Building a police state with the Klu Klux Klan +Pissed at your neighbour? Don't bother to nag +Pick up the phone and turn in a fag + +Blow it out your ass, Terry Dolan +Blow it out your ass, Phyllis Schlafly +Ram it up your cunt, Anita +'Cause God must be dead +If you're alive +God must be dead +If you're alive + + ["Religious Vomit", Dead Kennedys/Jello Biafra (from "In + God We Trust, Inc.", Alternative Tentacles VIRUS 5), 1981] +% +"God told me to skin you alive" + [Dead Kennedys, "I Kill Children" from + "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables"] +% +"You've got a Methodist Coloring Book + And you color really well + But don't color outside the lines + Or God will send you to hell" + [Dead Milkmen, "Methodist Coloring Book"] +% +"...this monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of permissiveness, + promiscuity, prophylactics, perversions, pregnancies, abortions, + pornotherapy, pollution, poisoning and proliferation of crimes of all types." + [Judge Braswell Dean, in Time Magazine, March 1981] +% +"The virgin mother story was easily acceptable to the Roman people, because + they were already psychologically conditioned to the same established myth + of the vestal virgin Rhea Silva and her godly son Romulus." + [Dr. Wally F. Dean, "The Mania of Religion", 1995, p. 103] +% +"The use of the astrological zodiac in the Bible has been well established, + and without much question, the twelve zodiacal gods have come down to us as + the twelve apostles. The shepherd's crook used by the Egyptians' Osiris was + used for the bishops' and popes' crozier. They transformed his ankh, the + phallic sign of life, into the Christian cross, and they copied the high- + pointed headdress of Osiris as their prototype for Saint Peter's papal tiara. + There could only be four gospels written. The reason there are only four + biblical gospels was because Saint Jerome believed in the four cardinal gods + of the zodiac. But who was father of the four "cardinal" gods of the zodiac? + Yes, indeed! It was the divine Egyptian son Horus, whose birthday was on the + 25th of December long before there was a biblical Jesus." + [Dr. Wally F. Dean, "The Mania of Religion", 1995, p. 106] +% +"Bruno Bauer, a biblical student and professor at a Berlin University, openly + wrote in 1840 that Jesus was a creation of several Roman aristocrats. Ernest + Renan, a former Jesuit student, put forth the same view in his book The Life + of Jesus. Meanwhile, others who have studied and researched the Jesus story + emphatically disavow the historical reality of the biblical Jesus." + [Dr. Wally F. Dean, "The Mania of Religion", 1995, p. 119] +% +"The Bible is a mimicking conglomeration of ancient myths and legends, + and if I weren't positively sure of that, I wouldn't have written this book + and embarrassed myself again. My purpose is to try to spare the human + species from the tyranny and mania of religions. When people all around + the world finally become aware of what religion is--it will cure the most + devastating illness man has been forced to endure." + [Dr. Wally F. Dean, "The Mania of Religion", 1995, p. 307] +% +"...And whereas it has also come to the knowledge of the said Congregation + that the Pythagorean doctrine -- which is false and altogether opposed to + the Holy Scripture -- of the motion of the Earth and the immobility of the + Sun, which is also taught by Nicolaus Copernicus in De Revolutionibus + orbium coelestium, and by Diego de Zuiga on Job, is now being spread + abroad and accepted by many... Therefore, in order that this opinion may + not insinuate itself any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth, the + Holy Congregation has decreed that the said Nicolaus Copernicus, De + Revolutionibus orbium, and Diego de Zuiga, On Job, be suspended until they + are corrected. + [Decree of the Roman Catholic Congregation of the Index + condemning "De Revolutionibus", March 5, 1616] +% +"The Catholic Church... upheld feudalism, then monarchism, warning + of growing evils and possible revolutions. In the same manner, + and under the same reservations, she now upholds capitalism; but, + above all things and forever, she upholds the Catholic Church." + [Daniel DeLeon, The Vatican in Politics, 1891] +% +"The capitalist class is interested in keeping the workingmen + divided among themselves. Hence it foments race and religious + animosities that come down from the past." + [Daniel DeLeon, Two Pages from Roman History, 1903] +% +"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion." + [Democritus] +% +"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes + to be true he generally believes to be true." + [Demosthenes, Third Olynthiac, sct. 19 (349 BCE)] +% +"There are all kinds of devices invented for the protection and preservation + of countries: defensive barriers, forts, trenches and the like. All these + are the work of human hands aided by money. But prudent minds have as a + natural gift one safegaurd which is the common possession of all, especially + to the dealings of democracies with dictatorships. What is this safeguard? + Skepticism. This you must preserve. This you must retain. If you can keep + this, you need fear no harm." + [Demosthenes, 2nd Phillipic Oration] +% +"If you want to *reason* about faith, and offer a reasoned (and reason- + responsive) defense of faith as an extra category of belief worthy of + special consideration, I'm eager to play. I certainly grant the existence + of the phenomenon of faith; what I want to see is a reasoned ground for + taking faith seriously as a *way of getting to the truth*, and not, say, + just as a way people comfort themselves and each other (a worthy function + that I do take seriously). But you must not expect me to go along with + your defence of faith as a path to truth if at any point you appeal to the + very dispensation you are supposedly trying to justify. Before you appeal + to faith when reason has you backed into a corner, think about whether you + really want to abandon reason when reason is on your side." + [Daniel C. Dennett "Darwin's Dangerous Idea"] +% +"I think that there are no forces on this planet more dangerous to us all + than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism, of all the species: Protestantism, + Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as countless + smaller infections. Is there a conflict between science and religion here? + There most certainly is." + [Daniel C. Dennett, "Darwin's Dangerous Idea"] +% +"In the beginning, there were no reasons; there were only causes. + Nothing had a purpose, nothing has so much as a function; there + was no teleology in the world at all." + [Daniel C. Dennett, _Consciousness Explained_ (Boston: + Little, Brown and Company, 1991), p. 173] +% +"The haven all memes depend on reaching is the human mind, but a human mind + is itself an artifact created when memes restructure a human brain in order + to make it a better habitat for memes. The avenues for entry and departure + are modified to suit local conditions, and strengthened by various artificial + devices that enhance fidelity and prolixity of replication: native Chinese + minds differ dramatically from native French minds, and literate minds differ + from illiterate minds. What memes provide in return to the organisms in which + they reside is an incalculable store of advantages --- with some Trojan + horses thrown in for good measure..." + [Daniel Dennett, "Consciousness Explained"] +% +"... there could be talking bunny rabbits, spiders who write English messages + in their webs, and for that matter, melancholy choo-choo trains. There could + be, I suppose, but there aren't--so my theory doesn't have to explain them." + [Daniel Dennett] +% +"...but I also can't prove that mushrooms could + not be intergalactic spaceships spying on us." + [Daniel Dennett] +% +Girl of sixteen, whole life ahead of her +Slashed her wrists, bored with life +Didn't succeed, thank the Lord +For small mercies + +Fighting back the tears, mother reads the note again +candles burn in her mind +She takes the blame, it's always the same +She goes down on her knees and prays + +I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours +But I think that God's got a sick sense of humor +And when I die I expect to find Him laughing + +Girl of eighteen, fell in love with everything +Found new life in Jesus Christ +Hit by a car, ended up +On a life support machine + +Summer's day, as she passed away +Birds were singing in the summer sky +Then came the rain, and once again +A tear fell from her mother's eye + +I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours +But I think that God's got a sick sense of humor +And when I die I expect to find Him laughing + + [Depeche Mode, "Blasphemous Rumours" + from "Some Great Reward", Mute CDSTUMM19] +% +"The time has come for atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and humanists to + come out of the closet and to openly confront the religious hegemony in + America that has created a political correctness so powerful that even + the most courageous are afraid to violate it openly." + [Alan M. Dershowitz, F.I. Mag. Summer 1999] +% +"The seeker after truth must, once in the course of his life, doubt everything, + as far as is possible. What is doubtful should even be considered as false. + This doubt should not, meanwhile, be applied to ordinary life." + [Descartes, 1-3rd Principles of Human Knowledge] +% +"Perhaps the greatest lesson [Huxley] learned from reading Carlyle + was that real religion, that emotive feeling for Truth and Beauty, + could flourish in the absence of an idolatrous theology." + [Adrian Desmond, "Huxley", p.79] +% +"Untouched people; not necessarily noble savages, but apparently happy + ones. They lived in a land of plenty, ready to share their bananas + and guavas and coconuts. They were to be envied for their 'primitive + simplicity and kind-heartedness'. Where was that 'malady of thought' + afflicting industrial England? [Huxley] realized that 'civilization + as we call it would be rather a curse than a blessing to them'. Huxley + knew the fate in store for them, slamming the 'mistaken goodness of + the "Stigginses" of Exeter Hall, who would send missionaries to these + men to tell them that they will all infallibly be damned'." + [Adrian Desmond, "Huxley", p. 120, on Huxley + encountering natives on a remote island] +% +"Science was tearing through the 'fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs' + to behold a new cosmos, in which our Earth is merely an 'eccentric + speck'-- a world of evolution 'and unchanging causation'. It invited + new ways of thinking. It demanded a new rationale for belief. With + science's truths the only accessible ones, 'blind faith' was no + longer admirable but 'the one unpardonable sin'." + [Adrian Desmond, "Huxley", p. 345] +% +"A man got up [after one of Huxley's 'sermons'] and said 'they + had never heard anything like that in Norwich before'. Never + 'did Science seem so vast and mere creeds so little'." + [Adrian Desmond, "Huxley", p. 366] +% +When Yahweh your god has settled you in the land you're about + to occupy, and driven out many infidels before you...you're to + cut them down and exterminate them. You're to make no compromise + with them or show them any mercy. + [Deut. 7:1 (KJV)] +% +"Already the spirit of our schooling is permeated with the feeling that + every subject, every topic, every fact, every professed truth must be + submitted to a certain publicity and impartiality. All proffered + samples of learning must go to the same assay-room and be subjected to + common tests. It is the essence of all dogmatic faiths to hold that + any such "show-down" is sacrilegious and perverse. The characteristic + of religion, from their point of view, is that it is intellectually + secret, not public; peculiarly revealed, not generally known; + authoritatively declared, not communicated and tested in ordinary + ways...It is pertinent to point out that, as long as religion is + conceived as it is now by the great majority of professed religionists, + there is something self-contradictory in speaking of education in + religion in the same sense in which we speak of education in topics + where the method of free inquiry has made its way. The "religious" + would be the last to be willing that either the history or the + content of religion should be taught in this spirit; while those + to whom the scientific standpoint is not merely a technical device, + but is the embodiment of the integrity of mind, must protest against + its being taught in any other spirit. + [John Dewey, "Democracy in the Schools", 1908] +% +"It (modern philosophy) certainly exacts a surrender of all + supernaturalism and fixed dogma and rigid institutionalism with + which Christianity has been historically associated." + [John Dewey] +% +"Intellectually, religious emotions are not creative + but conservative. They attach themselves readily to + the current view of the world and consecrate it." + [John Dewey] +% +"Styles of sculpture, music, and dance used to vary greatly from village to + village within New Guinea. Some villagers along the Sepik River and in the + Asmat swamps produced carvings that are now world-famous because of their + quality. But New Guinea villagers have been increasing coerced or seduced + into abandoning their artistic traditions. When I visited an isolated + triblet of 578 people at Bomai in 1965, the missionary controlling the only + store had just manipulated the people into burning all their art. + Centuries of unique cultural development ("heathen artifacts," as the + missionary put it) had thus been destroyed in one morning." + [Jared Diamond, _The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future + of the Human Animal_, 1992, Harper Collins, New York, page 231] +% +"...the official religions and patriotic fervor of many states make their + troops willing to fight suicidally. The latter willingness is one so strongly + programmed into us citizens of modern states, by our schools and churches and + governments, that we forget what a radical break it makes with previous human + history. .... Naturally, what makes patriotic and religious fanatics such + dangerous opponents is not the deaths of the fanatics themselves, but their + willingness to accept the deaths of a fraction of their number in order to + annihilate or crush their infidel enemy. Fanaticism in war, of the type that + drove recorded Christian and Islamic conquests, was probably unknown on Earth + until chiefdoms and especially states emerged within the last 6,000 years." + [Jared Diamond, "Guns, Germs and Steel: The + Fate of Human Societies", pp 281-282] +% +"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away". + [Philip K. Dick] +% +"Missionaries are perfect nuisances and + leave every place worse than they found it." + [Charles Dickens] +% +"I believe the spreading of Catholicism to be the most horrible + means of political and social degredation left in the world." + [Charles Dickens] +% +"To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an + absurdity by something contrary to nature." + [Diderot] +% +"I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness + of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out." + [Denis Diderot] +% +"It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, + but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all." + [Denis Diderot] +% +"What has not been examined impartially has not been well + examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step toward truth." + [Denis Diderot, "Pensees philosophiques"] +% +"The Judaical and Christian theology show us a partial god who chooses or + rejects, who loves or hates, according to his caprice; in short, a tyrant + who plays with his creatures; who punishes in this world the whole human + species for the crimes of a single man; who predestines the greater number + of mortals to be his enemies, to the end that he may punish them to all + eternity, for having received from him the liberty of declaring against him." + [Denis Diderot, Footnote to d'Holbach's "The System of Nature"] +% +"When God, from whom I have my reason, demands of me to sacrifice it, he + becomes a mere juggler that snatches from me what he pretended to give." + [Denis Diderot, "A Philosophical Conversation," 1777] +% +"The true religion, interesting the whole human race at all times and + in all situations, ought to be eternal, universal, and self-evident; + whereas the religions pretended to be revealed having none of these + characteristics, are consequently demonstrated to be false." + [Attributed to Diderot, possibly written by translater + Julian Hibbert in "Thoughts On Religion", 1770] +% +"The myths about Hades and the gods, though they + are pure invention, help to make men virtuous." + [Diodorus Siculus, about 20 B.C.] +% +"When I look upon seamen, men of physical science, and philosophers, + man is the wisest of all beings. When I look upon priests, prophets, + and interpreters of dreams, nothing is so contemptible as man." + [Diogenes (412-323 B.C.E.)] +% +"Where knowledge ends, religion begins." + [Benjamin Disraeli] +% +"The inability or unwillingness to hate makes a person worthless. + If we do not hate detestable things, the quality of our character + is suspect. The Bible commands that we hate." + [H. A. (Buster) Dobbs, Editor of Firm Foundation magazine + and Church of Christ preacher, from the June 1994 issue.] +% +"Let me try to make crystal clear what is established beyond reasonable + doubt, and what needs further study, about evolution. Evolution as a + process that has always gone on in the history of the earth can be doubted + only by those who are ignorant of the evidence or are resistant to evidence, + owing to emotional blocks or to plain bigotry. By contrast, the mechanisms + that bring evolution about certainly need study and clarification. There + are no alternatives to evolution as history that can withstand critical + examination. Yet we are constantly learning new and important facts about + evolutionary mechanisms." + [Theodosius Dobzhansky "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the + Light of Evolution", American Biology Teacher vol.35 (March 1973) + reprinted in EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATIONISM, J. Peter Zetterberg ed., + ORYX Press, Phoenix AZ 1983] +% +"If you truly turned yourself over to competent psychological help, + they can lead you from your misguided attempts to butt into other + people's lives using Jesus as your excuse for such rude behavior." + [James Doemer] +% +"When the preacher asks us to have faith, he asks for obedience, obedience + without question. We must accept unthinkingly whatever he tells us is so. + When Shia and Sunni are asked to murder on the fields of battle, both + following leaders who tell them they are then assured a place in Heaven, + they obey. If the dead could return to set things straight, to tell us + that "faith" is nothing more than nonsense institutionalized, the hate + and murder of all "religious" conflicts would cease. There would be no + crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, and holy wars. There would be no Shia + and Sunni, no Lutherans and Catholics, no religious sects of any kind, + because there would be no "religions." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"The impression is given that a special kind of morality is affirmed by + accepting the vagaries of religion without evidence. But is it moral to + accept uncritically every superstition, delusion, or prejudice our pulpiteers + espouse? Is not the faith that we are told is holy, the trust in Divinity + that we are told is our duty, the certitude that a complete rejection of + reason is moral behavior - all of this - nothing more than abject credulity, + a complete surrender of our unique, personal sovereign identity? When "false" + or "true" become irrelevant and a blanket assent regardless of the nature of + that which we are asked to believe is considered sane behavior, do we not + resign ourselves to slavery? When acceptance is on the basis of infallible + authority and not on the basis of personal, reasoned conviction, have we + not relinquished something very precious - our natural, temperamental + individuality? Is not the mind of one who accepts blindly, precisely the + mind of a production-line robot, the mind of one who goes through life + oblivious of meaning and values, bereft of the hope of injecting sense into + the profusion of nonsense that threatens to engulf us? Is this the faith we + are told is good?" + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"It has been said that faith dies the death of a thousand qualifications. + Faith inevitably meets the same fate when it is continually attenuated + with rambling, nondescript, and pretentious definitions. The liberating + truth, of course, is that the readiness with which the term faith evokes + sobering qualifications and erratic definitions betrays the superficial + manner in which it is used by religionists." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"Faith will survive all superstitions, compelling men to think in terms of + their own destiny and the responsibility they themselves have in forging + that destiny. No one explains how declarations that are manufactured out of + whole cloth, that have absolutely no predictive content and therefore no + demonstrable connection with our lives as we live them day by day, are + supposed to serve as a guide for planning our future. What such declarations + do is to condition every nervous system that takes them seriously that it is + perfectly sane to ignore the world in which we live, and to live instead in + a world of pure fantasy. The man who is willing to accept the doctrine of + Christian faith is one who is willing to relinquish all hope of knowing the + truth. He accepts all, doubts never, vegetates. He is a slave, a hollow shell + into which others can pour all manner of stupidities. Having a conscience, + being honest, are empty phrases for him, as he has relinquished his own right + to think and is acting only because others are acting through him. He refuses + to be honest with himself, no longer talks things over with himself, no longer + meditates, contemplates; he only absorbs like a sponge, without discrimination. + If he has convictions, they are metamorphized and petrified lies, and not even + his own lies but those of colleagues, priests, and politicians who want to use + him. If to accept blindly, without the play of reason, is faith, it follows + then that what the world needs is not more faith, but more people who think + with their own heads and not with the heads of others." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"Faith in the sense that religionists use the term, it turns out, is + equivalent to the loss of confidence of the individuals of the human + species to achieve their goals on their own. This seems to be borne + out by the adherence to religion among the poor, the spread of religion + in times of depression and conflict, and the greater success of all + religions to proselytize among deprived populations wherever they may be. + It may also explain the lack of initiative clearly evident among the + fanatically religious who see little point in struggling for a better + world when they are only nonentities in a vast system of omnipotent + forces and obscure agencies beyond their abilities to understand or + control. Men who are liberated from all such folderol are able to work + with serenity and unshakable confidence in their own abilities to achieve." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"Faith, as the theologians and other mystics use the term, is the capacity to + accept as "true" declarations that have no predictive content. It is their + way of asking us to believe something for no other reason than because they + say it is so. In quoting the Council of Trent, "He who is gifted with + heavenly knowledge of faith is free from an inquisitive curiosity." Walter + Lippmann in 'A Preface to Morals' adds: "These words are rasping to our + modern ears, but there is no occasion to doubt that the men who uttered them + had made a shrewd appraisal of average human nature." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"Reason and faith are completely irreconcilable pathways to knowledge. The two + cannot exist side by side. Reason underlies the methodology of the scientist. + Without it he would be ineffectual. Faith is the "being" of the "religionist." + Without it he could not exist. The scientist accepts nothing on faith. Faith + to him is a synonym for belief. In Hebrews 11:1 we read: "Faith is the + substance of things desired, the evidence of things unseen." The "religionist" + is ever alert to prevent reason from undermining his precepts. Reason is his + (and God's) worst enemy. Reason is our means of processing what we learn of + the world through our proverbial five senses. Faith does no processing; + whatever sense (or nonsense) is accepted as is, without rational consideration. + Those facts which reason allows us to accept must display consistency and + predictability. There are no criteria to restrict that which we will accept + on faith, as section 61 of this book shows. Those content to accept on faith + are those who accept without thinking, without the rational demonstrations + that establish the truth (predictive content) of what we believe. Faith is + the road to myth and error, the way to add to man's already overflowing + storehouse of "things he _knows_ but that are not so." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"Transactional psychologists have verified what most of us have known + intuitively all along: that the stronger are a person's motives for certain + interpretations of the data confronting him, the more likely are the chances + that those will be the interpretations he will come up with, even though they + be radically wrong. Said Andre Gide in 'Pretexts,' "Most often people seek in + life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating + themselves.... It seems as if the mind enjoys nothing more than sinking + deeper into error." The person with the self-sealing system that Oppenheimer + describes (section 18) cannot be convinced at all. He has become uncannily + proficient at transmuting all experiential verification to conform to that + which he wants to believe. He now has adequate defenses against countervailing + evidence to discount almost anything that would prove detrimental to his + cherished beliefs, to revamp information that threatens long-established + convictions. Religious faith (which is just such a closed system), if strong + enough, will protect a person from the arguments appearing in a book such as + this, just as the faith of people who want to believe that their destinies + lie in the stars is enough to protect them from the declarations of 186 noted + scientists who feel it important to convince them that they are wrong. + Bertrand Russell was talking about this kind of "religious" faith when, in + 'Human Society in Ethics and Politics', he tells us that he believes that all + faiths do harm. He defines faith as the belief in anything for which no + evidence exists. If there is evidence, faith is not required. We do not need + faith to believe that vinegar is bitter or that water is wet. We use the term + faith only when emotion dominates reason. Faith, for Mencken, was a kind of + clearing house for all the various conspiracies religionists contrive in order + to deny or distort the facts that our senses present to us to make up what we + call our existence. Faith, he was sure, is the force that foments the + concerted attacks against what can be called a rational moral philosophy." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"But there is a kind of faith, as we all well know, that is an essential + ingredient in the lives of all human beings. This faith is of a different + sort, not faith in (or in the existence of) a pathologically jealous supreme + being who would have us all wasting our valuable time in endless, meaningless + rituals "glorifying his name." Nor is it faith in a mythological hell in + which we will all fry for eternity who do not genuflect to this demeaning + concept of the utter dependence of the human species. Alan Watts says in + 'The Book,' "Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual + suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision + of the world. Faith is, above all, openness - an act of trust in the unknown." + What we need is faith in the boundless reach of an open mind. Having an open + mind does not mean that we do not have firm convictions, but that we are not + afraid of new ideas. Persons with firm convictions, well founded, need new + ideas from time to time, against which they can constantly test their + convictions in a changing world, perhaps to alter them or perhaps to make + their convictions even more firm. If we are confident of the truth and + validity of our convictions, whatever they may be, we have nothing to fear. + We shall not serve our convictions, whatever they may be, by self-deception. + Convictions that can be defended only by disregarding facts, lying to + oneself and others, are not worth keeping." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"Man needs faith in his own potential, faith in his ability, within limits, to + plan his own life. He must have faith that nature is subject to laws, that the + earth will continue to turn on its axis, and the sun will continue for a few + billion more years to warm the earth, and that there will be rain to make the + plants grow and thus to maintain life on this planet. The very world itself is + a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to believe that there exists a world + beyond our own skins. Our faith is not to deny the unknown, to avoid it, or to + pretend that the unknown is really known. Our faith is above all resolute + belief in ourselves as sovereign individuals. We must understand that beyond + ourselves there is no baleful influence bent on frustrating our hopes and + plans - even those plagued constantly with difficulties. Nature, we must + understand, is not deliberately malign nor deliberately benign; it is simply + indifferent. With Amado Nervo (who gets the last word in this essay), we must + see ourselves as the architect of our own destinies." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"The Reverend Robert H. Schuller, second to none in the multiformity of his + televised effusions, gives us more than three hundred definitions of the word + faith. He could go on forever. In his 'Tough-Minded Faith for Tender-Hearted + People' [muddleminded faith for simpleminded people] Schuller makes it plain + that "faith" can be dictum, psychological judgment, scientific proposition, + or mystic symbolism. It can be whatever puritanical perception, frivolous + fancy, arbitrary assumption, or capricious conviction. It can be both horse + and vehicle, north and south, sinister and dexter, verso and recto, larboard + and starboard. There are no restrictions. Faith has so many meanings to + Schuller that it is meaningless. Meaning everything, it means nothing - as is + usually the case when religionists use the term faith." + [Chester Dolan, "Holy Daze: Coming to Grips with "Religion," the Holy + Daze of Humanity", "Faith" section, pp.130-135, MOPAH Publications] +% +"I am a theist," means, "I know that God exists." "I am an atheist" + means, "I do not know that God exists." Appending the Greek prefix "a" + could in no way be construed as meaning, I know that God does not exist." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"In the course of its learning and assimilating the culture in which it will + grow up, the child's nervous system gets programmed in a particular way with + respect to the mysterious relation of symbols and things which will create + its later life. When this programming reaches a certain point, the behavior + of the child becomes patterned in ways that are difficult ever to change. + Other ways of behaving not parallel to these patterns are rejected, sometimes + subtly, subconsciously, at other times deliberately, violently. The child's + total reaction, physiological as well as linguistic, to the world in which + he grows up may be independently flexible or it may be as submissively rigid + as it usually is for those molded in an orthodox, totalitarian religion." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"Rigidly conforming children have a way of growing up to be rigidly conforming + adults. They are not educated; they are formed. They are not trained to think, + but to defend. They are not asked to reflect, but to memorize." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"The attraction of "religion" for many of its adherents is that its + comforts help enable them to face the suffering, injustice, morality and + meaninglessness of human life on this earth. But it is these comforts that + often dissuade men from doing something about the ills humanity experiences. + Too many of us become so encapsulated in our own comfortable world that we + become blind to the adversities that beset our fellow man. We live in our + own luxury, insulated from ugliness and doubt." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"When those living in the United States speak of the incompatibility of + science and religion, it is almost invariably the Christian religion that + has claimed their attention. No other religion in history has marshaled + its forces so energetically to oppose and suppress astronomy, physics and + the biological sciences. For many sects of Christianity, psychology and + anthropology have been added as religion's principal adversaries." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"If there is a Hell with fire and brimstone, one must conclude that + it was constructed solely for the special delectation of God, that + he enjoys watching human beings (or is it their souls?) fry." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"Not a lack of belief, but adherence to false knowledge is the + enemy of progress. And certain that we have found everything + worth searching for, we see no point in further search and inquiry. + Believing what is unworthy of belief, believing falsehood as if it + were incontrovertible truth, and sure that we know everything we + will ever need to know, we are worse than ignorant." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"To create a world in which reason is suspect, religious faith is + a virtue, and doubt is regarded as sin, is to sanctify ignorance." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"Religions which expect men to march in synchronized step and + to chant stereotyped doctrines cease to serve free man in an + open society. There can be no such thing as an open society + peopled by a preponderance of closed minds." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"The presence or absence of a God or the religions that postulate gods does + not change what should and what should not be considered morality. Human + kindness will always be a good thing, God or no God. Attributing morality + to the propensities of some kind of Deity is nothing more than quibbling. + Here we have an "it is so because it is so," kind of pseudoreasoning." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"Until religionists can give up their use of the word "truth" to apply to + whatever it suits their fancies to so label, to declarations that can in + no way be verified by experience and therefore with no restrictions on + their proliferation, there will be no reconciliation of science and religion." + [Chester Dolan, "Blind Faith"] +% +"Are we courting you? Maybe we are, but what's wrong with + that? You are the glue that holds America together." + [Bob Dole, to a rally of the Christian Coalition] +% +"For many years I have exhorted you in vain, with gentleness, preaching, + praying and weeping. But according to the proverb of my country, + 'where blessing can accomplish nothing, blows may avail.' We shall + rouse against you princes and prelates who, alas, will arm nations and + kingdoms against this land...and thus blows will avail where blessings + and gentleness have been powerless." + [St. Dominic, to the heretical Albiginses, Encyclopedia Brittanica] +% +"I'm firmly convinced Michael Carneal is a Christian. + He's a sinner, yes, but not an atheist." + [Rev. Paul Donner, of the St. Paul Lutheran Church, + Paducah, Ky., describing accused mass murderer + Michael Carneal, 14, in contrast to early reports] +% +"In all of the colonies there was a law that Quakers and other heretics + should be banished and, if they returned, could be executed; but only + Massachusetts hung any Quakers - four of them, one a woman. They cut off + the ears of others, branded some with hot irons, and beat them with + iron rods and tarred ropes. The worst the Pilgrims ever did was put them + in the stocks or imprison them for a while." + ["The Mayflower Compact" by Frank R. Donovan, + Gosset & Dunlap, New York, 1968] +% +"Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to + fifteen years with time off for good behavior?" + [NY State Senator James Donovan, speaking + in support of capital punishment] +% +"You've got to put in your pew time and come by + your disdain for religion honestly, like us." + [Doonsbury cartoon] +% +"The race of men, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity." + [Carl Van Doren, "Why I Am an Unbeliever"] +% +"Religion is a disease. It is born of fear; it compensates through + hate in the guise of authority, revelation. Religion, enthroned + in a powerful social organization, can become incredibly sadistic. + No religion has been more cruel than the Christian." + [Dr. George A. Dorsey] +% +"Religion is not insanity but it is born of the stuff which makes + for insanity. ...all religions perform the function of delusion." + [George Dorsey] +% +"I can find no room in my cosmos for a deity save as a waste + product of human weakness, the excrement of the imagination." + [George Norman Douglas, "South Wind" (1917)] +% +"The First Amendment commands government to have no interest in theology or + ritual; it admonishes the government to be interested in allowing religious + freedom to flourish -- whether the result is to produce Catholics, Jews, or + Protestants, or to turn the people toward the path of Buddha, or to end in + a predominantly Moslem nation, or to produce in the long run atheists or + agnostics. On matters of this kind, government must remain neutral. This + freedom plainly includes freedom from religion with the right to believe, + speak, write, publish and advocate antireligious programs." + [Justice William O. Douglas, dissent in McGowan v. Maryland] +% +"It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will + determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate + discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor + must preside at our assemblies." + [William O. Douglas, Address, Authors' Guild, Dec. 3, 1952] +% +"I prayed for twenty years but received + no answer until I prayed with my legs." + [Frederick Douglass, escaped slave] +% +"I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere + covering for the most horrid crimes-- a justifier of the most appalling + barbarity, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter + under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of + slaveholders find the strongest protection. Where I to be again reduced + to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being + the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall + me...I...hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, + partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land." + [Frederick Douglass, "After the Escape"] +% +"Once, in a heated controversy over the wisdom of giving the + Bible to slaves, he asserted that it would be 'infinitely + better to send them a pocket compass and a pistol.'" + [Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass] +% +"I bet you don't want anything about the Bible taught in school." +"If they teach Greek and Roman mythology, they should also teach + Middle Eastern mythology." + [Morton Downey, controversial TV talk-show host, to + Rob Sherman, spokesman for American Atheists, on the show] +% +"How many times has the end of the world been predicted? The + same number of times, the prediction has proved false." + [Hugh Downs, "The End Is (Not) Nigh; Apocalypse + Later", ABC News, (abcnews.com), August 26, 1998] +% +"Evolution does not require the nonexistance of God, it merely allows + for it. That alone is enough to evoke condemnation from those who + fear the nonexistance of God more than they fear God Himself." + [Keith Doyle, talk.origins posting] +% +"So, the Xian fundies want to slap the 10 commandments on the + wall. I guess our school kids have a real problem with + committing adultery and carving idols during school hours." + ["Dr. Monkeyspank" ] +% +"Geology shows that fossils are of different ages. Paleontology shows a + fossil sequence, the list of species represented changes through time. + Taxonomy shows biological relationships among species. Evolution is the + explanation that threads it all together. Creationism is the practice + of squeeezing one's eyes shut and wailing "does not!". + [Dr.Pepper@f241.n103.z1.fidonet.org] +% +"If thinking freely for yourself is a sure ticket to hell, + then the conversations in heaven must be awfully boring." + [San Francisco's infamous Dr. Weirde] +% +"Do not put your trust in such trinkets of deceit!" + [Dracula, on the crucifix] +% +"How can the Church be received as a trustworthy guide in the + invisible, which falls into so many errors in the visible?" + [John W. Draper (1811-1882), U.S. chemist] +% +"Science has never sought to ally herself with civil power. + She has never subjected anyone to mental torment, physical torment, + least of all death, for the purpose of promoting her ideas." + [John W. Draper (1811-1882) U.S. chemist] +% +"The Christian party asserted that all knowledge is to be found in the + Scriptures and in the traditions of the Church; that, in the written + revelation, God had not only given a criterion of truth, but had furnished + us all that he intended us to know. The Scriptures, therefore, contain the + sum, the end of all knowledge. The clergy, with the emperor at their back, + would endure no intellectual competition......The Church thus set herself + forth as the depository and arbiter of knowledge; she was ever ready to resort + to the civil power to compel obedience to her decisions. She thus took a + course which determined her whole future career: she became a stumbling-block + in the intellectual advancement of Europe for more than a thousand years." + [John William Draper, "History of the Conflict + between Science and Religion", Chapter II] +% +"Life is no more assuring than love + (It's time to take the time) + There are no answers from voices above + (It's time to take the time) + You're fighting the weight of the world + And no one can save you this time + Close your eyes + You can find all that you need in your mind" + ["Take the Time", Dream Theater] +% +"If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a + bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by + circumstances. All forms of dogmatic religion should go. The world + did without them in the past and can do so again. I cite the great + civilizations of China and India." + [Theodore Dreiser, press interview, March 1941] +% +"He who will not reason, is a bigot; + He who cannot, is a fool; + And he who dares not, is a slave." + [William Drummond] +% +"There was no deathbed conversion," Druyan says. "No appeals to God, + no hope for an afterlife, no pretending that he and I, who had been + inseparably for twenty years, were not saying goodbye forever." + +"Didn't he want to believe?" she was asked. + + "Carl never wanted to believe," she replies fiercely. "He wanted to KNOW." + [Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's wife, from Newsweek magazine] +% +"I sit surrounded by cartons of mail from people all over the planet who + mourn Carl's loss. Many of them credit him with their awakenings. Some + of them say that Carl's example has inspired them to work for science + and reason against the forces of superstition and fundamentalism. These + thoughts comfort me and lift me up out of my heartache. They allow me + to feel, without resorting to the supernatural, that Carl lives." + ["Billions and Billions: Thoughts On Life and Death at + the Brink of the Millennium", the last book by Carl Sagan; + Epilogue by his wife, Ann Druyan, February 14, 1997] +% +"Contrary to the fantasies of the fundamentalists, there was no deathbed + conversion, no last minute refuge taken in a comforting vision of a heaven + or an afterlife. For Carl, what mattered most was what was true, not merely + what would make us feel better. Even at this moment when anyone would be + forgiven for turning away from the reality of our situation, Carl was + unflinching. As we looked deeply into each other's eyes, it was with a + shared conviction that our wondrous life together was ending forever." + ["Billions and Billions: Thoughts On Life and Death + at the Brink of the Millennium", the last book by + Carl Sagan; Epilogue by his wife, Ann Druyan] +% +"Every reasonable person knows that there are good people who believe in gods + and good people who don't believe in gods. Like most Atheists, I do not rape, + murder, or steal, I know right from wrong and don't need to follow a set of + superstitious beliefs to live a moral life. The idea that only a religious + person can be a good person is utterly ridiculous. In fact, perhaps it is + the Atheists who are the truly good people; we try to do what is right not + for the selfish reason of fear of some afterlife punishment but because we + know it is the right thing to do." + [Peter Dubral, Highland Park, NJ, from The Greater + Philadelphia Story, Newsletter of The Freethought + Society of Greater Philadelphia] +% +"I have too much respect for the idea of God to + make it responsible for such an absurd world." + [Georges Duhamel] +% +"All absolute power demoralizes its possessor. To that all history bears + witness. And if it be a spiritual power which rules men's consciences, + the danger is only so much greater, for the possession of such a power + exercises a specially treacherous fascination, while it is peculiarly + conducive to self-deceit, because the lust of dominion, when it has + become a passion, is only too easily in this case excused under the + plea of zeal for the salvation of others." + [Professor J.H. von Dullinger -- who was subsequently + excommunicated from the Roman Catholic church (1871)] +% +"If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which + he has inflicted upon men, He would kill himself." + [Alexander Dumas] +% +"Skeptics Everywhere. + Have you noticed that no matter how sick the Pope gets, they never even + consider taking him to Lourdes? + The Ten Commandments make Prohibition look like a stroke of genius." + [Tom Dunker, in Horseshit #1, a 1965 hippie-type magazine] +% +"Just as Philo, learned in Greek speculation, had felt a need to rephrase + Judaism in forms acceptable to the logic-loving Greeks, so John, having + lived for two generations in a Hellenistic environment, sought to give a + Greek philosophical tinge to the mystic Jewish doctrine that the Wisdom + of God was a living being, and to the Christian doctrine that Jesus was + the Messiah. Consciously or not, he continued Paul's work of detaching + Christianity from Judaism. Christ was no longer presented as a Jew, living + more or less under the Jewish Law; he was make to address the Jews as + "you," and to speak of their Law as "yours"; he was not a Messiah sent + "to save the lost sheep of Israel," he was the coeternal Son of God; not + merely the future judge of mankind, but the primeval creator of the + universe. In this perspective the Jewish life of the man Jesus could + be put into the background, faded almost as in Gnostic heresy; and the + god Christ was assimilated to the religious and philosophical traditions + of the Hellenistic mind. Now the pagan world-- even the anti-Semitic + world--could accept him as its own." + [Will and Ariel Durant, _The Story of Civilization_] +% +"Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. The Greek mind + dying, came to a tranmigrated life in the theology and liturgy of the + Church; the Greek language, having reigned for centuries over philosophy, + became the vehicle of Christian literature and ritual; the Greek mysteries + passed down into the impressive mystery of the Mass. Other pagan cultures + contributed to the syncretist result. From Egypt came the ideas of a divine + trinity, the Last Judgement, and a personal immortality of reward and + punishment; from Egypt the adoration of the Mother and Child, and the mystic + theosophy that made Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and obscured the Christian + creed; there, too, Christian moanasticism would find itsw exemplars and its + source. From Phrygia came the worship of the Great Mother; from Syria the + resurrection drama of Adonis; from Thrace, perhaps the cult of Dionysus, the + dying and saving god. From Persia came millennarianism, the "ages of the + world," the "final conflagration," the dualism of Satan and God, of Darkness + and Light; already in the Forth Gospel Christ is the "Light shining in the + darkness, and the darkness has never put it out." The Mithraic ritual so + closely resemled the eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass that Christian fathers + charged the Devil with inventing these similarities to mislead frail minds. + Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world." + [Will and Ariel Durant, _The Story of Civilization_] +% +"With the judgment of the angels and the sentence of the saints, we + anathematize, execrate, curse and cast out Baruch de Spinoza, the whole + of the sacred community assenting, in presence of the sacred books with + the six hundred and thirteen precepts written therein, pronouncing + against him the malediction wherewith Elisha cursed the children, and + all the maledictions written in the Book of the Law. /.../ Let him be + accursed by day, and accursed by night; let him be accursed in his lying + down, and accursed in his rising up; accursed in going out and accursed + in coming in. May the Lord never more pardon or acknowledge him; may the + wrath and displeasure of the Lord burn henceforth against this man, load + him with all the curses written in the Book of the Law, and blot out his + name from under the sky." + [Jewish community of Amsterdam, excommunication of Spinoza, + 27 July 1656, quoted by Will Durant in _The Story of Philosophy_; + also George Seldes, _The Great Quotations_, 1983] +% +"The truth is that people will always demand a religion phrased in + imagery and haloed with the supernatural. They don't want science; + they are in mortal terror of it, for the one sermon of science is + that all life eats other life and that all life must die. The + masses will never accept science until it gives them an earthly + paradise. As long as there is poverty, there will be gods." + [Will Durant, "The Mansions of Philosophy", 1929] +% +"Got no religion. Tried a bunch of different religions. The churches + are divided. Can't make up their minds and neither can I." + [Bob Dylan] +% +"We've satisfied our endless needs, + And justified our bloody deeds, + In the name of Destiny, + And in the Name of god" + [Eagles,"The Last Resort"] +% +"God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be + tortured for eternity in hell. That sir, is not free will. It would be akin + to a man telling his girlfriend, do what you wish, but if you choose to leave + me, I will track you down and blow your brains out. When a man says this we + call him a psychopath and cry out for his imprisonment/execution. When god + says the same we call him "loving" and build churches in his honor." + [William C. Easttom II, skeptic@icon.net] +% +"So behold here the triumph God's wisdom has won. + Behold here the damage that can't be undone. + Stagnation is good, and we're good to the core, + while faith rots us like salt rots the land + + If your god helps the helpless, may he help you all well. + I'm bound for the outside to find my own hell. + If defiance means death, I would die before stand + like a sheep to be thrown to God's hand." + [Julia Ecklar, "The Hand of God" + from the album _Divine Intervention_] +% +"Fear prophets ... and those prepared to die for the + truth, for as a rule they make many others die with + them, often before them, at times instead of them." + [Umberto Eco] +% +"Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, + the human race spends centuries deciphering the message." + [Umberto Eco] +% +"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a + harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt + to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth." + [Umberto Eco] +% +"I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer + any difference between developing the habit of pretending to + believe and developing the habit of believing." + [Umberto Eco] +% +"When we traded the results of our fantasies, it seemed to us--and + rightly-- that we had proceeded by unwarranted associations, by + shortcuts so extraordinary that, if anyone had accused us of + really believing them, we would have been ashamed." + [Umberto Eco] +% +"All of us were slowly losing that intellectual light that allows you always + to tell the similar from the identical, the metaphorical from the real." + [Umberto Eco] +% +"I'm not saying that all religion is a pack of lies... + I'm just saying that all religion is indistinguishable from a pack of lies." + [Ralph Edington, ralph@edington.com] +% +"Christian Science repudiates the evidences of the senses and rests upon the + supremacy of God. Christian healing . . . places no faith in hygiene or + drugs; it reposes all faith in mind, in spiritual power divinely directed." + [Mary Baker Eddy, on Christian Science "healing"] +% +"My mind is incapable of conceiving such a thing as a soul. I may be + in error, and man may have a soul; but I simply do not believe it." + [Thomas Edison, "Do We Live Again?"] +% +"All Bibles are man-made." + [Thomas Edison] +% +"So far as religion of the day is concerned, it + is a damned fake... Religion is all bunk." + [Thomas Edison] +% +"I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories + of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God." + [Thomas Alva Edison, "Columbian Magazine"] +% +"I do not believe that any type of religion should ever be + introduced into the public schools of the United States." + [Thomas Edison, "Do We Live Again?"] +% +"Because the primary purpose of the Creationism Act is to endorse a particular + religious belief, the Act furthers religion in violation of the Establishment + Clause. ...The pre-eminent purpose of the Louisiana Legislature was clearly to + advance the religious viewpoint that a supernatural being created humankind. + ...The Act violates the Establishment Clause because it seeks to employ the + symbolic and financial support of government to achieve a religious purpose." + [US Supreme Court, Edwards v. Aguillard, 1987] +% +"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or + some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked, + his wrath towards you burns like fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to + have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his + eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended + him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is + nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. + It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last + night, that you was [sic] suffered to awake again in this world, after you + closed your eyes to sleep." + ["Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," preached July 8, 1741. + In Ola Elizabeth Winslow, ed., Jonathon Edwards: Basic writings + (New York: New American Library, 1966) p. 159.] +% +"I am totally convinced...that all the metaphysical claims of traditional + religions are untenable; and I am equally convinced that, although here + and there religious institutions may have done some good, for the most + part they have caused a great deal of harm and mischief. in the short + run, the dislocations and the sense of loss that accompany the decline + of religious belief and of the authoritarian and repressive morality + associated with it are likely to produce some distress and confusion. In + the long run, however, the decline of religion will be of incalculable + benefit to the human race." + [Paul Edwards, N.Y.C., 1985] +% +"...a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only + in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable + harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of + religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, + that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such + vast power in the hands of priests.... The further the spiritual evolution + of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine + religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and + blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge." + [Albert Einstein, address at the Princeton Theological + Seminary, May 19, 1939, published in _Out of My Later + Years_, New York: Philosophical Library, 1950.] +% +"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the + fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. + Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as + good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery-- + even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the + existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest + reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms + are accessible to our minds -- it is this knowledge and this emotion that + constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a + deeply religious man." + [Albert Einstein,_The World as I See It_] +% +"The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant + growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a + symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of + reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul + without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning." + [Albert Einstein, letter of 5 February 1921] +% +"If people are good only because they fear punishment, + and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth + and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the "Universe," a part + limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and + feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical + delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for + us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few + persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this + prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living + creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend + only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a + feeling of "humility." This is a genuinely religious feeling that + has nothing to do with mysticism." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied + to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the + authority imperil the foundation of sound judgement and action." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos." + [Albert Einstein, published after his death in 1955 in + the London Observer, 5 April 1964, on his problems + with quantum mechanics and not, as popularly + misinterpreted, an expression of religious belief.] +% +"The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, + usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to + organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them." + [Albert Einstein, letter to Sigmund Freud, 30 July 1932] +% +"You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds + without a religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the + religiosity of the naive man. For the latter, God is a being from whose + care one hopes to benefit and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of + a feeling similar to that of a child for its father, a being to whom one + stands, so to speak, in a personal relation, however deeply it may be + tinged with awe. + + But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation... + There is nothing divine about morality; it is a purely human affair. His + religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony + of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, + compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings + is an utterly insignificant reflection... It is beyond question closely + akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages." + [Albert Einstein, Mein Weltbild, Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934] +% +"I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a + Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity + to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit + priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist." + [Albert Einstein to Guy H. Raner Jr, July 2, 1945, + responding to a rumor that a Jesuit priest had caused + Einstein to convert from atheism. Article by Michael + R. Gilmore in Skeptic magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1997] +% +"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a + childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the + crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to + a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination + received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the + weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being." + [Albert Einstein to Guy H. Raner Jr., Sept. 28, 1949, + from article by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic + magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1997] +% +"The idea of a personal God is an anthropological + concept which I am unable to take seriously." + [Albert Einstein, letter to + Hoffman and Dukas, 1946] +% +"If this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human + action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also + His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their + deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment + and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. + How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him?" + [Albert Einstein, "Out of My Later Years"] +% +"The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring + as the road to the religious paradise; but it has shown itself + reliable, and I have never regretted having chosen it." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical comprehensibility + of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different sort from the feeling + that one usually calls religious. It is more a feeling of awe at the scheme + that is manifested in the material universe. It does not lead us to take the + step of fashioning a god-like being in our own image-a personage who makes + demands of us and who takes an interest in us as individuals. There is in this + neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being. For this reason, + people of our type see in morality a purely human matter, albeit the most + important in the human sphere." + [Albert Einstein, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by + Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press, pp 69-70] +% +"[My] deep religiosity... found an abrupt ending at the age of + twelve, through the reading of popular scientific books." + [Albert Einstein, as quoted in Einstein, + History, and Other Passions, p. 172] +% +"It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, + which [I] lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the + chains of the 'merely personal,' from an existence which is + dominated by wishes, hopes, and primitive feelings." + [Albert Einstein, as quoted in Einstein, + History, and Other Passions, p. 172] +% +"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion + which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any + religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism...." + [Albert Einstein] +% +"I do not believe in the God of theology + who rewards good and punishes evil." + [Albert Einstein, Personal memoir of + William Miller, editor, Life, May 2, 1955] +% +"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which + differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people + are even incapable of forming such opinion." + [Albert Einstein, from "Aphorisms for + Leo Baeck; Opinions of Albert Einstein"] +% +"I still believe in God, but God no longer believes in me" + [Andrew Eldritch, singer of the Sisters of Mercy] +% +"Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of awesome mystical power. We know this + because they manage to be invisible and pink at the same time. Like all + religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic + and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they + are invisible because we can't see them." + [Steve Eley] +% +"And the alcoholic bastard waved his finger at me + His voice was filled with evangelical glee + Sipping down his gin and tonics + While preaching about the evils of narcotics + And the evils of sex, and the wages of sin + While he mentally fondles his next of kin..." + [Danny Elfman, "Insanity"] +% +"Man makes himself, and he only makes himself completely in proportion as + he desacrilizes himself and the world. The sacred is the prime obstacle + to his freedom. He will become himself only when he is totally demysticized. + He will not be truly free until he has killed the last god." + [Mircea Eliade] +% +"There would be no perceptible influence on the morals + of the race if Hell were quenched and Heaven burned." + [Charles W. Eliot, in Elbert + Hubbard's Scrapbook, p. 126] +% +"Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion." + [T.S. Eliot, Milton, 1947] +% +"The Church had a devastating impact upon society. as the church assumed + leadership, activity in the fields of medicine, technology, science, + education, history, and commerce all but collapsed. Europe entered the + dark ages. Although the church amassed a great deal of wealth during + these centuries, most of what defines civilization disappeared." + [Hellen Ellerbe, "The Dark Side Of + Christianity" (Morningstar, 1995)] +% +"For that again, is what all manner of religion + essentially is: childish dependency." + [Albert Ellis] +% +"In a sense, the religious person must have no real views of his own and + it is presumptuous of him, in fact, to have any. In regard to sex-love + affairs, to marriage and family relations, to business, to politics, and + to virtually everything else that is important in his life, he must try + to discover what his god and his clergy would like him to do; and he + must primarily do their bidding." + [Albert Ellis, Ph.D] +% +"Religious fanaticism has clearly produced, and in all probability will + continue to produce, enormous amounts of bickering, fighting, violence, + bloodshed, homicide, feuds, wars, and genocide. For all its peace-inviting + potential, therefore, arrant (not to mention arrogant) religiosity has + led to immense individual and social harm by fomenting an incredible + amount of anti-human anti-humane aggression." + [Albert Ellis] +% +"And it is in his own image, let us remember, that Man creates God." + [H. Havelock Ellis, "Impressions and Comments"] +% +"The whole religious complexion of the modern world is + due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum." + [Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) English scientist and writer] +% +"A religion can no more afford to degrade + its Devil than to degrade its God." + [H. Havelock Ellis, + "Impressions and Comments"] +% +"A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest." + [Havelock Ellis] +% +"In an early class, one of the students asked me if I believed in God. I + replied, 'I don't think so.' And then proceeded to wail on the theme, using + material from this column of some weeks ago, in which I observed the + perpetuation of insanity on this planet through the mediums of Arabs-vs-Jews, + Catholics-vs-Protestants, Southern Baptists-vs-Everyone. I said I felt if + 'God created man in his *own* image, in the image of God created he them,' + (Genesis 2:27, King James's italics, not mine) then *we* were God. And when + Man (*my* cap, not King James's) in his most creative, his most loving, his + most gentle and most human, then he is most God-like. + The student said he would pray for my immortal soul. He also asked for my + address, so he could send me some literature on the subject of God. I + thanked him politely and told him I'd gotten all the literature I could + handle on the subject from a certain Thomas Aquinas." + [Harlan Ellison, from "The Glass Teat", Article #29] +% +"When belief in a god dies, the god dies." + [Harlan Ellison, "Deathbird Stories"] +% +"Neither Heaven nor Hell, and surely not a + spaceship, will be found in the tail of a comet." + [Harlan Ellison] +% +"Jesus is not going to come down from the mountain to save + your lily-white hide or your black ass. Save yourselves." + [Harlan Ellison] +% +"Do you believe + God makes you breath? + How did he lose + Six million Jews? + [Emerson, Lake, & Palmer] +% +"As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so + are their creeds a disease of the intellect." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance" (1841)] +% +"Heaven always bears some proportion to earth. The god of the cannibal will + be a cannibal, of the crusades a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Conduct of Life"] +% +"Other world! There is no other world! + Here or nowhere is the whole fact." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson] +% +"A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised + to save a man from the vexation of thinking." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson] +% +"How wearisome the grammarian, the phrenologist, the political + or religious fanatic or indeed any possessed mortal + whose balance is lost by the exaggeration of a single topic. + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, _Essays_] +% +"The faith that stands on authority is not faith. The reliance on authority + measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson] +% +"The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits + suicide. It acknowledges that it is not equal to the whole of truth, + that it legislates, tyrannizes over a village of God's empire but it + is not the immutable universal law. Every influx of atheism, of + skepticism is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and + removing a diseased religion and making way for truth." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson] +% +"The religions of the world are the + ejaculations of a few imaginative men." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson] +% +"The Bishop is elected by the Dean and Prebends of the cathedral. The Queen + sends these gentlemen a _conge d'elire_, or leave to elect; but also sends + them the name of the person whom they are to elect. They go into the + cathedral, chant and pray, and beseech the Holy Ghost to assist them in + their choice; and, after these invocations, invariably find that the + dictates of the Holy Ghost agree with the recommendations of the Queen." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, _English Traits_ (1848)] +% +"Who is he that shall control me? Why may not I act and speak and + write and think with entire freedom? What am I to the universe, or, + the unvierse, what is it to me? Who hath forged the chains of wrong + and right, of Opinion and Custom? And must I wear them?" + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, in "Emerson: The Mind on Fire" p. 51] +% +"Religionists are clinging to little, positive, verbal, formal + versions of the moral law... while the laws of the Law, the great + circling truths whose only adequate symbol is the material laws, the + astronomy etc. are all unobserved, and sneered at when spoken of." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, in "Emerson: The Mind on Fire" p. 151] +% +"To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Nature"] +% +"Whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist. He who would gather immortal + palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore it be + goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. + Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world... + I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large + societies and dead institutions." + [Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"] +% +"7. Certain crimes are committed more immediately against God himself; + others, against the state; and a third kind against certain persons. The + chief crime in the first class, cognizable by temporal courts, is + blasphemy, under which may be included atheism. This crime consists in + denying or vilifying the Deity, by speech or writing. All who curse God + or any of the persons of the blessed Trinity, are to suffer death, even + for a single act; and those who deny him (sic), if they persist in their + denial. The denial of a providence, or of the authority of the holy + Scriptures, is punishable capitally for the third offence." + [1771 edition of Encyclopedia Brittanica, + under Law: Tit. 33 "Of crimes"] +% +"What is more, it appears to be generally realized that some of + the world's foremost philosophers, scientists, and artists have + been avowed atheists and that the increase in atheism has gone + hand in hand with the spread of education." + [Encyclopedia of Philosophy] +% +"Belief is not a matter of choice, and therefore + cannot be used as a measure of virtue." + [M.J. Engh, "Rainbow Man", pg. 43] +% +"Lemme get this straight, you have "faith" in the existence of the most + powerful being you can imagine, who's your best bud and who you can ask + to do favors, and further you have "faith" that when you die you don't + actually cease to exist and become worm food, but your magical buddy + invites you to come live with him in the most wonderful place you can + imagine, and *we* are the ones for whom truth has become "whatever works + for you" or "whatever makes you feel good"??? LMAO!" + [Bob Enweiven] +% +"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; + Or he can, but does not want to; + Or he cannot and does not want to. + If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. + If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. + But, if God both can and wants to abolish evil, + Then how come evil in the world?" + [Epicurus, 350-?270 BC] +% +"There is nothing to fear from gods, + There is nothing to feel in death, + Good can be attained, + Evil can be endured" + [The Four Herbs of Epicurus, 341-270 BC] +% +"Thus that which is the most awful of evils, death, + is nothing to us, since when we exist there is no + death, and when there is death we do not exist." + [Epicurus] +% +"To sum up (or I shall be pursuing the infinite), it is quite clear + that the Christian religion has a kind of kinship with folly in some + form, though it has none at all with wisdom. If you want proofs of this, + first consider the fact that the very young and the very old, women and + simpletons, are the people who take the greatest delight in sacred and + holy things, and are therefore always found nearest the altars, led there + doubtless solely by their natural instinct. Secondly, you can see how + the first great founders of the faith were great lovers of simplicity and + bitter enemies of learning. Finally, the biggest fools of all appear to + be those who have once been wholly possessed by zeal for Christian + piety. They squander their possessions, ignore insults, submit to being + cheated, make no distinction between friends and enemies, shun pleasure, + sustain themselves on fasting, vigils, tears, toil and humilations, scorn + life and desire only death - in short, they seem to be dead to any normal + feelings, as if their spirit dwelt elsewhere than in their body. What else + can that be but madness? And so we should not be surprised if the apostles + were thought to be drunk on new wine, and Festus judged Paul to be mad." + [Erasmus, 'Praise of Folly'] +% +"Byron's friend Thomas Moore wrote to a friend in 1818 warning + him not to speak of religion or morality, 'the mania on these + subjects being so universal and congenital that he who thinks + of curing it is as mad as his patients.'" + [Carolly Erickson, "Our Tempestuous Days", pg. 224] +% +"After all, religion is an adolescent social device; it takes a serious + and grown-up concern -- spirituality -- and by its very nature reduces + it to both an adolescent sense of eternity and an adolescent moral + scheme in which absolutely everything is cast in stark contrasts, + in which whatever doubt and mystery can't be bleached out of human + experience is codified into ritual and myth." + [Steve Erikson's column "Unspun" in Salon] +% +"Millions long for immortality who don't + know what to do on a Sunday afternoon." + [Susan Ertz] +% +"Churches should look to their members and friends only for the + financing of their undertakings, and no church should engage in + any undertaking, no matter how laudable it may be, that its + members and friends are unable or unwilling to finance." + [Senator Sam Ervin] +% +"When religion controls government, political liberty dies;and + when government controls religion, religious liberty perishes." + [Sen. Sam Ervin] +% +"If I believed in a god, which I do not, I would like to + communicate with him on the same intellectual level. + Therefore, I would have to teach him a few things." + [Aaron Erwin] +% +"Religion stills a thinking mind." + [Greg Erwin] +% +"If I didn't know better, I would think that you were just + making definitions up in an ad hoc manner to avoid coming + to a conclusion which contradicted your a priori wishes." + [Greg Erwin] +% +All religious vows, codes, and commitments are null & void +herein. Please refrain from contaminating the ideosphere +with harmful memes through prayer, reverence, holy books, +proselytizing, prophesying, faith, speaking in tongues or +spirituality. Fight the menace of second-hand faith! + Humanity sincerely thanks you! + [Greg Erwin, _The Nullifidian_] +% +"You are digging for the answers, Until your fingers bleed, + To satisfy the hunger, To satiate the need. + They feed you on the guilt, To keep you humble and low, + Some man and myth they made up, A thousand years ago." + [Melissa Etheridge, "Silent Legacy" + song on the "Yes, I Am" album] +% +"We decree and order that from now on, AND FOR ALL TIME, Christians shall not + eat or drink with Jews; nor admit them to feasts, nor cohabit with them, nor + bathe with them. Christians shall not allow Jews to hold civil honors over + Christians, or to exercise public office in the State. Jews cannot be + merchants, Tax Collectors, or agents in the buying and selling of the produce + and goods of Christians, nor their Procurators, Computers or Lawyers in + matrimonial matters, nor Obstetricians; nor can they have association or + partnership with Christians. No Christian can leave or bequeath anything in + his last Will and testament to Jews or their congregations. Jews are + prohibited from erecting new synogogues. They are obliged to pay annually a + tenth part of their goods and holdings. Against them Christians can testify, + but the testimony of Jews against Christians in no case is of any value. All + and every single Jew, of whatever sex and age, must everywhere wear the + distinct dress and known marks by which they can be evidently distinguished + from Christians. They cannot live among Christians, but in a certain street, + separated and segregated from Christians, and outside which they cannot under + any pretext have houses" + [Pope Eugenius IV, A.D. 1442, Bull. Rom. Pont., V.67] +% +"He was a wise man who originated the idea of gods." + [Euripedes (484-406 B.C.)] +% +"O mortal man, think mortal thoughts!" + [Euripides, Alcestis, l. 799] +% +"Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves + with unsubstantial dreams and lies, while random + careless change and chance alone control the world?" + [Euripides, Athenian Dramatist, 484-406 BC, "Hecuba"] +% +"Slavery... That thing of evil, by its nature evil, forcing + submission from a man what no man can yield to." + [Euripides, "Hecuba," 425 B.C. He was the first writer + to condemn slavery, writing this almost 500 years before + Paul wrote: "Slaves, obey your masters." The Bible + nowhere condemns slavery, but in many places condones it.] +% +"I have repeated whatever may rebound to the glory, and + suppresed all that could tend to the disgrace, of our religion." + [Eusebius, early Church Father, in _Praeparatio + Evangelica_, chapter 31, book 12] +% +"On some occasions the bodies of the martyrs who had been devoured by beasts, + upon the beasts being strangled, were found alive in their stomachs." + [Eusebius (4th century), Bishop & Christian ecclesiastical historian] +% +"That it is necessary sometimes to use falsehood as a medicine + for those who need such an approach. [As said in Plato's Laws + 663e by the Athenian:] 'And even the lawmaker who is of little + use, if even this is not as he considered it, and as just now the + application of logic held it, if he dared lie to young men for a + good reason, then can't he lie? For falsehood is even more useful + than the above, and sometimes even more able to bring it about that + everyone willingly keeps to all justice.' [then by Clinias:] 'Truth + is beautiful, stranger, and steadfast. But to persuade people of it + is not easy.' "You would find many things of this sort being used + even in the Hebrew scriptures, such as concerning God being jealous + or falling asleep or getting angry or being subject to some other + human passions, for the benefit of those who need such an approach." + [Eusebius, from the Praeparatio Evangelica 12.31, + listing the ideas Plato supposedly got from Moses] +% +"The North American church is out of touch with global realities." + [Evangelical Foreign Mission Association, affiliated + with the Baptist Church, on the current state of + mission outreaches by American christian churches] +% +"Don't you understand mister, you are royalty and God + has chosen you to be the priest of your home?" + [Tony Evans, co-editor of "Seven Promises of a + Promise Keeper", in The Progressive, August 1996] +% +"The demise of our community and culture is the fault of + sissified men who have been overly influenced by women." + [Tony Evans, co-editor of "Seven Promises of a + Promise Keeper", in The Progressive, August 1996] +% +"I am not suggesting you *ask* for your role back, I'm urging you to + *take* it back...there can be no compromise here. If you're going + to lead, you must lead." + [Tony Evans, co-editor, in "Seven Promises of a Promise + Keeper", "Spiritual Purity" chapter, p. 79-80] +% +"God is a perfect example of the kind of aberration that can result from + an untrained intellect combining with an unrestrained imagination." + [Simon Ewins] +% +"Christianity does not preach the gospels to offer man a guide to salvation. + It uses the gospels as a weapon in the ideological conquest of man." + [Simon Ewins] +% +"She had the dubious distinction of being known as America's most outspoken + atheist," NBC's Tom Brokaw said (9/30/96) in introducing a jokey segment + on Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who has been missing for the past year. It's + impossible to imagine Brokaw making light of the disappearance of someone + who has the "dubious distinction" of being a leader of America's Catholics + or Jews--but atheists are assumed to be fair game for ridicule or attack. + That must be why NBC quoted a "conservative Christian commentator" as saying + of O'Hair: "If she is indeed dead, then she's burning in the fires of hell." + Plenty of fundamentalist Christians believe that all Catholics burn in hell, + but we doubt we'll see NBC quoting any of them the next time a pope dies." + [_Extra! Update_, a periodical from Fairness and Accuracy + in Reporting (FAIR), December 1996 issue, page 2. FAIR is + a New York NY-based media watchdog organization.] +% +"(19)Yet she increased her whorings, remembering the days of her youth, when + she played the whore in the land of Egypt (20) and lusted after her + paramours whose members were like those of donkeys and whose emissions + was like that of stallions" + [Ezekiel 23] +% +"When the Pope gets sick, how come they + never think of sending him to Lourdes?" + [Fact magazine, circa late-60s] +% +"We would be 1,500 years ahead if it hadn't been for the church dragging + science back by its coattails and burning our best minds at the stake." + [Catherine Fahringer] +% +"You can go off and delude yourself all you want, but when you start + threatening nonbelievers, when you start damaging the education systems, + when you start considering the evil and horror bestowed upon humankind + by your religious beliefs in the past and you refuse to accept any + responsibility for them, that's when things get a bit scary in the real + world of which you and I are a part." + [Dan Fake] +% +"We're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism... + we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying + our nation today...our battle is with Satan himself." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"The ACLU is to Christians what the + American Nazi party is to Jews." + [Rev. Jerry Falwell] +% +"Our goal has been achieved. The Religious Right is solidly in place, + and religious conservatives in America are now in for the duration." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"We've literally been inundated since the election (with evangelicals) + saying please, please, please crank up the Moral Majority again." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"I feel most ministers who claim they've heard God's voice are + eating too much pizza before they go to bed at night, and it's + really an intestinal disorder, not a revelation." + [Rev. Jerry Falwell] +% +"I hope I live to see the day, when, as in the early days of our country, + we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over + again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!" + [Rev. Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved, (1979)] +% +"I listen to feminists and all these radical gals -- most of them are failures. + They've blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some + Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women + just need a man in the house. That's all they need. Most of the feminists + need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And + they blew it and they're mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They're + sexist. They hate men -- that's their problem." + [Reverend Jerry Falwell] +% +"Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan in America." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To + oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red + Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"If you're not a born-again Christian, + you're a failure as a human being." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"I believe that the people of Israel are the chosen people of God." + [Jerry Falwell, interview on Cable News Network, 21 Nov 1982] +% +"The idea that religion and politics don't mix + was invented by the Devil to keep Christians + from running their own country." + [Rev. Jerry Falwell] +% +"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is + God's punishment for the society that *tolerates* homosexuals." + [Rev. Jerry Falwell, 1993] +% +"You say what's going to happen on this earth when the Rapture occurs? + You'll be riding along in an automobile; you'll be the driver, perhaps; + you're a Christian; there'll be several people in the automobile with + you, maybe someone who is not a Christian. When the trumpet sounds, you + and the other born-again Christians in that automobile will be instantly + caught away, you'll disappear, leaving behind only your clothing and + physical things that cannot inherit eternal life. That unsaved person or + persons in the automobile will suddenly be startled to find that the car + is moving along without a driver, and suddenly somewhere crashes. Those + saved people in the car have disappeared. Other cars on the highway + driven by believers will suddenly be out of control. Stark pandemonium + will occur on that highway and on every highway in the world where + Christians are caught away from the world." + [Jerry Falwell, from Wills, Garry, "Under God, Religion and + American Politics", Simon & Schuster, 1990, pg. 147, + originally excerpted from "Ronald Reagan and the Prophecy of + Armageddon" by Joe Cuomo, National Public Radio] +% +"He is purple -- the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a + triangle -- the gay-pride symbol.... As a Christian I feel that role + modeling the gay lifestyle is damaging to the moral lives of children." + [Rev. Jerry Falwell "outing" Tinky Winky the Teletubby, + Feb. 1999 edition of the National Liberty Journal] +% +"The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this. And, I know that I'll hear + from them for this. But, throwing God or successfully with the help of the + federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the + schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God + will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, + we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, + and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to + make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, + all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in + their face and say 'you helped this happen'." + [Jerry Falwell, on the 700 Club, 9-13-2001] +% +"I do not believe the Republicans or the Democrats have the solution to + America's moral and spiritual dilemma. Only a pervasive and national + spiritual awakening can prevent us entering the post-Christian era as + we go simultaneously into the 21st century. I believe America is in + imminent peril. We are rotting from within." + [Jerry Falwell, "Rebuilding America's Walls," 7/6/1997] +% +"America is living by a standard of relative morality. Young people who do + not know what is right will follow their animal nature. If young people + do not believe in absolute truth and absolute morality, they will + fornicate, rob and indulge their selfish pleasures. Absolute truth and + absolute morality are the basis of the Declaration of Independence. + These are self-evident truths and inalienable rights." + [Jerry Falwell] +% +"If America is not suffering the irrevocable judgment of God because she + has broken her covenant with God, then I believe she is dangerously close." + [Jerry Falwell, "America Made a Deal with God," 7/6/1997] +% +"Since the Antichrist will not be revealed before Jesus comes, I believe + conditions are falling in place, i.e., one-world government, so he can + rule the world after Jesus comes. But we're moving toward a one-world + government through the United Nations, through the world court and a + growing world opinion. The problem is that the one-world opinion is + taking the side of the Palestinians, not the side of Israel. + [Jerry Falwell, "What is Next in the End-Time Drama," 9/9/2001] +% +"Religion is more like response to a fiend + than it is like obedience to an expert." + [Austin Farrer] +% +"Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his + martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?" + [Jules Feiffer] +% +"What good is a beautiful church that serves the + spiritual needs to someone sleeping on a steam grate?" + [James Felder] +% +"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" + ["Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas] +% +"In the church of a small town in the state of S. Paulo, Brazil, the statue + of Virgin Mary started to weep regularly. The news spread like fire and soon + pilgrims from everywhere crowded the place, hoping for miracles. Researchers + from the nearby university of Campinas took samples of the tears and compared + them to the available water sources in the neighborhood. They turned out to + have the same chemical composition as the water from a drawn well behind the + church. Then the researchers sealed the statue inside a glass dome and the + tears stopped for many days. When the weeping began anew, they noticed the + seal had been broken. Their report stated clearly that the so-called miracle + was a fraud, possibly to attract pilgrims to the region. The media asked a + woman what she thought of the report and she replied: "I don't care for + reports. The Virgin wept. It's my faith that counts". + [Leo Fernandes] +% +"We who are unbelievers have so much to lose. The fire in the belly for + freedom of conscience can be quelled when threatened, and the lips can be + forced to mouth words. But the mind of the unbeliever, once opened to the + fact that nothing supernatural exists either to worship or to fear, cannot + be stilled without paying a great price. It is all too evident that life + is a struggle for power by some human beings over others, and history has + shown time and again that the most effective weapon for grabbing that + power is religion. Will history show ours to be proof of the maxim that + free societies don't last?" + [Sandra Feroe, "A Thanksgiving Ideal" Nov. 21, 1998] +% +"When the masses become better informed about science, they will feel + less need for help from supernatural Higher Powers. The need for + religion will end when Man becomes sensible enough to govern himself. + We will not, therefore, lose our time praying to an imaginary god + for things which our own exertions alone can procure." + [Francisco Ferrer y Guardia, Spanish atheist educator + accused by Catholic clergy of leading a riot in Barcelona + and executed without a trial. From "The Origin and + Ideals of the Modern School", published posthumously] +% +"Let no more gods or exploiters be served. + Let us learn rather to love one another." + [Francisco Ferrer] +% +"[My] purpose...is is to transform theologians into anthropologists, + lovers of God into lovers of man, candidates for the next world into + students of this world ... I negate the fantastic hypocracy of theology + and religion only in order to affirm the true nature of man." + [Ludwig Feuerbach] +% +"Man first unconsciously and involuntarily creates + God in his own image, and after this God (Religion) + consciously and voluntarily creates man in his own image" + [Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach, + "The Essence Of Christianity" 1841] +% +"Only he is a truly ethical, a truly human being, who has the + courage to see through his own religious feelings and needs." + [Ludwig Feuerbach] +% +"Faith is essentially intolerant... essentially because necessarily + bound up with faith is the illusion that one's cause is also God's cause." + [Ludwig Feuerbach] +% +"God is the explanation for the unexplainable which explains nothing + because it explains everything without distinction -- he is the night of + theory, nonetheless making everything clear to the mind by removing any + measure of darkness and extinguishing the light of discriminating + comprehension -- the not-knowing which solves all doubts by repudiating + them, which knows everything because it knows nothing in particular and + because all things which impress reason are nothing to religion, lose their + identity and are nil in God's eye. The night is the mother of religion." + [Feuerbach, "Das Wesen des Christenthums" (19th century, Germany)] +% +"You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. + I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers + which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and + different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not + absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything + about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here... I don't + have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being + lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really + is as far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me." + [Richard P. Feynman, "Genius, the life and science"] +% +"It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which + comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress + which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this + freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; + and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations." + [Richard Feynman, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?"] +% +"God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain + those things that you do not understand. Now, when you finally discover + how something works, you get some laws which you're taking away from God; + you don't need him anymore. But you need him for the other mysteries. So + therefore you leave him to create the universe because we haven't figured + that out yet; you need him for understanding those things which you don't + believe the laws will explain, such as consiousness, or why you only live + to a certain length of time--life and death--stuff like that. God is + always associated with those things that you do not understand. Therefore + I don't think that the laws can be considered to be like God because they + have been figured out." + [Richard Feynman] +% +"[When a young person loses faith in his religion because he begins + to study science and its methodology] it isn't that [through the + obtaining of real knowledge that] he knows it all, but he suddenly + realizes that he doesn't know it all." + [Richard P. Feynman, "The Meaning of It All," p. 36] +% +"Scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in + uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive + that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to + watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate." + [Richard P. Feynman, "The Meaning of It All," p. 39] +% +"It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty + that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some + direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so + many times before in various periods in the history of man." + [Richard Feynman, "The Meaning of It All", p. 34] +% +"The greatest achievement ever made in the cause of human progress is the + total and final separation of church and state. If we have nothing else to + boast of, we could lay claim with justice that the first among the nations + we of this country made it an article of organic law that the relations + between man and his maker were a private concern, into which other men + have no right to intrude. To measure the stride thus made for the + Emancipation of the race, we have only to look back over the centuries + that have gone before us, and recall the dreadful persecutions in the + name of religion that have filled the world." + [David Dudley Field (1805-1894) in describing 'American + Progress in Jurisprudence,' as quoted in Anson Phelps + Stokes, Church And State In The United States Vol I, p. 37] +% +"The Theologian is an owl, sitting on an old dead branch in the tree of + human knowledge, and hooting the same old hoots that have been hooted for + hundreds and thousands of years, but he has never given a hoot for progress." + [Emmett F. Fields] +% +"Atheism is the world of reality, it is reason, it is freedom. + Atheism is human concern, and intellectual honesty to a degree that + the religious mind cannot begin to understand. And yet it is more + than this. Atheism is not an old religion, it is not a new and coming + religion, in fact it is not, and never has been, a religion at all. + The definition of Atheism is magnificent in its simplicity: Atheism + is merely the bed-rock of sanity in a world of madness." + [Atheism: An Affirmative View, by Emmett F. Fields] +% +"Atheism has one doctrine: To Question + Atheism has one dogma: To Doubt + The Atheist Bible has but one word: THINK." + [Emmett F. Fields] +% +"Nothing changes history like the Christian Historian" + [Emmett F. Fields] +% +"Those who believe in hell can never know + truth, for they are blinded by fear." + [Emmett F. Fields] +% +"Prayers never bring anything... They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, + the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy - but to the enlightened it is + the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas" + [W. C. Fields] +% +"I'm looking for loopholes." + [W.C. Fields, when + caught reading the Bible] +% +"To me, these biblical stories are just so many fish stories, and + I'm not specifically referring to Jonah and the whale. I need + indisputable proof of anything I'm asked to believe. Someone has + to come up with the whys and wherefores." + [W.C. Fields, from "W.C. Fields + & Me" by Carlotta Monti] +% +"Wouldn't it be terrible if I quoted some reliable + statistics which prove that more people are driven + insane through religious hysteria than by drinking." + [W.C. Fields] +% +"A world where most men prefer sex with little children to sex with + grown women, mostly allegedly Christian parents secretly engage in bloody + Satanic rituals and every third person has suffered anal, genital and other + harassments by demonic dwarfs from outer space makes as much sense - and + just as little sense - as a world where the universe is ruled by the ghost + of a crucified Jew and George Bush had rational reasons (which no one can now + remember) for bombing Iraq again two days before leaving the White House." + [Prof. T.F.X. Finnegan, Trinity College, Dublin] +% +"What kind of a god would crucify his own son?" + [Firesign Theatre] +% +"It remains one of the most baffling yet affecting phenomena in modern + religious life: A beam of light or a spot of dirt in an otherwise ordinary + place is perceived as the image of the Virgin Mary, and suddenly thousands + of pilgrims descend on the site, turning it into a makeshift shrine. ...In + previous years, it has been a vision in the sky, a glint off a car bumper, + a face in a tortilla, a tear on an icon. ...But while church leaders are + often loath to debunk a visionary experience, not wanting to damage the + faith of thousands, they are also leery of letting such events get out of + hand. If someone who claims to have communicated with the divine begins + spreading teachings that are contrary to church dogma, bishops have not + hesitated to step in." + [David Firestone, Newsday, Press Democrat, 23 December 1990] +% +I see them on the corner +Big black Bible in hand +Shoutin' at the people to hear the word of the Lord, + and it's this: +"You're just a filthy sinner-man! +You can't save yourself, but -- Jesus can! +And then you too can be an angel with a sword -- + Smite the unrighteous! +Make Jesus your goal, +Sell him your soul, +Go throw your mind down the nearest hole." + +CHORUS: + +And the Lord Christ Jesus will +Save you from the Devil and Sin, +The Lord Marx Lenin will +Save you from the Chairman of the Board, +The Lord Smack Needle will +Save you from the pains of life -- +But who will come and save you from your Lord? + + [Leslie Fish, "Trinity"] +% +"In 1550 he (Las Casas) took part in a great controversy with Juan de + Sepulveda, one of the most celebrated scholars of that time. Sepulveda + wrote a book in which he maintained the right of the pope and the king + of Spain to make war upon the heathen people of the New World and bring + them forcibly into the fold of Christ.... In maintaining his ground + that persuasion is the only lawful method for making men Christians, + extreme nicety of statement was required, for the least slip might bring + him within the purview of the Inquisition. Men were burning at the + stake for heresy while this discussion was going on, and the controversy + more than once came terribly near home." + [Discovery of America, Chapter XI: + Las Casas, John Fiske, 1892] +% +"God made his only son die on the cross to avenge his own anger + against a man and woman four thousand years dead. Besides, the + garbage disposal was sending radio signals through his head + and it seemed like a really good idea at the time." + [Charles Fiterman] +% +"We warn the North that every one of the leading abolitionists is + agitating the negro slavery question merely as a means to attain + their ulterior ends... a surrender to Socialism and Communism + -- to no private property, no church, no law; to free love, free + lands, free women and free children." + [George Fitzhugh, 1857] +% +"Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the + clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, + "Some gardener must tend this plot." The other disagrees, "There is no + gardener." So, they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener.... + So they set up a barbed wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol it with + bloodhounds... But no shrieks even suggest that some intruder intruder has + received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. + The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not convinced. + "But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to electric + shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes + secretly to look after the garden which he loves." At last the Skeptic + despairs, "But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what + you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an + imaginary gardener or even no gardener at all?" + [Anthony Flew] +% +"Christian biblical theology must recognise that its articulation + of anti-Judaism in the New Testament ... generated the unspeakable + sufferings of the Holocaust." + [Dr. E. Florenza (Prof. of New Testament Studies) & Dr. D. Tracy + (Prof. of Philosophical Theology), "The Holocaust as Interruption" + (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, Ltd., 1984).] +% +"The Bible has done more harm than any other book in the world." + [William Floyd, "Christianity Cross-Examined"] +% +"Religion...can exercise a severe crippling and inhibiting effect + upon the human mind, by fostering irrational anxiety and guilt, + and by hampering the free play of the intellect". + [Dr J C Flugel] +% +"The Santa myth is one of the most effective means ever + devised for intimidating children, eroding their self- + esteem, twisting their behavior, warping their values, + and slowing their development of critical thinking skills." + [Tom Flynn, _The Trouble with Christmas_] +% +"Most humans feel what Paul Kurtz has called the "transcendent temptation," + the emotional drive to festoon the universe with large-scale meaning.... + Secular humanists suspect there is something more gloriously human about + *resisting* the religious impulse; about accepting the cold truth, even if + that truth is only that the universe is as indifferent to us as we are to + it; about facing the existential vacuum in all its horrible majesty; and + constructing a life of compassion and exuberance on its brink without + relying on the dubious shelter of faith." + [Tom Flynn, "The Difference a Word Makes", Free Inquiry] +% +"I had resources so I was able to get help. ....To all you 'born + again' Christians out there, I recommend some lithium; it helps." + [Larry Flynt on his conversion experience, + on the Larry King Show, 1/10/97] +% +"Oh, we could probably learn to like one another, and we probably + have some things in common. But you have to be honest about what + you do. And the Reverend Falwell isn't being honest. He's in + the business of selling religion." + [Larry Flynt, on Larry King Live, 1/10/97, in a debate with + Rev. Jerry Falwell, and asked if he could ever like Falwell] +% +"It's no wonder Christian Coalition members repeat their organization's + mission like a mantra. Understanding morality not informed by a faith + in Jesus Christ must confound true believers at least as much as values + not guided primarily by common sense perplex the rest of the population." + [Alex Foege, "The Empire God Built: Inside + Pat Robertson's Media Machine", pg 143] +% +"The secret they [the courts] do not seem to understand + is that there is no separation of church and state in + the Constitution or in any of our founding documents." + [Janet Folger, Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, + in Coral Ridge On-line Newsletter, February, 1999] +% +"It will yet be the proud boast of women that + they never contributed a line to the Bible." + [George W. Foote] +% +"There are two things in the world that can never + get together- religion & common sense." + [George W. Foote, from "Flowers of + Freethought, 2 vols. 1893-94] +% +"The only terror in death is the apprehension of what lies beyond + it, and that emotion is impossible to a sincere disbeliever." + [G.W. Foote, "Infidel Death Beds"] +% +"The man who worships a tyrant in heaven naturally + submits his neck to the yoke of tyrants on earth." + [George W. Foote, "Flowers of Freethought"] +% +My School Prayer + +Now I lay me down to learn +Which to read and which to burn +Pray the Lord my soul to turn +Over to the school board. + +Free to worship as I please, +Long as it pleases the authorities. +Hear me praying on my knees +My School Prayer. + +"Once again, boys and girls, I'll remind you that this activity +is not mandatory, and those of you who don't believe in a +Judeo-Christian God as defined by Congress should feel free to +sit quietly with your fingers in your ears like the atheistic +heathen you are. Agnostics may want to plug just one ear." + +May my every sneeze be blessed. +May I pass my urine test. +May my mind be underest- +imated and ignored, Lord + +Keep my classroom safe and clean. +Sanctify my M-16. +Every morning, eight-fifteen, +It's My School Prayer. + +God bless California, Arizona, +North Dakota, Texas, Maine, +New Hampshire, +Ohio and New York, of course. + +The forty-eight contiguous, +And the two ambiguous. +The greatest country God ever saved from the pagans. + +And while we're at it, dear Lord, bless the Reagans. + +God is good, and God is great. +So we'd hate to separate +Church and state or ourselves from pat- +riarchy and theocracy. + +Peace on earth, Thy kingdom come +Into my curriculum. +Make my head a hollow drum. + +Strike me dumb +Except to mumble +My School Prayer. + +[The Foremen,"My School Prayer", + from the "What's Left?" album] +% +"Bring me a creationist who doesn't lie, deceive, distort and + distract then I will show you a whole lot of thin air!" + [Clayton Forno] +% +"Saying the second law of thermodynamics means evolution can't happen + is like saying the theory of gravity means birds can't fly." + [Clayton Forno] +% +"The exoteric, state-organised section of the Christian Church persecuted + and stamped out the esoteric section, destroying every trace of its + literature... in striving to eradicate... gnosis from human history." + [Dion Fortune, "The Mystical Qabalah"] +% +"A religion without a goddess is half-way to atheism." + [Dion Fortune] +% +"Q. Where does Jodie Foster stand in the debate between science and faith?" + +"I absolutely believe what Ellie believes - that there is no direct + evidence, so how could you ask me to believe in God when there's + absolutely no evidence that I can see? I do believe in the beauty and + the awe-inspiring mystery of the science that's out there that we + haven't discovered yet, that there are scientific explanations for + phenomena that we call mystical because we just don't know any better." + [Jodie Foster, interview with Dan McLeod, "Foster Makes Contact + With Sagan" published in Vancouver's Georgia Strait July 10, 1997 + issue, on her role as Dr. Eleanor Arroway in the film "Contact"] +% +"Whatever sympathy I feel towards religions, whatever admiration for + some of their adherents, whatever historical or biological necessity I + see in them, whatever metaphorical truth, I cannot accept them as + credible explanations of reality; and they are incredible to me in + proportion to the degree that they require my belief in positive human + attributes and intervenient powers in their divinities." + [John Fowles, _The Aristos_] +% +"The process of creating new scripture by constructive abuse of + the old reaches its climax in the letters ascribed to Paul." + [Robin Lane Fox, Historian; Fellow, New College, Oxford] +% +"The atheist bashes all religions whilst the theist bashes + all but his own, upon which he lavishes great care in case + it should come in contact with reality." + [Gully Foyle] +% +"The absurdity of a religious practice may be clearly demonstrated + without lessening the numbers of people who indulge in it." + [Anatole France] +% +"If 50 million people believe a foolish + thing, it is still a foolish thing" + [Anatole France] +% + (God explaining the doctrine of free will.) "In order not to impair + human liberty, I will be ignorant of what I know, I will thicken upon + my eyes the veils I have pierced, and in my blind clear-sightedness + I will let myself be surprised by what I have foreseen." + [Anatole France] +% +"Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin." + [Anatole France] +% +"The impotence of God is infinite." + [Anatole France] +% +"We thank God for having created this world, and praise Him for having made + another, quite different one, where the wrongs of this one are corrected." + [Anatole France] +% + "Les dieux ont coutume de ressembler à ceux qui les adorent." +("the gods have the custom of resembling those that worship them") + [Anatole France] +% +"Mystery is essential to the impostor. Above everything else, the charlatan + must avoid straightforward reasoning and simplicity of expression: too clear + and direct a light would quickly destroy the spell he exerts, through eloquent + ambiguity, over his victims. In all ages, the voice of the humbug has + exercised a peculiar fascination -- it is his chief weapon. But though he + has to speak and write continuously, his announcements are best couched in + indefinite phrases, opaque and susceptible of many interpretations, like the + words of Subtle, the alchemist in Ben Jonson's play of that name." + [Grete de Francesco (translated from the German + by Miriam Beard -- Yale University Press, 1939)] +% +"One of the sponsors of the creche was asked about his interest in viewing + it while it stood on Scarsdale's Boniface Circle during the christmas + season. To my surprise as the questioner, it turned out the he never bothered + to go look at the creche at all, let alone to admire or draw inspiration from + it. But on reflection, it should not have been so surprising. The creche was + not there for him to see or to appreciate for its intrinsic spiritual value + in his religious universe. it was there for others, who professed other + religions or none, so that the clout of his religious group should be made + manifest- above all to any in the sharply divided village who would have + preferred that it not be there." + [_Faith And Freedom, Religious Liberty In America_, + Marvin E. Frankel, retired Federal Judge, p. 61] +% +"Certainly the affirmative pursuit of one's convictions about the ultimate + mystery of the universe and man's relation to it is placed beyond the + reach of law. Government may not interfere with organized or individual + expressions of belief or disbelief. Propagation of belief -- or even of + disbelief -- in the supernatural is protected, whether in church or + chapel, mosque or synagogue, tabernacle or meeting-house." + [Felix Frankfurter, U.S. Supreme Court justice, majority decision, + Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586, 1940] +% +"In modern Europe, as in ancient Greece, it would seem that even inanimate + objects have sometimes been punished for their misdeeds. After the revocation + of the edict of Nantes, in 1685, the Protestant chapel at La Rochelle was + condemned to be demolished, but the bell, perhaps out of regard for its value, + was spared. However, to expiate the crime of having rung heretics to prayers, + it was sentenced to be first whipped, and then buried and disinterred, by way + of symbolizing its new birth at passing into Catholic hands. Thereafter it + was catechized, and obliged to recant and promise that it would never again + relapse into sin. Having made this ample and honourable amends, the bell was + reconciled, baptized, and given, or rather sold, to the parish of St. + Bartholomew. But when the governer sent in the bill for the bell to the + parish authorities, they declined to settle it, alleging that the bell, as + a recent convert to Catholicism, desired to take advantage of the law lately + passed by the king, which allowed all new converts a delay of three years in + paying their debts. + [Sir James G. Frazer, _Folklore In The Old Testament_] +% +"Some of the old laws of Israel are clearly savage taboos of + a familiar type thinly disguised as commands of the deity." + [Sir James G. Frazer] +% +"Not only is there nothing to be gained by believing an untruth, + but there is everything to lose when we sacrifice the indispensable + tool of reason on the altar of superstition." + [Freedom From Religion Foundation] +% +"...the Bible, a book that glorifies behavior you abhor." + [Freedom From Religion Foundation] +% +"The modern world is essentially non-religious. This may seem a strange + statement given the rise of a militant Catholic church and militant + Muslim, American Protestant, and Judaic groups. But if one examines + the acts, as opposed to the rhetoric, of these movements, one finds + their primary purpose is to reassert dominance over women and subordinate + groups, e.g., Muslim socialists, American blacks, Israeli Arabs." + [Marilyn French, "Will Secularism Survive?" + article in _Free Inquiry_ magazine] +% +"The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, + the more widespread is the decline of religious belief." + [Sigmund Freud] +% +"When a man has once brought himself to accept uncritically all the + absurdities that religious doctrines put before him and even to + overlook the contradictions between them, we need not be greatly + suprised at the weakness of his intellect" + [Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion", 1927] +% +"Civilization has little to fear from educated people and brain-workers. + In them the replacement of religious motives for civilized behaviours by + other, secular motives, would proceed unobtrusively..." + [Sigmund Freud, 1927] +% +"Religious ideas have sprung from the same need as all the other + achievements of culture: from the necessity for defending itself + against the crushing supremacy of nature." + [Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion" 1927, p.34] +% +"While the different religions wrangle with one another as to which of them + is in possession of the truth, in our view the truth of religion may be + altogether disregarded. Religion is an attempt to get control over the + sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which + we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological + necessities. But it cannot achieve its end. Its doctrines carry with them + the stamp of the times in which they originated, the ignorant childhood days + of the human race. Its consolations deserve no trust. Experience teaches + us that the world is not a nursery. The ethical commands, to which religion + seeks to lend its weight, require some other foundations instead, for human + society cannot do without them, and it is dangerous to link up obedience to + them with religious belief. If one attempts to assign to religion its place + in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a + parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through + on his way from childhood to maturity." + [Sigmund Freud, "Moses and Monotheism", 1932] +% +"A great deal is already gained with the first step: the humanization + of nature. Impersonal forces and destinies cannot be approached... + if everywhere in nature there are Beings around us of a kind that we + know in our own society.... we can apply the same methods against these + violent supermen outside that we employ in our own society; we can try + to adjure them, to appease them, to bribe them, and, by so influencing + them, we may rob them of a part of their power + [Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion", 1927] +% +"No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to + suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere." + [Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion", 1927] +% +"Demons do not exist any more than gods do, being + only the products of the psychic activity of man." + [Sigmund Freud, New York Times Magazine, 6 May 1956] +% +"It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world + and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order + in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking + fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be." + [Sigmund Freud] +% +"Religion would then be the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity; + like the obsessisional neurosis of children...If this view is right, + it is to be supposed that a turning away from religion is bound to + occur with the fatal inevitability of a process of growth." + [Sigmund Freud] +% +"In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, + and the contradiction religion offers to both is only too palpable." + [Sigmund Freud] +% +"Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from + the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires." + [Sigmund Freud, "New Introductory + Lectures on Psychoanalysis"] +% +"When a man is freed of religion, he has a better + chance to live a normal and wholesome life." + [Sigmund Freud, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"The gods retain their threefold task: they must exorcize the terrors + of nature, they must reconcile men to the cruelty of fate, particularly + as it is shown in death, and they must compensate them for the sufferings + and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them." + [Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion", 1927] +% +"The greater the number of men to whom the treasures of knowledge become + accessible, the more widespread is the falling-away from religious + belief -- at first only from its obsolete and objectionable trappings, + but later from its fundamental postulates as well." + [Sigmund Freud] +% +"The different religions have never overlooked the part played by the + sense of guilt in civilization. What is more, they come forward with a + claim...to save mankind form this sense of guilt, which they call sin." + [Sigmund Freud, "Civilization and its Discontents"] +% +"They'll do anything, so long as there's no chance the neighbors will + find out about it. Neighbors have been responsible for more straight + living than all the great religions of the world combined." + [Esther Friesner, "Here Be Demons", pg. 143] +% +"Go ahead and hate your neighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend + Do it in the name of heaven - you can justify it in the end." + [From One Tin Soldier] +% +"Man is forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. + He acts against God's command... From the standpoint of the Church, + which represents authority, this is essentially sin. From the + standpoint of man, however, this is the beginning of human freedom." + [Erich Fromm (1900-1980)] +% +"Once a doctrine, however irrational, has gained power in + a society, millions of people will believe it rather than + feel ostracized and isolated." + [Erich Fromm, "An Analysis of Some + Types of Religious Experience"] +% +"I turned to speak to God/About the world's despair;/But to + make bad matters worse/I found God wasn't there." + [Robert Frost (1874-1963)] +% +"Now, I'm a minister, but if I have to remove the Bible, + remove the cross from the wall, remove the Ten Commandments + to get that government money, I'll do it." + [Rev. Larry Fryer, from NY Times 03/24/2001] +% +"A world filled with wonder + a cold fathomless sky + a man's life so meager he can but wonder why + he cries out to heaven, its truth to reveal + the answer only silence for God isn't real + + Go ask the starving millions under Stalin's cruel reign + go ask the child with cancer who eases her pain + and go to your churches if that's how you feel + but don't ask me to follow for God isn't real + + He forms in his image a weak and foolish man + speaks to him in symbols that few understand + for a life of devotion the death blow he deals + we owe him only hatred but God isn't real + + Go tell the executioner of the power he can't defy + go tell his shackled victim of the mercy on high + and go to your churches go beg, pray and kneel + but don't ask me to follow for God isn't real + No - no matter how he should be - God isn't real. + [Robbie Fulks, "God Isn't Real" from his + album- Let's Kill Saturday Night (1998)] +% +"The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the + Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example." + [Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist, of South Carolina] +% +"He asked: "Why did God create mosquitos"? + I answered: "To watch man chasing them, as it + seems God likes to watch Nintendo games". + [Hussein Gaafar] +% +"...a noble practice which does honor to women." + [Sheik Gad Al Haq Ali Gad Al Haq, explaining + Mohammed's law for removing part or all of a + girl's clitoris to reduce her sexual appetite] +% +"Do not allow the Church or State to govern + your thought or dictate your judgment." + [Matilda Joslyn Gage, "Woman, + Church and State", 1893] +% +"Throughout this protracted & disgraceful assault on + American womanhood the clergy baptized each new insult and + act of injustice in the name of the Christian religion..." + [Matilda Joslyn Gage] +% +"Those who are enslaved to their sects are not merely devoid of + all sound knowledge, but they will never even stop to learn." + [Galen] +% +"I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with sense, + reason, and intellect had intended for us to forgo their use." + [Galileo] +% +"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is + not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." + [Galileo Galilei] +% +"They know that it is human nature to take up causes whereby a man may + oppress his neighbor, no matter how unjustly. ... Hence they have had + no trouble in finding men who would preach the damnability and heresy + of the new doctrine from the very pulpit..." + [Galileo Galilei, 1615] +% +"The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the + universe nor immovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, + is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically false, + and at the least an error of faith." + [Catholic Church's decision against Galileo Galilei] +% +"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin + not with the Scriptures, but with experiments, and demonstrations." + [Galileo Galilei, "The Authority of Scripture in Philosophical + Controversies", which was condemned by the Inquisition] +% +"It vexes me when they would constrain science by the + authority of the Scriptures, and yet do not consider + themselves bound to answer reason and experiment." + [Galileo Galilei, "The Authority of + Scripture in Philosophical Controversies"] +% +"It is surely harmful to souls to make it + a heresy to believe what is proved." + [Galileo Galilei, "The Authority of + Scripture in Philosophical Controversies"] +% +"Having been admonished by this Holy Office [the Inquisition] entirely to + abandon the false opinion that the Sun was the center of the universe and + immovable, and that the Earth was not the center of the same and that it + moved... I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and + detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error + and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church." + [Galileo Galilei, Recantation, 22 June 1633] +% +"...nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes, or + which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called into + question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages." + [Galileo Galilei, quoted in "Blind Watchers of the Sky", p. 101] +% +"Organized Christianity has probably done more to retard the ideals + that were its founder's than any other agency in the world." + [Richard Le Gallienne] +% +"I could prove God statistically." + [George Gallup] +% +"Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, + an intransigent mind, and a step that travels unlimited roads." + [John Galt, in Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_] +% +"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, + Your christians are so unlike your christ" + [Mahatma Gandhi] +% +"The most fatal blow to progress is slavery of the intellect. The + most sacred right of humanity is the right to think, and next to the + right to think is the right to express that thought without fear." + [Helen H. Gardner, _Men, Women and Gods_] +% +"I do not know the needs of a god or of another world.... I do + know that women make shirts for seventy cents a dozen in this one. + [Helen H. Gardener, "Men, Women and Gods," 1885] +% +"Every injustice that has ever been fastened upon women + in a Christian country has been "authorized by the Bible" + and riveted and perpetuated by the pulpit." + [Helen H. Gardner] +% +"But why are Paul's commands not followed to-day? Why are not the words, + sister, mother, daughter, wife, only names for degradation and dishonor? + Because men have grown more honorable than their religion, and the strong + arm of the law, supported by the stronger arm of public sentiment, demands + greater justice than St. Paul ever dreamed of. Because men are growing grand + enough to recongize the fact that right is not masculine only, and that + justice knows no sex. And because the church no longer makes the laws. + Saints have been retired from the legal profession. I can't recall the name + of a single one who is practicing law now. Have any of you ever met a saint + at the bar? Women are indebted to-day for their emancipation from a position + of hopeless degradation, not to their religion nor to Jehovah, but to the + justice and honor of the men who have defied his commands. That she does not + crouch to-day where St. Paul tried to bind her, she owes to the men who are + grand and brave enough to ignore St. Paul, and rise superior to his God." + [Helen H. Gardener] +% +"One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible + from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at + least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts + are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, + but when He's good, nobody can touch Him." + [John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan 1983] +% +"Let me confess at once that I find something profoundly impious, almost + blasphemous, about setting limits of any sort on the power of God to bring + things about in any manner he chooses. If God creates a world of particles + and waves, dancing in obedience to mathematical and physical laws, who are + we to say that he cannot make use of those laws to cover the surface of a + small planet with living creatures? A god whose creation is so imperfect + that he must be continually adjusting it to make it work properly seems to + me a god of relatively low order, hardly worthy of any worship." + [Martin Gardner, _The Ambidextrous Universe_ pg.136] +% +"How many conservatives, who talk constantly about restoring America's + Christian heritage, have you heard mention that Washington, John Adams, + Franklin, Jefferson, and most of the other founding fathers, as well as + Lincoln, were not Christians? It was Washington who insisted that no + reference to God appear in the Constitution. "The government of the United + States," he declared, "is not in any sense founded on the Christian + religion." Jefferson produced a life of Jesus (still in print) from which + he removed all the miracles to let the heart of Jesus' teachings shine + forth. Not one of the first seven presidents professed the Christian faith." + [Martin Gardner, Foreword to "Steve Allen + on the Bible, Religion, & Morality"] +% +"The divorce between church and state ought to be absolute. It ought + to be absolute. It ought to be so absolute that no church property + anywhere, in any state, or in any nation, should be exempt from taxation, + for if you exempt the church property of any church organization, to that + extent you impose tax upon the whole community." + [US Pres. James A. Garfield, + speech to Congress, June 22, 1874] +% +"Man created God, not God, man" + [Guiseppi Garibaldi] +% +"The priest is the personification of falsehood." + [Guiseppi Garibaldi] +% +"Dear friends, -- Man has created God, not God man. Yours ever, Garibaldi." + [Guiseppi Garibaldi, entire text of letter] +% +"For life is at the start a chaos in which one is lost. The individual + suspects this, but he is frightened at finding himself face to face + with this terrible reality, and tries to cover it over with a curtain + of fantasy, where everything is clear. It does not worry him that his + "ideas" are not true, he uses them as trenches for the defense of his + existence, as scarecrows to frighten away reality." + [Jose Ortega Y Gasset] +% +"Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very + efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning." + [Bill Gates] +% +"To make the Greeks into the fathers of true civilization- the fathers, + in a word, of the first Enlightenment- was to subvert the foundations + of Christian histiography by treating man's past as a secular, not + sacred, record. The primacy of Greece meant the primacy of philosophy, + and the primacy of philosophy made nonsense of the claim that religion + was man's central concern." + [Peter Gay, "The Enlightenment - The Rise of Modern Paganism"] +% +"Eve was framed." + [Annie Laurie Gaylor] +% +"Nothing fails like prayer." + [Annie Laurie Gaylor] +% +"Superstitions typically involve seeing order where in fact there + is none, and denial amounts to rejecting evidence of regularities, + sometimes even ones that are staring us in the face." + [Murray Gell-Mann, "Quark and the Jaguar"] +% +"I would recommend that skeptics devote even more effort than they do now + to understanding the reasons why so many people want or need to believe." + [Murray Gell-Mann, "Quark and the Jaguar"] +% +"The persistence of erroneous beliefs exacerbates the widespread anachronistic + failure to recognize the urgent problems that face humanity on this planet." + [Murray Gell-Mann, "Quark and the Jaguar"] +% +"Many...freely confess that they believe what it makes them feel good to + believe. Evidence doesn't play much of a role. They are alleviating + their fear of randomness by identifying regularities that are not there." + [Murray Gell-Mann] +% +"...the only "right" a sodomite has in a + Chrisian Theocracy is the right to die." + [Dan Gentry, of Christian Research] +% +"No theory is too false, no fable too absurd, no superstition too degrading + for acceptance when it has become embedded in common belief. Men will + submit themselves to torture and to death, mothers will immolate (burn) + their children at the bidding of beliefs they thus accept." + [Henry George (1839-1897)] +% +"Against human stupidity, even the gods fight in vain." + [German Proverb] +% +"My thoughts will not cater to priest or dictator; + No person can deny, + Die Gedanken Sind Frei!" + [16th century German peasant song] +% +"It ain't necessary so, + It ain't necessarily so-- + De t'ings dat yo' li'ble + To read in de Bible-- + It ain't necessarily so. + + Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale, + Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale-- + Fo' he made his home in + Dat fish's abdomen-- + Oh Jonah, he lived in de whale. + + Methus'lah live nine hundred years, + Methus'lah live nine hundred years-- + But who calls dat livin' + When no gal'll give in + To no man what's nine hundred years? + + I'm preachin' dis sermon to show + It ain't nessa, ain't nessa, + Ain't necessarily so!" + [Ira Gershwin, part of his lyrics to the + song "It Ain't Necessarily So" (1935)] +% +"All in all, I can't say I believe in god. If, in fact, I ever find + out that he does indeed exist, I think I'll stay away from him, + because if he's responsible for half the things he gets credit for, + he's got to be one mean son of a bitch." + [Peter Gether, _A Cat Abroad_, pp. 89-90] +% +"As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear + without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse, of + Christianity had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. + The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; + the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of + military spirit were buried in the cloister. A large portion of public and + private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and + devotion, and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of + both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, + Zeal, curiosity, and more earthly passions of malice and ambition kindled the + flame of theological factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody and + always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to + synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny, and the + persecuted sects became the secret enemies of the country." + [Edward Gibbons, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman + Empire", 1781. The Roman Empire fell about 100 + years after it was converted to Christianity.] +% +"The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world + were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher + as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful." + [Edward Gibbons, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", 1781] +% +"Of the three Popes, John the Twenty-third was the first victim; he fled and + was brought back a prisoner; the most scandalous charges were suppressed; the + Vicar of Christ was only accused of piracy, murder, rape, sodomy, and incest." + [Gibbons, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_] +% +"A state of skepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the + practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are + forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision." + [Edward Gibbons, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_] +% +"To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new + propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind." + [Charlotte P. Gilman] +% +"The Roman Catholic motto is ourselves alone for fellow Roman Catholics. + We must defeat all heretics (non-Roman Catholics) at the ballot box. The + holy father states that negative tactics are fatal. The demands of the + holy father (the pope) are that the public services should be 100% Roman + Catholic soon. Care must be taken that no suspicion may be raised when + Roman Catholics are secretly given more government jobs than Protestants, + Jews, and other heretics." + [Australian Archbishop Gilroy, 1940] +% +"The Catholic Church must be the biggest corporation in the U.S. + We have a branch in almost every neighborhood. Our assets and + real estate holdings must exceed those of Standard Oil, A.T.&T, + and U.S. Steel combined. And our roster of dues-paying members + must be second only to the tax rolls of the U.S. Government." + [Father Richard Ginder, prominent Catholic priest, + in _Our Sunday Visitor_, May 22, 1960 issue] +% +"The activities engaged in by the Christian Coalition...were a vital + part of why we had a revolution at the polls on November 8, 1994." + [Newt Gingrich] +% +"God's will is directly proportional to public opinion." + [David Paul Gladden] +% +"The notion of religious liberty is that you cannot be forced + to participate in a religious ceremony that's not of your + choosing simply because you're out-voted." + [Ira Glasser, Exec. Dir.of ACLU, 1995] +% +"Just last week I saw two homosexual men at the supermarket. The + supermarket! In broad daylight! That's what you get when you + worship the creation instead of the creator." + [Rev. Terry Glidden, Washington Post, Oct. 5, 1999] +% +"...historically it is clear that the heart and + soul of anti-Semitism rested in Christianity" + [Glock & Stark, "Christian Beliefs and Anti-Semitism", + 1966, page xvi, 5-year study by Survey Research + Department of University of California] +% +Christianity, n. + A superbly-designed religion; I wouldn't dream of owning a slave who + wasn't a Christian. + [The Godling's Glossary] +% +"God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and + unshakeable faith, that he [Hitler] was sent to us by God to save German." + [Hermann Goering, from Louis L. Snyder, "Hitler's + Elite, Shocking Profiles of the Reich's Most + Notorious Henchmen", Berkley Books, 1990] +% +"The unnatural, that too is natural." + [Goethe] +% +"The happy do not believe in miracles." + [Goethe] +% +"This occupation with ideas of immortality is for people of + rank, and especially for ladies who have nothing to do. But + a man of real worth who has something to do here, and must + toil and struggle to produce day by day, leaves the future + world to itself, and is active and useful in this." + [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe] +% +"The real, the deepest, the sole theme of the world and + of history, to which all other themes are subordinate, + remains the conflict of belief and unbelief." + [Goethe] +% +"Nature and Mind! - Terms Christian ears resist! + For talk like this we burn the atheist! + Such words are full of danger and despite; + Nature means Sin, and Mind the Devil! + The two breed Doubt, misshapen evil. + Their ill-begot hermaphrodite." + [Goethe, "Faust", + Philip Wayne, Penguin Books] +% +"Here, too, it would be best you heard + One only and staked all upon your master's word. + Yes, stick to words at any rate; + There never was a surer gate + Into the temple, Certainty." + [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Faust" + Mephisto, angel of the devil, to Faust] +% +"There is nothing more odious than the majority. It consist of a + few powerful men who lead the way; of accommodating rascals and + submissive weaklings; and of a mass of men who trot after them + without in the least knowing their own minds." + [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe] +% +"Vaccination is a direct violation of the everlasting covenant that + God made with Noah after the flood.... Vaccination never saved + human life. It does not prevent smallpox." + [_The Golden Age_, (predecessor to _Awake!_), + Feb. 4, 1931 (Jehovah's Witnesses)] +% +"Religion is a superstition that originated in man's mental ability + to solve natural phenomena. The Church is an organized institution + that has always been a stumbling block to progress." + [Emma Goldman, "What I Believe"] +% +"I'm thankful I didn't believe in God, because it + would have been another thing for me to conquer." + [Kim Goldman is quoted, in reference to + her brother Ron Goldman's murder] +% +"However, on religious issures there can be little or no compromise. + There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious + beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than + Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. + But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf + should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing + throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. + They are trying to force government leaders into following their position + 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a + particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of + money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political + preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be + a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." Just who do + they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the + right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as + a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who + thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll + call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every + step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all + Americans in the name of "conservatism." + [Senator Barry Goldwater] +% +"I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell's ass." + [Sen. Barry Goldwater, when asked what he thought of + Jerry Falwell's suggestion that all good Christians + should be against Sandra Day O'Connor's nomination + to the U.S. Supreme Court] +% +"Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless + the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no + place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known + without trying to make their views the only alternatives." + [Barry Goldwater, 1981 speech] +% +"By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United + States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the + rest of the world with religious wars" + [Barry Goldwater, 1981] +% +"If there is a God, atheism must strike Him + as less of an insult than religion." + [Edmond and Jules de Goncourt] +% +"I talk to my only friend Jesus our LORD! I know JESUS understands my + terrible desires and ect. I have tords little boys! And the main reason + I murdered them little BOYS, is because our society is so AGAINST the + fact of CHILDREN-DOING-SEX together or with anybody! I believe children + should be ABLE to do sex! And I can ARGUE that all the way to the U.S. + Supreme Court! SEX is a great GIFT that Jesus gave us all!!!!" + [Freddy Goode, serial killer, in a letter to one of his lawyers] +% +"'God works in many ways his wonders to perform.' But He's not a + skillful mechanic. A man drives over a cliff and 'by a miracle' + he only breaks his back. It would be more divine if he were a + better driver and stayed on the road." + [Paul Goodman] +% +"i don't think evolution should be taught as a fact but as a theory that + some people believe in. i don't really know about this though, i haven't + thought about it really but there's no way it should be taught as the truth." + [Mark Goodwin, on talk.origins, 10/17/1994] +% +"What we have here is religious bigotry, and it represents the same insidious + type of exclusion that I experienced growing up black in Dixie." + [Morgan State prof. Stefan Goodwin, on religious convocation + ceremonies, Washington Post, August 17, 1994] +% +"Atheism keeps an open mind and does not flinch from rejecting the + old, whenever it is a hurdle on the road towards a common humility." + [GORA, Indian atheist] +% +"I believe in serving God and trying to understand and obey God's will for + our lives. Cynics may wave the idea away, saying God is a myth, useful in + providing comfort to the ignorant and in keeping them obedient. I know in my + heart - beyond all arguing and beyond any doubt - that the cynics are wrong." + [Vice Pres. Al Gore's commencement address at Harvard, 1994] +% +"Paradise is one of the crass fictions invented by + the high priests and fathers of the church..." + [Maxim Gorki, "Culture of the People"] +% +"Can God deliver a religion addict?" + [Marjoe Gortner, Ex-Evangelist] +% +"Creation science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple + and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and + because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be + more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our + entire intellectual heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing + honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment + to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any + general understanding of science as an enterprise?" + [Stephen Jay Gould, "The Skeptical Inquirer"] +% +"The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science + collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke + miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into + the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to + abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all + fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, + misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the + ideas of their opponents." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", + The Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 87/88, pg. 186] +% +"In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that + it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that + apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not + merit equal time in physics classrooms." + [Stephen J. Gould] +% +"When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow + their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown." + [Stephen Jay Gould] +% +"Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview-- + nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, + more destructive of openness to novelty." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "Dinosaur in a Haystack"] +% +"The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only + common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal + after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "Dinosaur in a Haystack"] +% +"Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested, + and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject + at all. This claim is rhetorical nonsense." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "Dinosaur in a Haystack"] +% +"Our creationist detractors charge that evolution is an unproved and + unprovable charade-- a secular religion masquerading as science. They + claim, above all, that evolution generates no predictions, never + exposes itself to test, and therefore stands as dogma rather than + disprovable science. This claim is nonsense. We make and test risky + predictions all the time; our success is not dogma, but a highly + probable indication of evolution's basic truth." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "Dinosaur in a Haystack"] +% +"No rational order of divine intelligence unites species. The natural + ties are genealogical along contingent pathways of history." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "Dinosaur in a Haystack"] +% +"We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy + that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the + earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and + tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, + has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for + a 'higher' answer---but none exists." + [Stephen Jay Gould, quoted in "2000 Years of Disbelief, + Famous People with the Courage to Doubt", by + James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"The fundamentalists, by 'knowing' the answers before they start + (examining evolution), and then forcing nature into the straitjacket + of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of + science---or of any honest intellectual inquiry." + [Stephen Jay Gould, "Bully for Brontosaurus," 1990, quoted in + "2000 Years of Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to + Doubt", by James A. Haught, Prometheus Books, 1996] +% +"Skepticism's bad rap arises from the impression that, however necessary the + activity, it can only be regarded as a negative removal of false claims. + Not so... Proper debunking is done in the interest of an alternate model of + explanation, not as a nihilistic exercise. The alternate model is rationality + itself, tied to moral decency--the most powerful joint instrument for good + that our planet has ever known." + [Stephen Jay Gould, from Michael Shermer, "Why People + Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition & + Other Confusions of Our Time, p. xii)] +% +"As in 1925, creationists are not battling for religion. They have been + disowned by leading church men of all persuasions, for they debase religion + even more than they misconstrue science. They are a motley collection to + be sure, but their core of practical support lies with the evangelical + right, and creationism is a mere stalking horse or subsidiary issue in a + political program...The enemy is not fundamentalism; it is intolerance. + In this case, the intolerance is perverse since it masquerades under the + 'liberal' rhetoric of 'equal time'." + [Stephen J Gould] +% +"God is not all that exists. God is all that does not exist." + [Remy de Gourmont (1858-1915) French + novelist, critic, philosopher] +% +"Religions revolve madly around sexual questions." + [Remy de Gourmont] +% +"I think when a person has been found guilty of rape + he should be castrated. That would stop him pretty quick." + [Billy Graham, 1974] +% +"Let us realize that priests are not revealers of truth but only keepers + of traditions, and that the purpose of both the scribes and their later + translators was not to reveal the truth but to lay the basis of a + theistic religion, based on the supernatural and the terrifying." + [Lloyd Graham, "Deceptions and Myths of the Bible"] +% +"Nobody ever told us you had to be religious." + [Nancy Grambo, whose son Buzz Grambo was + kicked out of the BSA Southern Maryland + Troop 427, for his lack of religious belief] +% +"Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church + and the private schools, supported entirely by private + contributions. Keep the church and state forever separated." + [Ulysses S. Grant, speech to the Army of + the Tennessee, Des Moines,Iowa, 1875] +% +"I would suggest the taxation of all property + equally whether church or corporation." + [Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)] +% +"I would like to call your attention to ... an evil that, if allowed + to continue, will probably lead to great trouble.... It is the + accumulation of vast amounts of untaxed church property." + [Ulysses S. Grant] +% +"The fires of truth usually require much time to burn their way through + those incrustations of moral and religious error which often environ + the human mind as the products of a false education. But when they + once enter, the work of convincement is complete." + [Kersey Graves] +% +"Christs soldiers fight best on their knees" + [Brig. General Green, ACMTC] +% +"There is no other book between whose covers life is so cheap." + [Ruth Hurmence Green, "The Born Again + Skeptic's Guide to the Bible"] +% +"There was a time when religion ruled the + world. It was known as The Dark Ages." + [Ruth Hurmence Green] +% +"It is the position of some theists that their right to + freedom OF religion is abridged when they are not allowed + to violate the Rationalists right to freedom FROM religion." + [James T. Green, jgreen@trumpet.calpoly.edu] +% +"Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought." + [Graham Greene, 1981] +% +"Faith is the antithesis of proof." + [NY State Supreme Court Justice + Edward J. Greenfield, 1995] +% +"This is not an attack on the First Amendment rights of people who + believe in faith healing. We just don't believe the First Amendment + allows them to inflict their views upon their children and let them + die from such things as infections, when one quick trip to a doctor + would cure the problem. Children should not have to die to uphold + the religious beliefs of their parents." + [Scott Greenwood, Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD)] +% +"When you arrive in a city, summon the bishops, clergy and people, + and preach a solemn sermon on faith; then select certain men of + good repute to help you in trying the heretics and suspects denounced + before your tribunal. All who on examination are found guilty or + suspected of heresy must promise to absolutely obey the commands of + the Church. If they refuse, you must prosecute them." + [Pope Gregory I, order to the Dominicans + on their duties in the Inquisition, 1231] +% +"I don't care anything about the separation of church and state" + [Rev. Ron Griffin, pres. of Detroit Urban League, on Gov. + Engler's plan to use churches to deliver state services. + Oct 18, 1995, Detroit Free Press, article by Dawson Bell] +% +"In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like + Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm." + [Che Guevara] +% +"Never wage war on religion, nor upon seemingly holy institutions, + for this thing has too great a force upon the minds of fools." + [Francesco Guicciardini, "Ricordi Politici"] +% +"When the temptation to masturbate is strong, yell "Stop!" + to those thoughts as loudly as you can in your mind. Then + recite a portion of the Bible or sing a hymn." + [Mormon _Guide to Self-Control_] +% +"It has often been repeated that the abolition of slavery among modern people + is entirely due to Christians. That, I think, is saying too much. Slavery + existed for a long period in the heart of Christian society, without its + being particularly astonished or irritated. A multitude of causes, and a + great development in other ideas and principles of civilization, were + necessary for the abolition of this iniquity of all iniquities." + [Francois-Pierre-Guillaume Guizot (1787-1874), French historian + and statesman, in "European Civilization," vol. I., p.110] +% +"What does every religion lay claim to? The governance of human passions + and of human will. Every religion is a curb, a power, a government. It + comes in the name of divine law to subdue human nature. Therefore human + liberty is its especial antagonist, which it is its object to vanquish. + To this purpose are its mission and hope directed." + [Francois-Pierre-Guillaume Guizot (1787-1874), + French historian and statesman] +% +"I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed + because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do." + [D. Dale Gulledge] +% +"School vouchers as proposed by Reagan and Bush do not represent free market + competition. The reason is fairly simple. The source of the money is not + the consumers. The vouchers are paid for by tax dollars. School vouchers + are an attempt to breach the separation of church and state by allowing + individuals who are not constrained by the prohibition against Congress + passing laws respecting religion to spend tax dollars for the benefit of + the religion of their choice. + + I have no objection to parents sending their children to the school of + their choice. The problem with public funding of schools is that it is an + inherently collectivist system. The restraints that have been placed on + what public schools must teach and what they are prohibited from teaching + protect us to a limited extend from the full magnitude of the damage that + they have the potential to do if used as a propaganda tool. + + I have never granted that anyone else rightfully has the freedom to choose + how my money will be spent. The only difference between that and slavery is + that the masters do not have the authority to beat, sell, or kill me if I + choose not to work. Send your children to schools that brainwash them any + way that you wish. But do not insist on paying for it with money taken + from me by taxation." + [D. Dale Gulledge (ddg@cci.com)] +% +"It is probably safe to say that since the late 1960s, nearly every + major religious group in the country has tried to get some offending + TV material altered or banned. So has every racial minority group and + almost every important national-ethnic group." + [Max Gunther, in _TV Guide_ article, February 9, 1974] +% +"A rational thought a day keeps religion away" + [Matt Guttentag] +% +"We must conduct research and then accept the results. If they don't + stand up to experimentation, Buddha's own words must be rejected." + [Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, _Time_ April 11, 1988] +% +"I believe that at every level of society--familial, tribal, national and + international--the key to a happier and more succesful world is the growth + of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to believe + in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good + human qualities. I try to treat whoever I meet as an old friend. This gives + me a genuine feeling of happiness. It is the practice of compassion." + [Tenzin Gyatso, The XIVth Dalai Lama] +% +"As soon as you are willing to discard observational data because it conflicts + with religion, you are giving up any hope of ever really understanding the + universe. As soon as you pick religion as the touchstone of reality, then we + have to start discussing how one can demonstrate the correctness of one + religion over another when different *religions* disagree." + --Wilson Heydt (whheydt@PacBell.COM) + + "The answer is simple: kill the heretics. History shows us that + this is the actual solution that competing religions apply -- trial + by combat or trial by ordeal. God is the final arbiter. What a sad + waste of human potential it has proven to be." + [Paul Hager (hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu)] +% +"Humans can find a pattern in just about anything, and we must find such + a pattern if we are to comprehend things. Mightn't people be mistaking + this order imposed by the human mind for order caused by God?" + [J J Hahn (hahn0009@gold.tc.umn.edu) on alt.atheism] +% +"Religion is still parasitic in the interstices of our knowledge which + have not yet been filled. Like bed-bugs in the cracks of walls and + furniture, miracles lurk in the lacunae of science. The scientist + plasters up these cracks in our knowledge; the more militant Rationalist + swats the bugs in the open. Both have their proper sphere and they + should realize that they are allies." + [John Haldane, "Science and Life: Essays of a Rationalist"] +% +"Scientific education and religious education are incompatible. The clergy + have ceased to interfere with education at the advanced state, with which + I am directly concerned, but they have still got control of that of + children. This means that the children have to learn about Adam and Noah + instead of about Evolution; about David who killed Goliath, instead of Koch + who killed cholera; about Christ's ascent into heaven instead of + Montgolfier's and Wright's. Worse than that, they are taught that it is + a virtue to accept statements without adequate evidence, which leaves them + a prey to quacks of every kind in later life, and makes it very difficult + for them to accept the methods of thought which are successful in science." + [J.B.S. Haldane] +% +"My practise as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an + experiment I assume that no god, angel, or devil is going to interfere with + its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have + achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually + dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world. And I + should be a coward if I did not state my theoretical views in public." + [J.B.S. Haldane, cited by L. Beverly Halstead in his article + "Evolution -- the Fossils Say Yes!" in _Science and Creationism_, + edited by Ashley Montagu [Oxford U. Press, 1984] page 241)] +% +"The influences that have lifted the race to a higher moral level are + education, freedom, leisure, the humanizing tendency of a better-supplied + and more interesting life. In a word, science and liberalism- the two + forces, fundamentally skeptical, that we have seen continuously at work + in human progress- have accomplished the very things for which religion + claims the credit." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Outline of Bunk"] +% +"After all, the principle objection which a thinking man has to + religion is that religion is not true -- and is not even sane." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"The fear of gods and devils is never anything but a pitiable + degradation of the human mind." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"This question is put to Christians who believe that the Bible unerringly + describes God and reports the commands and the characteristics of God. If + there is a God, it is natural that we should wish to be quite correct in + our understanding of that God's nature. So, we ask: Can and does God lie? + + Looking this point up in the mazes of Holy Writ, we discover confusion. In + Numbers xxiii, 19, we are told: "God is not a man, that he should lie." + This is put even mere strongly in Hebrews vi, 18, where we read: "It was + impossible for God to lie." + + But do these citations settle the matter? Ah, no, we are upset in, our + calculations the moment we turn to 2 Thessalonians ii, 11, where we read: + "For this cause God shall send them strong delusions, that they should + believe a lie." And in I Kings xxii, 23, God is thus reported: "Now, + therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all + these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee." + + Can God lie? Can the Bible lie? Anyway, there is a mistake + somewhere. The big mistake is in entertaining the idea of a God." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"When we read that some minor scientist (usually a skilled technical worker + but not a thinker in science) has "found God" somewhere, we are not excited. + We know this is only a form of words, meaning only that the scientific worker, + turning away from science, has rediscovered the stale old assumption of + theology, "There is a God." We find invariably (as we should expect) that + there is no satisfactory definition or description or identification or + location or proof of a God. "God" is merely a word, whether it is used by a + preacher or a mystic in a laboratory." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"The fact that millions of people still believe in a hell of eternal punishment + for sinners and unbelievers is a drastic reminder of the need for persistent, + progressive education of the masses. We have as yet only begun to realize the + possibilities of progress. But science, rationalism and humanism have pointed + the way, they have taken the first great steps, and we must keep right + ahead on the highway of modernism." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Don't take our word for it. Read the Bible itself. Read the + statements of preachers. And you will understand that God is the + most desperate character, the worst villain in all fiction." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Commonly, those who have professed the strongest motives of love of a + God have demonstrated the deepest hatred toward human joy and liberty." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Theism tells men that they are the slaves of a God. Atheism + assures men that they are the investigators and users of nature." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Belief in gods and belief in ghosts is identical. God is taken + as a more respectable word than ghost, but it means no more." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Religion, throughout the greater part of its history, has been a form of + "holy" terrorism. It still aims its terrors at men, but modern realism + and the spread of popular enlightenment has progressively robbed those + terrors of their old-fashioned effectiveness. Wherever men take religion + very seriously -- wherever there is devout belief -- there is also the + inseparable feeling of fear." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Christian theology has taught men that they should submit with + unintelligent resignation to the worst real evils of life and waste + their time in consideration of imaginary evils in "the life to come." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Priests and preachers have tricked, terrified and exploited + mankind. They have lied for glory of God." They have collected + immense financial tribute for "the glory of God." Whatever may be + said about the character of individuals among the clergy, the + character of the profession as a whole has been distinctly and + drastically anti-human. And of course the most sincere among the + clergy have been the most dangerous, for they have been willing to + go to the most extreme lengths of intolerance for "the glory of God." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Perhaps religion might be dismissed as unimportant if it were + merely theoretical. If it were merely theoretical. It is difficult, + however, if not impossible to separate theory and practice. + Religion, to be sure, is full of inconsistencies between theory and + practice; but there is and has always been sternly and largely a + disposition of religion to enforce its theory in the conduct of + life; religion has meant not simply dogmatism in abstract thinking + but intolerance in legal and social action. Religion interferes + with life and, being false, it necessarily interferes very much to + the detriment of the sound human interests of life." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"For centuries men have fought in the most unusual and devious + ways to prove the existence of a God. But evidently a God, if there + were a God, has been hiding out. He has never been discovered or + proved. One would think a God, if any, should have revealed himself + unmistakably. Isn't this non-appearance of a God (the non- + appearance of a God in the shape of a single bit of evidence for + his existence) a pretty, strong, sufficient proof of non-existence?" + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"A God of love, a God of wrath, a God of jealousy, a God of + bigotry, a God of vulgar tirades, a God of cheating and lying -- + yes, the Christian God is given all of these characteristics, and + isn't it a wretched mess to be offered to men in this twentieth + century? The beginning of wisdom, the beginning of humanism, the + beginning of progress is the rejection of this absurd, + extravagantly impossible myth of a God." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Look at the God idea from any angle, and it is foolish, it doesn't make sense, + but extravagantly proposes more mysteries than it assumes to explain. For + instance, is it sensible that a real God would leave mankind in such confusion + and debate about his character and his laws? + + There have been many alleged revelations of God. There have, indeed, been many + Gods as there have been many Bibles. And in different ages and different lands + an endless game of guessing and disputing has gone on. Men have argued blindly + about God. They still argue -- just as blindly. + + And if there is a God, we must conclude that he has willfully left men in the + dark. He has not wanted men to know about him. Assuming his existence, then + it would follow that he would have perfect ability to give a complete and + universal explanation of himself, so that all men could see and know without + further uncertainty. A real God could exhibit himself clearly to all men and + have all men following his will to the last letter without a doubt or a slip. + + But when we examine even cursorily the many contradictory revelations of God, + the many theories and arguments, the many and diverse principles of piety, we + perceive that all this talk about God his been merely the natural floundering + of human ignorance. + + There has been no reality in the God idea which men could discover and agree + upon. The spectacle has been exactly what we should expect when men deal with + theories of something which does not exist. + + Hidden Gods -- no Gods -- all we see is man's poor guesswork." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"... the Bible was a collection of books written at different times by + different men -- a strange mixture of diverse human documents -- and a + tissue of irreconcilable notions. Inspired? The Bible is not even + intelligent. It is not even good craftsmanship, but is full of + absurdities and contradictions." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"A sober, devout man will interpret "God's will" soberly and + devoutly. A fanatic, with bloodshot mind, will interpret "God's + will" fanatically. Men of extreme, illogical views will interpret + "God's will" in eccentric fashion. Kindly, charitable, generous men + will interpret "God's will" according to their character." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Remember that millions of Christians still base their belief in a God + upon the words of the Bible, which is a collection of the most + flabbergasting fictions ever imagined -- by men, too, who had lawless + but very poor and crude imagination. Ingersoll and numerous other + critics have shot the Christian holy book full of holes. It is worthless + and proves nothing concerning the existence of a God. The idea of a God + is worthless and unprovable." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Talk of God leads by a direct road to the conclusion of + atheism. The only sensible attitude is to dismiss the idea of God + -- to get it out of the way of more important ideas. The wide + dissemination of this intelligent atheistic attitude is one of the + leading features of any program of popular education which is + completely worthy of the name." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"With its fears and superstitions and prejudices, religion + poisons the mind of any one who believes in it -- and even the best + man, under the influence of religion, cannot reason wholesomely. + Atheism, on the contrary, opens the mind to the clean winds of + truth and establishes a fresh-air sanity." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Nobody has ever taken notable pains to locate the legendary heaven; but + probably that is because nobody ever thought seriously of going to a heaven." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"A few weeks ago a hurricane struck the little religious community of Bethany, + Okla. A number of pious citizens of the little town were killed. Houses were + destroyed -- homes in which prayer and devotion reigned. A church was + demolished. + + Only a few miles away is the large, wicked city of Oklahoma City -- at least + we can certainly assume that, from the religious viewpoint, many sinners live + in Oklahoma City. Assuming also (which is a great deal riskier assumption) + that there is a God, why should he perpetrate this grim and sardonic joke? + The sinners in the big city were left untouched. The godly folk in the little + nearby village were punished by the evidences of God's wrath. How do the + religious people interpret this calamity? Often and often they explain such + calamities as flood, fire and storm by saying that God is angry at the sinful + people and is warning them or destroying them for their sins. Was the + hurricane in Bethany a sign of the love of God for his faithful worshipers? + + And God missed an even better chance, if there were a God who wished to punish + rebels against his majesty and inscrutability. Just a few hundred miles north + and east of Bethany, Okla., is Girard -- the home of The American Freeman: and + The Debunker and The Joseph McCabe Magazine and the Little Blue Books -- the + center of American free thought where an enormous stream of atheistic + literature and. godless modern knowledge pours forth to enlighten the masses. + If there were a God directing hurricanes and he wanted to really "get" an + uncompromising foe, whom he has no chance of persuading in the ordinary way, + it would have been a devastating stroke for him to send his howling punitive + blasts through the town of Girard. It would be a more remarkable suggestion + of the avenging act of a God if only the Haldeman-Julius plant were destroyed + and the rest of the town left unhurt -- and, as good neighbors, we shouldn't + wish the Christian and respectable, people of Girard nor those who are + respectable and not so Christian nor those who are Christian and not exactly + respectable to suffer from our proximity and our propaganda of atheism. + + Is God a joker? No -- let us whisper it -- the joke is that there is no God. + Hurricanes come upon the just and the unjust, the pious and the impious." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"To be true to the mythical conception of a God is to be false + to the interests of mankind." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Credulity is not a crime for the individual -- but it is clearly a crime as + regards the race. Just look at the actual consequences of credulity. For + years men believed in the foul superstition of witchcraft and many poor + people suffered for this foolish belief. There was a general belief in angels + and demons, flying familiarly, yet skittishly through the air, and that belief + caused untold distress and pain and tragedy. The most holy Catholic church + (and, after it, the various Protestant sects) enforced the dogma that heresy + was terribly sinful and punishable by death. Imagine -- but all you need do + is to recount -- the suffering entailed by that belief. + + When one surveys the causes and consequences of credulity, it is apparent + that this easy believer in the impossible, this readiness toward false and + fanatical notions, has been indeed a most serious and major crime against + humanity. The social life in any age, it may be said, is about what its extent + of credulity guarantees. In an extremely credulous age, social life will be + cruel and dark and treacherous. in a skeptical age, social life will be more + humane. We assert that the philosophy of humanity -- that the best interests + of the human race -- demand a strong statement and a repeated, enlightening + statement of atheism." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Is God fair? The Christians say that God damns forever anyone who is skeptical + about truth of bunkistic religion as revealed unto the holy haranguers. What + this means is that a God, if any, punishes a man for using his reason. + + If there is a God in existence, reasons should be available for his + existence. Assuming that such a precious thing as a man's eternal future + depends on his belief in a God, then the materials for that belief + should be overwhelming and not at all doubtful. + + Yet here is a man whose reason makes it impossible for him to believe in + a God. He sees no evidence of such an entity. He finds all the arguments + weak and worthless. He doubts and he denies. + + Then is a God fair in visiting upon such a skeptic the penalty for his + inevitable intellectual attitude? The intelligent man refuses to believe + fairy tales. Can a God blame him? If so, then a God is not as fair as an + ordinarily decent man. And fairness, we think, is more important than piety." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"Faith," said St. Paul, "is the evidence of things not seen." We should + elaborate this definition by adding that faith is the assertion of things for + which there is not a particle of evidence and of things which are incredible." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"] +% +"The church has contributed nothing to civilization. It has progressed + somewhat, and it has become a little more decent, in reflection of the + movements of civilization that have taken place outside of the church + and usually in the face of the strong opposition of the church. But the + church has always resisted the process of civilization. It has struggled + to the last ditch, by fair means and foul, to preserve as long as it + could the vestiges of ancient and medieval theology, with all the + puerile moralities and harsh customs and medieval styles of belief." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"Why should an atheist pay more taxes so that a church which he + despises should pay no taxes? That's a fair question. How can the + apologists for the church exemption answer it? + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"The churches beg -- and if we don't give them money, why, they + take it anyway, forcibly, by means of this unjust state tax exemption." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"The churches can well afford to pay fair taxation. But + supposing they couldn't. Would not that be a very significant + evidence that the churches were not really wanted?" + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"How can a preacher talk with a straight face about political graft? + He is, himself, profiting by one of the most notorious + political grafts in this country." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"Why should the residence of a preacher be untaxed? Useful citizens must pay + taxes on their homes. Yet the Preacher -- actually and notoriously the least + useful member of the community -- lives in a tax-free dwelling." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"Would you tax God?" asks a defender of church tax exemption. Well, if there + were a God he should be able to pay his own way and support his own business. + If not, then he should do like other business men and close up shop." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"Church tax exemption means that we all drop our money in the collection boxes, + whether we go to church or not and whether we are interested in the church or + not. It is systematic and complete robbery, from which none of us escapes." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"It is an absurd fiction that the churches are useful. They are + nothing more than propaganda centers for superstitious faiths and + doctrines. Church members have a right to believe in and propagate + their various doctrines. But they should pay every item of the + cost, of this propaganda, including fair taxation for all church property." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"There can be no perfect freedom unless the church and state are separated. + But the church and state are not separated in America so long as the state + grants a subsidy to the church in the form of tax exemption." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"Is a church too small and too poor to pay taxes? That means + that not enough people want the church seriously enough to pay for + its upkeep. Then, why should such a church exist? Why should + atheists, agnostics and non-churchgoers be forced to maintain such + a useless, unwanted church by granting it tax exemption?" + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"Martyrs have been sincere. And so have tyrants. Wise men have + been sincere. And so have fools." + [E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Church Is a Burden, + Not a Benefit, In Social Life"] +% +"...it is my measured opinion - after thirty-five years of study - that + religion is all bad, without a single good feature. And, of course, that + means I don't go gunning after "certain religious denominations" but send + my gas bombs into the whole kit and kaboodle. It's part of my philosophy + that the world would be a better place for all of us if we managed to get + rid of the mental disease called religion." + [E. Haldeman-Julius] +% +"The Bible nowhere prohibits war... Although war was raging in the + world in the time of Christ and His Apostles, still they said not + a word of its unlawfulness and immorality." + [Henry Wagner Halleck, "Military Art and Science," 1846] +% +"According to Sumerian traditions, more or less closely echoed by those in + Akkadian, Hebrew, and Greek (Berossos), the great Flood was preceded by + eight to ten long-lived kings (variously: generations of men) who ruled in + five cities, beginning with Eridu on the shores of the great salt-water + lagoon connecting to the Persian Gulf, and reaching as far north as Sippar + in what was later called Akkad. The First seven antediluvians are linked + with seven apkallu's (semidivine sages), beginning with Uanna-Adapa, who + passed into Greek sources as Oannes and into Genesis as Adam" + [William W. Hallo and William Kelly Simpson, "The Ancient Near + East: A History", Harcourt Brace: Orlando, 1998, p. 29] +% +"In the earlies Sumerian version, he appears as Ubar-Tutu, 'friend of the + god Tutu,' or as Ziusudra, 'life of long days.' Later he is simply (and + perhaps erroneously) called after his city, Shuruppak. The earliest Akkadian + sources call him Atar-hasis, 'exceeding wise,' while the later ones, + incorporated in the canonical Gilgamesh epic, refer to him as Uta-napishtam, + 'he has found (everlasting) life.' In the Bible his name is Noah" + [William W. Hallo and William Kelly Simpson, "The Ancient Near + East: A History", Harcourt Brace: Orlando, 1998, p. 32] +% +"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves + you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most + awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love." + [Butch Hancock] +% +"Heretics have been hated from the beginning of recorded time; they + have been ostracized, exiled, tortured, maimed and butchered; but it + has generally proved impossible to smother them; and when it has not, + the society that has succeeded has always declined." + [Learned Hand, Address] +% +"We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff + at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me." + [Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"] +% +"If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope + He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting." + [Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"] +% +"My young son asked me what happens after we die. I told him we + get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I + guess I should have told him the truth--that most of us go to + Hell and burn eternally--but I didn't want to upset him." + [Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"] +% +"If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell + him is 'God is crying.' And if he asks why God is crying, another + cute thing to tell him is 'Probably because of something you did.'" + [Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"] +% +"When Gary told me he had found Jesus, I thought, Yahoo! + We're rich! But it turned out to be something different." + [Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"] +% +"But only fools like me you see, + Can make a god, who makes a tree." + [E. Y. Harburg, parody + of Joyce Kilmer's poem] +% +"The god who is reputed to have created fleas to keep dogs from moping over + their situation must also have created fundamentalists to keep rationalists + from getting flabby. Let us be duly thankful for out blessings." + [Garrett Hardin, in "Science and Creationism, ed. Ashley Montague] +% +"That which is unchallenged and exercised as habit + rapidly becomes ritual. When this occurs, dissent + becomes an object of surprise, if not resentment." + [B. Carmon Hardy] +% +"I have been looking for god for fifty years and I think + if he had existed I should have discovered him." + [Thomas Hardy] +% +"`Peace upon earth!` was said. We sing it, + And pay a million priests to bring it. + After two thousand years of mass + We`ve got as far as poison gas," + [Thomas Hardy, + 'Christmas:1924'] +% +"We enter church, and we have to say, 'We have erred and strayed from Thy + ways like lost sheep," when what we want to say is, "Why are we made to + err and stray like lost sheep?' Then we have to sing, 'My soul doth magnify + the Lord,' when what we want to sing is 'O that my soul could find some + Lord that it could magnify!'" + [Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), English novelist, poet. Note, Jan. 1907] +% +"The Puritan through Life's sweet garden goes + To pluck the thorn and cast away the rose." + [Kenneth Hare] +% +"Nothing could be more anti-Biblical than letting women vote." + [Editorial, Harper's Magazine, November 1853] +% +"Religion; humanity's greatest folly, greatest curse." + [Kevin Harris] +% +"...Jesus was not as peaceful as commonly believed, and that his actual + teachings did not represent a fundamental break with the tradition of + Jewish military messianism. A strong pro-zealot-bandit and anti-Roman + bias probably pervaded his original ministry. The decisive break with the + Jewish messianic tradition probably came about only after the fall of + Jerusalem, when the original politico-military components in Jesus' + teachings were purged by Jewish Christians living in Rome and other + cities of the empire as an adaptive response to the Roman victory." + [Marvin Harris, anthropologist, _Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches_] +% +"Jesus is just a word I use to swear with" + [Richard Harris] +% +"Perhaps the most important advance in the behavioral sciences in our times + has been the growing recognition that the perceiver is not just a passive + camera taking a picture, but takes an active part in perception. He sees + what experience has conditioned him to see. What perceiver then sees what + is really there? Nobody of course. Each of perceives what our past has + prepared us to perceive. We select and distinguish, we focus on some objects + and relationships and we blur others. We distort objective reality to make + it conform to our needs our, or hopes, or fears, or hates, or envies or + affections. Our eyes and brains do not merely register some objective + portrait of other persons or groups but our very active scene is warped by + what we have been taught to believe, by what we want to believe and by what + we need to believe. It is impossible to reason a man out of something he + has not been reasoned into. When people have acquired their beliefs on an + emotional level they cannot be persuaded out of them on a rational level. + No matter how strong the proof or the logic behind it, people will hold onto + their emotional beliefs and twist the facts to meet their version of reality." + [Sidney J. Harris] +% +"The fact is the Mormon people do not govern themselves. Always the + Mormon leaders have claimed the prerogative to think for, and direct the + Mormon people in all things. As late as June 1945, the General + Authorities' Ward Teachers' Message, as carried by the 'Deseret News' of + May 26, 1945, and the 'Improvement Era' of June 1945, page 354, stated: + + "'When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done. When they + propose a plan-it is God's plan. When they point the way, there + is no other that is safe. When they give direction, it should + mark the end of controversy. God works in no other way.'" + [G.T. Harrison, "Mormons are a Peculiar + People", Vantage Press, 1954, (pp. ix)] +% +"The barbaric religions of primitive worlds hold not a germ of scientific + fact, though they claim to explain all. Yet if one of these savages has + all the logical ground for his beliefs taken away, he doesn't stop + believing. He then calls his mistaken beliefs 'faith' because he knows + they are right. And he knows they are right because he has faith." + [Harry Harrison, Jason dinAlt character, + Deathworld, Berkeley Medallion Edition, 1976] +% + Only the Priests 'Date' Young + (to the tune of "Only the Good + Die Young" by Billy Joel) + +Come out Father +Don't make us wait +You Catholic Priests want boys to date +But sooner or later you'll be charged by the State +For things that you may have done. + +Well they told you that its a sin to be gay +They told you to kneel but only to pray +But they never told you the price that you pay +For sexual repression +Only the Priests date young. + +You got a nice black dress and a party on your ordination +All the wafers you can eat +And free treatment at the Paraclete * +But they don't even permit you to engage in masturbation +Soon the alter boys +They start to look like toys +whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa + +You told the parents all you'd give 'em was an education +You told 'em you'd take care of 'em +But did you even use a condom? +No, No, No, No + + + (* Brothers of the Paraclete is a treatment + center in Arizona for pedophilic priests) + + [Harry the Heretic] +% + +Jesus Hates the Little Children + + +Jesus hates the little children +All the little children of the poor. +Skin and bone, covered with flies +Jesus cheers as each one dies +Jesus hates the children of the poor. + +Jesus starves the little children +All the hungry children of the world. +If he really was pure good +He'd make sure they had some food +Jesus starves the children of the world. + +Jesus hates the little children +All the little children of Bhagdad. +Even though they're not to blame +They are dying just the same +Jesus hates the children of Bhagdad. + +Jesus hates the little children +All the little children born with AIDS. +Even while he's giving breath +He's condemning them to death +Jesus hates the children born with AIDS. + +Jesus hates the little children +All the little children raped buy priests. +Sunday schoolers, alter boys +Jesus rewards priests with toys +Jesus hates the children raped by priests. + +Jesus hates the little children +That's why he wants more to abuse +He's opposed to birth control +No abortion is his goal +Jesus wants more children to abuse. + +Jesus hates the little children +All the little children of the poor +They've got hunger and disease +In the winter they can freeze +Jesus hates the children of the poor + + [Harry the Heretic] +% + + A Christmas Ditty + +I.... saw Jesus kissing Santa Claus +Underneath a Unicorn last night. +He is the Son of God +Or else he is a fraud +But I thought it very funny +When he fucked the Easter Bunny + +I.... saw Jesus kissing Santa Claus +While Leprechauns and Jackalopes did fight +I thank the Tooth Fairy +That Jehovah didn't see +Jesus kissing Santa Claus + + [Harry the Heretic] +% +"America's problem isn't that we suffer from a + lack of faith, but from a saturation of it." + [James L. Hartley] +% +"The problem is that Americans don't recognized there are other moral forces + outside the world of immaterial gods. Morality can be derived from reason + and rational thought. It can be based on our relationship to each other, + instead of our relationship to a god no one can see. Religion isn't morality. + A lack of faith isn't immorality. When Americans can recognize that, when + we recognize our human power to solve our human problems instead of counting + on a god to fix it, maybe we will gain a better understanding of just what + it means to be moral." + [James L. Hartley] +% +"It was, after all, Christianity itself which tutored the Western mind to + believe that it should know the truth and the truth would make it free. + But now that the student has learned to prize the truth, he has discovered, + with pain both to himself and his teacher, that it can only be gained at + the cost of rejecting the one who first instilled in him the love of it." + [Van A. Harvey] +% +"Mark's declaration that Jesus came from the dispersion (nazareth), meaning + the worldwide community of Jews outside Judaea (equivalent to diaspora), + was misinterpreted by Matthew and Luke to mean that he came from a city + called Nazareth [to fulfill prophesy]. In fact the term nazarite, or + nazoraios, had nothing to do with any city of Nazareth, since no such place + existed until the fifth century CE when one was built by a Christian Emperor + to whom the nonexistence of Jesus' alleged hometown was an embarrassment. + (Although the site of Nazareth was occupied in the first century, there is + no evidence of any village named Nazareth earlier than the fifth century....)" + [William Harwood, _Mythology's Last Gods: + Yahweh and Jesus_ (Prometheus), p. 260] +% +"Businesses may come and go, but religion will last forever, for in no + other endeavor does the consumer blame himself for product failure." + [Harvard Lamphoon, "Doon" (paraphrase)] +% +"I understand prayer quite well. It's a masturbatory exercise that + gives catharsis to the pray-er and a placebo effect to the pray-ee, + but only if the pray-ee knows he's being prayed for." + [John Hattan] +% +"From a religious view, putting the (Ten Commandments) in a courtroom is + idolatry. It constructs a god, not the God of Israel or Jesus Christ, but + a god that is useful to us, because it gives us the illusion that we + really do have this deep agreement, when we don't." + [Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe professor of theological ethics at + Duke Divinity School, in ABC news article "Display This!" 4-30-98] +% +"In another area of human rights, many Christian clergymen advocated + slavery. Historian Larry Hise notes in his book 'Pro-Slavery' that + ministers 'wrote almost half of all defenses of slavery published + in America.' He lists 275 men of the cloth who used the Bible to prove + that white people were entitled to own black people as work animals." + [James A. Haught, 'Holy Horrors', 1990] +% +"Obviously, religion has a Jekyll-and-Hyde nature-- with Dr. + Jekyll always in the spotlight, and Mr. Hyde little noticed." + [James A. Haught, "Horrors of History"] +% +"In the year 415, the woman scientist Hypatia, head of the legendary + Alexandria library, was beaten to death by Christian monks who considered + her a pagan. The leader of the monks, Cyril, was canonized a saint." + [James A. Haught, Free Inquiry (Winter 1996/1997)] +% +"The stronger the supernatural beliefs, the worse the inhumanity" + [James A. Haught] +% +"In 1583 at Vienna, a 16 year old girl suffered stomach cramps. A team of + Jesuits exorcised her for eight weeks. The announced that they had expelled + 12,652 demons from her, demons her grandmother had kept as flies in glass + jars. The grandmother was tortured into confessing she was a witch who had + engaged in sex with Satan. Then she was burned at the stake. This was one + of perhaps 1 million such executions during three centuries of witch-hunts." + [James A. Haught, "Holy Horrors," 1990] +% +"A profound irony of the witch-hunts is that they were directed, not by + superstitious savages, but by learned bishops, judges, professors, and + other leaders of society. The centuries of witch obsession demonstrated + the terrible power of supernatural beliefs." + [James A. Haught, "Holy Horrors," 1990] +% +"God not only plays dice. He sometimes + throws the dice where they cannot be seen." + [Stephen Hawking] +% +"What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe + began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would + not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. + This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary." + [Stephen W. Hawking, Der Spiegel, 1989] +% +"The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised + if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions + that are necessary for their existence. It is a bit like a rich person + living in a wealthy neighborhood not seeing any poverty." + [Stephen Hawking] +% +"One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions + for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have + to act through the laws of physics." + [Stephen Hawking, "Black Holes & Baby Universes"] +% +"So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a + creator. But if the universe is completely self-contained, having + no boundary or edge, it would neither be created nor destroyed... + it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?" + [Stephen Hawking] +% +"My parents, though they had never formally left the ancestral Roman + Catholic church, held no religious beliefs. Though they were no longer + fiercely anti-religious (as I suspect my paternal grandfather was, along + with so many of the scientists of his generation), all positive dogma was + for them a superstition of the past. They never took me to church. And + though as part of my general education I was, soon after I had begun to + read for pleasure, given a child's Bible, it disappeared mysteriously when + I got too interested in it.... + + By the age of fifteen, I had convinced myself that nobody could give a + reasonable explanation of what he meant by the word 'God' and that it was + therefore as meaningless to assert a belief as to assert a disbelief in God. + + Though this, in a general way, has remained my position ever since, I + have always avoided unnecessarily to offend other people holding religious + belief by displaying my lack of such belief, or even stating my lack of + belief, if I was not challenged." + [From _Hayek on Hayek: An Autobiographical Dialogue_, edited by Stephen + Kresge and Leif Wenar (University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 40-41. F.A. + Hayek is considered the foremost defender of capitalism in the 20th century] +% +"That which the heathen had respected the Catholic outraged. The great + Cardinal Ximenez restored the primitive rite and devoted this charming + chapel to its service. How ill a return was made for Moorish tolerance + we see in the infernal treatment they afterwards received from king and + Church. They made them choose between conversion and death. They embraced + Christianity to save their lives. Then the priests said, "Perhaps this + conversion is not genuine! Let us send the heathen away out of our sight." + One million of the best citizens of Spain were thus torn from their homes + and landed starving on the wild African coast. And Te Deums were sung + in the churches for this triumph of Catholic unity. From that hour Spain + has never prospered." + [Castilian Days, The City of + the Visigoths, John Hay, 1903] +% +"If judged only by the results that challenge the laws + of probabilities, then the power of prayer is nil." + [Judith Hayes, U.S. freethinker, author] +% +"If we are going to teach 'creation science' as an alternative + to evolution, then we should also teach the stork theory as + an alternative to biological reproduction." + [Judith Hayes] +% +"Life can be beautiful, profound, and awe-inspiring, even + without an irate god threatening us with eternal torment." + [Judith Hayes] +% +"The biblical account of Noah's Ark and the Flood is perhaps + the most implausible story for fundamentalists to defend. + Where, for example, while loading his ark, did Noah find + penguins and polar bears in Palestine?" + [Judith Hayes] +% +"Religion is a result of primal urges, and I hope that it, like + murder and septic personal hygiene, becomes unfashionable." + [Brian Hayward] +% +"There is no sin. It is an invention to shame people into believing fantasies. + We are the only animals known to desire to act differently (often better) + than we do. This is a glorious quality, and provides optimism that we will + will eventually improve ourselves. We should be proud of it, not ashamed." + [Brian Hayward] +% +"The cannibals burn their enemies and eat them in good-fellowship with + one another: meek Christian divines cast those who differ from them + but a hair's-breadth, body and soul into hell-fire for the glory of + God and the good of his creatures! It is well that the power of such + persons is not co-ordinate with their wills..." + [William Hazlitt, "On the Pleasure of Hating"] +% +"The Hell Law says that Hell is reserved exclusively for them that believe + in it. Further, the lowest Rung in Hell is reserved for them that believe + in it on the supposition that they'll go there if they don't." + [HBT, "The Gospel According to Fred" 3:1] +% +"I haven't heard anyone saying that she's blackmailing anyone. I think she + just wants to see if our freedom of religious expression is really protected + or is the court supposed to cater to the whims of the masses who want to + shop and open stores on Sunday or any other religious holiday." + [Tammy Rae Healy] +% +"Religion is the highest vanity." + [Friedrich Hebbel] +% +"Immorality, perversion, infidelity, cannibalism, etc., are + unassailable by church and civic league if you dress them + up in the togas and talliths of the Good Book." + [Ben Hecht (1893-1964), U.S. journalist, author, screenwriter. "A + Child of the Century," bk. 5, "Sex in Hollywood" (1954), commenting + on biblical epics solving "the fornication problem" in Hollywood] +% +"God is, as it were, the sewer into which all contradictions flow" + [G.W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy] +% +"A disturbing fact continues to surface in sex abuse research. The first + best predictor of abuse is alcohol or drug addiction in the father. But + the second best predictor is conservative religiosity, accompanied by + parental belief in traditional male-female roles. This means that if you + want to know which children are most likely to be sexually abused by their + father, the second most significant clue is *whether or not the parents + belong to a conservative religious group with traditional role beliefs + and rigid sexual attitudes*. (Brown and Bohn, 1989; Finkelhor, 1986; Fortune, + 1983; Goldstein et al, 1973; Van Leeuwen, 1990). (emphasis in original) + ["Sexual Abuse in Christian Homes and Churches", by Carolyn + Holderread Heggen, Herald Press, Scotdale, PA, 1993 p. 73] +% +"As Pastor X slips out of bed + He puts a neat disguise on + That halo round his priestly head + Is merely his horizon." + [Piet Hein, 1966] +% +"What Christian love cannot do is effected by a common hatred." + [Heinrich Heine] +% +"Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ." + [Heine] +% +"In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in + pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the + roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight + comes, however, it is foolish to use blind, old men as guides." + [Heinrich Heine, Gedanken und Einfalle, Volume 10] +% +"Let's leave heaven to the angels and the sparrows." + [Heinrich Heine] +% +"The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by H.Sapiens is that the + Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the sacharrine + adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and + becomes petulant if he does not recieve this flattery. Yet this ridiculous + notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to + found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history." + [Lazarus Long, from "Time Enough For Love" by R. Heinlein] +% +"A religion is sometime a source of happiness, and I would not deprive anyone + of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the + strong. The great trouble with religion - any religion - is that a + religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter + judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith + or choose to live in the bleak certainty of reason- but one cannot have both." + [Robert A. Heinlein, from "Friday"] +% +"History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational + basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the + unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and + spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from + fiddling with it." + [Robert Heinlein, "Notebooks of Lazarus Long"] +% +"One man's theology is another man's belly laugh." + [Robert Heinlein, "Notebooks of Lazarus Long"] +% +"Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. + Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child." + [Robert Heinlein, "Notebooks of Lazarus Long", quoted in + Peter McWilliams, Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do, p. 375] +% +"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent - it says so right here + on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these + attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, + please. Cash and in small bills." + [Robert Heinlein, "Notebooks of Lazarus Long"] +% +"Of all the strange "crimes" that humanity has legislated out of nothing, + "blasphemy" is the most amazing - with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" + fighting it out for second and third place." + [Robert Heinlein, "Notebooks of Lazarus Long"] +% +"Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. + All other "sins" are invented nonsense. + (Hurting yourself is not sinful--just stupid.) + [Robert A. Heinlein] +% +"If you pray hard enough, you can make water run uphill. How + hard? Why, hard enough to make water run uphill, of course!" + [Robert A. Heinlein, "Expanded Universe"] +% +"Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark + cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there." + [Robert A. Heinlein, "JOB: A Comedy of Justice"] +% +"Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a + monotheism can believe anything... just give him time to rationalize it." + [Robert A. Heinlein, "JOB: A Comedy of Justice"] +% +"There is an old, old story about a theologian who was asked to reconcile + the Doctrine of Divine Mercy with the doctrine of infant damnation. 'The + Almighty,' he explained, 'finds it necessary to do things in His official + and public capacity which in His private and personal capacity He deplores." + [Robert A. Heinlein (1907 - 1988) + _Methuselah's Children_ ASF c.1941] +% +"God split himself into a myriad parts that he might have friends." + This may not be true, but it sounds good, and is no sillier than + any other theology." + [Lazarus Long, _Time Enough for Love_ by Robert Heinlein] +% +"Whores perform the same function + as priests, but far more thoroughly" + [Robert Heinlein] +% +"The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status + with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In + most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted + to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a + mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be + seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it + causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any + other con man. But it is a lovely work if you can stomach it." + [Lazarus Long, _Time enough for Love_, by Robert Heinlein] +% +"(Religous) Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness." + [Jubal Hershaw, from _Stranger in a + Strange Land_, by Robert Heinlein] +% +"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to + its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you may not see, this you are + forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how + holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose + mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a + free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, + not anything--you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him." + [Robert Heinlein] +% +"The nice thing about citing god as an authority is + that you can prove anything you set out to prove." + [Robert A. Heinlein, from "If This Goes On-"] +% +"Don't appeal to mercy to God the Father up in the sky, little man, because + he's not at home and never was at home, and couldn't care less. What you do + with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy-- live or die-- is strictly + your business and the universe doesn't care. In fact you may be the universe + and the only cause of all your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope + for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you + are. So quit sniveling and face up to it-- 'Thou art God!'" + [Robert A. Heinlein Oct. 21, 1960] +% +"I've never understood how God could expect His creatures to pick the one + true religion by faith - it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe." + [Robert Heinlein, Jubal Harshaw in "Stranger in a Strange Land"] +% +"The Ten Commandments are for lame brains. + The first five are solely for the benefit of the + priests and the powers that be; the second five + are half truths, neither complete nor adequate." + [Robert Heinlein, Ira Johnson in + "To Sail Beyond the Sunset"] +% +"The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting + values that anyone can "prove" anything from it." + [Robert Heinlein, Dr. Jacob Burroughs + in "The Number of the Beast"] +% +"The hell I won't talk that way! Peter, an eternity here without her is not + an eternity of bliss; it is an eternity of boredom and loneliness and grief. + You think this damned gaudy halo means anything to me when I know--yes, + you've convinced me!--that my beloved is burning in the Pit? I didn't ask + much. Just to be allowed to live with her. I was willing to wash dishes + forever if only I could see her smile, hear her voice, touch her hand! She's + been shipped on a technicality and you know it! Snobbish, bad-tempered angels + get to live here without ever doing one lick to deserve it. But my Marga, + who is a real angel if one ever lived, gets turned down and sent to Hell to + everlasting torture on a childish twist in the rules. You can tell the Father + and His sweet-talking Son and that sneaky Ghost that they can take their + gaudy Holy City and shove it! If Margrethe has to be in Hell, that's where + I want to be!" + [Robert Heinlein, Alexander Hergensheimer + in "Job: A Comedy of Justice"] +% +"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate + its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and + will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to + seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, + or driving underground all heretics." + [Robert A. Heinlein, "Postscript to Revolt in 2100"] +% +"He should have known better because, early in his learnings under his brother + Mahmoud, he had discovered that long human words (the longer the better) were + easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings, but short words were + slippery, unpredictable changing their meanings without any pattern. Or so he + seemed to grok. Short human words were never like a short Martian word -- such + as "grok" which forever meant exactly the same thing. Short human words were + like trying to lift water with a knife. And this had been a very short word." + [Robert Heinlein, Valentine Michael Smith's musings + on the word "God" in Stranger in a Strange Land] +% +"But I contend that the disgusting behavior of many of their alleged + 'holy men' relieves us of any intellectual obligation to take the + stuff seriously. No amount of sanctimonious rationalization can + make such behavior anything but pathological." + [Robert Heinlein, "Tramp Royale"] +% +"The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other + people; I was saved, they were damned ...Our hymns were loaded with arrogance + -- self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high + opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come Judgment Day." + [Robert A. Heinlein, from Laurence J. Peter, Peter's Quotations: Ideas + for Our Time, also James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"...little children who have begun to live in their mothers' womb + and have there died, or who, having just been born, have passed + away from the world without the sacrament of holy baptism... + must be punished by the eternal torture of undying fire." + [quoted in _Hell, A Christian Doctrine_] +% +"What the hell are you getting so upset about? I thought that you + didn't believe in God?" + +"I don't," she sobbed, bursting into tears, "but the God I don't + believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the + mean and stupid God you make him out to be." + [Joseph Heller] +% +"Don't tell me God works in mysterious ways. There's nothing so mysterious + about it. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all + about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about- a country bumpkin, a + clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much + reverance can you have for a Supreme being who finds it necessary to include + such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? + What in the world was going through that warped, evil, scatalogical mind of + His when He robbed old people of the ability to control their bowel + movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain.... + + Who created the dangers? Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He + gave us pain! Why couldn't He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or + one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of red and blue neon tubes right in + the middle of each person's forehead?.... + + They certainly look beautiful now, writhing in agony or stupified with + morphine, don't they? What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider + the opportunity and power He had to really do a job and then look at the + stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is + almost staggering. It's obvious He never met a payroll. Why,no self-respecting + businessman would hire a bungler like Him as even a shipping clerk!" + [Yossarian to Lt. Scheisskopf's wife, + _Catch-22_, 1961, by Joseph Heller] +% +"One sees what one wants to see when there + is in mind a pre-conceived notion." + [Hal Hellman, "Great Feuds in Science," p. 74] +% +"A man who believes that he eats his God we do not call mad; + yet, a many who says he is Jesus Christ, we call mad." + [Claude A. Helvetius (1715-1771)] +% +"It never ceases to amaze me at how many + religions depend upon circumsized penises." + [Dawn Henderson] +% +"Being unable to reason is not a positive character trait outside religion." + [Dewey Henize] +% +"..it is claimed that women owe their advancement to the Bible. + It would be quite true to say that they owe their impoverished + condition to the almanac or to the vernal equinox. Under Bible + influence woman has been burned as a witch, sold in the shambles, + reduced to a drudge and a pauper, and silenced and subjected + before her ecclesiastical and marital law-givers." + [Josephine K. Henry] +% +"Paris vaut une messe. [Paris is worth a mass]" + [Henry of Navare, who gained control of + Paris just by converting to Catholicism + and renouncing his Protestant affiliations] +% +"A blow to the head will confuse a man's thinking, a blow to the foot + has no such effect, this cannot be the result of an immaterial soul." + [Heraclitus, 500 BC] +% +"The universal cosmic process was not created by any god or man; + it forever was, is, and forever will be, an Everliving Fire." + [Heraclitus of Ephesus, 500 BC] +% +"When politics and religion are intermingled, a people is + suffused with a sense of invulnerability, and gathering speed + in their forward charge, they fail to see the cliff ahead of them." + [Frank Herbert, _Dune_] +% +"Behind every religion lurks a Torquemada." + [Frank Herbert, _God Emperor of Dune_] +% +"It was man, mortal bloody man, who created the myths... + Religion is nothing but wish-fulfilling stories for the masses." + [James Herbert, "Shrine"] +% +"Organized Religion is like Organized Crime; it preys on peoples' + weakness, generates huge profits for its operators, and is almost + impossible to eradicate." + [Mike Hermann (hermann@cs.ubc.ca)] +% +"Just as power is the god of the modern liberal, God + remains the authority of the modern conservative." + [Karl Hess, The Death of Politics, Playboy, March 1969] +% +"My father was really a bigot. He was very strict and fanatical. I learned + that my father took a religious oath at the time of the birth of my younger + sister, dedicating me to God and the priesthood, and after that leading + a Joseph married life [celibacy]. He directed my entire youthful education + toward the goal of making me a priest. I had to pray and go to church + endlessly, do penance over the slightest misdeed-- praying as punishment + for any little unkindness to my sister, or something like that." + [Rudolf Hess, to psychologist G.M. Gilbert, in his Nuremberg + cell, from Louis L. Snyder, "Hitler's Elite, Shocking Profiles + of the Reich's Most Notorious Henchmen", Berkley Books, 1990] +% +"I say religion is a mental illness, with + all due respect to the truly sick." + ["Hewes", on IRC] +% +"I haven't rejected god, I've never met him." + [Trevor Hick on alt.atheism] +% +"Hey, doncha think the REAL reason JC hasn't returned is those crosses you + wear? Think. How would JFK feel if you wore little rifles on your lapels?" + [Bill Hicks, comedian] +% +"Great, now there's priests of both sexes I don't listen to." + [Bill Hicks, comedian] +% +THE PREACHER AND THE SLAVE + by Joe Hill, to the tune + of "In The Sweet By And By" + + Long-haired preachers come out every night + Try and tell you what's wrong and what's right + But when asked about something to eat + They will answer in voices so sweet: + + CHORUS: + You will eat, by and by, + In the glorious land above the sky (way up high) + Work and pray, live on hay, + You'll get pie in the sky when you die (that's a lie!) + + Oh the Starvation Army they play + And they sing and they clap and they pray + Till they get all your coin on the drum + Then they tell you when you're on the bum: + + CHORUS + + Holy Rollers and jumpers come out + And they roll and they jump and they shout + Give your money to Jesus, they say + He will cure all diseases today + + CHORUS + + If you fight hard for children and wife + Try to get something good in this life + You're a sinner and bad man, they tell + When you die you will sure go to Hell + + CHORUS + + Working folks of all countries, unite! + Side by side we for freedom will fight! + When this world and its wealth we have gained, + To the grafters we'll sing this refrain: + + LAST CHORUS: + You will eat, by and by, + When you've learned how to cook and to fry (and to fry!) + Chop some wood, it'll do you good, + And you'll eat in the sweet by and by (that's no lie!) +% +"We should do unto others as we would want them to do unto us. If I were + an unborn fetus I would want others to use force to protect me, therefore + using force against abortionists is *justifiable homocide*." + ["Pro-Life" doctor killer Paul Hill] +% +"Death opens her cavernous mouth before you. Thousands upon thousands of + children are consumed by her every day. You have the ability to save some + from being tossed into her gaping mouth. As hundreds are being rushed into + eternity, other questions shrink in comparison to the weighty question, + 'Should we defend born and unborn children with force?' + "_Take defensive action!_" + [Rev. Paul J. Hill, abortion doctor murderer] +% +"Are there any heinous sins being committed today that could again fan the + flames of God's righteous anger to the scorching point? Is there any + need in today's world for men of the stamp of Phinehas? Could the bold + daring of Cozbi and Zimri in parading before Moses as he wept over sin + have any modern parallels? The righteous zeal of Phinehas did not permit + him to stay his hand long enough to even ask Moses or the church leaders + of the wisdom of his action. If any similar zeal be found among + us today, occasion to exercise it will not be lacking." + [Paul J. Hill, _Should We Defend Born And Unborn Children With + Force?_, 1993, Defensive Action, Pensacola, FL, p. 4] +% +"There is no question that deadly force should + be used to protect innocent life." + [Paul Hill, leader of Defensive Action] +% +"When you don't give money, it shows that you have the devil's nature." + [Benny Hinn, Praise-a-thon (TBN), recorded 4/21/91] +% +"I swear before God this holy oath, that I shall give absolute + confidence to the Fuehrer of the German Reich and people." + [Heinrich Himmler] +% +"You Einsatztruppen (task forces) are called upon to fulfill a repulsive duty. + But you are soldiers who have to carry out every order unconditionally. You + have a responsibility before God and Hitler for everything that is happening. + I myself hate this bloody business and I have been moved to the depths of my + soul. But I am obeying the highest law by doing my duty. Man must defend + himself against bedbugs and rats-- against vermin." + [Heinrich Himmler, in a speech to the SS guards, from + Louis L. Snyder, "Hitler's Elite, Shocking Profiles of + the Reich's Most Notorious Henchmen", Berkley Books, 1990] +% +"Saints fly only in the eyes of their disciples." + [Hindu proverb] +% +"Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand + it. But if they called everything divine which they do not + understand, why, there would be no end of divine things." + [Hippocrates] +% +"Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain + come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, + griefs, despondency and lamentations." + [Hippocrates] +% +"Where prayer, amulets and incantations work it + is only a manifestation of the patient's belief." + [Hippocrates] +% + The Peddler + +In the zocalo +a one-eyed salesman +offers me a gourd +wrinkled +dried +with the face of God +painted on it +in cochineal & indigo + +God is dead, +I tell him. + +You are right, +he answers, +but it is only one peso. + +I shake the gourd; +the seeds rattle +like thoughts in a dry brain. + +O unfortunate country! + + [George Hitchcock] +% +"Among the innumerable reasons to scorn the creationists' "argument from + design" is that no intelligent, let alone loving, Creator could possibly + have "designed" the male reproductive system in its current form. We, the + paragon of animals, the Mister Monster, have always been acutely aware that + our own boss, this tiny megalomaniacal tyrant, might fail to turn up. + Erections were less wondrous works of the Almighty and more like cops: often + there when you emphatically didn't require them and sometimes absent when + you did. I once knew a woman who recounted a sexual episode with one of the + totally famous studs of our time. "And how was it?" I inquired diffidently. + "Oh," she replied with an air, "a bit like trying to get an oyster into a + parking meter." Or, as Amis puts it elsewhere in "Money," 'They're very + difficult. They're not at all easy. That's why they're called hard-ons.'" + [Christopher Hitchens in Salon Magazine, 5/11/98] +% +"I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. + By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work." + [Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936] +% +"There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor, + Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and + love of the Fatherland." + [Message, signed Hitler, painted on walls of + concentration camps; Life, August 21, 1939] +% +"Woman's world is her husband, her family, her children and her home. + We do not find it right when she presses into the world of men." + [Adolph Hitler, quoted in Lucy Komisar, The New Feminism] +% +"I have followed [the Church] in giving our party program the character of + unalterable finality, like the Creed. The Church has never allowed the + Creed to be interfered with. It is fifteen hundred years since it was + formulated, but every suggestion for its amendment, every logical criticism, + or attack on it, has been rejected. The Church has realized that anything + and everything can be built up on a document of that sort, no matter how + contradictory or irreconcilable with it. The faithful will swallow it whole, + so long as logical reasoning is never allowed to be brought to bear on it." + [Adolf Hitler, from Rauschning, _The Voice of Destruction_, pp. 239-40] +% + "My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as + a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by + a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned + men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer + but as a fighter. + In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage + which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge + to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific + was his fight against the Jewish poison. + Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more + profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to + shed his blood upon the Cross. + As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have + the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... + And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting + rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have + also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work + and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only + for their wages wretchedness and misery. + When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues + and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, + but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our + Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor + people are plundered and exposed." + [Adolf Hitler, speech on April 12, 1922, published in + "My New Order", quoted in Freethought Today April 1990] +% +"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance + with the will of the Almighty Creator." + [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp. 46] +% +"What we have to fight for...is the freedom and independence + of the fatherland, so that our people may be enabled to fulfill + the mission assigned to it by the Creator." + [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp. 125] +% +"This human world of ours would be inconceivable without + the practical existence of a religious belief." + [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp.152] +% +"And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his + estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, + He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God." + [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp.174] +% +"Catholics and Protestants are fighting with one another... while the + enemy of Aryan humanity and all Christendom is laughing up his sleeve." + [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp.309] +% +"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so" + [Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941] +% +"Any violence which does not spring from a spiritual + base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the + stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook." + [Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, p. 171] +% +"I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor + of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed + to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest + and most desirable ideal." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 1] +% +"I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic tone, but from time + to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought. At all + events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the + movement, which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl + Lueger and the Christian Social Party." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 2] +% +"...the unprecedented rise of the Christian Social Party... was to + assume the deepest significance for me as a classical object of study." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"As long as leadership from above was not lacking, the people fulfilled + their duty and obligation overwhelmingly. Whether Protestant pastor or + Catholic priest, both together and particularly at the first flare, there + really existed in both camps but a single holy German Reich, for whose + existence and future each man turned to his own heaven." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"Political parties has nothing to do with religious problems, as long + as these are not alien to the nation, undermining the morals and ethics + of the race; just as religion cannot be amalgamated with the scheming + of political parties." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"For the political leader the religious doctrines and institutions + of his people must always remain inviolable; or else has no right to be + in politics, but should become a reformer, if he has what it takes! + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"In nearly all the matters in which the Pan-German movement was wanting, + the attitude of the Christian Social Party was correct and well-planned." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"It [Christian Social Party] recognized the value of large-scale + propaganda and was a virtuoso in influencing the psychological + instincts of the broad masses of its adherents." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"The anti-Semitism of the new movement (Christian Social movement) + was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3] +% +"If Dr. Karl Lueger had lived in Germany, he would have + been ranked among the great minds of our people." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3, + about the leader of the Christian Social movement] +% +"Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, + I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for + granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 5] +% +"I had so often sung 'Deutschland u:ber Alles' and shouted 'Heil' at + the top of my lungs, that it seemed to me almost a belated act of grace + to be allowed to stand as a witness in the divine court of the eternal + judge and proclaim the sincerity of this conviction." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 5] +% +"Only in the steady and constant application of force lies the very first + prerequisite for success. This persistence, however, can always and only + arise from a definite spiritual conviction. Any violence which does not + spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 5] +% +"I soon realized that the correct use of propaganda is a true art which has + remained practically unknown to the bourgeois parties. Only the Christian- + Social movement, especially in Lueger's time achieved a certain virtuosity + on this instrument, to which it owed many of its success." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 6] +% +"Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the heavens + along the endless marching columns, and for the last time the + Lord's grace smiled on His ungrateful children." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, + Chapter 7, reflecting on World War I] +% +"The more abstractly correct and hence powerful this idea will be, the more + impossible remains its complete fulfillment as long as it continues to depend + on human beings... If this were not so, the founders of religion could not be + counted among the greatest men of this earth... In its workings, even the + religion of love is only the weak reflection of the will of its exalted + founder; its significance, however, lies in the direction which it attempted + to give to a universal human development of culture, ethics, and morality." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 8] +% +"To them belong, not only the truly great statesmen, but all + other great reformers as well. Beside Frederick the Great + stands Martin Luther as well as Richard Wagner." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 8] +% +"The fight against syphilis demands a fight against prostitution, against + prejudices, old habits, against previous conceptions, general views among + them not least the false prudery of certain circles. The first prerequisite + for even the moral right to combat these things is the facilitation of + earlier marriage for the coming generation. In late marriage alone lies the + compulsion to retain an institution which, twist and turn as you like, + is and remains a disgrace to humanity, an institution which is damned + ill-suited to a being who with his usual modesty likes to regard himself + as the 'image' of God." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10] +% +"Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the poisoning + of the soul must begin. Our whole public life today is like a hothouse + for sexual ideas and simulations. Just look at the bill of fare served + up in our movies, vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able + to deny that this is not the right kind of food, particularly for the + youth...Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window + displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world + and placed in the service of a moral, political, and cultural idea." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10, echoing + the Cultural Warfare rhetoric of the Religious Right] +% +"But if out of smugness, or even cowardice, this battle is not fought to its + end, then take a look at the peoples five hundred years from now. I think + you will find but few images of God, unless you want to profane the Almighty." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10] +% +"While both denominations maintain missions in Asia and Africa in order to + win new followers for their doctrine-- an activity which can boast but very + modest success compared to the advance of the Mohammedan faith in particular-- + right here in Europe they lose millions and millions of inward adherents who + either are alien to all religious life or simply go their own ways. The + consequences, particularly from a moral point of view, are not favorable." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10] +% +"The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for + the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude. The + various substitutes have not proved so successful from the standpoint of + results that they could be regarded as a useful replacement for previous + religious creeds. But if religious doctrine and faith are really to embrace + the broad masses, the unconditional authority of the content of this faith + is the foundation of all efficacy." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10] +% +"Due to his own original special nature, the Jew cannot possess a religious + institution, if for no other reason because he lacks idealism in any form, + and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him. And a religion + in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction of survival + after death in some form. Indeed, the Talmud is not a book to prepare a man + for the hereafter, but only for a practical and profitable life in this world." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 11] +% +"The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious + education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit + is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years + previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter + made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary + he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary + of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument + for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, + while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for + Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with + atheistic Jewish parties-- and this against their own nation." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 11] +% +"....the personification of the devil as the symbol + of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 11, + precisely echoing Martin Luther's teachings] +% +"Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change + than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to + the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less + in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism + which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 1 Chapter 12] +% +"The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea + in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance + with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it + intolerantly imposes its will against all others." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 1 Chapter 12] +% +"The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for + compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but + in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 1 Chapter 12] +% +"All in all, this whole period of winter 1919-20 was a single struggle + to strengthen confidence in the victorious might of the young movement + and raise it to that fanaticism of faith which can move mountains." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 1 Chapter 12] +% +"Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable + stupidity of the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin + the fight for the 'remaking' of the Reich as they call it." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 1] +% +"Of course, even the general designation 'religious' includes various + basic ideas or convictions, for example, the indestructibility of the soul, + the eternity of its existence, the existence of a higher being, etc. But + all these ideas, regardless of how convincing they may be for the individual, + are submitted to the critical examination of this individual and hence + to a fluctuating affirmation or negation until emotional divination or + knowledge assumes the binding force of apodictic faith. This, above all, + is the fighting factor which makes a breach and opens the way for the + recognition of basic religious views." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 1] +% +"Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord + commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle + and contributes to the expulsion from paradise." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 1] +% +"A folkish state must therefore begin by raising marriage from the level + of a continuous defilement of the race, and give it the consecration of + an institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not + monstrosities halfway between man and ape." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2] +% +"It would be more in keeping with the intention of the noblest man in this + world if our two Christian churches, instead of annoying Negroes with + missions which they neither desire nor understand, would kindly, but in + all seriousness, teach our European humanity that where parents are not + healthy it is a deed pleasing to God to take pity on a poor little healthy + orphan child and give him father and mother, than themselves to give birth + to a sick child who will only bring unhappiness and suffering on himself + and the rest of the world." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2] +% +"That this is possible may not be denied in a world where hundreds and hundreds + of thousands of people voluntarily submit to celibacy, obligated and bound by + nothing except the injunction of the Church. Should the same renunciation + not be possible if this injunction is replaced by the admonition finally to + put an end to the constant and continuous original sin of racial poisoning, + and to give the Almighty Creator beings such as He Himself created?" + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2] +% +"For the greatest revolutionary changes on this earth would not have been + thinkable if their motive force, instead of fanatical, yes, hysterical + passion, had been merely the bourgeois virtues of law and order." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2] +% +"It doesn't dawn on this depraved bourgeois world that this is positively + a sin against all reason; that it is criminal lunacy to keep on drilling + a born half-ape until people think they have made a lawyer out of him, + while millions of members of the highest culture-race must remain in entirely + unworthy positions; that it is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator + if His most gifted beings by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands are + allowed to degenerate in the present proletarian morass, while Hottentots + and Zulu Kaffirs are trained for intellectual professions." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2] +% +"It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but + the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2] +% +"Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; + it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. + Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; + this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 5] +% +"For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a + doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes + in its outward structure? ...Here, too, we can learn by the example of + the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite + superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it + is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of + its dogmas... it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the + character of a faith." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 5] +% +"The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in + his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially + of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word + be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and + their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the + Lord's creation, the divine will." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 10] +% +"In the ranks of the movement [National Socialist movement], the most + devout Protestant could sit beside the most devout Catholic, without + coming into the slightest conflict with his religious convictions. + The mighty common struggle which both carried on against the destroyer + of Aryan humanity had, on the contrary, taught them mutually to respect + and esteem one another." + [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 10] +% +"For this, to be sure, from the child's primer down to the last newspaper, + every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every + billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, + until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: 'Lord, make us + free!' is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning + plea: 'Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou + hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, + bless our battle!' + [Adolf Hitler's prayer, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 2 Chapter 13] +% +"The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral + purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions + necessary for a really profound revival of religious life" + [Adolph Hitler, in a speech to the Reichstag on March 23, 1933] +% + "ATHEIST HALL CONVERTED + + Berlin Churches Establish Bureau to Win Back Worshippers + + Wireless to the New York Times. + + BERLIN, May 13. - In Freethinkers Hall, which before the Nazi +resurgence was the national headquarters of the German Freethinkers +League, the Berlin Protestant church authorities have opened a bureau +for advice to the public in church matters. Its chief object is to win +back former churchgoers and assist those who have not previously +belonged to any religious congregation in obtaining church membership. + + The German Freethinkers League, which was swept away by the national +revolution, was the largest of such organizations in Germany. It had +about 500,000 members ..." + [New York Times, May 14, 1993, page 2, on Hitler's outlawing of + atheistic and freethinking groups in Germany in the Spring of + 1933, after the Enabling Act authorizing Hitler to rule by decree] +% +"I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker." + [Adolf Hitler, Speech, 15 March 1936, Munich, Germany.] +% +"The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty + to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will + preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been + built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national + morality, and the family as the basis of national life...." + [Adolf Hitler, Berlin, February 1, 1933] +% +"Today Christians ... stand at the head of [this country]... I pledge that I + never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want + to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out + all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in + the press - in short, we want to burn out the *poison of immorality* which + has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of *liberal excess* + during the past ... (few) years." + [The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 + (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872] +% +"An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God. Some + of these eyes we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them + as quickly as possible." + [Russell Hoban, "Pilgermann"] +% +"Commerce unites; religion divides." + [Alice Tisdale Hobart] +% +"Religions are like pills, which must + be swallowed whole without chewing" + [Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679] +% +"Man is the only animal that contemplates death, and also the + only animal that shows any sign of doubt of its finality." + [William Ernest Hocking] +% +"The Good is that which leads to health, The Right is that which leads to + peace. Purpose is ours to choose, Meaning is the story we choose to join. + We are all members of Darwin's family, all kin from the beginning of life. + If you value anything, value other humans, for they are the only help you + will have in times of trouble. The Godless Universe is vast and wondrous, + and more than enough. We have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful + of the night." + [John Hodges, 1999] +% +"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his + own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for + his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause." + [Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author, + _The True Believer_, 1951, section 9] +% +"Crude absurdities, trivial nonsense, and sublime truths + are equally potent in readying people for self-sacrifice + if they are accepted as the sole, eternal truth." + [Eric Hoffer, _The True Believer_, 1951, section 57] +% +"The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to + develop the strongest proselytizing impulse. It is doubtful whether + a movement which does not profess some preposterous and patently + irrational dogma can be possessed of that zealous drive which "must + either win men or destroy the world." It is also plausible that those + movements with the greatest inner contradiction between profession and + practice-that is to say with a strong feeling of guilt-are likely to be + the most fervent in imposing their faith on others." + [Eric Hoffer, _The True Believer_, 1951, section 88] +% +"Take man's most fantastic invention, God. Man invents God in the image + of his longing, in the image of what he wants to be, then proceeds to + imitate that image, vie with it, and strive to overcome it... [Religion + is] not a matter of God, church, holy cause. etc. These are but + accessories. The source of religious preoccupation is in the self, or + rather the rejection of the self.... Man alone is a religious animal + because, as Montaigne points out, 'it is a malady confined to man, and + not seen in any other creature, to hate and despise ourselves...'" + [Eric Hoffer] +% +"Christianity is one of several Jewish heresies." + [Eric Hoffer] +% +"Mass movements can rise and spread without belief + in a god, but never without belief in a devil." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"(To the true believer) Every difficulty and failure within + the movement is the work of the devil, and every success is + a triumph over his evil plotting." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"This enemy--the indispensable devil of every mass movement--is + omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"It is the true believer's ability to "shut his eyes and stop his ears" + to the facts that do not deserve to be either seen or heard which is the + source of his unequaled fortitude and constancy. He cannot be frightened + by danger nor disheartened by obstacle nor baffled by contradictions + because he denies their existence." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer," response to + Martin Luther's faithful shutting-out of + contrary evidence, in Table Talk, Number 1687] +% +"Thus blind faith is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost + faith in ourselves; insatiable desire a substitute for hope; accumulation + a substitute for growth; fervent hustling a substitute for purposeful + action, and pride a substitute for unattainable self-respect." + [Eric Hoffer, N.Y. Times Magazine, Feb. 15, 1959] +% +"They want freedom from "the fearful burden of free choice," freedom + from the arduous responsibility of realizing their ineffectual selves + and shouldering the blame for the blemished product. They do not want + freedom of conscience, but faith--blind, authoritarian faith." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"The inability or unwillingness to see things as they + are promote both gullibility and charlatanism." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"A sublime religion inevitably generates a strong feeling of guilt. + There is an unavoidable contrast between loftiness of profession and + imperfection of practice. And, as one would expect, the feeling of + guilt promotes hate and brazenness. Thus it seems that the more + sublime the faith the more virulent the hatred it breeds." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass + movement, we find a new freedom-freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, + murder and betray without shame and remorse. Herein undoubtedly lies + part of the attractiveness of a mass movement." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"The devout are always urged to seek the absolute + truth with their hearts and not their minds." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"The truth is that the surrendering and humbling of the self breed pride and + arrogance. The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen, + the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a prince disguised in meekness, + who is destined to inherit this earth and the kingdom of heaven, too. He who + is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen shall perish." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"The missionary zeal seems rather an expression of some deep misgiving, + some pressing feeling of insufficiency at the center. Proselytizing is + more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to + bestow upon the world something we already have. It is a search for a + final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed + the one and only truth. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own + faith by converting others." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"Obedience is not only the first law of God, but also the first tenet of + a revolutionary party and of fervent nationalism. "Not to reason why" is + considered by all mass movements the mark of a strong and generous spirit." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"By elevating dogma above reason, the individual's + intelligence is prevented from becoming self-reliant." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often + a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks + like giving a hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our + holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no + doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain + enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who + practice utmost humility, is boundless." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"(For the true believer) To rely on the evidence of the senses and + of reason is heresy and treason. It is startling to realize how much + unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. What we know as blind + faith is sustained by innumerable unbeliefs." + [Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"] +% +"Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger." + [Abbie Hoffman] +% +"Whenever religion is involved, terrorists kill more people." + [Dr. Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for + the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence + at St. Andrews University, Scotland] +% +"In some sects members are told to commit violent acts + because the only way they can hasten redemption or + achieve salvation is to eliminate the nonbelievers." + [Dr. Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for + the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence + at St. Andrews University, Scotland] +% +"perhaps as many as ninety percent of the Americans were unchurched in 1790" + [Richard Hofstadter, _Anti-Intellectualism in American + Life_, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974, p. 82] +% +"... mid-eighteenth century America had a smaller proportion of church + members than any other nation in Christendom...."in 1800 [only] one + of every fifteen Americans was a church member" + [Richard Hofstadter, _Anti-Intellectualism in American + Life_, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974, p. 89] +% +"Theology is but the ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system." + [Baron Paul Henri T. d'Holbach] +% +"When, therefore, he ascribes to his gods the production of some + phenomenon...does he, in fact, do anything more than substitute for + the darkness of his own mind, a sound to which he has been + accustomed to listen with reverential awe? + [Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789) "Systeme de la Nature" (1770)] +% +"Nature tells man to consult reason, and to take it for his guide: + religion teaches him that his reason is corrupted, that it is only + a treacherous guide, given by a deceitful God to lead his creatures + astray. Nature tells man to enlighten himself, to search after + truth, to instruct himself in his duties: religion enjoins him + to examine nothing, to remain in ignorance, to fear truth." + [Paul Henry Thiry d'Holbach, "Systeme de la Nature" (1770)] +% +"People have suffered and become insane for centuries by the thought of eternal + punishment after death. Wouldn't it be better to depend on blind matter (...) + than by a god who puts out traps for people, invites them to sin, and allows + them to sin and commit crimes he could prevent. Only to finally get the + barbarian pleasure to punish them in an excessive way, of no use for himself, + without them changing their ways and without their example preventing others + from committing crimes." + [Baron d'Holbach, "Systeme de la Nature" (1770)] +% +"If we go back to the beginnings of things, we shall always find that ignorance + and fear created the gods; that imagination, rapture and deception embellished + them; that weakness worships them; that custom spares them; and that tyranny + favors them in order to profit from the blindness of men." + [Baron d'Holbach, "Systeme de la Nature" (1770)] +% +"If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the + knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them." + [Baron d'Holbach, "Systeme de la Nature," p. 49] +% +"The sectaries of a religion, which preaches, in appearance, nothing but + charity, concord, and peace, have proved themselves more ferocious than + cannibals or savages, whenever their divines excited them to destroy + their brethren. There is no crime in which men have not committed under + the idea of pleasing the Divinity or appeasing his wrath." + [Baron D'Holbach, "Good Sense," 1772] +% +"Jesus Christ never commanded toleration as a motive for His disciples, + and toleration is the antithesis of the Christian message." + ["The Southern Baptist Convention and + Freemasonry" by James L. Holly, Page 30] +% +"For narrowness and sectarianism, there is no equal to the Lord Jesus Christ" + ["The Southern Baptist Convention and + Freemasonry" by James L. Holly, Page 40] +% +"What seems so right in the interest of toleration and its + cousins-liberty, equality and fraternity-is actually one of the + subtlest lies of the 'father of lies.'" + ["The Southern Baptist Convention and + Freemasonry" by James L. Holly, Page 40] +% +"Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper + chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes] +% +"On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirm the + worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (U.S. Supreme + Court Justice), letter to Lady Pollock] +% +"I can't help an occasional semi-shudder as I remember that millions of + intelligent men think that I am barred from the face of God unless I + change. But how can one pretend to believe what seems to him childish + and devoid alike of historical and rational foundations?" + [Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., + book review by Holmes for Time] +% +"The Pope put his foot on the neck of kings, but Calvin + and his cohorts crushed the whole human race under their + heels in the name of the Lord of Hosts." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., address to the + Massachusetts Medical Society, May 30, 1860] +% +"Rough work, iconoclasm, but the only way to get at truth." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., 1860] +% +"The man who is always worrying whether or not his soul would + be damned generally has a soul that isn't worth a damn." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes] +% +"(But) in these torments endured by the faithful, Wendell Holmes had no + part. To him it mattered not that Darwin made the Garden of Eden a myth + and Jonah's whale a monster to frighten children... For Holmes the core had + been taken out of Christian theology a generation ago, when the Unitarians + disavowed the doctrine of original sin. Man lost his fear of hell-fire - + and on that day gave back Christian doctrine to the preacher as irrelevant + to life. After that, disbelief in Genesis I was a small thing. Wendall + Holmes had achieved it without the least struggle. He was born to it." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes, from "Yankee From + Olympus - Justice Holmes and His Family," + 1945, by Catherine Drinker Bowen] +% +"We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the + record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate + a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were implanted in + his imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., "The Poet + at the Breakfast Table" (1878)] +% +"You never need think you can turn over any old falsehoods without a + terrible squirming of the horrid little population that dwells under it." + [Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.] +% +"The universe is not hostile, nor yet is + it friendly. It is simply indifferent." + [John H. Holmes, A Sensible + Man's View of Religion, 1933] +% +"The whole Bible was written by slave owners, and for slave owners. There + is no hint of criticism of slavery anywhere in that book. Jesus made no + objection to mistreatment of slaves. He indicated that selling of debtors + into slavery would be continued his forthcoming kingdom of heaven as well + as masters having the right to beat their slaves and put them to torture." + [Merrill Holste, "Slavery and the Bible", article in + the May 1986 issue of American Atheist Magazine] +% +"Atheism deprives superstition of its stand ground, + & compels Theism to reason for its existence." + [George Jacob Holyoake, "Origin + and Nature of Secularism"] +% +"The Questioning Spirit, whose curiosity has for its wholesome object the + verification of truth, is the most effectual instrument of knowledge + available to mankind. A well-directed question is like a pickaxe - it + liberates the gold from the superincumbent quartz. Whole systems of error + sometimes fall to the ground from the force of unanswerable questions. + All error has contradiction in it, which is revealed by a relevant inquiry, + when an artillery of counter assertions might not disclose it. Arguments + may be evaded, but a fair and pertinent question creates no animosity, + and must answered, since silence is a confession of error or of ignorance." + [George Jacob Holyoake, "Introduction" to + _A New Catechism_ by M.M. Mangasarian] +% +"For myself, I flee the Bible as a viper, + and revolt at the touch of a Christian." + [George Jacob Holyoake, from "The History of + the Last trial by Jury for Atheism," 1851] +% +"Our national debt already hangs like a millstone round the poor man's neck, + and our national church and general religious institutions cost us, upon + accredited computation, about 20 millions annually. Worship being thus + expensive, I appeal to your heads and your pocketbooks whether we are not + too poor to have a God? If poor men cost the state as much, they would be + put like officers upon half-pay, and while our distress lasts I think it + would be wise to do the same thing with deity." + [George Jacob Holyoake, from "The History of + the Last trial by Jury for Atheism," 1851] +% +"...it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs about the + existence of God in any recognizable sense continuous with the great + systems of the past, religious doctrines constitute a speculative + hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability." + [Sidney Hook] +% +"...maybe it will encourage people to pray and they will become Christian." + [Rep. Ferry Hooper Jr. (R-Montgomery) on the "Alabama Live" + show, Nov. 20, 1997, exposing the true motive of his bill + requiring all students to participate in a daily moment of + "quiet reflection" at the beginning of each class day] +% +"If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?" + [Art Hoppe] +% +"The casual argument is not merely invalid but self-contradictory: the + conclusion, which says that something (God) does not have a cause, + contradicts the premise, which says that everything must have a cause. If + that premise is true, the conclusion cannot be true; and if the conclusion + is true, the premise cannot be. Many people do not at once see this because + they use the argument to get to God, and then having arrived where they want + to go, they forget all about the argument...if the conclusion contradicts + its own premise, we have the most damming indictment of an argument that we + could possibly have: that it is self-contradictory." + [John Hospers, "An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis," 1967] +% +"...And malt does more than Milton can + To justify God's ways to man" + [A. E. Housman] +% +"This right here is the work of the Lord." + [John Howard, owner of the Laurens, SC + "The Redneck Shop & Ku Klux Klan Museum" + from Nov 14, 1996 ed. of the CNN web page] +% +"A mail order bride: 15 shekels (Hosea 3:2) + A horse from Egypt: 150 shekels (2 Chronicles 1:17) + A chariot from Egypt: 600 shekels (2 Chronicle 1:17) + Raping a virgin: 50 shekels (Deuteronomy 22:28) + Knowing that you can get away with rape: Priceless." + [Yang Hu] +% +"A mystic is a person who is puzzled before the + obvious but who understands the nonexistent." + [Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) + American author, editor, publisher] +% +"Heaven: The Coney Island of the Christian imagination." + [Elbert Hubbard, "The Notebook", 1927] +% +"Men whose lives are doubtful want a + strong government and a hot religion." + [Elbert Hubbard] +% +"Orthodoxy is a corpse that does not know it is dead." + [Elbert Hubbard, "Epigrams"] +% +"The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be satisfied + with your opinions and content with your knowledge." + [Elbert Hubbard, "The Philistine"] +% +"A Miracle: an event described by those to whom + it was told by men who did not see it." + [Elbert Hubbard] +% +"If you can't answer a man's arguments, all + is not lost; you can still call him vile names." + [Elbert Hubbard] +% +"Formal religion was organized for slaves: it offered + them consolation which earth did not provide." + [Elbert Hubbard, "The Philistine"] +% +"Theology is an attempt to explain a subject by men who do not understand + it. The intent is not to tell the truth but to satisfy the questioner." + [Elbert Hubbard] +% +"An ounce of performance is worth more than a pound of preachment." + [Elbert Hubbard] +% +"Falling in love is the beginning of all wisdom, all sympathy, + all compassion, all art, all religion; and in its larger sense + is the one thing in life worth doing." + [Elbert Hubbard] +% +"Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and + tears out any quicker than the Christmas spirit." + [Kin Hubbard] +% +"The way to make money is to start your own religion." + [L. Ron Hubbard, 1954] +% +"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to + make a million dolars, the best way would be to start his own religion." + [Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, 1949, then just a science + fiction writer. Quoted in the New York Times, July 11, 1984, + from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief] +% +"In any event, any person from 2.0 down on the Tone Scale should + not have, in any thinking society, any civil rights of any kind." + [L. Ron Hubbard] +% +"If you hypothesize that there is a God, but that there is nothing sure + and definite you can point to as a reliable pattern of things that God + does, how does a state of affairs where a God does nothing, functions + in no way, differ from a state of affairs where there is no God? And, + if the situation is that there is a God, and this God does nothing that + humans can surely identify as God-action - in contradistinction from + other action, physical/chemical/biological/psychological/social -- then + how can any human being ever have warrant for affirming God?" + [C. Lee Hubbell, The American Rationalist, Oct '94] +% +"The primary tool of science is skepticism, + whose light shrivels unquestioning faith." + [Mike Huben] +% +"No man has the right to have his own religion." + [Bishop Hughes, "Official Journal + of Bishops", Jan. 26 1852] +% +"Many good souls protest against a destructive criticism of Christianity and + demand a substitute. I do not feel any obligation to substitute a new god + for the old ones. I should gladly let them all go. I do not approve of + cancer, and yet I do not feel that I have no right to attack a quack who + promises a false cure until I have no real cure to propose. As someone + said: he who helps destroy the boll-weevil has done as constructive work + as he who plants the seed." + [Rupert Hughes, "Why I Quit Going to Church", + New York, Freethought Press Assn., 1924] +% +"It is well said that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and I am + confirmed every day in my intense conviction that the church as the church is + the enemy of freedom. While protesting loudly its faith in the Truth with + a capital T, "the truth shall make us free," it fights at every step every + effort to learn the truth and publish it and be guided by it." + [Rupert Hughes, "Why I Quit Going to Church", + New York, Freethought Press Assn., 1924] +% +"John Wesley said that if you give up the witchcraft, you must + give up the Bible. He is right. The choice is easy for me." + [Rupert Hughes, "Why I Quit Going to Church", + New York, Freethought Press Assn., 1924] +% +"According to the Bible, God was ignorant, a ruthless liar and cheat; + he broke his pledges, changed his mind so often that he grew weary of + repenting. He was a murderer of children, ordered his people to slay, + rape, steal, and lie and commit every foul and filthy abomination in + human power. In fact, the more I read the Bible the less I find in it + that is either credible or admirable." + [Rupert Hughes, "Why I Quit Going to Church," 1924] +% +"And this David! He was such a villain as I should never dare use in the + most melodramatic novel. His crimes are peculiarly despicable and versatile, + from his earliest exploits to his later sex-manias, including the foul + treatment of a soldier whose wife he desired, and his habit of warming his + chill frame with a fresh girl every night. He was a traitor, an indefatigable + liar, he drove women children through burning brick kilns or tore them to + pieces with harrows, he sawed them in two and on hid death-bed left + instructions to kill a devoted man whom he had sworn to protect." + [Rupert Hughes, "Why I Quit Going to Church," 1924] +% +"Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your Deity + made you in his own image, I reply that he must have been very ugly." + [Victor Hugo, quoted in Cardiff, + "What Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"No deity will save us, we must save ourselves. Promises of immortal + salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful." + [Humanist Manifesto II, Prometheus Books, 1973] +% +"...but I would still reply, that the knavery and folly of men + are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe the most + extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence, than admit + of so signal a violation of the laws of nature." + ["An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding", David Hume, 10:2:30] +% +"There is not to be found, in all history any miracle attested by a + sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned goodness, education, and + learning as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such + undoubted integrity as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to + deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind as to + have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood; + and at the same time attesting facts, performed in such a public manner, and + in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable." + [David Hume, "Of Miracles", from An Enquiry + Concerning Human Understanding, 1748] +% +"The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but + even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one." + [David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748] +% +"In the infancy of new religions, the wise and learned commonly esteem the + matter too inconsiderable to deserve their attention or regard. And when + afterwards they would willingly detect the cheat, in order to undeceive the + deluded multitude, the season is now past, and the records and witnesses, + which might clear up the matter, have perished beyond recovery." + [David Hume, "Of Miracles"] +% +"Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; + those in philosophy only ridiculous." + [David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature (1739)] +% +"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the + testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more + miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish." + [David Hume, "Of Miracles", from An Enquiry + Concerning Human Understanding, 1748] +% +"The weakness of the body and that of the mind in infancy are exactly + proportioned; their vigour in manhood, their sympathetic disorder in + sickness, their common gradual decay in old age. The step further + seems unavoidable; their common dissolution in death." + [David Hume (1771-1776) "Of the Immortality of the Soul"] +% +"All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance + and obscurity, is to be skeptical, or at least cautious; and not + to admit of any hypothesis, whatsoever; much less, of any which + is supported by no appearance of probability." + [David Hume] +% +"The many instances of forged miracles, and prophecies, and supernatural + events, which, in all ages, have either been detected by contrary evidence, + or which detect themselves by their absurdity, prove sufficiently the strong + propensity of mankind to the extraordinary and marvellous, and ought + reasonably to begat a suspicion against all relations of this kind." + [David Hume, "Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" 1748] +% +"Men dare not avow, even to their own hearts, the doubts which they + entertain on such subjects. They make a merit of implicit faith; and + disguise to themselves their real infidelity, by the strongest + asseverations and the most positive bigotry." + [David Hume, on doctrinaire religions] +% +"When I hear a man is religious, I conclude that he is a rascal, + although I have known some instances of very good men being religious." + [David Hume, Scottish philosopher + and historian (1711-1776)] +% +"If we take in hand any volume-- of divinity or school metaphysics, for + instance,-- let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning + quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning + concerning matters of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the + flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." + [David Hume, "An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding"] +% +"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence." + [David Hume, "An Inquiry + Concerning Human Understanding"] +% +"Nor is it possible to explain distinctly, how the Deity can + be the mediate cause of all the actions of men, without being + the author of sin and moral turpitude." + [David Hume, "An Enquiry Concerning + Human Understanding" 1748] +% +"The believer is happy; the doubter is wise." + [Hungarian proverb] +% +A fools prayer: + +Dear Lord, +Please help us not to be blasphemers. +In Jesus name we pray.... + + [Bill Huston] +% +"The Meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to + devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation. + --Lew Mammel, Jr. + +"One fails the Inverse-Meta-Turing test if one conceives of a Creator, + but does not attempt to devise an intelligence test for It/Him. One + also fails if the concept of the Creator remains unchanged as the + result of the test. + [Bill Huston] +% +"Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science, + as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules." + [Huxley] +% +"If we must play the theological game, let us never forget + that it is a game. Religion, it seems to me, can survive + only as a consciously accepted system of make believe." + [Aldous Huxley, "Time Must Have a Stop"] +% +"You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible + fooleries of magic and religion. Only man behaves with such gratuitous + folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, + as yet, quite intelligent enough." + [Aldous Huxley] +% +"History reveals that the Church and the State as a pair + of indispensable Molochs. they protect their worshipping + subjects, only to enslave and destroy them." + [Aldous Huxley, Themes in Variations, 1950] +% +"Luckily the majority of nominal Christians has at no time taken + the Christian ideal very seriously; if it had, the races and the + civilization of the West would long ago have come to an end." + [Aldous Huxley, in Cardiff, "What + Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." + [Aldous Huxley, "Proper Studies"] +% +"What is the easiest way for a skeptic to achieve faith? The question was + answered three hundred years ago by Pascal. The unbeliever must act 'as + though he believed, take holy water, have masses said etc. This will + naturally cause you to believe and will besot you.' (Cela vous abetira-- + literally, will make you stupid.) We have to be made stupid, insist Professor + Jacques Chevalier, defending his hero against the critics who have been + shocked by Pascal's blunt language; we have to stultify our intelligence, + because 'intellectual pride deprives us of God and debases us to the level of + animals.' Which is, of course, perfectly true. But it does not follow from + this truth that we ought to besot ourselves in the manner prescribed by + Pascal and all the propagandists of all religions. Intellectual pride can + be cured only by devaluating pretentious words, only by getting rid of + conceptualized pseudo-knowledge and opening ourselves to reality. Artificial + piety based on conditioned reflexes merely transfers intellectual pride from + the bumptious individual to his even more bumptious Church. At one remove, + the pride remains intact. For the convinced believer, understanding or direct + contact with reality is exceedingly difficult. Moreover, the mere fact of + having a strong reverential feeling about some hallowed thing, person or + proposition is no guarantee of the existence of the thing, the infallibility + of the person or truth of the proposition." + [Aldous Huxley, "Knowledge and Understanding"] +% +"The effectiveness of political and religious propaganda depends upon + the methods employed, not on the doctrine taught. These doctrines may + be true or false, wholesome or pernicious-it makes little or no + difference...Under favorable conditions, practically everybody can be + converted to practically anything." + [Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World Revisited," 1958] +% +"The solution...would seem to lie in dismantling the theistic edifice, which + will no longer bear the weight of the universe as enlarged by recent science, + and attempting to find new outlets for the religious spirit. God, in any but + a purely philosophical, and one is almost tempted to say Pickwickian sense, + turns out to be a product of the human mind. As an independent or unitary + being active in the affairs of the universe, he does not exist." + [Julian Huxley, "Science, Religion and Human + Nature," Conway Memorial Lecture, 1930] +% +"Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler + but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat." + [Sir Julian Huxley] +% +"The sense of spiritual relief which comes from rejecting + the idea of God as a supernatural being is enormous." + [Sir Julian Huxley. "Religion Without Revelation"] +% +"...any belief in supernatural creators, rulers, or influencers of + natural or human process introduces an irreparable split into the + universe, and prevents us from grasping its real unity. Any belief + in Absolutes, whether the absolute validity of moral commandments, + of authority of revelation, of inner certitudes, or of divine + inspiration, erects a formidable barrier against progress and the + responsibility of improvement, moral, rational, and religious." + [Sir Julian Huxley] +% +"We should be agnostic about those things for which there is no + evidence. We should not hold beliefs merely because they gratify + our desires for afterlife, immortality, heaven, hell, etc." + [Sir Julian Sorell Huxley, (1887-1975) English biologist + and author, from "Religion without Revelation"] +% +"I use the word "Humanist" to mean someone who believes that man is just as + much a natural phenomenon as an animal or a plant; that his body, mind or + soul were not supernaturally created but are products of evolution, and that + he is not under the control or guidance of any supernatural being, but has + to rely on himself and his own powers." + [Julian Huxley, "The Humanist Frame," 1961] +% +"That it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective + truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically + justifies that certainty. This is what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my + opinion, it is all that is essential to Agnosticism. That which Agnostics + deny and repudiate, as immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are + propositions which men ought to believe, without logically satisfactory + evidence; and that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of + disbelief in such inadequately supported propositions." + [Thomas H. Huxley, "Agnosticism and Christianity," + 1889, Prometheus Publications p. 193] +% +"The dogma of the infallibility of the Bible is no more + self-evident than is that of the infallibility of the popes." + [Thomas H. Huxley, "Controverted Questions," 1892] +% +"The Bible account of the creation of Eve is a preposterous fable." + [Thomas Huxley, English biologist] +% +"Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors." + [Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895), English biologist and + advocate of Darwin's natural selection theory] +% +"Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say he knows or + believes that for which he has no grounds for professing to believe." + [Thomas Huxley, from Cardiff, + "What Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"The foundation of morality is to... give up pretending to believe + that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible + propositions about things beyond the possibilities of knowledge." + [Thomas Huxley] +% +"...inclined to think that not far from the + invention of fire must rank the invention of doubt" + [Thomas Huxley] +% +"The only question which a wise man can ask himself is whether a + doctrine is true or false. Consequences will take care of themselves." + [Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist (1825-1895)] +% +"...I can but admire the courage and clear foresight of the Anglican divine + who tells us that we must be prepared to choose between the trustworthiness + of scientific method and the trustworthiness of that which the Church + declares to be Divine authority. For, to my mind, this declaration of war + to the knife against secular science, even in its most elementary form this + rejection, without a moment's hesitation, of any and all evidence which + conflicts with theological dogma--is the only position which is logically + reconcilable with the axioms of orthodoxy." + [Thomas H. Huxley, "Science And Hebrew Tradition Essays", pp. 229,230] +% +"Cinderella [Science]... lights the fire, sweeps the house, and provides the + dinner; and is rewarded by being told that she is a base creature, devoted + to low and material interests. But in her garret she has fairy visions out + of the ken of the pair of shrews [Theology and Philosophy] who are quarrelling + downstairs. She sees the order which pervades the seeming disorder of the + world; the great drama of evolution, with its full share of pity and terror, + but also with abundant goodness and beauty... ; and she learns... that the + foundation of morality is to [be] done, once and for all, with lying; to give + up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence." + [Thomas H. Huxley] +% +"I do not say think as I think, but think in my way. Fear no shadows, + least of all in that great spectre of personal unhappiness which + binds half the world to orthodoxy." + [Thomas H. Huxley] +% +"...claiming my right to follow whethersoever science should lead... + it is as respectable to be modified monkey as modified dirt." + [Thomas H. Huxley] +% +"No one who has lived in the world as long as you & I have, can entertain + the pious delusion that it is engineered upon principles of benevolence... + the cosmos remains always beautiful and profoundly interesting in every corner + -- and if I had as many lives as a cat I would leave no corner unexplored." + [Thomas H. Huxley] +% +"Science... warns me to be careful how I adopt a view which jumps + with my preconceptions, and to require stronger evidence for such + belief than for one to which I was previously hostile. My business + is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to + try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations." + [Thomas Huxley, 1960] +% +"If then the question is put to me, would I rather have a miserable ape + for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessing great + means and influence and yet who employs those faculties and that influence + for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into grave scientific + discussion, I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape." + [Thomas H. Huxley, Reply to Bishop Wilberforce, + who asked if he was descended form an ape on + his mother's side or his father's side.] +% +"What are among the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and + semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions that authority is the + soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to readiness to believe; + that doubting disposition is a bad one, and skepticism a sin; that when + good authority has pronounced what is to be believed, and faith has + accepted it, reason has no further duty." + [Thomas H. Huxley, in Cardiff, + "What Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge + authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; + blind faith the one unpardonable sin." + [Thomas H. Huxley, in Cardiff, + "What Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"The church founded by Jesus has not made its way; has not + permeated the world--but did become extinct in the country + of its birth--as Nazarenism and Ebionism." + [Thomas H. Huxley, Letter to Robert Taylor, June 3, 1889] +% +"The belief in a demonic world is inculcated throughout the Gospels + and the rest of the books of the New Testament; it pervades the whole + patristic literature; it colors the theory and the practice of every + Christian church down to modern times." + [Thomas H. Huxley, "Controverted Questions," 1892] +% +"I neither deny nor affirm the immortality of man. I see no reason for + believing in it, but on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it." + [Thomas H. Huxley, Letter to Charles Kingsley, 1860] +% +"The known is finite, the unknown is infinite; intellectually we stand + on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. + Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land." + [Thomas H. Huxley] +% +"Orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought. + It learns not, neither can it forget." + [Thomas H. Huxley, in Cardiff, + "What Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"What we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often + extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts." + [Thomas H. Huxley, "On the Natural Inequality of Man," 1890] +% +"I have no faith, very little hope, and as much charity as I can afford." + [Thomas H. Huxley, in Cardiff, "What Great men think of Religion"] +% +"The clerics and their lay allies commonly tell us, that if we refuse to + admit that there is good ground for expressing definite convictions about + certain topics, the bonds of human society will dissolve and mankind lapse + into savagery. There are several answers to this assertion. One is that + the bonds of human society were formed without the aid of their theology; + and, in the opinion of not a few competent judges, have been weakened rather + than strengthened by a good deal of it. Greek science, Greek art, the ethics + of old Israel, the social organisation of old Rome, contrived to come into + being, without the help of any one who believed in a single distinctive + article of the simplest of the Christian creeds. The science, the art, + the jurisprudence, the chief political and social theories, of the modern + world have grown out of those of Greece and Rome-not by favour of, but in + the teeth of, the fundamental teachings of early Christianity, to which + science, art, and any serious occupation with the things of this world, + were alike despicable." + [Thomas Huxley, "Agnosticism and Christianity" 1889] + http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE5/Agn-X.html +% +"To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment + in another world, is just as base as to use force." + [Hypatia (c. 370-415 CE), Alexandrian mathematician, + murdered by a Christian mob in 415 CE] +% +"Nowhere is there an account or portrait of Christ laughing. . .he is always + stern, serious and as gloomy as a prison guard. Never does one see him + laughing until tears appear in his eyes like the roly-poly squint-eyed + Buddha guffawing with arms upraised..." + [I.R.] +% +"Call on God, but row away from the rocks." + [Indian proverb] +% +"To become a popular religion, it is only necessary + for a superstition to enslave a philosophy." + [William Ralph Inge, 1920] +% +"We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our + distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were + able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. + [William Ralph Inge] +% +"The church is only a secular institution in which + the half-educated speak to the half-converted." + [William Ralph Inge] +% +"December 25th is the birthday, not of Christ, but of Mithra, the + Invincible Sun. Isis of many names has acquired a new one as the Madonna." + [William R. Inge] +% +"Miracle is a bastard child of faith and reason, + which neither parent can afford to own." + [William R. Inge] +% +"We are not endeavoring to chain the future but to free the present. ...We + are the advocates of inquiry, investigation, and thought. ...It is grander + to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. ... I look + for the day when *reason*, throned upon the world's brains, shall be the + King of Kings and the God of Gods." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods" 1872] +% +"I honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering eyes + of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for their prey. I believe + it was born with the yelping, howling, growling and snarling of wild beasts... + I despise it with every drop of my blood." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child" 1877] +% +"An honest god is the noblest work of man. ... God has always resembled + his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was + invariably found on the side of those in power. ... Most of the gods + were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever + been considered a divine perfume." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods" 1872] +% +"To hate man and worship god seems to be the sum of all the creeds." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses" 1879] +% +"..Infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have + at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice..." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods" 1872] +% +"I have little confidence in any enterprise or business or investment + that promises dividends only after the death of the stockholders." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Wooden God" letter + to the Chicago Times, March 27, 1890] +% +"The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Devil" 1899] +% +"The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth that all + power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial + of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon + one man to govern others." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality" 1873] +% + "With soap, baptism is a good thing." +[Robert G. Ingersoll, "My Reviewers Reviewed" + lecture in San Francisco, June 27, 1877] +% +"Nothing can exceed the mendacity of the religious press. I have had some + little experience with political editors, and am forced to say, that until + I read the religious papers, I did not know what malicious and slimy + falsehoods could be constructed from ordinary words. The ingenuity with + which the real and apparent meaning can be tortured out of language is + simply amazing. The average religious editor is intolerant and insolent... + and always accounts for the brave and generous actions of unbelievers by + low, base, and unworthy motives." + ["The Ghosts", Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p.260] +% +"It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon + the Bible, and that all who look upon that book as false or foolish are + destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is + not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our + Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but + the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people + for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have nothing to + do. And yet there are some judges dishonest and cowardly enough to solemly + decide that this is a Christian country, and that our free institutions are + based upon the infamous laws of Jehovah." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality" 1873] +% +"I combat those only who, knowing nothing of the future, prophesy an eternity + of pain- those who sow the seeds of fear in the hearts of men- those only + who poison all the springs of life, and seat a skeleton at every feast." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Field-Ingersoll + Debate, Letter to Dr. Field. 1887] +% +"He who commends the brutalities of the past, + sows the seeds of future crimes." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Ingersoll-Gladstone + debate, response to Wm. Gladstone, 1888] +% +"A crime against god is a demonstrated impossibility." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Second + Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882] +% +"Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy" 1884] +% +"By the efforts of these infidels, the name of God was left out + of the Constitution of the United States. They knew that if an + infinite being was put in, no room would be left for the people." + They knew that if any church was made the mistress of the state, + that mistress, like all others, would corrupt, weaken, and destroy." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Great Infidels" + 1881, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 3, p. 382] +% +"Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, + defending the justice of his own imprisonment." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality" 1873] +% +"If priests had not been fond of mutton, lambs never would have been sacrified + to god. Nothing was ever carried to the temple that the priest could not use, + and it always happened that god wanted what his agents liked." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Christmas Sermon" + printed in Evening Telegraph, Dec. 19, 1891] +% +"The inspiration of the Bible depends on the credulity of him who reads." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Christian Religion" Sec. III, + The Ingersoll-Black Debate, (New York) April 25, 1881] +% +"It cannot be too often repeated, that truth scorns the assistance of miracle." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Christian Religion" + Sec. III, The Ingersoll-Black Debate, 1881] +% +"We are told in the Pentateuch, that god, the father of us all, gave + thousands of maidens, after having killed their fathers, their mothers, + and their brothers, to satisfy the brutal lusts of savage men. If there + be a god, I pray him to write in his book, opposite my name, that I + denied this lie for him." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Few Reasons for + Doubting the Inspiration of the Bible"] +% +"If a man would follow, to-day, the teachings of the Old Testament, + he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings + of the New, he would be insane." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Third + Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882] +% +"The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often + he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods" 1872] +% +"We are not accountable for the sins of "Adam" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Myth and Miracle" 1885] +% +"If Christ, in fact, said "I came not to bring peace but a sword," it is + the only prophecy in the New Testament that has been literally fulfilled." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why" 1881] +% +"Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, + no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. It is a perpetual + mendicant. It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance + to pretend that it supports the giver." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Christmas Sermon" + printed in Evening Telegraph, Dec. 19, 1891] +% +"We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, + vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works + of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your + reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. + We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our + hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. + We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a + 'this year's fact'. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your + miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two + thousand years. Their reputation for 'truth and veracity' in the neighborhood + where they resided is wholly unknown to us. Give us a new miracle, and + substantiate it by witnesses who still have the cheerful habit of living this + world. Do not send us to Jericho to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the + fire with Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego. Do not compel us to navigate the sea + with Captain Jonah, nor dine with Mr. Ezekiel. There is no sort of use in + sending us fox-hunting with Samson. We have positively lost all interest in + that little speech so eloquently delivered by Balaam's inspired donkey. It is + worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their mouths, and call our + attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves with five crackers and two + sardines. We demand a new miracle, and we demand it now. + Let the church furnish at least one, or forever hold her peace." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods" 1872] +% +"Ministers say that they teach charity. That is natural. They + live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Truth" 1897] +% +"This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the + purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves." + [Robert G. Ingersoll], "An Interview on Chief + Justice Comegys", Brooklyn Eagle, 1881] +% +"The real oppressor, enslaver, and corrupter of the people is the Bible. + That book is the chain that binds, the dungeon that holds the clergy. + That book spreads the pall of superstition over the colleges and schools. + That book puts out the eyes of science, and makes honest investigation + a crime. That book fills the world with bigotry, hypocrisy and fear." + [_Some Mistakes of Moses_, Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 2 p. 43] +% +"Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about Nature. + In order to increase our respect for the Bible, it became necessary for the + priests to exalt and extol that book, and at the same time to decry and + belittle the reasoning powers of man. The whole power of the pulpit has + been used for hundreds of years to destroy the confidence of man in himself-- + to induce him to distrust his own powers of thought, to believe that he was + wholly unable to decide any question for himself, and that all human virtue + consists in faith and obedience. The church has said 'Believe and obey!' + If you reason you will become an unbeliever, and unbelievers will be lost. + If you disobey, you will do so through vain pride and curiosity, and will, + like Adam and Eve, be thrust from Paradise forver! For my part, I care + nothing for what the church says, except in so far as it accords with my + reason; and the Bible is nothing to me, only in so far as it agrees with + what I think or know." + [_Some Mistakes of Moses_, Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 2 p. 53] +% +"Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Second Interview on Rev. + Talmadge, 1882, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 5, p. 49] +% +"Calvin founded a little theocracy, modeled after the Old Testament, and + succeeded in erecting the most detestable government that ever existed, + except the one from which it was copied." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Heretics and Heresies" + Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 226] +% +"That church [Catholic] teaches us that we can + make God happy by being miserable ourselves..." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Must We Do To Be Saved?" + 1880, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 492] +% +"..if all the bones of all the victims of the Catholic Church could be + gathered together, a monument higher than all the pyramids would rise..." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Must We Do To Be Saved?" + 1880, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 497] +% +"Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, + the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing + but a vacuum remains." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877, + in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 285] +% +"Give the church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more the + sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all ages will turn to ashes + on the lips of men." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873, + in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 203, and + from letter to Houston Post, Aug. 17, 1866] +% +"Suppose, however, that God did give this law to the Jews, and did tell them + that whenever a man preached a heresy, or proposed to worship any other God + that they should kill him; and suppose that afterward this same God took + upon himself flesh, and came to this very chosen people and taught a + different religion, and that thereupon the Jews crucified him; I ask you, + did he not reap exactly what he had sown? What right would this god have to + complain of a crucifixion suffered in accordance with his own command?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", + in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 2, p. 259] +% +"Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Heretics + and Heresies", 1874] +% +"God so loved the world that he made up his mind + to damn a large majority of the human race." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why + I Am An Agnostic", 1876] +% +"EACH nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators. + He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was invariably found on + the side of those in power. Each god was intensely patriotic, and detested + all nations but his own. All these gods demanded praise, flattery, and + worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent + blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. All these gods have insisted + upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted + upon being supported by the people, and the principal business of these + priests has been to boast about their god, and to insist that he could easily + vanquish all the other gods put together." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Most of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and + ignorant. As they generally depended upon their priests for + information, their ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created, but + supposed them perfectly flat. Some thought the day could be lengthened by + stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of + a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had + created, that they commanded the people to love them. Some were so ignorant + as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or as they + might command, and that to be governed by observation, reason, and experience + was a most foul and damning sin. None of these gods could give a true account + of the creation of this little earth. All were woefully deficient in geology + and astronomy. As a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as + executives, they were far inferior to the average of American presidents." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"These deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. + In order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust. Of + course, they have always been partial to the people who created them, + and have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people + to rob and destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers. + Nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have someone deny their existence." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made + so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god + market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"When the people failed to worship one of these gods, or failed to feed and + clothe his priests, (which was much the same thing,) he generally visited + them with pestilence and famine. Sometimes he allowed some other nation to + drag them into slavery -- to sell their wives and children; but generally + he glutted his vengeance by murdering their firstborn. The priests always + did their whole duty, not only in predicting these calamities, but in + proving, when they did happen, that they were brought upon the people + because they had not given quite enough to them." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"We are asked to justify these frightful passages, these infamous laws of war, + because the Bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact, there never was, + and there never can be, an argument even tending to prove the inspiration of + any book whatever. In the absence of positive evidence, analogy and + experience, argument is simply impossible, and at the very best, can amount + only to a useless agitation of the air. The instant we admit that a book is + too sacred to be doubted, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is + infinitely absurd to suppose that a god would Address a communication to + intelligent beings, and yet make it a crime, to be punished in eternal + flames, for them to use their intelligence for the purpose of understanding + his communication. If we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have + the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to + punish us for such action." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust + and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order to make our + children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book they wish to be recognized + in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice!" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"And we are called upon to worship such a God; to get upon our knees and tell + him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. + We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample + under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we refuse to stultify + ourselves -- refuse to become liars -- we are denounced, hated, traduced and + ostracized here, and this same god threatens to torment us in eternal fire + the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked helpless souls. Let + the people hate, let the god threaten -- we will educate them, and we will + despise and defy the god." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is + the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by + an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation and + experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be + relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called + "faith." What man, who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease God? + And yet, our entire system of religion is based upon that believe. The Jews + pacified Jehovah with the blood of animals, and according to the Christian + system, the blood of Jesus softened the heart of God a little, and rendered + possible the salvation of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how the + human mind can give assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can + read the Bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Whether the Bible is true or false, is of no consequence in + comparison with the mental freedom of the race." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Salvation through slavery is worthless. + Salvation from slavery is inestimable." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"As long as man believes the Bible to be infallible, that book + is his master. The civilization of this century is not the child + of faith, but of unbelief -- the result of free thought." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person + that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention -- of barbarian + invention -- is to read it. Read it as you would any other book; think of + it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; + drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your + brain the coiled form of superstition -- then read the Holy Bible, and you + will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite + wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and + of such atrocity." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The account shows, however, that the gods dreaded education and knowledge + then just as they do now. The church still faithfully guards the dangerous + tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep + mankind from eating the fruit thereof. The priests have never ceased + repeating the old falsehood and the old threat: "Ye shall not eat of it, + neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." From every pulpit comes the same + cry, born of the same fear: "Lest they eat and become as gods, knowing good + and evil." For this reason, religion hates science, faith detests reason, + theology is the sworn enemy of philosophy, and the church with its flaming + sword still guards the hated tree, and like its supposed founder, curses to + the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become as gods." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"According to this account the promise of the devil was fulfilled + to the very letter, Adam and Eve did not die, and they did become + as gods, knowing good and evil." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to + thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of + learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears + the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of + inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead + calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first + let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872 + also quoted in Noyes, "Views of Religion"] +% +"There is but one way to demonstrate the existence of a power independent of + and superior to nature, and that is by breaking, if only for one moment, the + continuity of cause and effect. Pluck from the endless chain of existence one + little link; stop for one instant the grand procession and you have shown + beyond all contradiction that nature has a master. Change the fact, just for + one second, that matter attracts matter, and a god appears. + + The rudest savage has always known this fact, and for that reason always + demanded the evidence of miracle. The founder of a religion must be able to + turn water into wine -- cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a + simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to demonstrate to the + satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. In + times of ignorance this was easy to do. The credulity of the savage was + almost boundless. To him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was + the sublime. Consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle -- + that is to say, a violation of nature -- that is to say, a falsehood. + + No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a + truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of miracle. Nothing but + falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was + performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one + is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior + to, and independent of nature. + + The church wishes us to believe. Let the church, or one of its + intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. We are told + that nature has a superior. Let this superior, for one single instant, + control nature, and we will admit the truth of your assertions." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"In the olden times the church, by violating the order of nature, proved the + existence of her God. At that time miracles were performed with the most + astonishing ease. They became so common that the church ordered her priests + to desist. And now this same church -- the people having found some little + sense -- admits, not only, that she cannot perform a miracle but insists + that the absence of miracle, the steady, unbroken march of cause and effect, + proves the existence of a power superior to nature. The fact is, however, + that the indissoluble chain of cause and effect proves exactly the contrary." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons + and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. Age after age, + the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have + ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the + annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Man should cease to expect aid from on high. By this time he + should know that heaven has no ear to hear, and no hand to help. + The present is the necessary child of all the past. There has + been no chance, and there can be no interference." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed, man + must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover them. If + the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor + is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the defenseless + are protected and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man. + The grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man alone." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Man must learn to rely upon himself. Reading bibles will not + protect him from the blasts of winter, but houses, fires. and + clothing will. To prevent famine, one plow is worth a million + sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than + all the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The thoughts of man, in order to be of any real worth, must be free. Under + the influence of fear the brain is paralyzed, and instead of bravely solving + a problem for itself, tremblingly adopts the solution of another. As long as + a majority of men will cringe to the very earth before some petty prince or + king, what must be the infinite abjectness of their little souls in the + presence of their supposed creator and God? Under such circumstances, + what can their thoughts be worth?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The originality of repetition, and the mental vigor of acquiescence, are + all that we have any right to expect from the Christian world. As long as + every question is answered by the word "God," scientific inquiry is simply + impossible. As fast as phenomena are satisfactorily explained the domain of + the power, supposed to be superior to nature must decrease, while the + horizon of the known must as constantly continue to enlarge." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"According to the theologians, God prepared this globe expressly for the + habitation of his loved children, and yet he filled the forests with + ferocious beasts; placed serpents in every path; stuffed the world with + earthquakes, and adorned its surface with mountains of flame. + + Notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world is perfect; that + it was created by a perfect being, and is therefore necessarily perfect. + The next moment, these same persons will tell us that the world was cursed; + covered with brambles, thistles and thorns, and that man was doomed to + disease and death, simply because our poor, dear mother ate an apple + contrary to the command of an arbitrary God." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"A very pious friend of mine, having heard that I had said the world + was full of imperfections, asked me if the report was true. Upon being + informed that it was, he expressed great surprise that any one could be + guilty of such presumption. He said that, in his judgement, it was + impossible to point out an imperfection "Be kind enough," said he, "to + name even one improvement that you could make, if you had the power." + "Well," said I, "I would make good health catching, instead of disease." + The truth is, it is impossible to harmonize all the ills, and pains, and + agonies of this world with the idea that we were created by, and are + watched over and protected by an infinitely wise, powerful and beneficent + God, who is superior to and independent of nature." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The civilization of man has increased just to the same extent that religious + power has decreased. The intellectual advancement of man depends upon how + often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth. The church never + enabled a human being to make even one of these exchanges; on the contrary, + all her power has been used to prevent them. In spite, however, of the church, + man found that some of his religious conceptions were wrong. By reading his + Bible, he found that the ideas of his God were more cruel and brutal than + those of the most depraved savage. He also discovered that this holy book was + filled with ignorance, and that it must have been written by persons wholly + unacquainted with the nature of the phenomena by which we are surrounded; and + now and then, some man had the goodness and courage to speak his honest + thoughts. In every age some thinker, some doubter, some investigator, some + hater of hypocrisy, some despiser of sham, some brave lover of the right, + has gladly, proudly and heroically braved the ignorant fury of superstition + for the sake of man and truth. These divine men were generally torn in pieces + by the worshipers of the gods. Socrates was poisoned because he lacked + reverence for some of the deities. Christ was crucified by a religious rabble + for the crime of blasphemy. Nothing is more gratifying to a religionist than + to destroy his enemies at the command of God. Religious persecution springs + from a due admixture of love towards God and hatred towards man." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"The terrible religious wars that inundated the world with blood tended at + least to bring all religion into disgrace and hatred. Thoughtful people + began to question the divine origin of a religion that made its believers + hold the rights of others in absolute contempt. A few began to compare + Christianity with the religions of heathen people, and were forced to admit + that the difference was hardly worth dying for. They also found that other + nations were even happier and more prosperous than their own. They began to + suspect that their religion, after all, was not of much real value." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women + of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious + mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have + appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to + happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, + to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have + said, "Think!" The many have said, "Believe!" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"While utterly discarding all creeds, and denying the truth of all religions, + there is neither in my heart nor upon my lips a sneer for the hopeful, loving + and tender souls who believe that from all this discord will result a perfect + harmony; that every evil will in some mysterious way become a good, and that + above and over all there is a being who, in some way, will reclaim and + glorify every one of the children of men; but for those who heartlessly try + to prove that salvation is almost impossible; that damnation is almost + certain; that the highway of the universe leads to hell; who fill life with + fear and death with horror; who curse the cradle and mock the tomb, it is + impossible to entertain other than feelings of pity, contempt and scorn." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Reason, Observation and Experience -- the Holy Trinity of Science -- have + taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, + and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this + belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of + a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there + will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God holds others in contempt." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is + in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the + imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological + certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. Believing himself + to be the slave of God, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants, the + worst is a slave in power." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain thing + to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to ensure + eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession. He divides + the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers and + unbelievers, into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into people who will + be glorified and people who are damned." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"... I want it so that every minister will be not a parrot, not an owl + sitting upon a dead limb of the tree of knowledge and hooting the hoots + that have been hooted for eighteen hundred years. But I want it so that + each one can be an investigator, a thinker; and I want to make his + congregation grand enough so that they will not only allow him to think, + but will demand that he shall think, and give to them the honest truth of + his thought." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses"] +% +"There are some truths, however, that we should never forget: Superstition + has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of + demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and + all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Humboldt", 1869] +% +"If the book [the Bible] and my brain are both the work of the same + Infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"Tell me there is a God in the serene heavens that will damn his children + for the expression of an honest belief! More men have died in their sins, + judged by your orthodox creeds, than there are leaves on all the forests + in the wide world ten thousand times over. Tell me these men are in hell; + that these men are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, + and that they are to be punished forever and forever! I denounce this + doctrine as the most infamous of lies." + [Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"All the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the + cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man + is capable, grew, blossomed and bore fruit in this one word, Hell." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Great Infidels", 1881] +% +"Is it not wonderful that the creator of all worlds, infinite in power and + wisdom, could not hold his own against the gods of wood and stone? Is it + not strange that after he had appeared to his chosen people, delivered + them from slavery, feed them by miracles, opened the sea for a path, led + them by cloud and fire, and overthrown their pursuers, they still preferred + a calf of their own making?" (Exod. 32:1-8) "...a God who gave his entire + time for 40 years to the work of converting three millions of people, and + succeeded in getting only two men, and not a single woman, decent enough + to enter the promised land?" (Num. 14:29-30) + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Few Reasons for + Doubting the Inspiration of the Bible"] +% +"It has been contended for many years that the Ten Commandments are the + foundations of all ideas of justice and law. ...Nothing can be more stupidly + false than such assertions. Thousands of years before Moses was born, the + Egyptians had a code of laws. ...far better than the Mosaic." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses"] +% +"One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Great Infidels", 1881 + also from Speech, New York City, 1 May 1881] +% +"In nature there are neither rewards nor + punishments; there are consequences." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Some + Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"In all ages hypocrites, called priests, have put + crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873] +% +"For many centuries the sword and cross were allies. Together + they attacked the rights of man. They defended each other." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Voltaire", 1894, Sec. I] +% +"As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her rights, she + will be the slave of man. The bible was not written by a woman. Within + its leaves there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"You have no right to erect your toll-gate upon the highways of thought." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877] +% +"The infidels of one age have been the aureoled saints of the next. + The destroyers of the old are the creators of the new." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Great Infidels", 1881] +% +"The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Great Infidels", 1881 + also from Speech, New York City, 1 May 1881] +% +"It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough + and courage enough to stand by his own convictions. I believe it was Magellan + who said, "The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on + the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the Church." + On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873, + quoted in _The Great Quotations_] +% +"I would rather live with the woman I love in a world full + of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty + of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"A believer is a bird in a cage, a free-thinker is + an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873] +% +"In 1776 our fathers endeavored to retire the gods from politics. They + declared that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent + of the governed." This was a contradiction of the then political ideas + of the world; it was, as many believed, an act of pure blasphemy -- a + renunciation of the Deity. ...It was a notice to all churches and priests + that thereafter mankind would govern and protect themselves. Politically + it tore down every altar and denied the authority of every "sacred book" + and appealed from the Providence of God to the Providence of man." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "God in the Constitution", originally + published in _The Arena_ in Boston in January 1890. Taken + from _The New Dresden Edition of the Works of Ingersoll_ + New York City: The Ingersoll Publishers, Inc., 1900] +% +"If all the historic books of the Bible were blotted from the memory + of mankind, nothing of value would be lost...I do not see how it is + possible for an intelligent human being to conclude that the Song of + Solomon is the work of God, and that the tragedy of Lear was the + work of an uninspired man." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1889] +% +"Our ignorance is God; what we know is science." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"Infidelity is liberty; all religion is slavery." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Thomas Paine", 1870] +% +"I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. + If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, + then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877] +% +"I believe in the religion of reason -- the gospel of this world; in the + development of the mind, in the accumulation of intellectual wealth, to + the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end that + he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe the world." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1896] +% +"To love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the suffering, + to assist weak, to forget wrongs and remember benefits. -- to love the truth, + to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to wage relentless war + against slavery in all its forms, to love wife and child and friend, to make + a happy home, to love the beautiful in art, in nature, to cultivate the mind, + to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that genius has expressed, the noble + deeds of all the world, to cultivate courage and cheerfulness, to make others + happy, to fill life with the splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving + words, to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with + gladness, to cultivate hope, to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn + beyond the night, to do the best that can be done and then to be resigned + -- this is the religion of reason, the creed of science. This satisfies the + brain and heart." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Foundations of Faith", + 1895, Section VIII, "Conclusion"] +% +"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural-that all the ghosts + and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every + drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls + of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and + all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a + servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide + world-not even in infinite space. I was free. + -free to think, to express my thoughts + -free to live to my own ideal + -free to live for myself and those I loved + -free to use all my faculties, all my senses + -free to spread imagination's wings + -free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope + -free to judge and determine for myself + -free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books + that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past + -free from popes and priests + -free from all the "called" and "set apart" + -free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies + -free from the fear of eternal pain + -free from the winged monsters of night + -free from devils, ghosts, and gods + For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all + the realms of my thought-no air, no space, where fancy could not spread + her painted wings + -no chains for my limbs + -no lashes for my back + -no fires for my flesh + -no master's frown or threat + -no following another's steps + -no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. + I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. + And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and + went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives + for the liberty of hand and brain + -for the freedom of labor and thought + -to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in + dungeons bound with chains + -to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs + -to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn + -to those by fire consumed + -to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and + deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. + And I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, + that light might conquer darkness still." + [Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899), "Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1896] +% +"The first great step towards progress, is, for man to cease + to be the slave of man; the second, to cease to be the slave + of the monsters of his own creation." + [Robert Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877] +% +"No man with any sense of humor ever founded a religion." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What + Must We Do To Be Saved", 1880] +% +"The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"Belief is not a voluntary thing. A man believes or disbelieves + in spite of himself. They tell us that to believe is the safe + way; but I say, the safe way is to be honest." + [Robert Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why I Am a Freethinker", 1881] +% +"The church never doubts -- never inquires. To doubt is heresy -- to + inquire is to admit that you do not know -- the church does neither." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Thomas Paine", 1870] +% +"A miracle is the badge and brand of fraud. ... No intelligent, + honest man ever pretended to perform a miracle, and never will." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "About the Holy Bible", 1894] +% +"...in every religion the priest insists on five things -- + First: There is a God. + Second: He has made known his will. + Third: He has selected me to explain this message. + Fourth: We will now take up a collection; and + Fifth: Those who fail to subscribe will certainly be damned." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Has Freethought a Constructive + Side?", printed in The Truth Seeker, New York 1890] +% +"Commerce makes friends, religion makes enemies; the one enriches, + and the other impoverishes; the one thrives best where the truth + is told, the other where falsehoods are believed." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "A Wooden God", letter to the + Chicago Times, written at Washington, D.C., March 27, 1890] +% +"Intelligence is the only moral guide." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Would You + Substitute For the Bible as a Moral Guide?"] +% +"Ignorance is the soil of the supernatural. The foundation of + Christianity has crumbled, has disappeared, and the entire fabric + must fall. The natural is true. The miraculous is false." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why Am I An Agnostic?" + Part 2, North American Review, March, 1890] +% +"We have at last ascertained that miracles can be perfectly + understood; that there is nothing mysterious about them; + that they are simply transparent falsehoods." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Divided + Household of Faith", 1888] +% +"All the professors in all the religious colleges in this + country rolled into one, would not equal Charles Darwin." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Fifth + Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882] +% +"The destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns is + a benefactor whether he soweth grain or not." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, motto on the title page + of "Some Mistakes of Moses", mentioned in + Interview with Chicago Times, November 14, 1879] +% +"I have noticed all my life that many people think they + have religion when they are troubled with dyspepsia." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty + of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"Should it turn out that I am the worst man in the whole world, the + story of the flood will remain just as improbable as before, and the + contradictions of the Pentateuch will still demand an explanation." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes Of Moses", 1879] +% +"To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to + know that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does + not and cannot exist -- all this is but the beginning of wisdom." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "How to Edit a Liberal Paper", + Secular Thought, Toronto, January 8, 1887] +% +"Mental slavery is mental death and every man who has given up + his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873] +% +"Christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all I ask is -- + not that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, + but that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness. + We do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish Christians to so act that + we will not have to forgive them." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes Of Moses", 1879] +% +"There are others who take the ground that all is natural; that there + never has been, never will be, never can be any interference from + without, for the reason that nature embraces all, and that there can + be no without or beyond." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why Am I An Agnostic?", Part II, 1890] +% +"I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by + stumblers carried in the star-less night, -- blown and flared by passion's + storm,-- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Field-Ingersoll Debate, + "A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field, D.D., 1887] +% +"Beyond the truths that have been demonstrated is the horizon of the Probable, + and in the world of the Probable every man has the right to guess for himself. + Beyond the region of the Probable is the Possible, and beyond the Possible is + the Impossible, and beyond the Impossible are the religions of this world. My + idea is this: Any man who acts in view of the Improbable or of the Impossible + -- that is to say, of the Supernatural -- is a superstitious man. Any man + who believes that he can add to the happiness of the Infinite, by depriving + himself of innocent pleasure, is superstitious. Any man who imagines that he + can make some God happy, by making himself miserable, is superstitious. Any + one who thinks he can gain happiness in another world, by raising hell with + his fellow-men in this, is simply superstitious. Any man who believes in a + Being of infinite wisdom and goodness, and yet believes that that being has + peopled a world with failures, is superstitious. Any man who believes that + an infinitely wise and good God would take pains to make a man, intending at + the time that the man should be eternally damned, is absurdly superstitious. + In other words, he who believes that there is, or that there can be, any other + religious duty than to increase the happiness of mankind, in this world, now + and here, is superstitious." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Thirteen Club + Dinner, New York, December 13, 1886] +% +"Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Superstition", 1898] +% +"The mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping + on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power. He knows + there is a reason. He knows that something is too large or too small; + that there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to work and + he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will turn." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"I have no confidence in any religion that + can be demonstrated only to children." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Political interview] +% +"Honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any church, + for the reason, that if you think the church is right you will not + investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will investigate you." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873] +% +"What effect will logic have upon a religious gentleman who firmly + believes that a God of infinite compassion sent two bears to tear + thirty or forty children in pieces for laughing at a bald-headed prophet?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Voltaire", 1894] +% +"Human love is generous and noble. The love of God is selfish, + because man does not love God for God's sake, but for his own." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Rome or Reason, + A Reply to Cardinal Manning", 1888] +% +"But honest men do not pretend to know; they are candid and sincere; they + love the truth; they admit their ignorance, and they say, "We do not know." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Superstition", 1898] +% +"In the search for truth, -- everything in nature seems to hide, -- man needs + the assistance of all his faculties. All the senses should be awake. Humor + should carry a torch, Wit should give its sudden light, Candor should hold + the scales, Reason, the final arbiter, should put his royal stamp on every + fact, and Memory, with a miser's care, should keep and guard the mental gold." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Response to Wm. E. Gladstone on + his letter "Regarding Col. Ingersoll on Christianity; + Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field", 1888] +% +"Some president wishes to be re-elected, and thereupon speaks about the + Bible as "the corner-stone of American Liberty." This sentence is a + mouth large enough to swallow any church, and from that time forward + the religious people will be citing that remark of the politician to + substantiate the inspiration of the Scriptures." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Morality and Immorality" interview, + printed in The News, Detroit, Michigan, January 6, 1884] +% +"Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To + the common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in + accounting for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of + man and the why and wherefore of things. As a rule, he is a believer + in special providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that + everything that happens in the universe happens in reference to him." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Liberty In Literature", 1890] +% +"I admit that I do not know whether there is any infinite personality or not, + because I do not know that my mind is an absolute standard. But according to + my mind, there is no such personality; and according to my mind, it is an + infinite absurdity to suppose that there is such an infinite personality. But + I do know something of human nature; I do know a little of the history of + mankind; and I know enough to know that what is known as the Christian faith, + is not true. I am perfectly satisfied, beyond all doubt and beyond all + peradventure, that all miracles are falsehoods. I know as well as I know that + I live -- that others live -- that what you call your faith, is not true." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, unfinished article, reply to Rev. + Lyman Abbott's article "Flaws in Ingersollism" printed + in the North American Review, April 1890] +% +"In the history of our poor world, no horror has been omitted, no + infamy has been left undone by the believers in ghosts, -- by the + worshipers of these fleshless phantoms. And yet these shadows were + born of cowardice and malignity. They were painted by the pencil of + fear upon the canvas of ignorance by that artist called superstition." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877] +% +"Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of + men -- nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Abraham Lincoln", 1894] +% +"I believe it is, as it always has been, easier to kill + two infidels than to answer one." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "An Interview on Chief + Justice Comegys", Brooklyn Eagle, 1881] +% +"Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is born of courage. Fear believes -- + courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays -- courage stands + erect and thinks. Fear retreats -- courage advances. Fear is barbarism + -- courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and + in ghosts. Fear is religion -- courage is science." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Ghosts", 1877] +% +"Through all the years, those who plowed divided with those who prayed. + Wicked industry supported pious idleness, the hut gave to the cathedral, + and frightened poverty gave even its rags to buy a robe for hypocrisy." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Must We Do To Be Saved?", 1880] +% +"It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good and + it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Which Way?", 1884] +% +"The inventor of a good soup did more for his race than the maker of + any creed. The doctrines of total depravity and endless punishment + were born of bad cooking and dyspepsia." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "About Farming in Illinois", 1877] +% +"If there is a God, there should be no slaves." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty + of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"An infinite personality is an infinite impossibility." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"I do not know what takes place in the invisible world called the brain, + inhabited by the invisible something we call the mind. All that takes + place there is invisible and soundless. This mind, hidden in this brain, + masked by flesh, remains forever unseen, and the only evidence we can + possibly have as to what occurs in that world, we obtain from the actions + of the man, of the woman. By these actions we judge of the character, of + the soul. So I make up my mind as to whether a man is good or bad, not + by his theories, but by his actions." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Reply to Rev. J.M. King & Rev. Thomas Dixon, + printed in the Evening Telegraph, regarding their response to his + "Christmas Sermon" in the Evening Telegram, December 19, 1891] +% +"We do believe that it is better to love men than to fear gods; that it is + grander and nobler to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a + creed. We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth while + men worship a tyrant in heaven. We do not expect to accomplish everything + in our day; but we want to do what good we can, and to render all the service + possible in the holy cause of human progress. We know that doing away with + gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an end. It is a means to + an end: the real end being the happiness of man." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty + on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"We are continually told that the Bible is the very foundation of modesty + and morality; while many of its pages are so immodest and immoral that a + minister, for reading them in the pulpit, would be instantly denounced as + an unclean wretch. Every woman would leave the church, and if the men + stayed, it would be for the purpose of chastising the minister." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"Why should men in the name of religion try to harmonize the + contradictions that exist between Nature and a book? Why should + philosophers be denounced for placing more reliance upon what + they know than upon what they have been told?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in + the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike + his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"I read the other day an account of a meeting between John Knox and John + Calvin. Imagine a dialogue between a pestilence and a famine! Imagine a + conversation between a block and an ax! As I read their conversation it + seemed to me as though John Knox and John Calvin were made for each other; + that they fitted each other like the upper and lower jaws of a wild beast. + They believed happiness was a crime; they looked upon laughter as blasphemy; + and they did all they could to destroy every human feeling, and to fill the + mind with the infinite gloom of predestination and eternal death. They taught + the doctrine that God had a right to damn us because he made us. That is + just the reason that he has not a right to damn us. There is some dust. + Unconscious dust! What right has God to change that unconscious dust into a + human being, when he knows that human being will sin; when he knows that + human being will suffer eternal agony? Why not leave him in the unconscious + dust? What right has an infinite God to add to the sum of human agony?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Must We Do To Be Saved", 1880] +% +"I have kindness and candor enough to say that + Calvin and Edwards were both insane." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896] +% +"The churches have no confidence in each other. Why? + Because they are acquainted with each other." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Sixth + Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882] +% +"Not one of the learned gentlemen who pretend that the Mosaic laws + are filled with justice and intelligence, would live, for a moment, + in any country where such laws were in force." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"The church persecutes the living and her + God burns, for all eternity, the dead." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, + "Heretics and Heresies", 1874] +% +"And we are called upon to worship such a God; to get upon our knees and tell + him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. + We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample + under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we refuse to stultify + ourselves -- refuse to become liars -- we are denounced, hated, traduced and + ostracized here, and this same god threatens to torment us in eternal fire + the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked helpless souls. + Let the people hate, let the God threaten -- we will educate them, and we + will despise and defy him." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to + hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. + I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine. It has covered the cheeks of + this world with tears. It has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned + the imaginations of men. It has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to + every good man and woman and child. It has filled the good with horror and + with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. It has wrung + the hearts of the tender, it has furrowed the cheeks of the good. This + doctrine never should be preached again. What right have you, sir, Mr. + clergyman, you, minister of the gospel to stand at the portals of the tomb, + at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear? + I do not believe this doctrine, neither do you. If you did, you could not + sleep one moment. Any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, + throbbing heart, will go insane. A man who believes that doctrine and does + not go insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877] +% +"A devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind of his + son the fact, that god takes care of all his creatures. Happening, one day, + to see a crane wading in quest of food, the good man pointed out to his son + the perfect adaptation of the crane to get his living in that manner. "See," + said he, "how his legs are formed for wading! What a long slender bill he + has! Observe how nicely he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing + them out of the water! He does not cause the slightest ripple. He is thus + enabled to approach the fish without giving them any notice of his arrival." + "My son," said he, "it is impossible to look at that bird without recognizing + the design, as well as the goodness of God, in thus providing the means of + subsistence." "Yes," replied the boy, "I think I see the goodness of God, at + least so far as the crane is concerned; but after all, father, don't you + think the arrangement a little tough on the fish?" + [Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872] +% +"On every hand there seems to be design to defeat design. If God created + man -- if he is the father of us all, why did he make the criminals, the + insane, the deformed and idiotic? Should the mother, who clasps to her + breast an idiot child, thank God?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896] +% +"I am told that I am in danger of hell; that for me to express my honest + convictions is to excite the wrath of God. They inform me that unless + I believe in a certain way, meaning their way, I am in danger of + everlasting fire. + + There was a time when these threats whitened the faces of men with fear. + That time has substantially passed away. For a hundred years hell has been + gradually growing cool, the flames have been slowly dying out, the brimstone + is nearly exhausted, the fires have been burning lower and lower, and the + climate gradually changing. To such an extent has the change already been + effected that if I were going there to-night I would take an overcoat and + a box of matches. + + They say that the eternal future of man depends upon his belief. I deny it. + A conclusion honestly arrived at by the brain cannot possibly be a crime; and + the man who says it is, does not think so. The god who punishes it as a crime + is simply an infamous tyrant. As for me, l would a thousand times rather go + to perdition and suffer its torments with the brave, grand thinkers of the + world, than go to heaven and keep the company of a god who would damn his + children for an honest belief." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "My Reviewers Reviews", lecture in San + Francisco, June 27, 1877, reply to attacks by clergymen for his + lectures "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", and "The Ghosts"] +% +"Is it a small thing to quench the flames of hell with the holy tears of + pity -- to unbind the martyr from the stake -- break all the chains -- + put out the fires of civil war -- stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear + the bloody hands of the Church from the white throat of Science? + + Is it a small thing to make men truly free -- to destroy the dogmas of + ignorance, prejudice and power -- the poisoned fables of superstition, + and drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of fear?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Thomas Paine", 1870] +% +"Confronted with the universe, with fields of space sown thick with stars, + with all there is of life, the wise man, being asked the origin and destiny + of all, replies: "I do not know. These questions are beyond the powers + of my mind." The wise man is thoughtful and modest. He clings to facts. + Beyond his intellectual horizon he does not pretend to see. He does not + mistake hope for evidence or desire for demonstration. He is honest. He + neither deceives himself nor others." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Foundations of Faith", 1895] +% +"To exempt the church from taxation, is to pay part of the priest's salary." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Interview in The Truth Seeker, + New York, September 5, 1885. Quoted by Joseph Lewis + in "Franklin the Freethinker"] +% +"No human being has imagination enough to conceive of this infinite horror. + + All that the human race has suffered in war and want, in pestilence and + famine, in fire and flood -- all the pangs and pains of every disease and + every death -- all of this is nothing compared with the agonies to be + endured by one lost soul. + + This is the consolation of the Christian religion. This is the justice + of God -- the mercy of Christ. + + This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of + Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real + persecutor. It founded the Inquisition, forged the chains, and furnished the + fagots. It has darkened the lives of many millions. It made the cradle as + terrible as the coffin. It enslaved nations and shed the blood of countless + thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and the best. It subverted + the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart, changed men to fiends and + banished reason from the brain. + + Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in every orthodox + creed. + + It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one + infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every + preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, + savagery cannot go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and revenge. + + Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its + creator, God. + + While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my + strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896] +% +"Christianity teaches that all offences can be forgiven. Every church + unconsciously allows people to commit crimes on credit. On the other hand, + what is called infidelity says: There is no being in the universe who rewards, + and there is no being who punishes -- every act has its consequences. If the + act is good, the consequences are good; if the act is bad, the consequences + are bad; and these consequences must be borne by the actor. It says to every + human being: You must reap what you sow. There is no reward, there is no + punishment, but there are consequences, and these consequences are the + invisible and implacable police of nature. They cannot be avoided. They + cannot be bribed. No power can awe them, and there is not gold enough in the + world to make them pause. Even a God cannot induce them to release for one + instant their victim. + + This great truth is, in my judgment, the gospel of morality. If all men knew + that they must inevitably bear the consequences of their own actions -- if + they absolutely knew that they could not injure another without injuring + themselves, the world, in my judgment, would be far better than it is." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, January 9, 1891, answering + the critics of his "Christmas Sermon" printed + in the Evening Telegraph on December 19, 1891] +% +"Can a good man mock at the children of deformity? Will he deride the + misshapen? Your Jehovah deformed some of his own children, and then held + them up to scorn and hatred. These divine mistakes -- these blunders of the + infinite -- were not allowed to enter the temple erected in honor of him who + had dishonored them. Does a kind father mock his deformed child? What would + you think of a mother who would deride and taunt her misshapen babe?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Response to Wm. E. Gladstone on + his letter "Regarding Col. Ingersoll on Christianity; + Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field", 1888] +% +"Failure seems to be the trademark of Nature. Why? Nature has no design, no + intelligence. Nature produces without purpose, sustains without intention + and destroys without thought. Man has a little intelligence, and he should + use it. Intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Is Religion?", his last + public address, delivered before the American Free + Religious association, Boston, June 2, 1899] +% +"When a professor in a college finds a fact, he should make it + known, even if it is inconsistent with something Moses said." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"Science has nothing in common with religion. Facts and miracles never did, + and never will agree. They are not in the least related. They are deadly + foes. What has religion to do with facts? Nothing. Can there be Methodist + mathematics, Catholic astronomy, Presbyterian geology, Baptist biology, or + Episcopal botany? Why, then, should a sectarian college exist? Only that which + somebody knows should be taught in our schools. We should not collect taxes + to pay people for guessing. The common school is the bread of life for the + people, and it should not be touched by the withering hand of superstition." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"Why should a woman ask pardon of God for having been a mother? Why should + that be considered a crime in Exodus, which is commanded as a duty in + Genesis? Why should a mother be declared unclean? Why should giving birth + to a daughter be regarded twice as criminal as giving birth to a son? Can + we believe that such laws and ceremonies were made and instituted by a + merciful and intelligent God? If there is anything in this poor world + suggestive of, and standing for, all that is sweet, loving and pure, it + is a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms her prattling babe." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"Only the other day a gentleman was telling me of a case of special providence. + He knew it. He had been the subject of it. A few years ago he was about to go + on a ship when he was detained. He did not go, and the ship was lost with all + on board. "Yes!" I said, "Do you think the people who were drowned believed + in special providence?" Think of the infinite egotism of such a doctrine. + Here is a man that fails to go upon a ship with five hundred passengers and + they go down to the bottom of the sea -- fathers, mothers, children, and + loving husbands and wives waiting upon the shores of expectation. Here is one + poor little wretch that did not happen to go! And he thinks that God, the + Infinite Being, interfered in his poor little withered behalf and let the + rest all go. That is special providence. Why does special providence allow + all the crimes? Why are the wife-beaters protected, and why are the wives and + children left defenceless if the hand of God is over us all? Who protects the + insane? Why does Providence permit insanity? But the church cannot give up + special providence. If there is no such thing, then no prayers, no worship, + no churches, no priests. What would become of National thanksgiving?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"When a man has been "born again", all the passages of the Old Testament + that appear so horrible and so unjust to one in his natural state, become + the dearest, the most consoling, and the most beautiful of truths. The + real Christian reads the accounts of these ancient battles with the + greatest possible satisfaction. To one who really loves his enemies, + the groans of men, the shrieks of women, and the cries of babes, make + music sweeter than the zephyr's breath." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Talmadgian Catechism", 1882] +% +"Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in + superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"How long, O how long will mankind worship a book? How long will they grovel + in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? How long, + O how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Heretics and Heresies", 1874] +% +"How touching when the learned and wise crawl back in cribs and ask to + hear the rhymes and fables once again! How charming in these hard and + scientific times to see old age in Superstition's lap, with eager lips + upon her withered breast!" + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Christian Religion" + Part III, The Ingersoll - Black Debate, 1881] +% +"I would not for my life destroy one star of human hope, but I want it + so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle and sings a lullaby to the + dimpled darling, she will not be compelled to believe that ninety-nine + chances in a hundred she is raising kindling wood for hell." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "What Must We Do To Be Saved", 1880] +% +"We did not get our freedom from the church. The great truth, that + all men are by nature free, was never told on Sinai's barren crags, + nor by the lonely shores of Galilee." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Christian Religion" + Part III, The Ingersoll - Black Debate, 1881] +% +"Rome was far better when Pagan than when Catholic. It was better to allow + gladiators and criminals to fight than to burn honest men. The greatest of + the Romans denounced the cruelties of the arena. Seneca condemned the combats + even of wild beasts. He was tender enough to say that "we should have a bond + of sympathy for all sentient beings, knowing that only the depraved and base + take pleasure in the sight of blood and suffering." Aurelius compelled the + gladiators to fight with blunted swords. Roman lawyers declared that all men + are by nature free and equal. Woman, under Pagan rule in Rome, became as free + as man. Zeno, long before the birth of Christ, taught that virtue alone + establishes a difference between men. We know that the Civil Law is the + foundation of our codes. We know that fragments of Greek and Roman art -- + a few manuscripts saved from Christian destruction, some inventions and + discoveries of the Moors -- were the seeds of modern civilization. + Christianity, for a thousand years, taught memory to forget and reason to + believe. Not one step was taken in advance. Over the manuscripts of + philosophers and poets, priests with their ignorant tongues thrust out, + devoutly scrawled the forgeries of faith. For a thousand years the torch of + progress was extinguished in the blood of Christ, and his disciples, moved + by ignorant zeal, by insane, cruel creeds, destroyed with flame and sword a + hundred million of their fellow-men. They made this world a hell. But if + cathedrals had been universities -- if dungeons of the Inquisition had been + laboratories -- if Christians had believed in character instead of creed -- + if they had taken from the Bible all the good and thrown away the wicked and + absurd -- if domes of temples had been observatories -- if priests had been + philosophers -- if missionaries had taught the useful arts -- if astrology + had been astronomy -- if the black art had been chemistry -- if superstition + had been science -- if religion had been humanity -- it would have been a + heaven filled with love, with liberty and joy." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Christian Religion" + Part III, The Ingersoll - Black Debate, 1881] +% +"Science is the enemy of fear and credulity. It invites investigation, + challenges the reason, stimulates inquiry, and welcomes the unbeliever. It + seeks to give food and shelter, and raiment, education and liberty to the + human race. It welcomes every fact and every truth. It has furnished a + foundation of morals, a philosophy for the guidance of man. From all books + it selects the good, and from all theories, the true. It seeks to civilize + the human race by the cultivation of the intellect and heart. It refines, + through art, music and the drama -- giving voice and expression to every + noble thought. The mysterious does not excite the feeling of worship, but + the ambition to understand. It does not pray -- it works. It does not answer + inquiry with the malicious cry of "blasphemy." Its feelings are not hurt by + contradiction, neither does it ask to be protected by law from the laughter + of heretics. It has taught man that he cannot walk beyond the horizon -- that + the questions of origin and destiny cannot be answered -- they an infinite + personality cannot be comprehended by a finite being, and that the truth of + any system of religion based on the supernatural cannot by any possibility + be established -- such a religion not being within the domain of evidence. + And, above all, it teaches that all our duties are here -- that all our + obligations are to sentient beings; that intelligence, guided by kindness, + is the highest possible wisdom; and that "man believes not what he would, + but what he can." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Response to Wm. E. Gladstone on + his letter "Regarding Col. Ingersoll on Christianity; + Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field", 1888] +% +"Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this most infamous + doctrine of eternal punishment? Think of the lives it has blighted -- of + the tears it has caused -- of the agony it has produced. Think of the + millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. + This doctrine renders God the basest and most cruel being in the universe. + Compared with him, the most frightful deities of the most barbarous and + degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy. There is nothing more + degrading than to worship such a god. Lower than this the soul can never + sink. If the doctrine of eternal damnation is true, let me share the fate of + the unconverted; let me have my portion in hell, rather than in heaven with + a god infamous enough to inflict eternal misery upon any of the sons of men." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Heretics and Heresies", 1874] +% +"Religion makes enemies instead of friends. That one word, "religion," + covers all the horizon of memory with visions of war, of outrage, of + persecution, of tyranny, and death. That one word brings to the mind + every instrument with which man has tortured man. In that one word are + all the fagots and flames and dungeons of the past, and in that word + is the infinite and eternal hell of the future." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Reasons Why", 1881] +% +"No Devil, no hell. No hell, no atonement. + No atonement, no preaching, no gospel." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"We cannot trample upon their rights, without endangering our own; and no man + who will take liberty from another, is great enough to enjoy liberty himself." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Fifth Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882] +% +"I beg of you not to pollute the soul of childhood, not to furrow the cheeks + of mothers, by preaching a creed that should be shrieked in a mad-house. Do + not make the cradle as terrible as the coffin. Preach, I pray you, the gospel + of Intellectual Hospitality -- the liberty of thought and speech. Take from + loving hearts the awful fear. Have mercy on your fellow-men. Do not drive to + madness the mothers whose tears are falling on the pallid faces of those who + died in unbelief. Pity the erring, wayward, suffering, weeping world. Do not + proclaim as "tidings of great joy" that an Infinite Spider is weaving webs + to catch the souls of men." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Field-Ingersoll Debate, + "A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field, D.D., 1887] +% +"I beg, I implore, I beseech you, never to give another dollar to build a + church in which that lie is preached. Never give another cent to send a + missionary with his mouth stuffed with that falsehood to a foreign land. + Why, they say, the heathen will go to heaven, any way, if you let them + alone. What is the use of sending them to hell by enlightening them? Let + them alone. The idea of going and telling a man a thing that if he does + not believe, he will be damned, when the chances are ten to one that he + will not believe it, is monstrous." + [Robert G. Ingersoll "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"The religion of Jesus Christ, as preached by his church, causes war, + bloodshed, hatred, and all uncharitableness; and why? Because, they say, a + certain belief is necessary to salvation. They do not say, if you behave + yourself you will get there; they do not say, if you pay your debts and love + your wife and love your children, and are good to your friends, and your + neighbors, and your country, you will get there; that will do you no good; + you have got to believe a certain thing. No matter how bad you are, you can + instantly be forgiven; and no matter how good you are, if you fail to believe + that which you cannot understand, the moment you get to the day of judgment + nothing is left but to damn you, and all the angels will shout "hallelujah." + [Robert G. Ingersoll "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"Over the wild waves of battle rose and fell the banner of Jesus Christ. + For sixteen hundred years the robes of the church were red with innocent + blood. The ingenuity of Christians was exhausted in devising punishment + severe enough to be inflicted upon other Christians who honestly and + sincerely differed with them upon any point whatever." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Heretics and Heresies", 1874] +% +"Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Address to the Jury", + trial of C.B. Reynolds for Blasphemy] +% +"To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Liberty in Literature", 1890] +% +"Celibacy is the essence of vulgarity." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Rome or Reason?", + Reply to Cardinal Manning, 1888] +% +"Twenty years after the death of Luther there were more Catholics + than when he was born. And twenty years after the death of Voltaire + there were millions less than when he was born." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Interview with New York correspondent, + Chicago Times, May 29, 1881, answering criticism by NY + ministers in response to his "Great Infidels" lecture] +% +"This century will be called Darwin's century. He was one of the greatest men + who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life + than all of the religious teachers. Write the name of Charles Darwin on the + one hand and the name of every theologian who ever lived on the other, and + from that name has come more light to the world than from all of those. His + doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his + doctrine of the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind the + last vestige of orthodox Christianity. He has not only stated, but he has + demonstrated, that the inspired writer knew nothing of this world, nothing + of the origin of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, nothing of + nature; that the Bible is a book written by ignorance -- at the instigation + of fear. Think of the men who replied to him. Only a few years ago there + was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin; and the + more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held + up to the ridicule, the scorn and contempt of the Christian world, and yet + when he died, England was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest + and her grandest. Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and his + doctrines are now accepted facts." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural -- that all the ghosts + and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every + drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom ... For the + first time, I was free ... I stood erect and joyously faced all worlds. + And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went + out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the + liberty of hand and brain ... And then I vowed to grasp the torch that + they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still. + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896, + quoted in Joseph Lewis' speech "Ingersoll the Magnificent"] +% +"Every fact is an enemy of the church. Every fact is a heretic. + Every demonstration is an infidel. Everything that ever really + happened testifies against the supernatural." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy", 1884] +% +"The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, + and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Liberty + of Man, Woman and Child" 1877] +% +"For my part I would not kill my wife, even if commanded + to do so by the real God of this universe." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"I would have all the professors in colleges, all the teachers in schools + of every kind, including those in Sunday schools, agree that they would + teach only what they know, that they would not palm off guesses as + demonstrated truths. + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Speech at Chicago + Exposition Building, October 20, 1876] +% +"If there is a God, it is reasonably certain that he made the world, but it + is by no means certain that he is the author of the Bible. Why then should + we not place greater confidence in Nature than in a book? And even if this + God made not only the world but the book besides, it does not follow that + the book is the best part of creation, and the only part that we will be + eternally punished for denying. It seems to me that it is quite as important + to know something of the solar system, something of the physical history of + this globe, as it is to know the adventures of Jonah or the diet of Ezekiel. + For my part, I would infinitely prefer to know all the results of scientific + investigation, than to be inspired as Moses was. Supposing the Bible to be + true; why is it any worse or more wicked for Freethinkers to deny it, than + for priests to deny the doctrine of evolution, or the dynamic theory of heat? + Why should we be damned for laughing at Samson and his foxes, while others, + holding the Nebular Hypothesis in utter contempt, go straight to heaven? It + seems to me that a belief in the great truths of science are fully as + essential to salvation, as the creed of any church. We are taught that a man + may be perfectly acceptable to God even if he denies the rotundity of the + earth, the Copernican system, the three laws of Kepler, the indestructibility + of matter and the attraction of gravitation. And we are also taught that a + man may be right upon all these questions, and yet, for failing to believe + in the "scheme of salvation," be eternally lost." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879] +% +"I want no heaven for which I must give my reason; no happiness in exchange + for my liberty, and no immortality that demands the surrender of my + individuality. Better rot in the windowless tomb, to which there is no door + but the red mouth of the pallid worm, than wear the jeweled collar of a god." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Individuality", 1873] +% +"Science built the Academy, superstition the inquisition." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"I have always noticed that the people who have the smallest + souls make the most fuss about getting them saved." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"To succeed the theologan invades the cradle. In the minds + of innocents they plant the seeds of superstition. Save + children from the pollution of this horror." + [Robert Ingersoll] +% +"Go around the world, and where you find the least superstition, there + you will find the best men, the best women, the best children." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% + "Public prayer is, if nothing else, + an undignified public performance." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, quoted in "Ingersoll + the Magnificent" by Joseph Lewis] +% +"Christianity has such a contemptible opinion of human nature that it + does not believe a man can tell the truth unless frightened by a belief + in God. No lower opinion of the human race has ever been expressed." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"A few years ago the Deists denied the inspiration of the Bible on account + of its cruelty. At the same time they worshiped what they were pleased to + call the God of Nature. Now we are convinced that Nature is as cruel as the + Bible; so that, if the God of Nature did not write the Bible, this God at + least has caused earthquakes and pestilence and famine, and this God has + allowed millions of his children to destroy one another. So that now we have + arrived at the question -- not as to whether the Bible is inspired and not + as to whether Jehovah is the real God, but whether there is a God or not." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"In the presence of death I affirm and reaffirm the truth of all + that I have said against the superstitions of the world. I would + say that much on the subject with my last breath." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the + theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the + many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, + reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins + -- they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and + the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the + middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the + princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is + the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average + man of to-day -- of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an + inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago. + + These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop + from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or + behind altars -- neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were + not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to + superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of + reason, observation and experience -and for them all, man is indebted to man." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"My objection to Christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, + infinitely selfish, and, I might add, infinitely absurd." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The Bible is not inspired in its morality, for the reason that slavery is + not moral, that polygamy is not good, that wars of extermination are not + merciful, and that nothing can be more immoral than to punish the innocent + on account of the sins of the guilty." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The Catholics have a pope. Protestants laugh at them, and yet the Pope + is capable of intellectual advancement. In addition to this, the Pope is + mortal, and the church cannot be afflicted with the same idiot forever. The + Protestants have a book for their Pope. The book cannot advance. Year after + year, and century after century, the book remains as ignorant as ever." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The believers in the Bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are + pleased to call the immoral literature of the world; and yet few books have + been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of God." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Is it possible that an infinite God created this world simply to be the + dwelling-place of slaves and serfs? Simply for the purpose of raising + orthodox Christians? That he did a few miracles to astonish them? That all + the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally + going to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum filled with Baptist + barnacles, petrified Presbyterians, and Methodist mummies?" + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The Church has always been willing to swap + off treasures in heaven for cash down here." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Every minister likes to consider himself as a brave shepherd leading + the lambs through green pastures and defending them at night from + Infidel wolves. All this he does for a certain share of the wool." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Salvation for credulity means damnation for investigation." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"My creed is this: + Happiness is the only good. + The place to be happy is here. + The time to be happy is now. + The way to be happy is to help make others so." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Motto on the + title page of Vol. xii, Works] +% +"Think of the egotism of a man who believes + that an infinite being wants his praise!" + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Surely investigation is better than unthinking faith. + Surely reason is a better guide than fear." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "The + Liberty of Man, Woman and Child"] +% +"When we find out that an assertion is a falsehood, a shining truth + takes its place, and we need not fear the destruction of the false. + The more false we destroy the more room there will be for the true." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "44 Complete Lectures"] +% +"I am not so much for the freedom of religion + as I am for the religion of freedom." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The object of the Freethinker is to ascertain the truth-the conditions + of well being-to the end that his life will be made of value." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, contribution to The Truth Seeker, 1890] +% +"There may be a God who will make us happy in another world. If he does, + it will be more than he has accomplished in this. A being who has the + power to prevent it and yet allows thousands and millions of his children + to starve, who devours them with earthquakes, who allows whole nations + to be enslaved, cannot--in my judgment--be implicitly depended upon to + justice in another world." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Jehovah was not a moral God. He had all the vices and lacked all + the virtues. He generally carried out all his threats, but he + never faithfully kept a promise." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"If there is a God who has allowed the children to be oppressed in this world + he certainly needs another life to reform the blunders he made in this." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"If only Christians go to heaven and all others go to hell, it + seems to me that there will be a thousand times more misery in + the next world than in this." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"God cannot send to eternal pain a man who has done something toward + improving the condition of his fellow-man. If he can, I had rather + go to hell than to heaven and keep company with such a god." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The doctrine of eternal punishment is the most infamous of all + doctrines--born of ignorance, cruelty and fear. Around the angel + of immortality Christianity has coiled the serpent. Upon Love's + breast the church has placed the eternal asp." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name + given by the powerful to the doctrines of the weak." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Heretics and Heresies"] +% +"Is there beyond the silent night + An endless day? + Is death a door that leads to light? + We cannot say." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, + Declaration of the Free] +% +"If we are immortal, it is a fact of nature, and that fact + does not depend on bibles, on Christs, priest, or creeds." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The hope of immortality never came from any religion. + The hope of immortality has helped to make religion." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"A known infidel cannot get very rich, for the reason that the + Christians are so forgiving and loving that they boycott him." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Christ said nothing about the Western Hemisphere because he did not know it + existed. He did not know the shape of the earth. He was not a scientist-- + never even hinted at any science--never told anybody to investigate, to + think. His idea was that this life should be spent; in preparing for the + next. For all of the evils of this life, and the next, faith was his remedy." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"It is said that desire for knowledge lost us the Eden of + the past; but whether that is true or not, it will + certainly give us the Eden of the future." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses"] +% +"True religion must be free. Without perfect liberty of mind there can be no + true religion. Without liberty the brain is a dungeon--the mind a convict." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"He who endeavors to control the mind by force + is a tyrant, and he who submits is a slave." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses"] +% +"Nothing can be more infamous than intellectual tyranny. To put chains upon + the body is nothing compared with putting shackles on the brain. No god is + entitled to the worship or respect of a man who does not give, even to the + meanest of his children, every right he claims for himself. If the Pentateuch + is true, religious persecution is a duty, The dungeons of the Inquisition + were temples and the clank of every chain upon the limbs of heresy was music + to the ear of God." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Do away with miracles, and the superhuman character of Christ + is destroyed. He Becomes what he really was--a man." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Inspiration is only necessary to give authority to that which + is repugnant to human reason. Only that which never happened + needs to be substantiated by miracles." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only + worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Eulogy at the grave of his brother, Eben] +% +"The assassin cannot sanctify his dagger by falling on his knees, and + it does not help a falsehood if it be uttered as a prayer. Religion, + used to intensify the hatred of men toward men under the pretense of + pleasing God, has cursed this world." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"The country that has got the least religion is the most prosperous, + and the country that has got most religion is in the worst condition." + [Robert G. Ingersoll, Speech in Boston, April 23, 1880] +% +"Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, + you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and + all depths; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor + sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought; that your intellect owes + no allegiance to any being, human or divine; that you hold all in fee upon + no condition and by no tenure whatever; that in the world of mind you are + relieved from all personal dictation, and from the ignorant tyranny of + majorities. Surely it is worth something to feel that there are no popes, + no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods, to whom your intellect can + be compelled to pay a reluctant homage." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Christ according to the faith, is the second person in the Trinity, the + Father being the first and the holy Ghost the third. Each of these three + persons is God. Christ is his own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is + neither father nor son, but both. The son was begotten by the father, but + existed before he was begotten--just the same before as after. Christ is just + as old as his father, and the father is just as young as his son. The Holy + Ghost proceeded form the Father and Son, but was an equal to the Father and + Son before he proceeded, that is to say before he existed, but he is of the + same age as the other two. Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be more + perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the Trinity." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Let us remember that those who have sought natures truths have not persecuted + their neighbors. The astronomers and chemist have forged no chains and built + no dungeons. The geologist have invented no instruments of torture. The + philosophers have not demonstrated the truths of their theories by burning + others. The great infidels, the thinkers have lived for the good of humankind. + Intellectual liberty is the fresh air of the universe and the sunshine of the + soul. Without it, the universe is a prison." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Now they say that this book is inspired. I do not care whether it is or + not; the question is, Is it true? if it is true, it doesn't need to be + inspired. Nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake." + [Robert G. Ingersoll] +% +"Consequently, in the name of God Almighty, by the authority of the + Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, and by our Own, We reprove and condemn + this Charter [the Magna Carta]; under pain of anathema We forbid the + King to observe it or the barons to demand its execution. We declare + the Charter null and of no effect, as well as all the obligations + contracted to confirm it. It is Our wish that in no case should it + have any effect." + [Pope Innocent III (1161-1216)] +% +"Use against heretics the spiritual sword of excommunication, + and if this does not prove effective, use the material sword." + [Pope Innocent III (1161-1216)] +% +"Our dear Son (King of France), the Chancellor of Paris, and the Doctors, + before the clergy and people, publicly burned by fire the aforesaid books + (The Talmud) with all their appendices. We beg and beseech your Celestial + Majesty in the Lord Jesus, that, having begun laudably and piously to + prosecute those who perpetuate these detestable excesses, that you continue + with due severity. And that you command throughout your whole kingdom that + the aforesaid books with all their glossaries, already condemned by the + Doctors, be committed to the flames. Firmly prohibiting Jews From having + Christians as servants and nurses..." + [Pope Innocent IV, A.D. 1244, Bull. Rom. Pont., IV, 509] +% +"...ice crystals only grow when an outside agent [God] + is driving the process against the natural decay process + described by the second law of thermodynamics." + [Institute for Creation Research + http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-162.htm62.htm] +% +"Truth is, christians are the only ones in + the world that cannot explain anything" + ["Internut", christian on IRC] +% +"I tell Christians, If you had two children and one had to be bribed + (heaven) and threatened (hell) to do what he was supposed to do, and + the other one just did it because that's what he knew was the right + thing to do, which would you consider the better person?" + [Greg Irwin, President of the Humanist Association of Canada] +% +"Would you have mansions of gold in the sky, + and live in a shack, here in the back? + Would you have wings up in heaven to fly, + While you live here with rags on your back?" + [IWW song, from The Little Red Songbook, + Songs to fan the flames of discontent] +% +"Man is a dog's idea of what God should be." + [Holbrook Jackson, quoted in + "Omni", Aug. 1988, p. 31.] +% +"On the inner walls of the holy of holies in the Temple of Luxor inscribed by + King Amenhotep III (1538-1501 B.C.) the birth of Horus is pictured in four + scenes very much like Christian representations of the Annunciation and the + Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, and the Birth and Adoration of the + Christ Child. These four consecutive scenes, as engraved on the walls of the + Temple of Luxor, are reproduced in Gerald Massey's Ancient Egypt: The Light + of the World Vol. II (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907) page 757, and may be + described as follows..." + [John G. Jackson, "Christianity Before Christ" + Austin TX: American Atheist Press, 1985 p. 110] +% +"The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion, it will cease + to be free for religion--except for the sect that can win political power." + [Supreme Court Justice Robert Houghwout Jackson, dissenting + opinion in Zorach v. Clauson (343 US 306 -- 1952)] +% +"If we concede to the State power and wisdom to single out + 'duly constituted religious' bodies as exclusive alternatives + for compulsory secular instruction, it would be logical to + also uphold the power and wisdom to choose the true faith among + those 'duly constituted.' We start down a rough road when we + begin to mix compulsory public education with compulsory godliness." + [Supreme Court Justice Robert Houghwout Jackson, dissenting + opinion in Zorach v. Clauson (343 US 306 -- 1952)] +% +"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is + that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox + in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or + force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." + [Robert H. Jackson, Supreme Court opinion (West Virginia State + Board of Education v Barnette, 319 U.S. 624{1943})] +% +"[I]n our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, + economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all + thought is divinely classified into two kinds -- that which is their own + and that which is false and dangerous." + [Justice Robert H. Jackson, American Communications Assn. + v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 438; 70 S.Ct. 674, 704 (1950)] +% +"[T]he effect of the religious freedom Amendment to our Constitution was to + take every form of propagation of religion out of the realm of things + which could directly or indirectly be made public business, and thereby be + supported in whole or in part at taxpayers' expense. That is a difference + which the Constitution sets up between religion and almost every other + subject matter of legislation, a difference which goes to the very root of + religious freedom[...] This freedom was first in the Bill of Rights because + it was first in the forefathers' minds; it was set forth in absolute terms, + and its strength is its rigidity. It was intended not only to keep the + states' hands out of religion, but to keep religion's hands off the state, + and, above all, to keep bitter religious controversy out of public life by + denying to every denomination any advantage from getting control of public + policy or the public purse." + [Justice Robert H. Jackson, in dissent in Everson v. Board of + Education of Ewing TP., 330 U.S. 1 (1947) at 26, 27.] +% +"[The Establishment Clause and Religious Freedom Clause] of our Federal + Constitution ha[ve] never been wholly pleasing to most religious groups. + They are all quick to invoke its protections; they are all irked when they + feel its restraints. This Court has gone a long way, if not an unreasonable + way, to hold that public business of paramount importance as maintenance of + public order, protection of the privacy of a home, and taxation may not be + pursued by a state in a way that even indirectly will interfere with + religious proselyting.[...] But we cannot have it both ways. Religious + teaching cannot be a private affair when the state seeks to impose + regulations which infringe on it indirectly, and a public affair when it + comes to taxing citizens of one faith to aid another, or those of no faith + to aid all. If these principles seem harsh in prohibiting aid to Catholic + education, it must not be forgotten that it is the same Constitution that + alone assures Catholics the right to maintain these schools at all when + predominant local sentiment would forbid them. [...] Nor should I think + that those who have done so well without this aid would want to see this + separation between Church and State broken down. If the state may aid + these religious schools, it may therefore regulate them. Many groups have + sought aid from tax funds, only to find that it carried political controls + with it. Indeed, this Court has declared that 'It is hardly lack of due + process for the Government to regulate that which it subsidizes.' + Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 131." + [Justice Robert H. Jackson, in dissent in Everson v. Board of + Education of Ewing TP., 330 U.S. 1 (1947) at 27, 28.] +% +"Nothing is more dangerous than the certainty of being right... + All the massacres were done by virtue, in the name of the true + faith, of the legitimate nationalism, of the idoneous politics, + of the just ideology; in short, in the name of the combat + against other people's truth, the combat against Satan" + [Francois Jacob] +% +"The National Government will therefore regard as its first and supreme + task to restore to the German people unity of mind and will. It will + preserve and defend the foundations on which the strength of our nation + rests. It will take under its firm protection Christianity as the basis + of our morality, and the family as the nucleus of our nation and our State." + [_Nazism, A History in Documents & Eyewitness Accounts_. + (Original source listed in the bibliography: Jacobsen and + Jochmann, Ausgewahlte Dokumente Bd II.)] +% +"Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism." + [William James (1842-1910) American philosopher and psychologist] +% +"Jeff 3:16 + For God so hated the world that he gave his only bastard son, that + whosoever believeth in him shall not flourish but have everlasting strife." + [Jeff Janusch, backslide247@aol.com] +% +"Damn the Solar System. Bad light; planets too distant; pestered + with comets; feeble contrivance; could make a better myself." + [Francis [Lord Jeffery] +% +"In addition I think science has enjoyed an extraordinary success + because it has such a limited and narrow realm in which to focus its + efforts. Namely, the physical universe." + [Ken Jenkins] +% +"After the survivor of the Spanish conquest has told his life's story he is + convicted by the Inquisition: + + "He posted no brief in defense or mitigation of his offenses, and + when he was most solemnly advised by the Court President of the dire + consequences he faced if found guilty, Juan Damasceno volunteered + only one comment: + + 'It will mean I do not go to the Christian heaven?' + + He was told that that would indeed be the worst of his punishments: + that he would most assuredly not go to Heaven. At which, his smile + sent a thrill of horror through every soul of the Court." + ["Aztec", by Gary Jennings] +% +"If it is good not to touch a woman, then it is + bad to touch a woman always and in every case." + [St. Jerome, Epistle 48.14] +% +"For the preservation of chastity, an empty and + rumbling stomach and fevered lungs are indispensable." + [St. Jerome (340?-420)] +% +"Holy virginity is a better thing than conjugal chastity.... A mother will + hold a lesser place in the Kingdom of heaven, because she has been married, + than the daughter, seeing that she is a virgin .... but if thy mother has + been humble and not proud, she will have some sort of place, but not thou..." + [Saint Jerome, Roman theologian, Sermon 354] +% +"All riches come from iniquity, and unless one has lost, another cannot + gain. Hence that common opinion seems to be very true, 'the rich man is + unjust, or the heir to an unjust one.' Opulence is always the result of + theft, if not committed by the actual possessor, then by his predecessor." + [St. Jerome (compare to Karl Marx)] +% +"Though thy father cling to thee, and thy mother rend her + garments and show thee the breasts thou has sucked, thrust + them aside with dry eyes to embrace the cross." + [St. Jerome, Letter to Heliodorus, + on true Christian "family values"] +% +"I never spared heretics and have always done my utmost so + that the enemies of the Church should also be my enemies." + [St. Jerome, 420 AD] +% +"We Catholics may lie and say we are Protestants when we are among the + Protestants or we may lie when we are among the Huguenots and say we are + Huguenots; and if we wish we can stoop so low as to say we are Jews when + we are among the Jews if our lying would benefit the Catholic Church." + [Jesuit oath from the Congressional Record] +% +"The Roman Catholic church, convinced that it is the only true church, + must demand the right to freedom for herself alone and the end of + freedom for all others." + [Jesuit publication] +% +"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; + I came not to send peace, but a sword." + [Jesus, Matthew 10:34] +% +"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should + reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." + [Jesus, Luke 19:27, as part + of a self-referential parable] +% +"The belief that the soul continues its existence after the + dissolution of the body is a matter of philosophical or + theological speculation rather than of simple faith, and is + accordingly nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture." + [The Jewish Encyclopedia (1910), Vol. VI, p. 564] +% +"If God lived on earth, people would break his windows." + [Jewish proverb, quoted in: Claud Cockburn, + Cockburn Sums Up, epigraph (1981).] +% +"No one has an idea really of where we should draw the line. What about + the Bible? Every nut who kills people has a Bible lying around. If + you're looking for violent rape imagery, the Bible's right there in your + hotel room. If you just want to look up ways to screw people up, there it + is, and you're justified because God told you to. You have Shakespeare and + you have Sophocles--what are we going to do, lose _Oedipus Rex_ if someone + pokes an eye out?" + [Penn Jillette, from Reason magazine, + on censorship of violent TV shows] +% +"You have painted a world of people who are Christian because they are + weak-willed puppets, desperate for whatever will give them a sense of + purpose and security, who fear nothing more than a stable individual." + [Jim in Boulder] +% +"I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints - + The sinners are much more fun." + [Billy Joel, from "Only the Good Die Young"] +% + "About half." +[Pope John XXIII, when asked how many people work in the Vatican, + from Gordon Thomas & Max Morgan-Witts, "Pontiff", p. 337] +% +"It can therefore be said that, from the viewpoint of the doctrine of + the faith, there are no difficulites in explaining the origin of man, + in regard to the body, by means of the theory of evolution." + [Pope John Paul II, April 16, 1986] +% +"Adultery is in your heart not only when you look with + excessive sexual zeal at a woman who is not your wife, + but also if you look in the same manner at your wife." + [Pope John Paul II] +% +"She spoke to him about the approximately 200,000 women who die every + year from self-induced abortions--a major health issue: "Religious + leaders--and all of us, really--must address this very important issue." + +"Don't you think," John Paul II interjected, "that all irresponsible + behavior of men is cause by women?" + [Pope John Paul II to Nafis Sadik, UN Representative, at the UN + Council for Women, from _His Holiness: John Paul II and the + Hidden History of Our Time_, by Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi] +% +"Human beings cannot be morally responsible to God. If we blame a person for + an evil act, we thereby imply that he was to some extent evil prior to his + action. For to say that a person is responsible for an evil action is to say + he caused it because he was evil. But how did he become evil? It he made + himself evil, then this would be an evil act and would--if he were responsible + for it--imply that he was already evil. It follows that the evil of a person + must precede the act of making himself evil. Therefore this individual cannot + ultimately be the responsible source of his own evil. Then who is? It cannot + be Satan, for the same argument would apply to him. It must be God, for he + created everything. Therefore God is ultimately responsible for all evil." + [B. C. Johnson, "The Atheist Debater's Handbook"] +% +"It is sometimes argued that we have a fifty-fifty betting proposition when + considering God's existence or nonexistence. If we bet that God exists and + he does exist, then we lose nothing while possibly gaining salvation. If we + bet that God exist and he does not exist, then we lose nothing. But if we + bet that God does not exist and he does exist, then we lose everything. Of + course, if we bet that God does not exist and we are correct, then we lose + nothing. Therefore it is prudent to bet on God. (This is Pascal`s Wager). + The problem with the above argument is that it does not establish a + fifty-fifty betting proposition. There are many alternatives that it fails + to consider. For example, God may exist but he may damn anyone who "bets" on + his existence merely for reasons of prudence. He may consider such a "bet" + to be an insult. Furthermore, it may be that a mere belief in God is not + enough to ensure salvation. A further requirement may be the belief in a + particular religion. But which religion? Again, there are many alternatives. + Another possible alternative is that God offers salvation only to atheist + because God does not like being surrounded by obsequious "yes-men." God may + prize independence and skepticism." + [B. C. Johnson, "The Atheist Debater's Handbook"] +% +"What excellent fools + religion makes of men!" + [Ben Johnson] +% +"Praying in churches hasn't improved society + and praying in schools won't either." + [Ellen Johnson] +% +"I believe in honesty and truthfulness, not because I fear a god or a devil, + but because I think it is the best way for people to live together. I believe + in helping others because when we cooperate with our neighbors we make life + easier for all. I believe in treating others as I want to be treated - but I + certainly do not believe in turning the other cheek and the truth is I never + knew any Christians who did either." + [James Hervey Johnson] +% +"It's critical to our national health and survival to restore social virtue + and purity to our state and nation," Johnson said. "Is living together without + the benefit of marriage good? Is homosexuality good? If cohabitating and + homosexual behavior is detrimental to the individual and to society, besides + breaking the law, then society has the responsibility to resist it." + [Arizona State Rep. Karen Johnson, a Mormon fundamentalist who + has been married 5 times, in Arizona Republic, Feb. 4, 1999] +% +"One of my favorite fantasies is that next Sunday not one woman, in any + country of the world, will go to church. If women simply stop giving our + time and energy to the institutions that oppress, they cease to be." + [Sonia Johnson] +% +"The one reason why we've always had an open Bible in every + room in the Holiday Inn motels is to help people find Jesus + and the solution to their problems, no matter who they are." + [Wallace Johnson, co-founder of Holiday Inns, + on the use of his business to proselytize] +% +"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe + political view or strange religion there exists a proponent on + the Net. The proof is left as an exercise for your kill-file." + [Bertil Jonell] +% +"I would rather see a saloon on every corner than a Catholic in + the White House. I would rather see a nigger as president." + [Bob Jones, Sr., founder of Bob Jones University] +% +"Blacks aren't attracted to fundamentalism, and they don't like discipline." + [Bob Jones, Jr., founder of Bob Jones University] +% +"The Bible itself is intolerant, and true followers + of God's word should be as well." + [Bob Jones III] +% +"My guess is that he has forgotten. After all he is 2,000 years old and + is probably suffering from advanced Alzheimer's disease -- staggering + around pissing in his toga, exposing himself to the little teeny-bopper + angels. The old man should pull the plug." + [Earle D. Jones, on Jesus and the rapture] +% +"The rights of the people to be free to exercise their religious + and philosophical beliefs" includes *by necessity* the right to abstain + from the practise of any religious and philosophical beliefs. This right + cannot be guaranteed in any environment wherein a practice of this type + is enacted in a state funded context -- like a classroom -- and the + participation is all but complusory for those present in that they must + experience another's religious practice on their time and against their + will. School ground is not the issue. School TIME *is*. At that point, it + becomes STATE time, which makes it STATE religion. Say hello to theocracy." + [Timothy Jones , on alt.atheism] +% +"I saw Christ last night and he looked like shit. Well that + is not suprising since he's been dead for about 2000 years." + [William Jones] +% +"'Twas only fear first in the world made gods." + [Ben Jonson (1572?-1637), Sejanus] +% +"I'm counting on you lord, please don't let me down + Prove that you love me and buy the next round" + [Janis Joplin, "Mercedes Benz"] +% +"When a dog barks at the moon, then it is religion; + but when he barks at strangers, it is patriotism!" + [David Starr Jordan, Cardiff, + What Great Men Think of Religion] +% +"That one man or ten thousand or ten million men find a + dogma acceptable does not argue for its soundness." + [David Starr Jordan, quoted in Cardiff, + "What Great Men Think of Religion"] +% +"Theologians consider that it was the sin of pride, the sinful + thought conceived in an instant: non serviam: I will not serve. + That instant was his [Lucifer's] ruin." + [James Joyce,_A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_] +% +"The idea of an incarnation of God is absurd: why should the human race + think itself so superior to bees, ants, and elephants as to be put in + this unique relation to its maker? . . Christians are like a council + of frogs in a marsh or a synod of worms on a dung-hill croaking and + squeaking "for our sakes was the world created." + [Julian The Apostate] +% +"Such things have often happened and still happen, + and how can these be signs of the end of the world?" + [Julian, Emperor of Rome 361-363 A.D.] +% +"No wild beasts are as hostile to men as + Christian sects in general are to one another." + [Julian, Emperor of Rome 361-363 A.D.] +% +"Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D. He was a + pagan, and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city + until about his 35th year, when he became a Christian .... To him is + ascribed the sublime confession: Credo quia absurdum est (I believe + because it is absurd). This does not altogether accord with historical + fact, for he merely said: + + "And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because + it is absurd. And buried he rose again, which is certain + because it is impossible." + + Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, he saw through the poverty of + philosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it." + [C. G. Jung, in Psychological Types. Tertullian + was one of the founders of the Catholic Church] +% +"Religious Philosophy is an oxymoron- + a philosopher of religion is ONLY a moron" + [Kamian] +% +"NO proof. NO god. NO problem." + [Kamian] +% +"If I were to mock religious belief as childish, if I were to suggest that + worshiping a supernatual deity, convinced that it cares about your welfare, + is like worrying about monsters in the closet who find you tasty enough to + eat, if I were to describe God as our creation..... I'd violate the norms + of civility and religious correctness, I'd be excoriated as an example of + the cynical, liberal elite responsible for America's moral decline. I'd be + pitied for my spiritual blindness; some people would try to enlighten and + convert me. I'd receive hate mail. Atheists generate about as much + sympathy as pedophiles. But, while pedophilia may at least be characterized + as a disease, atheism is a choice, a willful rejection of beliefs to which + vast majorities of people cling." + [Wendy Kaminer, "The Last Taboo", in + The New Republic (Oct. 14, 1996)] +% +"In this climate -- with belief in guardian angels and creationism becoming + commonplace -- making fun of religion is as risky as burning a flag in an + American Legion hall. But, by admitting that they're fighting a winning + battle, advocates of renewed religiosity would lose the benefits of + appearing besieged. Like liberal rights organizations that attract more + money when conservative authoritarians are in power, religious groups + inspire more believers when secularism is said to hold sway." + [Wendy Kaminer, "The Last Taboo", in + The New Republic (Oct. 14, 1996)] +% +"People who believe that god exists and heeds their prayers + have probably waived the right to mock people who talk to + trees or claim to channel the spirits of Native Americans." + [Wendy Kaminer] +% +"I suspect that media elites offer virtually no analysis of the religious + impulse or majoritarian religious beliefs mainly because they fear appearing + impious or giving offense. ...What's striking about journalists and + intellectuals today, liberal and conservative alike, is not their mythic + Voltairian skepticism but their deference to belief and utter failure to + criticize, much less satirize, America's romance with God." + [Wendy Kaminer, "Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: + The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety"] +% +"Superstitions, cults and mysticism appear with surprising consistency + during a social crisis. Today it is ESP and UFOs, astrology and clairvoyance, + mystic cults and mesmeric healers. The growth of interest in such things is + a sure indicator of social unrest, personal uneasiness, frustration and loss + of purpose. These symptoms are also present in the West, particularly in the + U.S., where they are more chronic; in the Soviet Union, however, we have an + acute fever. ...Carl Sagan of Cornell University has told me that in the U.S. + there are 15,000 astrologers and only 1,500 astronomers. ...It is fascinating + that in the Soviet Union we are importing creationism from fundamentalists in + the U.S. ...The momentous changes happening now in the Soviet Union are the + reason for this current upsurge of the irrational. What is important is the + emerging extremism that they may signal." + [Sergei Kapitza, President of the Physical Society of the U.S.S.R. + and editor of the Russian edition of Scientific American, "Antiscience + Trends in the U.S.S.R.", Scientific American 265(2):32-38, August 1991] +% +"Convicts register their religious affiliation when they're processed into + prison. And about 99.5% of the huge U.S.A. prison population consists of + inmates who identified themselves as members of religious denominations." + [Gene M. Kasmar] +% + = AN HONEST PRAYER = +Dear Lord, love me today and forever, bless my soul and conscience +daily, agree with all of my decisions, punish my enemies until I am +satisfied, give me huge amounts of money, promise to help me always +win, look the other way when I cheat, justify my excuses and believe +all my lies, obey my wishes, and reserve the most luxurious part of +heaven just for me. I will be thankful as long as you do what I say. +Amen. + [Wally Kaspars, from LUMPEN vol 5, Nos. 8/9] +% +"Organized religion: The world's largest pyramid scheme." + [Bernard Katz] +% +"There is no opinion so absurd that a preacher could not express it." + [Bernie Katz] +% +"The child begins by acting like the grownups who believe, and + soon believes himself. The proofs come later, if at all. + Religious belief generally starts as make-believe." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"The analogy between the God of popular Roman Catholicism and a cruel Caesar + is striking: one must serve him in every way and praise him all but + continually; those who displease him are given over to eternal torture; he + cannot be approached directly even with petitions; the best procedure is to + ask somebody who has found favor-a saint, and a particular one depending on + the nature of one's case-to intercede with the mother of his son, in the hope + that she may take up the matter with her son, and the son with the father." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"Christianity preaches that love is divine and points to Jesus as the + incarnation of love: but a Buddhist, and not only a Buddhist, might well say + that the sacrifice of a few hours' crucifixion followed by everlasting bliss + at the right hand of God in heaven, while millions are suffering eternal + tortures in hell, is hardly the best possible symbol of love and self- + sacrifice. The boss's son who works briefly at lower jobs before he joins his + father at the head of the company would hardly reconcile the workers to their + fate if they should be tormented bitterly without relief. Of course, some + Christians have felt this strongly and it has troubled them deeply, but the + dominate note in the New Testament and ever since has been one of astounding + callousness." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"Those committed to an institution generally claim that all those who prefer + fresh air and freedom lack the courage to commit themselves. In fact, the + shoe is on the other foot. More often than not, commitment to an institution + issues from a want of courage to stand up alone. Typically, it is an escape, + a search for togetherness, for safety in numbers." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"The deepest difference between religions is not that between polytheism + and monotheism.... Even the difference between theism and atheism is not + nearly so profound as that between these who feel and those who do not + feel their brothers' torments." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"For those engaged in an impartial investigation, a man's faith creates + no presumption whatsoever of a higher probability; on the contrary, it is + more suspicious than a less emotional belief. It raises the question whether + there is considerable, albeit not compelling, evidence, or whether "faith" + is but a noble word for wishful thinking." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"Faith in immortality, like belief in God, leaves unanswered the ancient + question: is God unable to prevent suffering, and thus not omnipotent? + or is he able and not willing it and thus not merciful? and is he just?" + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"Theologians do not just do this incidentally: (gerrymander) this is + theology. Doing theology is like doing a jigsaw puzzle in which the verses + of Scripture are the pieces: the finished picture is prescribed by each + denomination, with a certain latitude allowed. What makes the game so + pointless is that you do not have to use all the pieces, and that pieces + which do not fit may be reshaped after pronouncing the words "this means." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"As long as we cling to the conception of hell, God is not love in any human + sense-and least of all, love in the human sense raised to the highest potency + of perfection. And if we renounce the belief in hell, then the notion that + God gave his son to save those who believe in the incarnation and resurrection + looses meaning. The significance of salvation depends on an alternative, and + in traditional Christianity this alternative is eternal torment." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"Few Christians would be in doubt what to think of a father tortured his + children for forty-eight hours because they did not agree with him or did + not obey him; and if he had a great many children and had given only a + few of them a single chance while offering the vast majority no opportunity + at all to know his will, most people would consider this the epitome of an + inhuman lack of love and justice. The God of traditional Christianity, + however, outdoes even this analogy by relegating the mass of mankind to + eternal torment." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"To try to fashion something from suffering, to relish our triumphs, + and to endure defeats without resentment: all that is compatible + with the faith of a heretic." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"Once we decide to be dishonest with our children, our students, or our + readers, we have a vested interest in suppressing honesty, in censorship." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"They may think they chose their doctrine because it is offered to us as + infallible and true, but this is plainly no sufficient reason: scores of + other doctrines, scriptures, and apostles, sects and parties, cranks and + sages make the same claim. Those who claim to know which of the lot is + justified in making such a bold claim, those who tell us that this faith + or that is really infallible and true are presupposing in effect, whether + they realize this or not, that they themselves happen to be infallible." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"Consider the justice of the God of St. Augustine-and by no means only + St. Augustine. All men deserve damnation, but God elects a few for salvation. + They do not deserve this: the grace of God would not by gratia if it were not + gratis. Yet the damned cannot complain that God is unjust, for no man + receives a worse lot than he deserves, only some receive a better lot, and + this shows God's infinite mercy. + No student would be in doubt for a moment what to think of the justice + of a teacher who gave a test that everybody failed and then nevertheless gave + a few of his students "excellent," justifying his procedure along the lines + suggested by Augustine. This is precisely what we mean by injustice." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"First: having to use means to achieve ends is one of the features that + distinguishes limited power from omnipotence. Second: the uneconomic use + of unpleasant means to achieve doubtful ends with frequent failures clearly + points to limited power rather than omnipotence." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"Pascal assumes that the man who believes in order to save his neck, + unequivocally prompted by self-seeking prudence, will be saved, while the + man who denies himself the comfort of belief in the name of intellectual + integrity will not be saved. What, then, does Pascal consider godlike?" + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"What Pascal overlooked was the hair-raising possibility that God might + out-Luther Luther. A special area in hell might be reserved for those who + go to mass. Or God might punish those whose faith is prompted by prudence. + Perhaps God prefers the abstinent to those who whore around with some + denomination he despises. Perhaps he reserves special rewards for those + who deny themselves the comfort of belief. Perhaps the intellectual + ascetic will win all while those who compromise their intellectual + integrity lose everything." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"To make sense of the churches' mission to save souls, one must suppose that + those who either are not reached by Christian preaching or reject it are + not saved but left to some bad fate, traditionally named hell. To make sense + of the churches, mission, one has to suppose that a man's eternal fate does + not depend on his own efforts or his conduct, and that God lets our eternal + bliss or torment hinge, at least in large part, on the efficiency of one or + another organization. A human judge acting in analogous fashion would be + said to have abdicated any effort to be just." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"Christianity, from its inception, has conceived itself as an enemy of + reason and worldly wisdom; it has exerted itself to impede the development + of reason, belittled the achievements of reason, and gloated over the + setbacks of reason." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"The more important the issue at hand, the more it demands careful scrutiny. + This is a simple but important point which most religious people overlook." + [Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"The attempt to solve the problem of suffering by postulating original + sin depends on the belief that cruelty is justified when it is + retributive;indeed, that morality demands retribution." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% +"Dissatisfied with oneself, one becomes a seeker. Difficulty becomes + a challenge and delight; critical thinking, a way of live." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% + "Theology is the systematic attempt to pour the + newest wine into the old skins of a denomination." +[Walter Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy"] +% +"It is always tempting to divide men into two lots: Greeks and barbarians, + Muslims and infidels, those who believe in God and those who don't. But who + does not fear to understand things that threaten his beliefs? Of course, + one is not consciously afraid; but everybody who is honest with himself + finds that often he does not try very hard to understand what clashes + with his deep convictions." + [Walter Kaufmann, "The Faith of a Heretic"] +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/black-humor b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/black-humor new file mode 100644 index 0000000..030e6ed --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/black-humor @@ -0,0 +1,1947 @@ +A cannibal warrior is experiencing severe gastric distress, so he goes +to his Village Witch Doctor with his complaint. The VWD examines him +and, concluding that something he ate disagreed with him, began to cross +examine him about his recent diet. + "Well, I ate a missionary yesterday. Do you think that could be +the problem?" + The VWD says "Hmmmm." (All doctors say "Hmmmm.") "That could be. +Tell me a bit about this missionary." + "Well, he was tall for a white man, wearing a brown robe. He was +walking down the trail, not watching for danger, so I speared him, dragged +him home, cleaned him, boiled him and ate him." + "Ah-hah!" (All doctors say "Ah-hah!") There's your problem," smiles +the VWD. You boiled him, but he was a friar!" +% + A carpet installer decides to take a cigarette break after completing +the installation in the first of several rooms he has to do. Finding them +missing from his pocket he begins searching, only to notice a small lump in +his recently completed carpet-installation. Not wanting to pull up all that +work for a lousy pack of cigarettes he simply walks over and pounds the lump +flat. Foregoing the break, he continues on to the other rooms to be carpeted. + At the end of the day, while loading his tools into his truck, two +events occur almost simultaneously: he spies his pack of cigarettes on the +dashboard of the truck, and the lady of the house summons him imperiously: +"Have you seen my parakeet?" +% +A castaway was washed ashore after many days on the open sea. The island +on which he landed was populated by savage cannibals who tied him, dazed +and exhausted, to a thick stake. They then proceeded to cut his arms +with their spears and drink his blood. This continued for several days +until the castaway could stand no more. He yelled for the cannibal chief +and declared, "You can kill me if you want to, but this torture with the +spears has got to stop. Dammit, I'm tired of getting stuck for the drinks." +% +A GOOD WAY TO THREATEN somebody is to light a stick of dynamite. Then you +call the guy and hold the burning fuse to the phone. "Hear that?" you say. +"That's dynamite, baby." + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% + A guy returns from a long trip to Europe, having left his beloved +dog in his brother's care. The minute he's cleared customs, he calls up his +brother and inquires after his pet. + "Your dog's dead," replies his brother bluntly. + The guy is devastated. "You know how much that dog meant to me," +he moaned into the phone. "Couldn't you at least have thought of a nicer way +of breaking the news? Couldn't you have said, `Well, you know, the dog got +outside one day, and was crossing the street, and a car was speeding around a +corner...' or something...? Why are you always so thoughtless?" + "Look, I'm sorry," said his brother, "I guess I just didn't think." + "Okay, okay, let's just put it behind us. How are you anyway? +How's Mom?" + His brother is silent a moment. "Uh," he stammers, "uh... Mom got +outside one day..." +% + A guy walks into a pub and asks: "Does anyone here own a Doberman? +I feel really bad about this, but my Chihuahua just killed it." + A man leaps to his feet and replies, "Yes, I do, but how can that +be? I raised that dog from a pup to be a vicious killer." + "Yes, well, that's all well and good," replied the first, "but my +dog's stuck in its throat." +% + A man is walking along when he sees a funeral procession going by, the +longest procession he's ever seen. It seems to consist of the hearse, +followed by a man with a Doberman on a leash, followed by several hundred +other men. After watching for a few minutes, he can restrain his curiosity +no longer, and walks up to one of the mourners. + "Excuse me, sir, I don't mean to bother you in your moment of grief, +but this is the strangest procession I've ever seen. What happened, who is +the funeral for?" + "Well, it's nothing special, really, the funeral is for the mother- +in-law of the man at the front of the procession. You see, his Doberman +attacked and killed her." + "That's awful!", replies the onlooker. "But... um... tell me, you +don't think he'd let me borrow that dog, do you?" + "Get in line, buddy," replies the mourner, "get in line." +% +A New Yorker was driving through Berkeley when he saw a big crowd gathered +by the side of the street. Curiousity got the better of him and he leaned +out of his window to ask an onlooker what was going on. The fellow explained +that a protestor against the U.S. position in South America had doused +himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. "That's terrible," gasped +the man. "But why is everyone still standing around?" + "Well, they're taking up a collection for his wife and kids," the +onlooker explained. "Would you be willing to help?" + "Well, sure," replied the New Yorker. "I suppose I could spare a +gallon or two." +% +A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came upon +two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope. "That's what +I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow man". + +As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well, he +sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing." +% +A Southern boy graduates from high school heads north to college, taking the +family dog, Old Blue with him, for company. He's only been there a few weeks +when he gets a call from his girlfriend; seems like they've got a problem, +and she needs a thousand dollars to take care of it. The boy calls his folks: + "How are you?" they ask. + "Oh, I'm fine," he says. + "And how," they ask, "is Old Blue?" + "Well, he's kind of depressed. You see, there's this lady up here +that teaches dogs to talk, and Ol' Blue is feelin' kind of left out 'cause +he's the only dog that doesn't know how to talk. She charges a thousand +dollars." + The parents send the boy the thousand dollars, he forwards it to Mary +Lou, and everything's fine until Christmas vacation. The boy leaves Ol' Blue +at his dorm, 'cause he just can't figure out what to tell his parents. Sure +enough, when he gets home, the first thing his father wants to know is +"Where's Old Blue?" + "Well, Pa," says the boy. "I was driving on home and Old Blue was +talking away about this and that when we passed the Buford's farm. Old Blue, +well, he said, `Say, what do you think your mother would do if I told her +that your father's been comin' over here and seeing Mrs. Buford all these +years?'" + The father looks at his son -- "You shot that dog, didn't you, boy?" +% +A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. +% +A truly wise woman never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. +% +A woman was married to a golfer. One day she asked, "If I were +to die, would you remarry?" + After some thought, the man replied, "Yes, I've been very happy in +this marriage and I would want to be this happy again." + The wife asked, "Would you give your new wife my car?" + "Yes," he replied. "That's a good car and it runs well." + "Well, would you live in this house?" + "Yes, it is a lovely house and you have decorated it beautifully. +I've always loved it here." + "Well, would you give her my golf clubs?" + "No." + "Why not?" + "She's left handed." +% +After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose names +have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary Louise Amp, +James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted many important +electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi Galvani discovered (this +is the truth) that when he attached two different kinds of metal to the leg +of a frog, an electrical current developed and the frog's leg kicked, even +though it was no longer attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. +Galvani's discovery led to enormous advances in the field of amphibian +medicine. Today, skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been +seriously injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and +watch it hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact +that it sinks like a stone. + -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" +% +All extremists should be taken out and shot. +% +Always run from a knife and rush a gun. + -- Jimmy Hoffa +% +An encounter with a beautiful woman is good medicine for the well organized +logical mind -- a little jolt never hurt. Note that the anarchists have +been saying this for years about the A-bomb and civilization. + -- Encyclopadia Apocryphia +% +An old man is lying on his deathbed with all his children, grandchildren and +great-grandchildren gathered around, teary-eyed at the approaching finale of +a deeply loved family member. The old man is in a light coma, and the doctors +have confirmed that the waiting will be over within the next twenty-four +hours. Suddenly, the old man opens his eyes whispers: "I must be dreaming +of heaven... I smell my daughter Lisle's strudel." + "No, no, grandfather, you are not dreaming", he is reassured. +"Grandmother is baking strudel right now." + A faint smile crosses the old man's face. "Go and get me a sliver of +strudel," he says, "she bakes the finest strudel in the world." + One of the grandchildren is immediately dispatched to honor the old +man's request, and, after what seems a long time, he returns empty-handed. + "Did you bring me some of Lisle's strudel?", the old man quavers. + "I'm... I'm very sorry, grandfather, but she says it's for the +funeral." +% +And so it goes. It is humiliating, when you should know better, to become +victim of the timeless story of the little brown dog running across the +freight yard, crossing all the railroad tracks until a switch engine nipped +off the end of his tail between wheel and rail. The little dog yelped, and +he spun so quickly to check himself out that the next wheel chopped through +his little brown neck. The moral is, of course, never lose your head over +a piece of tail. + -- John D. MacDonald, "The Scarlet Ruse" +% +And so, men, we can see that human skin is an even more complex and +fascinating organ than we thought it was, and if we want to keep it looking +good, we have to care for it as though it were our own. One approach is to +undergo a painful surgical procedure wherein your skin is turned inside-out, +so the young cells are on the outside, but then of course you have the +unpleasant side effect that your insides gradually fill up with dead old +cells and you explode. So this procedure is pretty much limited to top +Hollywood stars for whom youthful beauty is a career necessity, such as +Elizabeth Taylor and Orson Welles. + -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face" +% +As a professional humorist, I often get letters from readers who are +interested in the basic nature of humor. "What kind of a sick perverted +disgusting person are you," these letters typically ask, "that you make +jokes about setting fire to a goat?" ... + -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" +% +As I bit into the nectarine, it had a crisp juiciness about it that was very +pleasurable - until I realized it wasn't a nectarine at all, but A HUMAN HEAD!! + -- Jack Handley +% +As you reach for the web, a venomous spider appears. Unable to pull +your hand away in time, the spider promptly, but politely, bites you. +The venom takes affect quickly causing your lips to turn plaid along +with your complexion. You become dazed, and in your stupor you fall +from the limbs of the tree. Snap! Your head falls off and rolls all +over the ground. The instant before you croak, you hear the whoosh of +a vacuum being filled by the air surrounding your head. Worse yet, the +spider is suing you for damages. +% +At social gatherings, I would amuse everyone by standing uponst the +coffee table and striking meself repeatedly upon the head with a brick. + -- H.R. Gumby +% +"Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think +Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? + + (1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. + (2) Advising the President. + (3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin." + -- David Letterman +% +Bitch, bitch, bitch -- +That's all I ever hear, +Ever since the dog ate the baby, +"Get rida the dog, get rida the dog." +% +Blood flows down one leg and up the other. +% +Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier. +% +"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began +to suspect 'Hungry' ..." + -- Gary Larson, "The Far Side" +% +**** CONVENTION REMINDER + +No experiment was approved for the convention by the Human Subjects +Committee of the Psychiatric Convention Planning Team. If you notice +smoke coming from under a closed door, if you find a body on the hotel +carpet, or if you just meet someone who orders you to press a button +marked "450 volts", react as you would normally. +% +Crush! Kill! Destroy! +% +Cut a man's hand when you fight him. He'll freeze, fascinated by the sight +of his own blood. That's when you stick him in the throat. + -- Gerry Youghkins +% +Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why +several of us died of tuberculosis. + -- Jack Handley +% +Dammit, how many times do I have to tell you? _____FIRST you rape, ____THEN you pillage!! +% +Damned if I know. And you can be fuckin' sure I'll never rent no car +from Avis again. + -- Herbie Sperling, on the meaning of two pistols and an + axe used in three murders being found in the trunk of his + rented car. +% +Dear Abby: + I have two brothers. One was sent to the electric chair when I was +a child. My mother died in an insane asylum. My father is a pimp and my +sister is a very successful and highly paid prostitute. My other brother +is a graduate student attending Purdue University. + Recently I met a wonderful girl who has just been released from prison +for murdering her illegitimate child with a Zip-loc sandwich bag. We're very +much in love and want to be married after her venereal disease is cured. + My problem is this: should I tell her about my brother at Purdue? + + Sincerely, + Undecided. +% +Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will be +the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over the table. + -- The Anarchist Cookbook +% +Did you know? + EVERY TIME A LOAF OF BREAD IS BAKED, + APPROXIMATELY + 150,000,000 YEASTS ARE + KILLED + + Come to the award-winning 1987 film, + "The Very Small and Quiet Screams" + -- a cinematic electromicrograph of yeasts being baked. + +A must for those who care about yeast, and especially for those who don't. + + SPONSORED BY + Brown Anaerobe Rights Coalition (BARC) + Student Bakers for Social Responsibility + Coalition for the ELevation of Life (CELL) + Campus Crusade for Fetal Matters + +Defend all life: "From greatest to least, from human to yeast!" +% +Dig it, first they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same +room with them, then they even shoved a fork in a victim's stomach. Wild! + -- Bernadine Dohrn, on the Manson killings +% +Does it rape elephants? + -- Brent Byer +% +Don +Ameche: I didn't know you had a cousin Penelope, Bill! + Was she pretty? +W.C.: Well, her face was so wrinkled it looked like seven miles of + bad road. She had so many gold teeth, Don, she use to have + to sleep with her head in a safe. She died in Bolivia. +Don: Oh Bill, it must be hard to lose a relative. +W.C.: It's almost impossible. + -- W.C. Fields, "The Further Adventures of Larson E. + Whipsnade and other Tarradiddles" +% +Don't crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers! + -- Firesign Theatre +% +Dozens of bears are found dead in Alaska and Canada every summer, killed +by blood lost to the voracious mosquito. The estimated life-expectancy +of a naked man on the tundra in summer is about 15 minutes. In that +time, approximately 250,000 mosquitoes would have drawn enough blood to +kill him. + -- Gus McLeavy, "Day-by-Day Trivia Almanac" +% +Dr. Fritzkee's Lucky Astrology Diet + +The problem with the diets of today is that most women who do achieve +that magic weight, seventy-six pounds, are still fat. Dr. Fritzkee's +Lucky Astrology Diet is a sure-fire method of reducing with the added +luxury that you never feel hungry. + +Here's how the diet works: + + FOODS ALLOWED +First Month: One egg +Second Month: A raisin +Third Month: Pumpkin pie with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. + +If after the third month you haven't gotten to your dream weight, try +lopping off parts of your body until those scales tip just right for you. +% +Driving in Texas is simple. For the first 100 miles you swerve to avoid +jackrabbits. For the second 100 miles you hit whatever jackrabbits get in +the way. After that you chase off into the brush after them. +% +During a grouse hunt in North Carolina two intrepid sportsmen were +blasting away at a clump of trees near a stone wall. Suddenly a red-face +country squire popped his head over the wall and shouted, "Hey, you almost +hit my wife." + +"Did I?" cried one hunter, aghast. "Terribly sorry. Have a shot at +mine, over there." +% +Eat one live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse +will happen to you the rest of the day. + +[Well, actually, to either of you... Ed.] +% +Eat the rich -- the poor are tough and stringy. +% +Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are full of +regrets that Michaelangelo died; but by and by you only regret that you didn't +see him do it. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Every suicide is a solution to a problem. + -- Jean Baechler +% +Famous last words: + 1: Everything that you'll need to know is in the manual. + 2: You and what army? + 3: Don't worry, I can handle it. + 4: If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't + be a cop. + 5: I don't see how they make a profit + out of this stuff at a dollar and a quarter a fifth. + 6: We're just getting into semantics again. + 7: Everything's under control. + 8: He's an asshole! Don't try to "shush" me! +% +Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can. +% +FOR SALE: + Parachute. Used once. Never opened. Slightly Stained. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS! #6 + +RAZORBACK: Paul Harbride, 1984, 2 hours 25 min. + One of the great Australian films of the early 1980's, and + arguably the best movie ever made about a large, man-eating + hog. Some violence. With Gregory Harrison. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #10 + +CARTABLANCA: + Bogart stars as the owner of a north african nightclub that sells + only Mexican beer. Of course, this policy gets him into no end of + trouble with the local French authorities who would really prefer + wine and the occupying Germans who believe that only their beer is + fit to be sold. Wacky events ensue until the gripping climax in + which the much-hated German beer distributer is drowned in a vat. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #11 + +MONOPOLI: + Peter Weir's classic film examining the false heroism of parlour + games. The powerful ending of the film sees one young man after + another charge toward GO, only to senselessly lose his life on the + Boardwalk property. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #4 + +WITLESS: + Peter Weir directs Sylvester Stallone in the most challenging role + of his career. Stallone plays a Philadelphia police officer on the + run from corrupt officials. He is wounded and then nursed back to + health by Amish Mennonites. Fearful that they might unwittingly + reveal his hiding place, he blows them all away. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #7 + +OUT OF "OUT OF AFRICA": + This film is a compilation of selected news clips depicting audiences + frantically pushing and shoving to get out of theatres where "Out of + Africa" is showing. Many people are trampled to death in the frenzy. + Due to its violence and offensive language, not recommended for + younger viewers. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #8 + +THE SMURFS AND THE CUISINART (1986) + The lovable little blue Smurfs encounter a lovable little kitchen + appliance, which invites them to play. The Smurfs learn a valuable + (if sometimes fatal) lesson. + +THE SMURFS AND THE CARBON-DIOXIDE INDUSTRIAL LASER (1987) + The inevitable sequel. The lovable and somewhat mangled surviving + Smurfs team up with the Care Bears to encounter a cute, lovable piece + of high-tech welding equipment, which teaches them the magic of + becoming rather greasy smoke. Heartwarming fun for the entire family. +% +FORTUNE PRESENTS FAMOUS LAST WORDS: #4 + +Socrates: I DRANK WHAT!?!? +Tarzan: Who greased the grape viiiiiiiiiiiinnnneee........ +Al Capone: There's a violin in my violin case! +Pilot, TWA Fl. #343: What's a mountain goat doing 'way up here? +% +God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to +change the things we can, and wisdom to hide the bodies of the slobs we +have to kill for pissing us off ... +% +Goldfish... what stupid animals. Even Wayne Cody stops eating before +he bursts. +% +Groundhog Day has been observed only once in Los Angeles because when the +groundhog came out of its hole, it was killed by a mudslide. + -- Johnny Carson +% +Guns don't kill people. Bullets kill people. +% +Happy is the child whose father died rich. +% +Harris had the beefsteak pie between his knees, and was carving it, and George +and I were waiting with our plates ready. + "Have you got a spoon there?" says Harris; "I want a spoon to help +the gravy with." + The hamper was close behind us, and George and I both turned round to +reach one out. We were not five seconds getting it. When we looked round +again, Harris and the pie were gone! + It was a wide, open field. There was not a tree or a bit of hedge for +hundreds of yards. He could not have tumbled into the river, because we were +on the water side of him, and he would have had to climb over us to do it. + George and I gazed all about. Then we gazed at each other. + "Has he been snatched up to heaven?" I queried. + "They'd hardly have taken the pie, too," said George. + There seemed weight in this objection, and we discarded the heavenly +theory. + "I suppose the truth of the matter is," suggested George, descending +to the commonplace and practicable, "that there has been an earthquake." + And then he added, with a touch of sadness in his voice: "I wish he +hadn't been carving that pie." + -- Jerome K. Jerome, "Three Men In A Boat" +% +Harry and Fred were playing their Sunday afternoon golf game. The game, as +always, was close. They were at the treacherous 12th hole: a par three that +required a perfect first shot over a large pond and onto a tiny green. There +were sand traps on the other three sides of the green, and a small road 50 +feet beyond it. Harry went first. He carefully addressed the ball and hit +a good shot that landed just on the edge of the green, narrowly avoiding the +pond. Just as Fred addressed his ball, he looked up and noticed a funeral +procession along the road just behind the green. Fred put down his club, +took his hat off, and waited for the entire procession to pass. As soon as +the cars were gone he put his hat back on and started addressing the ball +again. Harry said, "Damn, Fred. That was a really nice thing you did, +waiting for the funeral to pass like that." + Fred finished his swing, making perfect contact with the ball. It +was an excellent shot that landed 7 feet from the hole. "It's the least I +could do," he said, smiling at his shot, "We were married for 22 years, +you know." +% + Harry, a golfing enthusiast if there ever was one, arrived home +from the club to an irate, ranting wife. + "I'm leaving you, Harry," his wife announced bitterly. "You +promised me faithfully that you'd be back before six and here it is almost +nine. It just can't take that long to play 18 holes of golf." + "Honey, wait," said Harry. "Let me explain. I know what I promised +you, but I have a very good reason for being late. Fred and I tee'd off +right on time and everything was find for the first three holes. Then, on +the fourth tee Fred had a stroke. I ran back to the clubhouse but couldn't +find a doctor. And, by the time I got back to Fred, he was dead. So, for +the next 15 holes, it was hit the ball, drag Fred, hit the ball, drag Fred... +% +Have you flogged your kid today? +% + He had been bitten by a dog, but didn't give it much thought +until he noticed that the wound was taking a remarkably long time to +heal. Finally, he consulted a doctor who took one look at it and +ordered the dog brought in. Just as he had suspected, the dog had +rabies. Since it was too late to give the patient serum, the doctor +felt he had to prepare him for the worst. The poor man sat down at the +doctor's desk and began to write. His physician tried to comfort him. +"Perhaps it won't be so bad," he said. "You needn't make out your will +right now." + "I'm not making out any will," relied the man. "I'm just writing +out a list of people I'm going to bite!" +% +He heard the snick of a rifle bolt and found himself peering down the muzzle +of a weapon held by a drunken liquor store owner -- "There's a conflict," he +said, "there's a conflict between land and people... the people have to go..." + -- Stan Ridgeway, "Call of the West" +% +He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the +cabbages. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +He was a cowboy, mister, and he loved the land. He loved it so much he +made a woman out of dirt and married her. But when he kissed her, she +disintegrated. Later, at the funeral, when the preacher said, "Dust to +dust," some people laughed, and the cowboy shot them. At his hanging, he +told the others, "I'll be waiting for you in heaven -- with a gun." + -- Jack Handley +% +He was the sort of person whose personality would be greatly improved +by a terminal illness. +% +He was the world's only armless sculptor. He put the chisel in his mouth +and his wife hit him on the back of the head with a mallet. + -- Fred Allen +% +He's got the heart of a little child, and he keeps it in a jar on his desk. +% + "Heard you were moving your piano, so I came over to help." + "Thanks. Got it upstairs already." + "Do it alone?" + "Nope. Hitched the cat to it." + "How would that help?" + "Used a whip." +% +Hello, friend! You say things aren't going too well? You say you have a +date with your favorite girl when it starts raining so hard you can't see? +And you're out on some back road when the car stalls and won't start, so +you set off accross the fields, and 50 feet of barbed wire hits you right +smack in the puss? And then there's a big explosion behind you and you +don't hear your girl screaming any more? + + Well, take a walk in the sun and hold your head up high! + You'll show the world; you'll tell them where to get off! + You'll never give up, never give up, never give up -- that ship! +% + "Hello, Mrs. Premise!" + "Oh, hello, Mrs. Conclusion! Busy day?" + "Busy? I just spent four hours burying the cat." + "Four hours to bury a cat!?" + "Yes, he wouldn't keep still: wrigglin' about, 'owlin'..." + "Oh, it's not dead then." + "Oh no, no, but it's not at all a well cat, and as we're goin' away +for a fortnight I thought I'd better bury it just to be on the safe side." + "Quite right. You don't want to come back from Sorrento to a dead +cat, do you?" + -- Monty Python's Flying Circus +% +Help Stamp Out Rape! (Say Yes.) +% +HERE'S A GOOD JOKE to do during an earthquake. Straddle a big crack in +the earth and if it opens wider, go, "Whoa! Whoa!" and flap your arms +around as if you're going to fall. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Hire the handicapped -- they're fun to watch! +% +Home of Doberman Propulsion Laboratories: The ultimate in watchdog weaponry. + -- Chris Shaw +% +How to Raise Your I.Q. by Eating Gifted Children + -- Book title by Lewis B. Frumkes +% + "How'd you get that flat?" + "Ran over a bottle." + "Didn't you see it?" + "Damn kid had it under his coat." +% +I braved the contempt of my friends last week and ventured out to see +Bambi, the Disney rerelease that is proving to be a hit once again in the +box office. I was looking forward to a gentle, soothing, late afternoon +relief from the Washington Summer. Instead I was traumatized. As a +psycho-sexual return to the horrors of early adolescence, it couldn't be +more effective. For the first half-hour, you're lulled into an agreeable +sense of security and comfort. Birds twitter; small rabbits turn out to +be great conversationalists. Pop is what Senator Moynihan would describe +as an absent father, but Mom's there to make you feel OK in the odd +thunderstorm. You make great friends, fool around on the ice, discover +the meadow, generally mellow out. Then, without any particular warning, +your mom gets shot, your voice breaks, huge growths start appearing on +your head, and your peers start heading off into the clover with the +apparent intention of having sex. Next thing you know, the forest burns +down. If I were still eight, I think I'd prefer Rambo III. + -- Townsend Davis +% +I can't stand this proliferation of paperwork. It's useless to fight the +forms. You've got to kill the people producing them. + -- Vladimir Kabaidze, general director of the Ivanovo Machine + Building Works (near Moscow) in a speech to the Communist + Party Conference +% +I collect rare photographs... I have two... One of Houdini locking his +keys in his car... the other is a rare picture of Norman Rockwell beating +up a child. + -- Steven Wright +% +I could never learn to like her -- except on a raft at sea with no +other provisions in sight. + -- Mark Twain +% +I don't want to alarm anybody, but there is an excellent chance that the +Earth will be destroyed in the next several days. Congress is thinking +about eliminating a federal program under which scientists broadcast signals +to alien beings. This would be a large mistake. Alien beings have nuclear +blaster death cannons. You cannot cut off their federal programs as if they +were merely poor people ... + -- Dave Barry, "THE ALIENS ARE COMING, THE ALIENS ARE COMING!" +% +I GUESS I KINDA LOST CONTROL because in the middle of the play I ran up +and lit the evil puppet villain on fire. + +No, I didn't. Just kidding. I just said that to illustrate one of the +human emotions which is freaking out. Another emotion is greed, as when +you kill someone for money or something like that. Another emotion is +generosity, as when you pay someone double what he paid for his stupid +puppet. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I GUESS OF ALL MY UNCLES, I liked Uncle Caveman the best. We called him +Uncle Caveman because he lived in a cave and because sometimes he'd eat +one of us. Later, we found out he was a bear. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I GUESS WE WERE ALL GUILTY, in a way. We shot him, we skinned him, and +we all got a complimentary bumper sticker that said, "I helped skin Bob." + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I had a dream that all the victims of The Pill came back...boy, were they mad! + -- Steven Wright +% +I had to hit him -- he was starting to make sense. +% +I have a very firm grasp on reality! I can reach out and strangle it any time! +% + "I know a life of crime led me to this sorry state. I blame society. +Society made me what I am today!" + "That's bullshit Archie. You're just a young suburban punk like me." + "It still... hurts... auugghh!" + "You're going to be okay..." + "...gurgle..." + "... maybe not." + -- Repo Man +% +"I know what you're thinking -- `Did he fire six shots or only five?' +Well, to tell you the truth, in all the excitement, I kind of lost track +myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the +world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself +one question: `Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?" + -- Harry Callahan, badge #2211 +% +I love the smell of napalm in the morning. + -- Robert Duval, "Apocalypse Now" +% +I read a column by George Will that Scarface should be rated X because +parents were taking their children to see it. So what? Why should the +motion-picture industry be responsible for our morality? + Dad says to Mom, "Honey, Scarface is in town." + "What's it about?" + "Human scum who kill each other over cocaine deals." + "Sounds great! Let's take the kids!" + -- Ian Shoales +% +I wrecked trains because I like to see people die. I like to hear +them scream. + -- Sylvestre Matuschka, "the Hungarian Train Wreck Freak", + escaped prison 1937, not heard from since +% +"I'm terribly sorry, sir," the novice barber apologized, after badly nicking +a customer. "Let me wrap your head in a towel." + "That's all right," said the customer. "I'll just take it home under +my arm." +% +I've never struck a woman in my life, not even my own mother. + -- W.C. Fields +% +IF A KID ASKS YOU where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him +is, "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing +to tell him is, "Probably because of something you did." + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +If every kid had a funny tooth to bite down on whenever the world disappointed +him, prussic acid could solve our population problems in one generation. + -- G.C. Edmonson's Albert, "The Man Who Corrupted Earth" +% +... If forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with +the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls +asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead ... + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +If Ricky Schroder and Gary Coleman had a fight on television with +pool cues, who would win? + (1) Ricky Schroder + (2) Gary Coleman + (3) The television viewing public + -- David Letterman +% +If you go parachuting, and your parachute doesn't open, and your friends are +all watching you fall, I think a funny gag would be to pretend you were +swimming. + -- Jack Handley +% +If you guys have a beef with her, that's her problem. Don't lay it on +me. The old lady has to take care of her own weight. + -- Herbie Sperling, convicted heroin dealer, on being + arrested for narcotics possession at his mother's house. +% +If you laid all the Elvis impersonators in the world, end to end... +you'd wanna run and get a steam roller, real fast. + -- David Letterman +% +If you look rather casual with the knife when you flick it open, people +don't like it. + -- Gerry Youghkins +% +If you love something set it free. If it doesn't come back to you, +hunt it down and kill it. +% +"If you're a real good kid, I'll give you a piggy-back ride on a buzz-saw." + -- W. C. Fields +% +If you're a young Mafia gangster out on your first date, I bet it's real +embarrassing if someone tries to kill you. + -- Jack Handley +% +If your enemy is buried in quicksand up to his neck, pull him out. +If he is buried up to his eyes, step on his head. + -- Niccoli Machiavelli, "The Prince" +% +Inspector: "Mrs. Freem, was this your husband's first hunting accident?" +Mrs. Freem: "His first fatal one, yes." + -- Woody Allen +% +Inter-Dwarf Memo +To: Dwarf-list +From: Doc +Re: S. White + + If that bitch cleans one more thermometer with Ajax, I'm gonna kill +her. I'll give her apples, nice big apples. With surprises inside. Yeah, +surprises. +% +Inter-Dwarf Memo +To: Dwarf-list +From: Happy +Re: S. White + + Let it be noted that if she whistles that goddamned song one +more time I'm gonna rip her fuckin' lips off. Have a nice day. +% +It is November first 1940; in the famous sound stage of THE WIZARD OF OZ on +the MGM lot, a little man is lying face-up on the yellow brick road. His +wide eyes stare upward into the blinding stage lights. He is wearing a +kind of comic soldier's uniform with a yellow coat and puffy sleeves and +big fez-like blue and yellow hat with a feather on top. His yellow hair +and beard are the phony straw color of Hollywood. He could pass for some +kind of cute in the typical tinsel-town way if it wasn't for the knife +sticking out of his chest. *Someone had murdered a Munchkin.* + -- Stuart Kaminsky, "Murder on the Yellow Brick Road" +% + It seems that John gets this phone call: + "Hello," he answers. The voice on the other end of the line +is hard and cold. + "This is Susan," he hears. "We met at a party a few months ago. + "Of course, Susan!", John replies. "How are you?" + "Not very well. Remember how after the party you took me home and +we parked? And you told me that I was a 'good sport'? Well, I'm pregnant +and I'm going to kill myself tonight." + John is silent for a few moments, collecting his thoughts. "Well," +he finally replies, "you sure *are* a good sport." +% +It was a warm, sunny Sunday, and a man and his wife decided to take in the zoo. +They spent the day, and at closing time they walked past the gorilla cage, and +the man noticed the gorilla looking at his wife. "That gorilla is getting +excited just looking at your tits," he said. "Why don't you take your blouse +off and we'll see what he does?" + At first she refused. But finally persuaded by her husband, she took +off her blouse and bra. The gorilla went nuts. He started grunting and +jumping up and down. + "Hey," the husband said, "let's really blow his mind. Take off all +your clothes and we'll see what he does." + Again she said no and again he persuaded her. This time the ape +really went bananas! He climbed up and down the bars, did flips, ran around +in circles and tossed his food all over the cage. The husband went over to +the cage, opened the door and pushed his wife in. + "Now," said the husband, "tell that motherfucker you have a headache!" +% +It was on the tip of my tongue to tell them about the deer, but I ended up +not doing it. That was one thing I kept to myself. I've never spoken or +written of it until just now, today. And I have to tell you that it seems +a lesser thing written down, damn near inconsequential. But for me it was +the best part of that trip, the cleanest part, and it was a moment I found +myself returning to, almost helplessly, when there was trouble in my life -- +my first day in the bush in Vietnam, and this fellow walked into the clearing +where we were with his hand over his nose and when he took his hand away there +was no nose there because it had been shot off; the time the doctor told us +our youngest son might be hydrocephalic (he turned out just to have an +oversized head, thank God); the long crazy weeks before my mother died. I +would find my thoughts turning back to that morning, the scuffed suede of +her ears, the white flash of her tail. But eight hundred million Red Chinese +don't give a shit, right? The most important things are the hardest to say, +because words diminish them. It's hard to make strangers care about the +good things in your life. + -- Stephen King, "The Body" +% +It was pity stayed his hand. "Pity I don't have any more bullets," thought +Frito. + -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" +% +"It's all so painfully empty and lonesome... I don't think I can stand +any more of it... the whole dreadful way we are born, die, and are +never missed. The fact there is *nobody*... nobody really... We come +out of a yawning tomb of flesh and sink back finally into another tomb. +What is the point of it all? Who thought up this sickening circle of +flesh and blood? We come into the world bleeding and cut and our bones +half-crushed only to emerge and suffer more torment, multilation, and +then at the last lie down in some hole in the ground forever. Who could +have thought it up, I wonder?" + -- James Purdy +% +It's hard to outrun dead people because they don't have to breathe. + -- Hokey, describing "Night of the Living Dead" +% +Joan of Arc is alive and medium well. +% +July 4 + +Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days +of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one +Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Keep patting your enemy on the back until a small bullet hole appears +between your fingers. + -- Joe Bonanno +% +Kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out. +% +Kill a commie for Christ! +% +Kill a commy for your mommy. +% +Kill for the love of killing! Kill for the love of Kali! + -- Hindu saying +% +Kill your parents. + -- Jerry Rubin +% +Knights are hardly worth it. I mean, all that shell and so little meat... +% +Legalize free-enterprise murder: why should governments have all the fun? +% +Long, long ago, in the Old West, a rancher rode into town to buy supplies. +When he returned, he found that his whole family had been killed, his wife +raped, his house burned, and all his cattle rustled. When he told his +distant neighbors about the tragedy, a few of them reported that the only +stranger they had seen in the area for weeks was a tall desperado wearing a +black hat and a red neckerchief. + The cowboy saddled his fastest horse and set out to find the villian. +He searched for months but couldn't catch up with the culprit; in town after +dusty town he was told that a man fitting the description had been there but +had just departed; usually after some heinous crime. + One evening after a hard day's ride he came into a town, tied his +horse, and entered the saloon. At a table in the corner sat an ugly man, +with a black hat and a red neckerchief! Slowly the cowboy stalked up to +this man, his hands resting upon his guns. + "Are you the man who killed my family, raped my wife, burned my +house and rustled my cattle?" + "Probably; after so many, how can I be sure?" snarled the bandit. + "You better cut that shit out!" +% +Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child -- if you parboil them +first for seven hours, they always come out tender. + -- W. C. Fields +% +Many lower life forms demonstrate qualities that, at first, just don't +seem survival oriented. For instance, the female praying mantis, after mating +with, well, her mate, will devour him. For the male praying mantis, however, +it's a catch-22. If he mates, he gets screwed out of an opportunity to mate +again. If he doesn't mate, he doesn't reproduce, ending his family tree. This +suicidal behavior is commonly called the Preying Mantis Syndrome -- and many +life forms are periodically subject to its wrath. How did the preying mantis +become stuck in such a awful, vicious cycle? This is probably what happened: + The male mantis arrives at the residence of the female mantis. After +some courtship exercises (dinner, a movie, inserting the diaphram) they mate. +The female mantis, her lust for... lust being satisfied, relaxes while the +male raids the refrigerator and returns home. This behavior continues until +the male and female (mantissas?) establish a permanent relationship. Then the +male establishes a new pattern of behavior: Football on Mondays, baseball on +Tuesdays, happy hour on Wednesdays, uh, well, uh, working-late-at-the-office +on Thursdays, etc. etc. The female tolerates this for awhile, then files for +a divorce. After a long court battle, she concludes one thing: It simplifies +matters tremendously to just eat him when you're done with him. + Well, through the centuries of evolution, the Preying Mantis Syndrome +has been carried up to the highest life forms, as well as to humans. That is +why, one week out of every month, the female of the species will feel compelled +to bite the head off of the male. The Syndrome is inescapable, but when it +occurs in the female of our species, it's best to just avoid them for a while. +% + Mother seemed pleased by my draft notice. "Just think of all the +people in England, they've chosen you, it's a great honour, son." + Laughingly I felled her with a right cross. + -- Spike Milligan +% + Moving along a dimly light street, a man I know was suddenly +approached by a stranger who had slipped from the shadows nearby. + "Please, sir," pleaded the stranger, "would you be so kind as +to help a poor unfortunate fellow who is hungry and can't find work? +All I have in the world is this gun." +% +My best argument against discrimination is quite simple: + +Does it really matter if the ABC people are inferior to the DEF people if +they can tell one end of a gun from the other? +% +My girlfriend and I sure had a good time at the beach last summer. First +she'd bury me in the sand, then I'd bury her. This summer I'm going to go +back and dig her up. +% + "My God! Are we sure he was a liberal?" + "Pretty sure. They pulled him from a Volvo." +% +Negotiate, my ass! Let's kill something! +% +Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off. +% +Never hit a man with glasses; hit him with a baseball bat. +% +Never say "Oops" in an operating room. +% +Never settle with words what you can accomplish with a flame thrower. +% +New members urgently required for SUICIDE CLUB, Watford area. + -- Monty Python's Big Red Book +% +NEWSFLASH!! + Rodney Fenster looked up the shaft of elevator number four at +1700 N. 17th St. this morning to see if the elevator was on its way down. +It was. Age 31. +% +No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds that it was +human nature. +% +Note to myself: use real bullets next time. +% +... Now you're ready for the actual shopping. Your goal should be to get it +over with as quickly as possible, because the longer you stay in the mall, +the longer your children will have to listen to holiday songs on the mall +public-address system, and many of these songs can damage children +emotionally. For example: "Frosty the Snowman" is about a snowman who +befriends some children, plays with them until they learn to love him, then +melts. And "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is about a young reindeer who, +because of a physical deformity, is treated as an outcast by the other +reindeer. Then along comes good, old Santa. Does he ignore the deformity? +Does he look past Rudolph's nose and respect Rudolph for the sensitive +reindeer he is underneath? No. Santa asks Rudolph to guide his sleigh, as +if Rudolph were nothing more than some kind of headlight with legs and a +tail. So unless you want your children exposed to this kind of +insensitivity, you should shop quickly. + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +Nuke the gay, unborn, baby whales for Jesus. +% +Nuke the unborn gay female whales for Jesus. +% +Nuke them till they glow, then shoot them in the dark. +% +On his way back from work, a driver came upon a horrible wreck in which one +car looked exactly like his neighbor's. Stopping hurriedly on the side of +the road, he ran toward the smoldering debris. + "Listen, mister," a policeman said, holding him back, "I can't let +you come any closer." + "But that may be my friend, Henry, in there," the anguished man +explained. + "OK, but it's pretty grisly," the cop cautioned. "There was a +decapitation." + The policeman reached into the back seat of the demolished car and +pulled forth the head, holding it at arm's length. "Is this your friend?" + "That's not him -- thank heavens," the man said. "Henry's much +taller." +% + On the occasion of Nero's 25th birthday, he arrived at the Colosseum +to find that the Praetorian Guard had prepared a treat for him in the arena. +There stood 25 naked virgins, like candles on a cake, tied to poles, burning +alive. "Wonderful!" exclaimed the deranged emperor, "but one of them isn't +dead yet. I can see her lips moving. Go quickly and find out what she is +saying." + The centurion saluted, and hurried out to the virgin, getting as near +the flames as he dared, and listened intently. Then he turned and ran back +to the imperial box. "She is not talking," he reported to Nero, "she is +singing." + "Singing?" said the astounded emperor. "Singing what?" + "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you..." +% + Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in The Holiday Season, that very +special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old +traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We +traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we +see a shopper emerge from the mall. Then we follow her, in very much the same +spirit as the Three Wise Men, who, 2,000 years ago, followed a star, week after +week, until it led them to a parking space. + We try to keep our bumper about 4 inches from the shopper's calves, to +let the other circling cars know that she belongs to us. Sometimes, two cars +will get into a fight over whom the shopper belongs to, similar to the way +great white sharks will fight over who gets to eat a snorkeler. So, we follow +our shopper closely, hunched over the steering wheel, whistling "It's Beginning +to Look a Lot Like Christmas" through our teeth, until we arrive at her car, +which is usually parked several time zones away from the mall. Sometimes our +shopper tries to indicate she was merely planning to drop off some packages and +go back to shopping. But, when she hears our engine rev in a festive fashion +and sees the holiday gleam in our eyes, she realizes she would never make it. + -- Dave Barry, "Holiday Joy -- Or, the Great Parking Lot + Skirmish" +% + Once upon a time, there was a fisherman who lived by a great river. +One day, after a hard day's fishing, he hooked what seemed to him to be the +biggest, strongest fish he had ever caught. He fought with it for hours, +until, finally, he managed to bring it to the surface. Looking of the edge +of the boat, he saw the head of this huge fish breaking the surface. Smiling +with pride, he reached over the edge to pull the fish up. Unfortunately, he +accidently caught his watch on the edge, and, before he knew it, there was a +snap, and his watch tumbled into the water next to the fish with a loud +"sploosh!" Distracted by this shiny object, the fish made a sudden lunge, +simultaneously snapping the line, and swallowing the watch. Sadly, the +fisherman stared into the water, and then began the slow trip back home. + Many years later, the fisherman, now an old man, was working in a +boring assembly-line job in a large city. He worked in a fish-processing +plant. It was his job, as each fish passed under his hands, to chop off their +heads, readying them for the next phase in processing. This monotonous task +went on for years, the dull *thud* of the cleaver chopping of each head being +his entire world, day after day, week after weary week. Well, one day, as he +was chopping fish, he happened to notice that the fish coming towards him on +the line looked very familiar. Yes, yes, it looked... could it be the fish +he had lost on that day so many years ago? He trembled with anticipation as +his cleaver came down. IT STRUCK SOMETHING HARD! IT WAS HIS THUMB! +% + Once upon a time, there were five blind men who had the opportunity +to experience an elephant for the first time. One approached the elephant, +and, upon encountering one of its sturdy legs, stated, "Ah, an elephant is +like a tree." The second, after exploring the trunk, said, "No, an elephant +is like a strong hose." The third, grasping the tail, said "Fool! An elephant +is like a rope!" The fourth, holding an ear, stated, "No, more like a fan." +And the fifth, leaning against the animal's side, said, "An elephant is like +a wall." The five then began to argue loudly about who had the more accurate +perception of the elephant. + The elephant, tiring of all this abuse, suddenly reared up and +attacked the men. He continued to trample them until they were nothing but +bloody lumps of flesh. Then, strolling away, the elephant remarked, "It just +goes to show that you can't depend on first impressions. When I first saw +them I didn't think they they'd be any fun at all." +% +One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell by Dickens +without laughing. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +ONE THING KIDS LIKE is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take +my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to a burned-out +warehouse. "Oh, oh," I said. "Disneyland burned down." He cried and +cried, but I think that deep down he thought it was a pretty good joke. + +I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Only way to open lips of pigeon: sledgehammer. +% +Orcs really aren't so bad (if you use lots of catsup). +% +Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? +% + "Perhaps he is not honest," Mr. Frostee said inside Cobb's head, +sounding a bit worried. + "Of course he isn't," Cobb answered. "What we have to look out for +is him calling the cops anyway, or trying to blackmail us for more money." + "I think you should kill him and eat his brain," Mr. Frostee +said quickly. + "That's not the answer to *every* problem in interpersonal relations," +Cobb said, hopping out. + -- Rudy Rucker, "Software" +% +Pipo was born with few complications, but then the doctor accidently dropped +the infant on her head provoking her drunken father to drag the physician +outside where he would beat him to death with a live ocelot. + -- Love and Rockets +% +Please do not look directly into laser with remaining eye. +% +PPRB -- Pillage, plunder, rape and burn. +% +Psychics will soon lead dogs to your body. +% +Readers Ask: + Is it possible to kill a vampire with a gun? + +Vampires are a source of great irritation to the average homeowner and it is +usually to one's advantage to remove these pests as rapidly as possible. If +a professional exterminater specializing in the undead is unavailable, it is +possible to handle the situation with common household items. However, much +of the common folklore of vanquishing the undead needs clarifying. First, +driving a sharpened Louisville Slugger through a vampire's heart will NOT kill +it. Since it's not quite alive, why would the heart be any different than +puncturing it in the, for example, left buttock? Stake driving should be +avoided at any cost since its effect will be to terribly annoy the vampire, +and the last thing you want on your hands is an irate Lord of Darkness. +Handguns are also a definite no-no. Common sense indicates that it requires +more to defeat an incarnation of evil than hurling lumps of lead or silver +through its body. One time-honored method is to expose the vampire to the +sun, sever its head (any power saw should be sufficient), fill its mouth with +holy wafers (vanilla wafers over which the Lord's prayer has been read will +do in a pinch), immerse the head in an urn filled with holy water, place the +urn in consecrated lands and bury the rest of the body underneath a crossroad +(i.e. the intersection of Broad & Chestnut). Sure, it's a lot of work. But +you'll never have to worry about those damn bats pestering the neighbors again. +% +Remember kids, if there's a loaded gun in the room, be sure +that you're the one holding it. + -- Mr. Greenfatigues +% + Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence + Tip #1: How to tell when you are dead. + + (1) Little things start bothering you: little things like worms, + bugs, ants. + (2) Something is missing in your personal relationships. + (3) Your dog becomes overly affectionate. + (4) You have a hard time getting a waiter. + (5) Exotic birds flock around you. + (6) People ignore you at parties. + (7) You have a hard time getting up in the morning. + (8) You no longer get off on cocaine. +% + Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence + + (1) Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear + bomb; use the stairs. + (2) When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit + the ground. + (3) If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials. + (4) Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to + psychological problems. + (5) Food will be scarce; you will have to scavenge. Learn to + recognize foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed + potatoes, shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc. + (6) Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze; internal organs + will be scarce in the post-nuclear age. + (7) Try to be neat; fall only in designated piles. + (8) Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas; people could be + staggering illegally. + (9) Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to ones, but more + sanitary due to limited circulation. + (10) Accumulate mannequins now; spare parts will be in short supply on + D-Day. +% + Sam went to his psychiatrist complaining of a hatred for elephants. +"I can't stand elephants," he explained. "I lie awake nights despising +them. The thought of an elephant fills me with loathing." + "Sam," said the psychiatrist, "there's only one thing for you to do. +Go to Africa, organize a safari, find an elephant in the jungle and shoot it. +That way you'll get it out of your system." + Sam immediately made arrangements for a safari hunt in Africa, +inviting his best friend to join him. They arrived in Nairobi and lost no +time getting out on the jungle trails. After they had been hunting for +several days, Sam's best friend grabbed him by the arm one morning and +yelled at him: + "Sam, Sam, Sam! Over there behind that tree there's and elephant! +Sam -- Get your gun -- no, no, not THAT gun -- the rifle with the longer +barrel! Now aim it! QUICK! SAM! QUICK! No! Not that way -- this way! +Be sure you don't jerk the trigger! Wait SAM! Don't let him see you! Aim +at his head!" + Sam whirled around, took aim, and killed his friend. He was put in +prison and his psychiatrist flew to Africa to visit him. "I sent you over +here to kill and elephant and instead you shoot your best friend," the +psychiatrist said. "Why?" + "Well," Sam replied, "there's only one thing in the world that I +hate more than elephants and that is a loudmouth know-it-all!" +% +Save the whales. Club a seal instead. +% +Scene: + A small boy stands agasp on the stairway overlooking the living + room. A rather largish man in a big red suit with white fur and red + and white belled cap hunches over the fireplace, obviously interrupted + in filling stockings with packages taken from a huge bag slung over his + shoulder. His eyebrows are raised, matter-of-factly, as he spies the + boy intently watching him. + +Caption: + "I'm sorry you've seen me, Billy. Now I'll have to kill you. +% +Seeing a commotion in Harvard Square, a man strolled over and asked what +was going on. One of the onlookers explained to him that there was a Mooney +who had immersed himself in gasoline and was threatening to set fire to +himself to demonstrate his committment to the Rev. Moon. The man gasped and +asked what was being done to defuse the obviously dangerous situation. + "Well", replied the onlooker, "we're taking up a collection -- so +far I've got two Bics, four Zippos and eighteen books of matches." +% +Seems like this guy wanders into a rural outfitting store in Alaska, +and starts talking to a rather grizzled old man sitting by the cash +register. + "Hear ya got a lotta' bears 'round here?" + "Yeah, you could say that," answers the old man. + "GRIZZLIES?!?!" + "A few." + "Got any bear bells?" + "What's that?" + "You know, them little dingle-bells ya put on yer backpack so +bears know yer there so's they can run away ... I'll take one fer black +bears, and one fer them grizzlies. Say, how do you know yer in grizzly +country, anyhow?" + "Look fer scatt. Grizzly scatt's different from black bear scatt." + "Well now, what's IN grizzly scatt that's different?" + "Bear bells." +% +Silly Sally was baby sitting. But Silly Sally was getting bored. Thinking +a walk would help, she put the baby in his carriage. Silly Sally pushed the +carriage and pushed the carriage up this hill and down that one. She pushed +the carriage up the highest hill in town, and ALL OF A SUDDEN! It slipped out +of her hands (OH! NO!) and it was headed at high speed for the busiest +intersection in town. BUT! + +Silly Sally just laughed and la.....ug.......h....e....d........... +BECAUSE! SHE KNEW THERE WAS A STOP SIGN AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL! +% +Silly Sally was playing in the garage. And she was being disobedient. +She was playing with matches... AND... She burned down the garage. +(OHHHHHH) Silly Sally's mother said, "Silly Sally! You have been naughty! +And when your father gets home, you are going to get a good licking!" BUT! + +Silly Sally just laughed and la.....ug.......h....e....d........... +BECAUSE! SHE KNEW HER FATHER WAS IN THE GARAGE WHEN SHE BURNED IT DOWN! +% +... So the documentary-makers stick with sharks. Generally, their procedure +is to scatter bleeding fish pieces around their boat, so as to infest the +waters. I would estimate that the primary food source of sharks today is +bleeding fish pieces scattered by people making documentaries. Once the +sharks arrive, they are generally fairly listless. The general shark +attitude seems to be: "Oh God, another documentary." So the divers have to +somehow goad them into attacking, under the guise of Scientific Research. +"We know very little about the effect of electricity on sharks," the +narrator will say, in a deeply scientific voice. "That is why Todd is going +to jab this Great White in the testicles with a cattle prod." The divers +keep this kind of thing up until the shark finally gets irritated and snaps +at them, and then they act as though this was a totally unexpected and very +dangerous development, although clearly it is what they wanted all along. + -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" +% +Some people call them "cars" or "trucks;" I call them "dimensional +transmogrifiers" because they change three-dimensional cats into +two-dimensional ones. + -- F. Frederick Skitty +% +Sometimes it happens. People just explode. Natural causes. + -- Repo Man +% +Support mental health or I'LL KILL YOU!!!! +% +Support the American Kidney Foundation. Don't wear your motorcycle helmet. +% +Thanksgiving Day. + +Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks, now, but the turkeys. In the +island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become +you and me to sneer at Fiji. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +-- THE BATES MOTEL -- + ... convenient + ... clean + ... cozy + + Norman, knock loudly, + I'm in the shower. + + M. +% +The first Great Steward, Parrafin the Climber, was employed in King +Chloroplast's kitchen as second scullery boy when the old King met a tragic +death. He apparently fell backward by accident on a dozen salad forks. +Simultaneously the true heir, his son Carotene, mysteriously fled the city, +complaining of some sort of plot and a lot of threatening notes left on his +breakfast tray. At the time, this looked suspicious what with his father's +death, and Carotene was suspected of foul play. Then the rest of the King's +relatives began to drop dead one after the other in an odd fashion. Some +were found strangled with dishrags and some succumbed to food poisoning. A +few were found drowned in the soup vats, and one was attacked by assailants +unknown and beaten to death with a pot roast. At least three appear to have +thrown themselves backward on salad forks, perhaps in a noble gesture of +grief over the King's untimely end. Finally there was no one left in Minas +Troney who was either eligible or willing to wear the accursed crown, and +the rule of Twodor was up for grabs. The scullery slave Parrafin bravely +accepted the Stewardship of Twodor until that day when a lineal descendant +of Carotene's returns to reclaim his rightful throne, conquer Twodor's +enemies, and revamp the postal system. + -- Bored of the Rings, "Harvard Lampoon" +% +The first guy that rats gets a belly-full of slugs in the head. Understand? + -- Joey Glimco, trade unionist +% + The foreman of a lumber camp put a new workman on the circular saw. +As he turned away, he heard the man say, "Ouch!". + "What happened?" + "Dunno," replied the man. "I just stuck out my hand like this, and +-- well, I'll be damned. There goes another one!" +% +The Fortune Travel Agency offers a special... Vacation in Hell! + -- Grace Kelly drives you to the airport. + -- Thurman Munson flies you to a remote tropical island. + -- Ted Kennedy's your chauffeur on the island. + -- You go yachting with Natalie Wood. + -- You have drinks with William Holden. + -- And Roman Polanski stays at home and watches your kids. +% +The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them +before him. To ride their horses and take away their possessions. To see +the faces of those who were dear to them bedewed with tears, and to clasp +their wives and daughters to his arms. + -- Genghis Khan +% +"The hell with the prime directive! Let's kill something!" +% +The honeymooning couple agreed it was a fine day for horseback riding. +After a mile or so, the bride's mount cantered under a low tree and a +branch scraped her forehead lightly. The groom dismounted, glared at his +wife's horse, and said, "That's number one." + The ride then proceeded. After another mile or so, the bride's +horse stumbled over a pebble and the lady suffered a slight jostling. +Again, her man leapt from his saddle and strode over to the nervous animal. +"That's two," he said. + Five miles later, the bride's horse became frightened when a rabbit +crossed its path, reared up and threw the girl. Immediately, the groom was +off his horse. "That's three!", he shouted, and, pulling out a pistol, he +shot the horse between the eyes. + "You brute!" shrieked his bride. "Now I see the kind of man I +married! You're a sadist, that's what!" + The groom turned to her coolly. "That's one," he said. +% +The human race has been fascinated by sharks for as long as I can remember. +Just like the bluebird feeding its young, or the spider struggling to weave +its perfect web, or the buttercup blooming in spring, the shark reveals to +us yet another of the infinite and wonderful facets of nature, namely the +facet that it can bite your head off. This causes us humans to feel a +certain degree of awe. + -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" +% +The Least Successful Animal Rescue + The firemen's strike of 1978 made possible one of the great animal +rescue attempts of all time. Valiantly, the British Army had taken over +emergency firefighting and on 14 January they were called out by an elderly +lady in South London to retrieve her cat which had become trapped up a +tree. They arrived with impressive haste and soon discharged their duty. +So grateful was the lady that she invited them all in for tea. Driving off +later, with fond farewells completed, they ran over the cat and killed it. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The man standing at the bar (in court, unfortunately) was well-dressed, +alert and obviously intelligent. The judge asked him how he pleaded to +the charge of rape and, much to the magistrate's surprise, he replied, +"Not guilty by reason of insanity, your Honor." + "Insanity?" exclaimed the judge. + "Yes, sir," said the defendant. "I'm just crazy about it." +% +The most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little +children for their insurance money. + -- Sherlock Holmes +% +The people of Halifax invented the trampoline. During the Victorian +period the tripe-dressers of Halifax stretched tripe across a large wooden +frame and jumped up and down on it to `tender and dress' it. The tripoline, +as they called it, degenerated into becoming the apparatus for a spectator +sport. + +The people of Halifax also invented the harmonium, a device for +castrating pigs during Sunday service. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +The Psblurtex is an 18-inch long anaconda that hides in the gentlemen's +outfitting departments of Amazonian stores and is often bought by +mistake since its colors are those of the London Reform Club. Once +tied around its victim's neck, it strangles him gently and then claims +the insurance before running off to Germany where it lives in hiding. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +The Schwine-Kitzenger Institute study of 47 men over the age of 100 +showed that all had these things in common: + + (1) They all had moderate appetites. + (2) They all came from middle class homes + (3) All but two of them were dead. +% + The Snack + +"Oh my God," screamed Mommy, "You went and ate the Baby." + +"What baby?" asked Daddy. "You know that's just the last of the leftover + donkey." + +"Donkey, my ass!" said Mommy with some sentience. "Do you think I don't + recognize my own baby? Why I can still see his little privates + caught in the gap between your front teeth. How many times have I + told you to take only what's on the *top* two shelves of the freezer?" + +"But there wasn't a thing to eat," cried Daddy. + "And am I not the master of my own?" + +"Nothing to eat? + What about the elephant testicles in aspic that I put up for you + just last week in the ball jar? Our very first baby, too," wailed + Mommy, "that I was saving for Christmas dinner." + +"Testicles, testicles," said Daddy. "A man gets tired of testicles." + -- L.L. Zeiger +% +The sooner all the animals are dead, the sooner we'll find their money. + -- Ed Bluestone, The National Lampoon +% +The Truth Shall Rape You Over. + -- Caltech +% +The Worst Homing Pigeon + This historic bird was released in Pembrokeshire in June 1953 and was +expected to reach its base that evening. It was returned by post, dead, +in a cardboard box eleven years later from Brazil. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% + Then there's the atmosphere -- half the time you can eat the air, +it's got so much stuff floating around in it. It takes the edge out of +the colors. Down here even the traffic lights are pastel. And people! +With a lot of these folks you'd have to check their green cards just to +make sure that they are Earthlings. Then there's the police. In Portland, +when some guy goes bananas, the cops rope off a sixteen block area around +him and call a shrink from the medical school who stands atop a patrol car +with a megaphone and shouts, "OK! THIS! ALL! STARTED! WHEN! YOU! WERE! +THREE! YEARS! OLD! ON! ACCOUNT! OF! YOUR MOTHER! RIGHT? SO! LET'S! +TALK! ABOUT! IT!" Down here they don't waste that kind of time. The LAPD +has SWAT teams composed of guys who make Darth Vader look like Mr. Peepers. +Before they go to bust a bookie joint they mortar it first. + -- M. Christensen, "A Portland Innocent in LA" +% +There appears before you a threatening figure clad all over in heavy black +armor. His legs seem like the massive trunk of the oak tree. His broad +shoulders and helmeted head loom high over your own puny frame and you +realize that his powerful arms could easily crush the very life from your +body. There hangs from his belt a veritable arsenal of deadly weapons: +sword, mace, ball and chain, dagger, lance, and trident. +He speaks with a commanding voice: + + "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" + +As he grabs you by the neck all grows dim about you. +% +There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, +and praiseworthy ... + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a +suitable application of high explosives. +% +There is this trouble about special providences--namely, there is so often a +doubt as to which party was intended to be the beneficiary. In the case of the +children, the bears and the prophet, the bears got more real satisfaction out +of the episode than the prophet did, because they got the children. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +There once was a king who ruled his country long, wisely, and well. The +king had a son whom he hoped would someday rule the land. He also wished +in his heart that the son ould be wise and compassionate. One day he said +to the prince: + "If you promised that you would give a certain woman anything, even +half of your kingdom, and then she demanded the life of your best friend, +what would your decision be, my son?" + The young prince thought for a moment and then said, "I would tell +her that she was my best friend, and cut her head off." + The king knew that his son would be a great king. +% + There was a knock on the door. Mrs. Miffin opened it. "Are +you the Widow Miffin?" a small boy asked. + "I'm Mrs. Miffin," she replied, "but I'm not a widow." + "Oh, no?" replied the little boy. "Wait 'til you see what +they're carrying upstairs!" +% +There was a man who enjoyed playing golf, and could occasionallly put up +with taking in a round with his wife. One time (with his wife along) he +was having an extremely bad round. On the 12th hole, he sliced a drive +over by a grounds-keepers' shack. Although he did not have a clear shot +to the green, his wife noticed that there were two doors on the shack, +and there was a possibility that, if both doors were opened, he might be +able to hit through. Without hesitation, he instructed his wife to go +around to the other side and open the far door. Sure enough, this gave +him a clear path to the green. He stepped up to his ball and prepared +to hit. His wife had been standing by the far door waiting for him to +hit through. After a moment, she became curious and stuck her head in +the doorway, to see what he was doing. At that exact moment, the husband +cracked a three-wood that hit his wife square on the forehead, killing +her instantly. A few weeks later, the man was playing a round at the same +course, this time with a friend of his. Once again on the 12th hole, he +sliced his drive to the shack. His friend suggested that he might be able +to hit through, if he was to open both doors. + "Nah", replied the man, "Last time I did that I took a 7". +% +They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist... + -- Civil War General John Sedgwick, his last words + Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, 1864 +% +"They spend years searching for their natural parents, convinced their +parents will be happy to see them. I mean, really, can you imagine someone +being happy to see an orphan? Nobody wants them... that's why they're orphans!" + The speaker is Anne Baker, founder and guiding force behind +Orphan-Off, an organization dedicated to keeping orphans confused about the +whereabouts of their natural parents. She is a woman with a mission: + "Basically, what we do is band together to exchange information +about which orphans are looking for which parents in what part of the +country. We're completely computerized. + "The idea is to throw the orphans as many red herrings and false +leads as possible. We'll tell some twenty-three-year-old loser that his +real parents can be found at a certain address on the other side of the +country. Well, by the time the kid shows up, the family is prepared. They +look over the kid's photos and information and they say, 'Oh, the Emersons... +yeah, they used to live here... I think they moved out about five years ago. +I think they went to Iowa, or maybe Idaho.' + "Bam, the door shuts in the kid's face and he's back to zero again. +He's got nothing to go on but the orphan's pathetic determination to continue. + "It's really amazing how much these kids will put up with. Last year +we even sent one kid all the way to Australia. I mean, really. Besides, if +your natural parents were Australian, would you want to meet them?" + -- "National Lampoon", September, 1984 +% +They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat + -- Book title by Lewis Grizzard +% +They're an insidious bunch, your killer pianos. Had one get loose on me +back in '62. It slipped out of the cables while we were lowering it out +of its twelfth story apartment, and crushed six innocents in an insane bid +for freedom. + -- Stig's Inferno +% + This guy is walking down the beach one fine sunny day, feeling +good, when suddenly he sees this woman with no arms or legs in a wheelchair, +sobbing like crazy. He decides to be gallant, "What's wrong, miss?" + "I......I'm 21 and I I've never been kissed... +" + So this guy, he decides, what the hell, let's cheer up the poor lady. +He leans over and gives her a long wonderful kiss. This does wonders, and +the woman's face lights up and she grins from ear to ear, and the guy wanders +away feeling wonderful. + Well, next week, the same guy is walking along the same beach, and +sees the same girl who is once again sobbing her eyes out. Gallant to the +end, our hero says, "What's wrong, miss, can I help?" + "I...I'm 21 and I've never been fucked..." + The guy picks her up out of her chair, cuddles her close, and brings +her over to the shore, and throws her into the water. "Now you're fucked!" +% +... this is an awesome sight. The entire rebel resistance buried under six +million hardbound copies of "The Naked Lunch." + -- The Firesign Theater +% +This is supposed to be a 'appy occasion. Let's not BICKER and ARGUE over +'oo killed 'oo! + -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail +% +This one is for all you military types. For those who don't know, Rangers +are *extremely* well trained members of the U.S. Army. Marines are people +who start out as normal soldiers and then are made to believe that bullets +don't actually hurt. + One day a platoon of Marines are on patrol when they come upon a +Ranger relaxing on top of a small hill. The Ranger puts his hands on his +hips and screams out, "Do any of you seaweed sucking jarheads think you're +man enough to take me on?" + The biggest Marine comes running up the hill, screaming back at the +Ranger. When he gets to the top he simply plows into his foe and the two +tumble down the other side of the hill, out of sight. There is the sound of +a horrendous fight for a moment or two, and then all is quiet. Soon, the +Ranger reappears, quite untouched. He puts his hands on his hips and sneers, +"Well, looks to me like one of you couldn't do it, how about the rest?" + The enraged Marine platoon leader sends his entire platoon (30+men) +charging after the Ranger. They all go tumbling down the far side of the hill. +After 15 minutes of screaming and yelling and cursing a lone, bloodied Marine +crawls over the top of the hill. The platoon leader yells up to his man, +"What's going on up there?" The wounded Marine, with his last bit of breath, +replies, "Sir, it's a... a trap, sir. There're two of them!" +% +This yuppie, see, was in a car wreck. His BMW was mangled, and so was he. +The paramedic was leaning over him getting his vitals, and all the yup +could groan was "My BMW! My BMW!" + The paramedic tried to quiet the man, pointing out that his car +wasn't his chief concern at the moment, especially as he'd been rearranged +pretty badly himself -- for example, his left arm was severed at the elbow +and was lying about twenty feet away. + There was a moment of stunned silence from the yup followed by +"Oh no! My Rolex! My Rolex!" +% +TO ME, CLOWNS AREN'T FUNNY. In fact, they're kinda scary. I've wondered +where this started, and I think it goes back to the time I went to the +circus and a clown killed my dad. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Two pirates are sitting in a seaside tavern, talking. One of them has a +hook instead of a hand, and an eye patch. The other pirate has a wooden +leg. Over a few beers, they start to tell each other how they received their +injuries. + "One day," says the first pirate, "we had pulled alongside a merchant +vessel and were boarding her. I had my sword drawn when suddenly a man with +a saber caught me by surprise and cut my hand off. So I had this hook put +on. How did you lose your leg?" + "From a broadside of grapeshot from an English military vessel, in a +terrific battle off the coast of France. And how about your eye?" + "Well, I don't really like to talk about it," said the first pirate. + "Come on," says the second pirate. "It doesn't matter after all +these years, does it?" + "Oh, okay," says the first pirate. "See, it's pretty embarrassing; +a seagull shit in my eye." + "A seagull!? I can see how that would hurt, but I don't see why +you would *lose* the eye..." + "But," the first pirate says, "it was my first day with the hook." +% +Two recent emigrants to the United States, on their first day off the boat +in New York City, spied a hotdog vendor. "Do they eat dogs in America?" +one asked his companion. + "I don't know." + "Well, if we're going to live in America, we have to learn to eat +American foods." + So they each bought a wax paper wrapped hotdog and sat down to eat +them on a nearby park bench. One man looked inside his wax paper, then over +at the other man, and asked, "So, what part did you get?" +% +Unbearably lovely music is heard as the curtain rises, and we see the +woods on a summer afternoon. A fawn dances on and nibbles at some +leaves. He drifts lazily through the soft foliage. Soon he starts +coughing and drops dead. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% + Upon reading a story about a man who throttled his mother-in-law, a +man commented, "Sounds to me like a practical choker." +% +Warning: Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again. +% +We are simple killers of people and destroyers of property. +% +We found on St. Paul's only two kinds of birds -- the booby and the noddy... +Both are of a tame and stupid disposition, and are so unaccustomed to visitors, +that I could have killed any number of them with my geological hammer. + -- Charles Darwin +% +"We had it tough ... I had to get up at 9 o'clock at night, half an +hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of dry poison, work 29 hours down +mill, and when we came home our Dad would kill us, and dance about on +our grave singing Halelleuia ..." + -- Monty Python +% +We ought to be very grateful that we have tools. Millions of years ago +people did not have them, and home projects were extremely difficult. For +example, when a primitive person wanted to put up paneling, he had to drive +the little paneling nails into the cave wall with his bare fist, so +generally the paneling wound up getting spattered with primitive blood, +which isn't really all that bad when you consider how ugly paneling is to +begin with. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +We're deep into the holiday gift-giving season, as you can tell from the +fact that everywhere you look, you see jolly old St. Nick urging you to +purchase things, to the point where you want to slug him right in his bowl +full of jelly. + -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" +% + "We've decided to have the budgie put down." + "Oh, is he very old then?" + "No, we just don't like him." + "Oh. How do they put budgies down anyway?" + "Well, it's funny you should be asking that, as I've been reading a +great big book called `How to put your budgie down'. And as I understand it, +you can either hit them over the head with the book, or shoot them there, just +above the beak." + "Mrs. Conkers flushed hers down the loo." + "Oh, you don't want to do that, because they breed in the sewers and +pretty soon you get huge evil smelling flocks of soiled budgies flying out +of people's lavatories infringing their personal freedoms." + -- Monty Python +% +Welcome thy neighbor into thy fallout shelter. He'll come in handy if +you run out of food. + -- Dean McLaughlin. +% + "Well, it's a little rough... it might not be necessary to drag him 40 +blocks. Maybe just four. You could put him in the trunk for the first 36 +blocks, then haul him out and drag him the last four; that would certainly +scare the piss out of him, bumping alone the street, feeling all his skin being +ripped off..." + "He'd be a bloody mess. They might think he was just some drunk and +let him lie there all night." + "Don't worry about that. They have a guard station in front of the +White House that's open 24 hours a day. The guards would recognize Colson... +and by that time of course his wife would have called the cops and reported +that a bunch of thugs had kidnapped him." + "Wouldn't it be a little kinder if you drove about four more blocks +and stopped at a phone box to ring the hospital and say, 'Would you mind going +around to the front of the White House? There's a naked man lying outside +in the street, bleeding to death...'" + "... and we think it's Mr. Colson." + "It would be quite a story for the newspapers, wouldn't it?" + "Yeah, I think it's safe to say we'd see some headlines on that one." + -- Hunter Thompson, talking to R. Steadman on C. Colson, + ex-Marine captain, now born again, of Watergate fame. +% +"Well, well, well! Well if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in +poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come +and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarbles, ya eunuch jelly thou!" + -- Alex in "Clockwork Orange" +% +What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations +involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will +be pretty bad. + -- Dave Barry +% +What is this line of duty, and suffering? You are not supposed to suffer +if you are an assassin. The other person is supposed to suffer. + -- Chiun, glory of the name of Sinanju, teacher of the youth + from outside Sinanju named Remo. +% +What you mean, how old am I? About one hundred! But Viennese answer is +better: we say, "I keep passing the open windows." This is an old joke. +There was a street clown called King of the Mice: he trained rodents, he +did horoscopes, he could impersonate Napoleon, he could make dogs fart +on command. One night he jumped out his window with all his pets in a box. +Written on the box was this: "Life is serious, but art is fun!" I hear his +funeral was a party. A street artist had killed himself. Nobody had +supported him but now everybody missed him. Now who would make the dogs +make music and the mice pant? The bear knows this, too: it is hard work +and great art to make life not so serious. + -- John Irving "The Hotel New Hampshire" +% +When arguments fail, use a blackjack. + -- Edward "Spike" O'Donnell, Al Capone associate. +% +When I kill, the only thing I feel is recoil. +% +When I was a child... We had a quick-sand box in the backyard... +I was an only child... eventually. + -- Steven Wright +% +When I was a kid I said to my father one afternoon, "Daddy, will you take me +to the zoo?" He answered, "If the zoo wants you let them come and get you." + -- Jerry Lewis +% +When I was a kid my favorite relative was Uncle Caveman. After school we'd +all go play in his cave, and every once in a while he would eat one of us. +It wasn't until later that I found out that Uncle Caveman was a bear. + -- Jack Handley +% +When I was eight years old I came home with tears in my eyes because some +kids had stolen my samwich. My father handed me an ice pick, and said, +"Next time, hit 'em first and hit 'em hard." + -- Jake LaMotta +% +When I was seven years old, I was once reprimanded by my mother for an +act of collective brutality in which I had been involved at school. A +group of seven-year-olds had been teasing and tormenting a six-year-old. +"It is always so," my mother said. "You do things together which not one +of you would think of doing alone." ... Wherever one looks in the world +of human organization, collective responsibility brings a lowering of +moral standards. The military establishment is an extreme case, an +organization which seems to have been expressly designed to make it +possible for people to do things together which nobody in his right mind +would do alone. + -- Freeman Dyson, "Weapons and Hope" +% +When President Paul Doumer of France was assassinated in Paris in 1932, +newspapers differed in their versions of the event. This is from "Paris +was Yesterday: 1925-1939" by Janet Flanner, edited by Irving Drutman. + + Taste varied as to his cry when he was shot down, the more popular + papers preferring his despairing "Oh, la la!," the graver dailies + favoring "Is it possible?" What few reported were his dying words: + "But what kind of chauffeur was it?" Having been told by his aides + not that he had been shot but that he had been struck by a taxi, the + President spent the last conscious moments of his life wondering how + how an automobile got into the charity book sale at the Maison + Rothschild, where his assassination occurred. +% +When the Ngdanga tribe of West Africa hold their moon love ceremonies, +the men of the tribe bang their heads on sacred trees until they get a +nose bleed, which usually cures them of ____that. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +When the usher noticed a man stretched across three seats in a movie theatre, +he walked over and whispered, "I'm sorry, sir, but you're allowed only a single +seat." The man moaned, but did not budge. "Sir," the user said more loudly, +"if you don't move, I'll have to call a manager." The man moaned again but +stayed where he was. The usher left, and returned with the manager, who, after +several more attempts at dislodging the fellow, called the police. + The cop took a look at the reclining man and said, "All right, boyo, +what's your name?" + "Samuel," he mumbled. + "And where're you from, Sam?" + "The balcony." +% + When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure +clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer +to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. + + In a way, the next move is up to him. + -- R. A. Lafferty +% +WHEN YOU'RE RIDING IN A TIME MACHINE way far into the future, don't stick +your elbow out the window or it'll turn into a fossil. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +When you've seen one nuclear war, you've seen them all. +% +Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct +is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me. +Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny. + -- Jack Handley +% +Where there's a whip there's a way. +% +... which reminds me of the Carrot family: Ma Carrot, Pa Carrot, and Baby +Carrot. One fine spring day they decided to go out for a picnic. They all +piled into their carrot-mobile and drive out to the country. But Pa Carrot +wasn't watching where he was going and alas, he hit an oil slick and skidded +right into a tree. Ma and Pa Carrot escaped with a few cuts and bruises, but +poor Baby Carrot got broken in two. They frantically rushed him to the +hospital and immediately the doctors started operating in a desperate attempt +to save Baby Carrot's life. Ma and Pa Carrot were beside themselves with +anxiety ... would poor little Baby Carrot make it? + After hours of waiting the doctor finally emerges, bleary-eyed and +barely able to walk. + "Is he all right, is he all right?" Pa Carrot frantically stammers. + "Well, I have some good news and some bad news," replies the doctor. + Ma and Pa Carrot look at each other and blurt out, nearly in unison, +"The good news first!" + "All right, the good news is that Baby Carrot will live." + "And the bad news? What's the bad news about our Baby Carrot?" +The doctor puts his hand on Pa Carrot's shoulder and solemnly looks him in +the eye. "Your son will live... but... he'll be a vegetable for the rest of +his life." +% +Which would you rather have, a bursting planet or an earthquake here and there? + -- John Joseph Lynch +% +Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently +there must be a beverage. + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +Why don't elephants eat penguins ? + +Because they can't get the wrappers off ... +% +Wood is highly ecological, since trees are a renewable resource. If you cut +down a tree, another will grow in its place. And if you cut down the new +tree, still another will grow. And if you cut down that tree, yet another +will grow, only this one will be a mutation with long, poisonous tentacles +and revenge in its heart, and it will sit there in the forest, cackling and +making elaborate plans for when you come back. + +Wood heat is not new. It dates back to a day millions of years ago, when a +group of cavemen were sitting around, watching dinosaurs rot. Suddenly, +lightning struck a nearby log and set it on fire. One of the cavemen stared +at the fire for a few minutes, then said: "Hey! Wood heat!" The other +cavemen, who did not understand English, immediately beat him to death with +stones. But the key discovery had been made, and from that day forward, the +cavemen had all the heat they needed, although their insurance rates went +way up. + -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" +% +Yeah, if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck +-- shoot it. +% +You can imagine my embarrassment when I killed the wrong guy. + -- Joe Valachi +% +You can't go into the ring and be a nice guy. I would go a month, two +months, without having sex. It worked for me because it made me a +vicious animal. You can't fight if you have any compassion or anything +like that. + -- Jake LaMotta +% +You can't say civilization don't advance... in every war they kill you a +new way. + -- Will Rogers +% +You know what I wish? I wish all the scum of the Earth had one throat +and I had my hands about it. + -- Rorschach, "Watchmen" +% +You should never ride in an airplane with a sports team, because if the +plane goes down, it's you they're gonna eat! + -- Gordon Downie, singer for Tragically Hip +% + Your home electrical system is basically a bunch of wires that bring +electricity into your home and take if back out before it has a chance to +kill you. This is called a "circuit". The most common home electrical +problem is when the circuit is broken by a "circuit breaker"; this causes +the electricity to back up in one of the wires until it bursts out of an +outlet in the form of sparks, which can damage your carpet. The best way +to avoid broken circuits is to change your fuses regularly. + Another common problem is that the lights flicker. This sometimes +means that your electrical system is inadequate, but more often it means +that your home is possessed by demons, in which case you'll need to get a +caulking gun and some caulking. If you're not sure whether your house is +possessed, see "The Amityville Horror", a fine documentary film based on an +actual book. Or call in a licensed electrician, who is trained to spot the +signs of demonic possession, such as blood coming down the stairs, enormous +cats on the dinette table, etc. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% + "Your son still sliding down the banisters?" + "We wound barbed wire around them." + "That stop him?" + "No, but it sure slowed him up." +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/cookie b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/cookie new file mode 100644 index 0000000..61278f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/cookie @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Shit Happens. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/debian b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/debian new file mode 100644 index 0000000..36d3abd --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/debian @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +% +< Overfiend> well, excellent. I get to tear someone a new asshole. + -- in #debian-devel +% +< calc> dondelelcaro: there is free sex in the archive iirc +< liw> I maintain sex, yes +< liw> I'm the upstream of sex +< dondelelcaro> liw: and the downstream as well? wow. +< jbailey> I'd hate to be upstream of sex. +< jbailey> You'd never get any. +< liw> jbailey, but giving is so much better than getting :) + -- in #debian-devel +% +< Overfiend> MFen: but if you have the awesome manliness to cleanly + implement this missing feature, it will probably be + accepted. +< Overfiend> you'd be so manly you'd have to rent a wheelbarrow to cart + your balls around + -- in #debian-devel +% +* Overfiend whacks one of the TODO items off the list +< joshk> whacking something else now? +< Overfiend> in a manner of speaking :) + -- in #debian-devel +% + iDunno: anyhow, tbm fits the description of an alug user + he uses linux and is based in East Anglia :) + "he uses linux". I run the Debian project, for fucks sake! :-P +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/definitions b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/definitions new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ff5237 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/definitions @@ -0,0 +1,1397 @@ +68: + Do me now and I'll owe you one. +% +71: + 69 with two fingers up your ass. + -- George Carlin +% +A clitoris is a lot like Antarctica: + most men know it's there, but few really care. +% +A.A.A.A.A.: + An organization for drunks who drive. +% +Achilles' Biological Findings: + (1) If a child looks like his father, that's heredity. If he + looks like a neighbor, that's environment. + (2) A lot of time has been wasted arguing over what came first + -- the chicken or the egg. It was undoubtedly the + rooster. +% +Adam's Law: + (1) Women don't know what they want; + they don't like what they have got. + (2) Men know very well what they want; + having got it, they begin to lose interest. +% +Adolescence, n.: + The stage between puberty and adultery. +% +Adultery: + Putting yourself in someone else's position. +% +ambition, n: + An ant crawling up an elephant's leg with rape on his mind. +% +anxiety, n: + The first time you can't do it a second time. + +panic, n: + The second time you can't do it the first time. +% +Appointment book: + The reference of last resort when trying to duck undesired + invitations ("Gee, the soonest I can pencil you in is + December, 2004"), or when trying to figure out what the hell + it was you did during the past year. +% +Arkansas: + Where the men are men, so are the women and the sheep run scared. +% +Ass: + The masculine of "lass". +% +Bacchus, n.: + A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for + getting drunk. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Balls' Law: + The angle of the dangle is directly proportional to the heat + of the meat provided that the thrusts of the busts are constant. +% +Baltimore, n.: + Where the women wear turtleneck sweaters to hide their flea collars. +% +Baltimore: + A wharf-rat stealing Diogenes' lamp. +% +beef stroganoff, n: + A bull masturbating. +% +"Better late than never!": + The single girl's motto. +% +bi, n: + When *everybody* thinks you're a pervert. +% +Big Toe: +The pad of the male big toe applied to the clitoris or the vulva +generally is a magnificent erotic instrument. The famous gentleman in erotic +prints who is keeping six women occupied is using tongue, penis, both hands, +and both big toes. Use the toe in mammary or armpit intercourse or any time +you are astride her, or sit facing as she lies or sits. Make sure the nail +isn't sharp. In a restuarant, in these days of tights one can surreptitiously +remove a shoe and sock, reach over, and keep her in almost continuous orgasm +with all four hands fully in view on the table top and no sign of contact-- +A party trick which really rates as advanced sex. She has less scope, but +can learn to masturbate him with her two big toes. The toes are definitely +erogenic areas, and can be kissed, sucked, tickled, or tied with stimulating +results. + -- The Joy of Sex + [Avoid armpit intercourse when razor stubble is present. Ed.] +% +BOHICA: + Bend over, here it comes again. +% +Bondage: +Bondage, or as the French call it, ligottage, is the gentle art of tying up +your sex partner --- not to overcome reluctance but to boost orgasm. It's +one unscheduled sex technique which a lot of people find extremely exciting +but are scared to try, and a venerable human resource for increasing sexual +feeling, partly because it's a harmless expression of sexual aggression -- +something we badly need, our culture being very uptight about it -- and more +because of its physical affects: slow orgasm when unable to move is a +mind-blowing experience for anyone not too frightened of their own aggressive +self to try it. + -- The Joy of Sex +% +Boston, n.: + Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for + finishing second in the Irish jig competition. +% +Boston: + An outdoor Betty Ford Clinic. +% +British Israelites: + The British Israelites believe the white Anglo-Saxons of Britain to +be descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel deported by Sargon of Assyria +on the fall of Sumeria in 721 B.C. ... They further believe that the future +can be foretold by the measurements of the Great Pyramid, which probably +means it will be big and yellow and in the hand of the Arabs. They also +believe that if you sleep with your head under the pillow a fairy will come +and take all your teeth. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +Brontosaurus Principle: + Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them + in relation to their environment and to their own physiology: when + this occurs, they are an endangered species. + -- Thomas K. Connellan +% +brunette bush, n: + The dark side of the moon. +% +cad, n.: + A man who doesn't tell his wife + that he's sterile until she's pregnant. +% +California: + From Latin 'calor', meaning "heat" (as in English 'calorie' or + Spanish 'caliente'); and 'fornia', for "sexual intercourse" or + "fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex." + -- Ed Moran, Covina, California +% +callgirl, n: + A negotiable blonde. +% +Camille's Axiom: + If you haven't asked yourself, "Why the hell did + I go to college anyway?", you must be teaching. +% +Chastity belt: + An anti-trust suit. + + (And an unchivalrous knight is the one that files it.) +% +Chastity: + The most unnatural of the sexual perversions. + -- Aldous Huxley +% +Chicago, n.: + Where the dead still vote ... early and often! +% +Christ: + A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time. +% +Christian, n.: + One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired + book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who + follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent + with a life of sin. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Christmas: + A time when each of us gets to reflect upon what we each most + deeply and sincerely believe in. Money. At the mall of our choice. +% +cigarette, n.: + A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in between. +% +Cinderella 10: + A woman who sucks and fucks 'til midnight and + then turns into a pizza and a six-pack. +% +Clarke's Third Law: + Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. + +G's Third Law: + In spite of all evidence to the contrary, the entire universe + is composed of only two basic substances: magic and bullshit. + +H's Dictum: + There is no magic ... +% +Cleveland: + Where their last tornado did six million dollars worth of improvements. +% +clitoris, n: + A haired trigger. +% +Cocaine: + The thinking man's Dristan. +% +cock-sucker, n: + Someone who got caught doing what you got away with. +% +coitus interruptus, n: + A jerky movement following the words (by either sex partner) + "I want to have your child." +% +cold, adj.: + When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions. +% +cold, adj: + When your dog sticks to the fire hydrant. +% +Colorado: + Where they don't buy M & M's, 'cause they're so hard to peel. +% +computerfirm nymphomaniac, n: + Hot Apple pie. +% +confusion, n: + Father's Day in San Francisco. +% +confusion: + One woman plus one left turn. +excitement: + Two women plus one secret. +bedlam: + Three women plus one bargain. +chaos: + Four women plus one luncheon check. +% +Conservative, n.: + One who admires radicals centuries after they're dead. + -- Leo C. Rosten +% +Conservative, n: + A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished + from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +continental breakfast, n: + A roll in bed with some honey. +% +Coors, n: + Like making love in a canoe -- fucking close to water. +% +Corrupt, adj.: + In politics, holding an office of trust or profit. +% +courage, n: + Two cannibals having oral sex. +% +Cox's philosophy: + Life's a bitch, then you die. +% +coyote love, n: + Coyote love is a nebulous term. Basically, what it involves is + the taking of a member of the preferred sex home from a singles + bar. Then, when you wake up the next morning, they're sleeping + on your arm. So, rather than wake them up as you escape, you + chew off your arm at the shoulder. + +coyote ugly, adj: + When you chew off the other arm 'cause she'll be looking for + a one-armed man! + +See also proof that average instantaneous beauty increases monotonically +as alcohol consumption increases and time, t, approaches last call. +% +crew, n: + Eight big men and their cute little cox. +% +Crinklaw's Observation: + Nowadays the order of life is reversed: Sex is first enjoyed, + marriage follows, and after marriage comes abstinence. +% +Dallas: + The city that chose Astroturf to keep the cheerleaders from grazing. +% +Democracy, n.: + A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting + or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. + Attitude toward property is communistic... negating property rights. + Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, + whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, + prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. + Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy. + -- U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25 (1928-1932), + since withdrawn. +% +Democracy, n: + In which you say what you like and do what you're told. + -- Gerald Barry + +The difference between a Democracy and a Dictatorship is that in a +Democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a Dictatorship +you don't have to waste your time voting. + -- Charles Bukowski +% +diaphragm, n: + A childproof cap. +% +dicker, v: + What you do to your wife if arguing doesn't work. +% +Disclaimer of the Week: + Any Society Which Requires Disclaimers Has Too Many Goddamn Lawyers. +% +dyke, n: + A woman who kick-starts her vibrator. And rolls her own tampons. +% +Elliptical, n.: + The feel of a kiss. +% +embarrassment, n.: + Finding out your German Shepherd has the clap. +% +Erogenous zone, n.: + The skin you touch to love. +% +eternity, n.: + The length of time between when you come and he leaves. +% +exotic dancer, n.: + A girl who brings home the bacon a strip at a time. +% +Faith, n: + That quality which enables us to believe what we know to be untrue. +% +Fear, n.: + What you feel when you see a U-Haul with Texas license plates. +% +felt tip, v.: + Past tense for a breast examination! +% +Female rabbits: + The gift that just "keeps on giving." +% +female, n.: + Life support system for a pussy. +% +Feminism, n.: + A political position which seeks to rebuild society so that + both men and women are treated as women wish to be treated. +% +First Corollary of Taber's Second Law: + Machines that piss people off get murdered. + -- Pat Taber +% +First Law of Bicycling: + No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind. +% +Flirt, n.: + A girl whose favorite man is the next one. +% +fornication, n.: + Term used by people who don't have anybody to screw with. +% +FORTUNE'S RULES TO LIVE BY: #5 + Don't wear your spurs while making love in a waterbed. +% +FORTUNE'S RULES TO LIVE BY: #8 + Don't wear your high heels while making love on the pool table. +% +Frisbeetarianism, n.: + The belief that when you die, your soul goes up the on roof and + gets stuck. +% +fuck-me-pumps, n.: + Stiletto heels of a certain length, usually black patent leather. +The proper designation is "throw-me-down-and-fuck-me" pumps. Shoes with +heels just high enough to let the frayed tip of a bullwhip trail around +them properly. +% +fuckoff, n.: + The tie breaker at the Miss America Beauty Pageant. +% +garter, n.: + An elastic band intended to keep a woman + from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country. +% +gay, adj.: + Of a man, one who'd rather swish than fight. +% +Georgia: + Where kinky sex means getting laid. +% +Glee Club groupie, n.: + A girl into choral sex. +% +God: + Darwin's chief rival. +% +Goldfish: +Two naked people tied and put on a mattress together to make love +"fish fashion" (ie: no hands). Originally a nineteenth-century bordel joke. +It can be done (if you are the victims, try on your sides from behind). +Venerable party game, but don't play it with strangers, or leave players +unsupervised, even briefly. There was a nice spoof on this sex stunt in +the movie "Soldier Blue". A good many women can get an orgasm from this +simply by struggling, especially if you put them in front of a mirror. +Don't both tie yourselves, even if you can manage it -- you might not be +able to get loose. + -- The Joy of Sex +% +good scout, n.: + Someone who knows the lay of the land and will take you to her. +% +Gourmet, n.: + Anyone whom, when you fail to finish something strange or + revolting, remarks that it's an acquired taste and that you're + leaving the best part. +% +great lover, n.: + A man who can breathe through his ears. +% +Gross, adj.: + When your bloody mary still has the string in it. +% +Gross, adj.: + When your grandmother kisses you goodnight and slips you some tongue. +% +Gynecologist, n.: + Someone who spends their time spreading old wives' tails. +% +Haggis, n.: + Haggis is a kind of stuff black pudding eaten by the Scots and + considered by them to be not only a delicacy but fit for human + consumption. The minced heart, liver and lungs of a sheep, calf or + other animal's inner organs are mixed with oatmeal, sealed and boiled + in maw in the sheep's intestinal stomach-bag and ... Excuse me a minute + ... +% +Hall's Laws of Politics: + (1) The voters want fewer taxes and more spending. + (2) Citizens want honest politicians until they want + something fixed. + (3) Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend + military spending, and conservatives social spending in + their own districts). +% +Handel's Proverb: + You can't produce a baby in one month by impregnating 9 women! +% +Handy hint: + A tea bag or two can be a dandy substitute when you're out of tampons. +% +happiness, n.: + Finding the owner of a lost bikini. +% +happiness, n.: + Having your Herpes (Type II) test come back negative. +% +Hartley's Second Law: + Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself. + +My corollary: + The completely psychotic have all the fun. +% +Harvard Law: + Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, + temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the + organism will do as it damn well pleases. +% +hell, n.: + Truth seen too late. +% +henpecked husband, n.: + One who's afraid to tell his pregnant wife that he's sterile. +% +hermit, n.: + A man who'd rather get off by himself. +% +herpes, n.: + The final proof that 'tis better to give than to receive. + Much better. +% +high technology, n.: + A California innovation composed of equal parts of silicon and + marijuana. +% +honor, n.: + Almost as good as in 'er. +% +horny, adj.: + When your cock gets hard if the wind blows. +% +hypocrite, n.: + A man who says he likes cats, but won't eat pussy. +% +Impossible, adj.: + (1) I wouldn't like it and when it happens I won't approve; + (2) I can't be bothered; (3) God can't be bothered. Meaning (3) may + perhaps be valid but the others are 101% whaledreck. + -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab" +% +impotent loser, n.: + Someone who can't even get his hopes up. +% +Incest, n: + Sibling revelry; a sport the whole family can enjoy. +% +Infatuation, n: + When you're in love, there's a lump in your throat. + When you're infatuated, there's a lump in your pants. +% +Infidel: + In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; + in Constantinople, one who does. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +innunendo, n.: + Italian enema. +% +irony, n.: + A windy day, when, just as a beautiful girl with + a short skirt approaches, dust blows in your eyes. +% +Japan, n: + A fictional place where elves, gnomes and economic imperialists + create electronic equipment and computers using black magic. It + is said that in the capital city of Akihabara, the streets are + paved with gold and semiconductor chips grow on low bushes from + which they are harvested by the happy natives. +% +Johnny Carson's Observation on Geriatrics: + Sex in the sixties is great, but it improves if you pull + over to the side of the road. +% +Kansas: + Where the men are men and so are the women! +% +Kasha, n.: + Kasha is always defined as "buckwheat groats". There's only + one problem with this definition: what the fuck are "buckwheat + groats"? *_I* know what they are -- they're kasha. But that doesn't + help *___you* much. + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +Kerr's Three Rules for a Successful College: + Have plenty of football for the alumni, sex + for the students, and parking for the faculty. +% +Kleptomaniac, n.: + A rich thief. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Knowledge Engineering: + +A combination of: + +Engineering, n.: + The application of science and mathematics by which the properties +of matter and the sources of energy in nature are made useful to man in +structures, machines, products, systems and processes. + +and + +Knowledge, n.: + Sexual intercourse. + +See also: Prostitution, Grantsmanship. +% +Kotex, n.: + Not the best thing on earth, but next to the best. +% +Kumquat, n.: + Any of several small citrus fruits with sweet spongy rind and + somewhat acidic pulp that are used chiefly for preserves. + Extremely popular in some forms of sexual intercourse. In fact, + an early indication that your partner is willing to experiment + sexually may be a rather insistent moaning of "kumquat, kumquat" + during orgasm. + + Note: this is *not* to be confused with a warning from your + partner that his/her parents are upstairs and probably awake. +% +LA: + Where the only way to determine that the seasons have changed + is to note that people have changed the main topic of conversation. + From mud slides to brush fires. +% +Labia majora, n.: + The curly gates. +% +lagnaf, n.: + Let's All Get Naked And Fuck! +% +Law of Probable Dispersal: + Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. +% +Law of the Yukon: + Only the lead dog gets a change of scenery. +% +lawyer, n.: + Someone who can get a sodomy charge changed to "following too + closely." +% +lazy, adj.: + Marrying a pregnant woman. +% +Lesbian QOTD: + I didn't give up sex, I just gave up premature ejaculation. +% +liberal, n.: + Someone too poor to be a capitalist and too rich to be a communist. +% +Life is like a penis: + when it's soft you can't beat it, and when it's hard you get fucked. +% +Little death (la petite mort): +Some women do indeed pass right out, the 'little death' of French +poetry. Men occasionally do the same. The experience is not +unpleasant, but it can scare an inexperienced partner cold. A friend +of ours had this happen with the first girl he ever slept with. On +recovery she explained, "I am awfully sorry, but I always do that." By +then he had called the police and an ambulance. So there is no cause +for alarm, any more than over the yells, convulsions, hysterical +laughter, or sobbing, or any of the other quite unexpected reactions +that go along with complete orgasm in some people. By contrast others +simply shut their eyes, but enjoy it no less. Sound and fury can be a +flattering testimony to a partners skills, but a fallacious one, +because they don't depend on the intensity of feeling, nor it upon them. + -- The Joy of Sex +% +Little Known Facts, #23: + Did you know... that if you dial 911 in Los Angeles you get + the BMW repair garage? +% +Lucky, adj: + When you have a wife and a cigarette lighter -- both of which work. +% +Luser, n.: + Someone who picks up a female hitch-hiker walking home from a date. +% +macho, adj.: + Jogging home from your vasectomy. +% +maiden aunt, n.: + A girl who never had the sense to say "uncle." +% +Maiden, n.: + A young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and + views that madden to crime. The genus has a wide geographical + distribution, being found wherever sought and deplored wherever found. + The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye, nor (without her + piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though in respect to + comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with regard to + the part of her that is audible, beaten out of the field by the + canary -- which, also, is more portable. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Male, n.: + Life support system for a cock. +% +Man, n.: + An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks + he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief + occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, + which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest + the whole habitable earth and Canada. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +man-hour, n.: + A sexist, obsolete measure of macho effort, equal to 60 Kiplings. +% +manager, n.: + A man known for giving great meeting. +% +masturbation, n.: + A self-service elevator. +% +masturbation, n.: + Coming unscrewed. +% +menage a trois, n.: + Using both hands to masturbate. +% +Meteorologist, n.: + A man who can look in a woman's eyes and predict whether. +% +Miss, n.: + A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that + they are in the market. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Missionary Position: + The missionary on top. +% +Mistress, n.: + Something between a mister and a mattress. +% +Mom's Law: + When they finally do have to take you to the hospital, your underwear + won't be clean or new. +% +Monday, n.: + In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +monotony, n.: + Marriage to one woman at a time. +% +Montana: + A grizzly bear praying for the early arrival of cable television. +% +Montana: + Where forty-three below keeps out the riff-raff. +% +Montana: + Where men are men and women are sheep. +% +mosquito, n.: + The state bird of New Jersey. +% +mother: + Half a word. +% +Motto of the Electrical Engineer: + Working computer hardware is a lot like an erect penis: + it stays up as long as you don't fuck with it. +% +Murphy's Discovery: + Do you know Presidents talk to the country the way men talk to women? + They say, "Trust me, go all the way with me, and everything will be + all right." And what happens? Nine months later, you're in trouble! +% +Murray's Rule: + Any country with "democratic" in the title isn't. +% +mythology, n.: + The body of a primitive people's beliefs, concerning its origin, + early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished + from the true accounts which it invents later. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Naeser's Law: + You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof. +% +navel, n.: + A place to stash your gum on the way down. +% +necrophelia, n.: + Dead boring. + +incest, n.: + Relatively boring. +% +necrophilia, n.: + Dropping in for a cold one. +% +New release: + Abortions are becoming so popular in some countries that the waiting + time to get one is lengthening rapidly. Experts predict that at this + rate there will soon be an up to a one year wait. +% +New York: + Where men are men, sheep enjoy it, and lepers laugh their heads off. +% +Noncombatant, n.: + A dead Quaker. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +nothing, adj.: + A man with an erection who walks into a wall and breaks his nose. +% +O'Riordan's Theorem: + Brains x Beauty = Constant. + +Purmal's Corollary: + As the limit of (Brains x Beauty) goes to infinity, + availability goes to zero. +% +Occident, n.: + The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It + is largely inhabited by Christians, powerful sub-tribe of the + Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which + they are pleased to call "war" and "commerce." These, also, are the + principal industries of the Orient. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Ocean, n.: + A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for + man -- who has no gills. +% +On Brassieres: + Russian: Uplifts the masses. + Salvation Army: Raises the fallen. + American: Makes mountains out of molehills. +% +optimist, n.: + A man who makes a motel reservation before a blind date. +% +optimist, n.: + Someone who goes down to the marriage + bureau to see if his license has expired. +% +oral contraceptive, n.: + The word "No". +% +oral sex, n.: + The taste of things to come. +% +Oregon, n.: + Eighty billion gallons of water with no place to go on Saturday night. +% +Overheard: + "How do I feel? Great! And I kiss pretty good, too!" +% +pain, n.: + Falling out of a twenty story building, + and snagging your eyelid on a nail. +% +pain, n.: + Sliding down a 50-foot razor blade into a bucket of alcohol. +% +Parker's Law: + Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone. +% +Password: +% +Peeping Tom: + A window fan. +% +penis envy, n.: + The desire to be pink and wrinkled and about four inches long. +% +perfect woman, n.: + Four feet tall, no teeth and a flat head so you can rest + your drink. + + [Pistol-grip ears? Ed.] +% +philadelphia flying fuck, n.: + Okay, see, he hangs from a chin-up bar with his feet on the arms + of the rocking chair. She crouches in the rocking chair pleasuring + him orally. + + [Note: Personally, we've never tried this. If you have, or if + you do, please inform us of the results at Fortune, Box 1597, + Rockville IL. Thank you. Ed.] +% +Pig, n.: + An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race + by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is + inferior in scope, for it balks at pig. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +pile driver, n.: + Local drink; two parts vodka, one part prune juice. +% +Planned Parenthood: + The emission Control Center. +% +platonic friendship, n.: + What develops when two people get tired of making love to each other. +% +pocket pool, n.: + Well, for guys, it's two-ball in the side pocket. + For women, it's playing the slots. +% +polish fly, n.: + You put it in her drink and she begs you to take her bowling. +% +Politician, n.: + An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of + organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the + agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared + with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Politician, n.: + From the Greek "poly" ("many") and the French "tete" ("head" or + "face," as in "tete-a-tete:" head to head or face to face). Hence + "polytetien," a person of two or more faces. + -- Martin Pitt +% +Pompoir: + +The most sought-after feminine sexual response of all. + +'She must... close and constrict the Yoni until it holds the Lingam as with +a finger, opening and shutting at her pleasure, and finally acting as the +hand of the Gopala-girl who milks the cow. This can be learned only by long +practice, and especially by throwing the will into the part affected, even +as men endeavor to sharpen their hearing... Her husband will then value her +above all other women, nor would he exchange her for the most beautiful +queen in the Three Worlds... Among some races the constrictor vaginae muscles +are abnormally developed. In Abyssinia for instance, a woman can so exert +them as to cause pain to a man, and when sitting on his thighs, she can +induce orgasm without moving any other part of her person. Such an artist +is called by the Arabs Kabbazah, literally, a holder, and it's not surprising +that slave dealers pay large sums for her' Thus Richard Burton. It has +nothing to do with 'race' but a lot to do with practice. See exercises. + -- The Joy of Sex +% +pray, n: + To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf + of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +premature ejaculation, n.: + A spoilspurt. +% +premature ejaculator, n.: + Troubled shooter. +% +Premenstrual Syndrome: + Just before their periods women behave the way men do all the time. +% +promotion from within: + A system of moving incompetents up to the policy-making + level where they can't foul up operations. +% +promotion, n.: + New title, new salary, new office, same old crap. +% +psychologist, n.: + Someone who watches everyone else when an attractive woman walks + into a room. +% +pubic hair, n.: + Organic dental floss. +% +Puritanism: + the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. + -- H.L. Mencken, "A Book of Burlesques" +% +QOTD: + "... was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort-of + Sun-God robes, on a pyramid, with a thousand naked women screaming + and throwing little pickles at you? ... Why am I the only one + who has that dream?" +% +QOTD: + "Are you into casual sex, or should I dress up?" +% +QOTD: + "He's a perfectionist. If he married Raquel Welch, he'd expect + her to cook." +% +QOTD: + "He's so egotistical he yells his own name when he comes." +% +QOTD: + "He's such a hick he doesn't even have a trapeze in his bedroom." +% +QOTD: + "Her other car is a broom." +% +QOTD: + "I don't give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut." +% +QOTD: + "I say, and without apology, hang the bitch." +% +QOTD: + "I treat her like a throughbred, and she's STILL a nag!" +% +QOTD: + "I used to beat off so much in the shower, I'd get a hard on every + time it rained." +% +QOTD: + "I want a home, a family, an occasional spanking ..." + -- Kathy Ireland +% +QOTD: + "I was a fifty-four-year-old virgin, but I'm all right now." +% +QOTD: + "I'd crawl a mile over burning desert sand just to kiss the dick of + the guy who screwed her last." +% +QOTD: + "I'd drag my dick a mile over broken glass just to masturbate in + her shadow!" +% +QOTD: + "It's been so long since I've had sex, I've forgotten + who gets tied up." +% +QOTD: + "It's men like him that give the Y chromosome a bad name." +% +QOTD: + "Let go of my ears, I know what I'm doing!" +% +QOTD: + "Let's do it." + -- Gary Gilmore +% +QOTD: + "My ambition is to marry a rich woman who's too proud to let + her husband work." +% +QOTD: + "One day, I'd like to wake up in the morning to find that every gay + and lesbian has lavender skin. On that morning, I will be -- mauve." +% +QOTD: + "She was so tough she rolled her own tampons." +% +QOTD: + "The difference between dark and hard is... it stays dark + all night." +% +QOTD: + "The marines and I have something in common; we're both looking for + a few good men!" +% +QOTD: + "The only real difference between men and women is that men are + crabby all month long." +% +QOTD: + "To hell with patience, I'm gonna kill me something!" +% +QOTD: + "Well, let's say she's friendly. Last year she was the Herpes + Poster Girl." +% +QOTD: + "What would the world be like without men? A lot of fat, + happy women." +% +QOTD: + "Whhoooooooeeeeeeeeeee, Elmer! Take a look at that purty young lady + over thar! Why, I'd walk a mile barefoot over barbed wire and broken + glass just to drive the truck that takes her panties to the cleaners!" +% +QOTD: + "Whip me, beat me, come all over me, tell me you love me. + Then get the fuck out." +% +QOTD: + "You might as well say "yes", the sheets are messy already." +% +QOTD: + I get girls because of who I am... a rapist. +% +QOTD: + I met her [his fiance] over lunch on Thursday. She had a firm + grip. He's a lucky man. +% +QOTD: + I own my own body, but I share. +% +QOTD: + I won't say he's unsavory, but for his birthday he bought himself + a pair of velcro gloves. +% +QOTD: + It *was* wonderfully polite of me. Usually I call the kind of + cretinous dipshit that pisses me off a ``fucking asshole.'' + -- Richard Sexton +% +QOTD: + Men come in four sizes -- small, medium, large, and "You're + going to put that thing *where*?" +% +QOTD: + My penis is better than corn, because corn doesn't squeal when + you stick those little prongs into it. + -- Mark-Jason Dominus +% +QOTD: + No, honey, I've never been circumcised; it's simply wear and tear. +% +QOTD: + Sex is like everything else. To get it done right, do it yourself. +% +QOTD: + Sex is the most fun you can have without laughing. +% +QOTD: + She began coming, making noises like a small animal in pain. + Ouch! Ow! My paw! Ouch!! +% +quickie, n.: + A moment's piece. +% +quickie, n.: + No sooner spread than done. +% +Radicalism: + The conservatism of tomorrow injected into the affairs of today. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +randel, n.: + A nonsensical poem recited by Irish schoolboys as an + apology for farting at a friend. + -- Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure & + Preposterous Words +% +real buddy, n.: + Someone who'll go downtown and get two blowjobs, and come back + and give you one. +% +real class, adj.: + When you're by yourself, fart, and say "Excuse me." +% +Recursion n.: + See Recursion. + -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary +% +rejection, n.: + When you're masturbating and your hand falls asleep. +% +Robot, n.: + Someone who's been made by a scientist. +% +rodeo fuck, n.: + When you lean down and whisper in your lover's ear, "Honey, you're + the worst piece of ass I've ever had!". And then try to stay on + for seven seconds... +% +rugby, n.: + A sport requiring leather balls. +% +rugby, n.: + Elegant violence. + + (Rugby players eat their dead.) + (Blood makes the grass grow!) + (Support your local hooker! Play rugby!) + + [A "hooker" is part of the scrum. Thought you'd want to know. Ed.] +% +sadism, n.: + A sadist refusing to whip a masochist. +% +sadoequinecrophilia, n.: + Beating a dead horse. +% +San Diego: + Four million people, where you can't get a + good cheeseburger, no matter how hard you try. +% +San Francisco, n.: + Marcel Proust editing an issue of Penthouse. +% +San Francisco: + A nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to tie my shoelaces there. +% +schnuffel, n.: + A dog's practice of continuously nuzzling in your crotch in mixed + company. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +Schwiggle, n.: + The amusing rotation of one's bottom while sharpening a pencil. + -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" +% +seminars, n.: + From 'semi' and 'arse', hence, any half-assed discussion. +% +Sex: + the thing that takes up the least amount of time and causes the + most amount of trouble. + -- John Barrymore +% +Showerbath: +Natural venue for sexual adventures -- wash together, make love +together: only convenient overhead point in most apartments or hotel rooms +to attach a partner's hands. Don't pull down the fixture, however -- it +isn't weightbearing. See Discipline. + -- The Joy of Sex +% +small, adj.: + Is it in yet? +% +socialism: + You have two cows. Give one to your neighbour. +communism: + You have two cows. + Give both to the government. The government gives you milk. +capitalism: + You have two cows. You sell one cow and buy a bull. +fascism: + You have two cows. Give milk to the government. + The government sells it. +nazism: + You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes the cows. +New Dealism: + You have two cows. The government shoots one cow, + milks the other, and pours the milk down the sink. +anarchism: + You have two coes. Keep them. Steal another. Shoot the government. +conservatism: + You have two cows. Freeze the milk. Embalm the cows. +% +spinster, n.: + A bachelor's wife. +% +spinster, n.: + Unlusted number. +% +Stockmayer's Theorem: + If it looks easy, it's tough. + If it looks tough, it's damn well impossible. +% +strapless evening gown, n.: + Bust truster. +% +stress, n.: + The confusion created when one's mind overrides the body's + desire to choke the living shit out of some asshole who + desperately needs it. +% +subpoena, n: + From the root "sub", below, and the Latin "poena" for male organ + or penis. Therefore, "below the penis" or "by the balls." +% +successful cunnilingus: + When you wake up the next morning with a face like a frosted doughnut. +% +Sudden Death Dating: + +Quote, female: + Am I worried about taking his last name? Forget it, + at this point I'll take his first name, too. +% +swallow, v.: + The (blew) bird of birth control. +% +T-shirt of the Day: + Head for the Mountains + -- courtesy Anheuser-Busch beer + +Followup T-shirt of the Day (on the same scenic background): + If you liked the mountains, head for the Busch! + -- courtesy someone else +% +T-shirt of the Day: + See Dick Drink... + See Dick Drive... + See Dick Die. + DON'T BE A DICK. +% +T-shirt of the Week: + I'm not excited, I'm cold! +% +tacky, adj.: + Serving grape kool-aid at religious functions. +% +tear leather: + To become excited, as in the sentence "Robin Hood tore + his leather jerkin' off." +% +tearing off a quicky: + Gunning the jump. +% +Texan: + A wet-back that didn't make Oklahoma. +% +The 357.73 Theory: + Auditors always reject expense accounts + with a bottom line divisible by 5. +% +The First Commandment for Technicians: + Beware the lightning that lurketh in the undischarged capacitor, lest + it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most untechnician-like + manner. +% +The New Right: + A javelin team that elects to receive. +% +THE THREE MOST COMMONLY-ASKED QUESTIONS AT DISNEYLAND: + (1) Where's the bathroom? + (2) What time does the parade start? + (3) Do you sell anything without that damn mouse on it? +% +The three rules of international air travel: + (1) Never fly on Aeroflot if you can possibly avoid it (this used + to be Braniff or Aeroflot). + (2) Never bet a whole lot of money on two little pairs unless you + know *exactly* what you're doing. + (3) Never sleep with anyone whose troubles are worse than your own. +% +The United States Army: + 194 years of proud service, unhampered by progress. +% +There's more than one way to skin a cat: + Way number 15 -- Krazy Glue and a toothbrush. +% +There's more than one way to skin a cat: + Way number 27 -- Use an electric sander. +% +There's more than one way to skin a cat: + Way number 32 -- Wrap it around a lonely frat man's pecker. +% +thorny: + A thailor at thea. +% +Thought: + Girls get minks the same way minks get minks! +% +three-bag ugly, adj: + That's when you put one bag over her head, one bag over your + head in case her's falls off, and one over the dog's to keep + it from howling. + +four-bag ugly, adj: + When you leave a bag by the door in case someone drops by. +% +Today's title: + Creative Violence in Sexual Relationships +% +tourist, n.: + A pretty girl in Oklahoma. +% +transvestite, n.: + Someone who likes to eat, drink, and be Mary. +% +transvestite, n.: + Someone who spends his junior year at college abroad. +% +"Trust me": + Get me, give me, buy me, do me. +% +"Trust me": + Los Angeles for "Fuck you, your mother, and the horse + she rode in on." +% +trust, n.: + Two cannibals having oral sex. +% +Unix, n.: + A computer operating system, once thought to be flabby and + impotent, that now shows a surprising interest in making off + with the workstation harem. +% +vagina, n.: + The box a penis comes in. +% +vaginal lubricant, n.: + A slitty slicker. +% +VD, n.: + The gift that keeps on giving. +% +Viennese Oyster: +Lady who can cross her feet behind her head, lying on her back, of course. +When she has done so, you hold her tightly round each instep +with your full hand and squeeze, lying on her full-length. Don't try to put +an unsupple partner into this position -- it can't be achieved by brute force. +You can get a very similar sensation -- unique rocking pelvic movement -- with +less expertise if she crosses her ankles on her tummy, knees to shoulders, and +you lie on her crossed ankles with your full weight. Why "Viennese" we don't +know. Tolerable for short periods only but gives tremendous genital pressure +for both. + -- The Joy of Sex +% +Virgin, n.: + An ugly third grader. +% +Virginia: + A group of beautifully mounted hunters galloping behind + baying hounds in pursuit of a union organizer. +% +WASP, n.: + Someone who gets out of the shower to take a piss. +% +Watership Down: + You've read the book. You've seen the movie. Now eat the stew! +% +wet dream, n.: + Overnight sensation. +% +Wethern's Law: + Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups. +% +Why You Can't Run When There's Trouble in the Office: + No matter where you stand, no matter how far or fast you flee, + when it hits the fan, as much as possible will be propelled in your + direction, and almost none will be returned to the source. + -- John L. Shelton +% +Woman is: + finally screwing and your groin and buttocks and thighs ache like hell + and you're all wet and maybe bloody and it wasn't like a Hollywood + movie at all but Jesus at least you're not a virgin any more but is + this what it's all about? And meanwhile, he's asking "Did you come?" + -- Robin Morgan, "Sisterhood Is Powerful" +% +woman, n.: + An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and + having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication. + -- Bierce +% +Zisla's Law: + If you're asked to join a parade, don't march behind the elephants. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/drugs b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/drugs new file mode 100644 index 0000000..de1032f --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/drugs @@ -0,0 +1,360 @@ +(1) Never give anything away for nothing. +(2) Never give more than you have to (always catch the buyer hungry and + always make him wait). +(3) Always take back everything if you possibly can. + -- William S. Burroughs, on drug pushing +% +A friend with weed is a friend indeed. +% +A joint is just tea for two. +% +A life spent in search of the perfect hash brownie is a life well spent. +% +Acid -- better living through chemistry. +% +Acid absorbs 47 times its own weight in excess Reality. +% +"All flesh is grass" + -- Isaiah + +Smoke a friend today! +% + All he did was take the ball and run every time they called his +number -- which came to be more and more often, and in the Super Bowl Thomas +was the whole show. But the season is now over; the purse is safe in the +vault; and Duane Thomas is facing two to twenty for possession. Nobody really +expects him to serve time, but nobody seems to think he'll be playing for +Dallas next year either, and a few sporting people who claim to know how the +NFL works say he won't be playing for ANYBODY next year; that the Commissioner +is outraged at this mockery of all those Government-sponsored "Beware of Dope" +TV shots that dressed up the screen last autumn. + We all enjoyed those spots, but not everyone found them convincing. +Here was a White House directive saying several million dollars would be spent +to drill dozens of Name Players to stare at the camera and try to stop grinding +their teeth long enough to say they hate drugs of any kind... and then the best +running back in the world turns out to be a goddamn uncontrollable drugsucker. + But not for long. There is not much room for freaks in the National +Football League. Joe Namath was saved by the simple blind luck of getting +drafted by a team in New York City, a place where social outlaws are not +always viewed as criminals. But Namath would have had a very different trip +if he'd been drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +Being stoned on marijuana isn't very different from being stoned on gin. + -- Ralph Nader +% +Beware of a tall dark man with a spoon up his nose. +% +But these pills can't be habit forming; I've been taking them for years. +% +Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan. +% +Cocaine is nature's way of telling you you have too much money. +% +Cocaine isn't habit forming. I should know -- I've been using it for years. + -- Tallulah Bankhead +% +Cocaine's a joke! + (Who's got the next line?) +% +Cocaine: using tomorrow's energy today. +% +Deliberate provocation of mystical experience, particularly by LSD and +related hallucinogens, in contrast to spontaneous visionary experiences, +entails dangers that must not be underestimated. Practitioners must take +into account the peculiar effects of these substances, namely their ability +to influence our consciousness, the innermost essence of our being. The +history of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that +can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken +for a pleasure drug. Special internal and external advance preparations +are required; with them, an LSD experiment can become a meaningful experience. + -- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD +% +Don't drop acid -- take it pass/fail. + -- Seen in a Ladies' Room at Harvard +% +Dope will get you through times of no money better that money will get +you through times of no dope. + -- Freewheelin' Franklin, "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" + [aka Gilbert Sheldon] +% + Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes of Harvard Medical School inhaled ether +at a time when it was popularly supposed to produce such mystical or +"mind-expanding" experiences, much as LSD is supposed to produce such +experiences today. Here is his account of what happened: + "I once inhaled a pretty full dose of ether, with the determination +to put on record, at the earliest moment of regaining consciousness, the +thought I should find uppermost in my mind. The mighty music of the triumphal +march into nothingness reverberated through my brain, and filled me with a +sense of infinite possibilities, which made me an archangel for a moment. +The veil of eternity was lifted. The one great truth which underlies all +human experience and is the key to all the mysteries that philosophy has +sought in vain to solve, flashed upon me in a sudden revelation. Henceforth +all was clear: a few words had lifted my intelligence to the level of the +knowledge of the cherubim. As my natural condition returned, I remembered +my resolution; and, staggering to my desk, I wrote, in ill-shaped, straggling +characters, the all-embracing truth still glimmering in my consciousness. +The words were these (children may smile; the wise will ponder): +`A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout.'" + -- The Consumers Union Report: Licit & Illicit Drugs +% +Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic route! +% +Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start +closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive +like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the music at top volume +and at least a pint of ether. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" +% +Falling in love makes smoking pot all day look like the ultimate in restraint. + -- Dave Sim, author of "Cerebus". +% +Give me libertines or give me meth. +% +Give me Librium or give me Meth. +% +Have a coke and a smile! + -- John DeLorean +% +Honest, officer, had I known my health was in jeopardy, why, I'd never have +lit one! +% +I believe that if people would learn to use LSD's vision-inducing capability +more wisely, under suitable conditions, in medical practice and in conjunction +with meditation, then in the future this problem child could become a wonder +child. + -- Dr. Albert Hoffman +% +I do not take drugs -- I am drugs. + -- Salvador Dali +% +I may kid around about drugs, but really, I take them seriously. + -- Doctor Graper +% +I shall come to you in the night and we shall see who is stronger -- a little +girl who won't eat her dinner or a great big man with cocaine in his veins. + -- Sigmund Freud, in a letter to his fiancee +% +I tell ya, drugs never worked out for me. The first time I tried smoking +pot I didn't know what I was doing. I smoked half the joint, got the +munchies, and ate the other half. + +Well, the first time I tried coke I was so embarrassed. I kept getting the +bottle stuck up my nose. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I would like to suggest that you not use speed, and here's why: it is +going to mess up your heart, mess up your liver, your kidneys, rot out +your mind. In general this drug will make you just like your mother +and father. + -- Frank Zappa +% +I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've +always worked for me. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +I've never had a problem with drugs; I've had problems with the police. + -- Keith Richards + +I never turn blue in anyone's bathroom. I think that's the height of bad +taste. + -- Keith Richards +% +If coke is a joke, I'm waiting around for the next line. +% +If you remember the 60's, you weren't there. +% +In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to drop +out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at discotheques. + -- Art Linkletter +% + Listen, Tyrone, you don't know how dangerous that stuff is. +Suppose someday you just plug in and go away and never come back? Eh? + Ho, ho! Don't I wish! What do you think every electrofreak +dreams about? You're such an old fuddyduddy! A-and who sez it's a +dream, huh? M-maybe it exists. Maybe there is a Machine to take us +away, take us completely, suck us out through the electrodes out of the +skull 'n' into the Machine and live there forever with all the other +souls it's got stored there. It could decide who it would suck out, +a-and when. Dope never gave you immortality. You hadda come back, every +time, into a dying hunk of smelly meat! But We can live forever, in a +clean, honest, purified, Electroworld. + -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" +% +LSD melts in your mind, not in your hand. +% +Marijuana is like Coors beer. If you could buy the damn stuff at a Georgia +filling station, you'd decide you wouldn't want it. + -- Billy Carter +% +Marijuana is nature's way of saying, "Hi!". +% +NO OPIUM-SMOKING IN THE ELEVATORS + -- sign in the Rand Hotel, New York, 1907 +% +Not that we needed all that stuff, but when you get locked into a serious +drug collection the tendency is to push it as far as you can. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" +% +Opiates are the religion of the upper-middle classes. + -- Debbie VanDam +% +Opium is very cheap considering you don't feel like eating for the next +six days. + -- Taylor Mead, famous transvestite +% +People who claim to know jackrabbits will tell you they are primarily +motivated by Fear, Stupidity and Craziness. But I have spent enough time in +jackrabbit country to know that most of them lead pretty dull lives; they are +bored with their daily routines: eat, fuck, sleep, hop around a bush now and +then... No wonder some of them drift over the line into cheap thrills once in +a while; there has to be a powerful adrenalin rush in crouching by the side of +a road, waiting for the next set of headlights to come along, then streaking +out of the bushes with split-second timing and making it across to the other +side just inches in front of the speeding front wheels. + Why not? Anything that gets the adrenalin moving like a 440 volt +blast in a copper bathtub is good for the reflexes and keeps the veins free +of cholesterol ... but too many adrenalin rushes in any given time-span has +the same bad effect on the nervous system as too many electro-shock treatments +are said to have on the brain: after a while you start burning out the +circuits. + When a jackrabbit gets addicted to road running, it is only a matter +of time before he gets smashed -- and when a journalist turns into a politics +junkie he will sooner or later start raving and babbling in print about things +that only a person who has Been There can possibly understand. + -- Hunter Thompson, "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail" +% +Pilots should avoid using illegal drugs. + -- AOPA's Pilot's Handbook, 1988 +% +Reality is a cop-out for people who can't handle drugs. +% +Reality is an obstacle to hallucination. +% +Reality is for people who can't deal with drugs. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +Smuggling... It's not just a job, it's an adventure! + -- paid for by your local Colombian recruiting office +% +Special tonight, the best toot in town at prices you won't believe!! Also, the +finest dope, brought all the way from Columbia by spirited young adventurers. +All available tonight, as usual, in the graduate students' bullpen from 11:00 +pm on, usual terms and conditions. Faculty members especially welcome. +% +Spend extra time on hobby. Get plenty of rolling papers. +% +Taking drugs in the 60's, I tried to reach Nirvana, but all I ever got were +re-runs of The Mickey Mouse Club. + -- Rev. Jim +% +Test for paraquat: + Take amount of grass used in one joint, and wash in 5 cc's + of water, agitating gently for 15 minutes. Strain out leaves, + leaving a brownish-yellow solution. Add 100 mg each of sodium + bicarbonate and sodium dithionite. If paraquat is present, + the solution will turn blue-green. +% +The best ways are the most straightforward ways. When you're sitting around +scamming these things out, all kinds of James Bondian ideas come forth, but +when it gets down to the reality of it, the simplest and most straightforward +way is usually the best, and the way that attracts the least attention. +Also, pouring gasoline on the water and lighting it like James Bond doesn't +work either.... They tried it during Prohibition. + -- Thomas King Forcade, marijuana smuggler +% + The radio was screaming: "Power to the People -- Right On!" John +Lennon's political song, ten years too late. "That poor fool should have +stayed where he was," said my attorney. "Punks like him only get in the +way when they try to be serious." + "Speaking of serious," I said. "I think it's about time to get +into the ether and the cocaine." + "Forget ether," he said. "Let's save it for soaking down the rug +in the suite. But here's this. Your half of the sunshine blotter. Just +chew it up like baseball gum." + I took the blotter and ate it. My attorney was now fumbling with +the salt shaker containing the cocaine. Opening it. Spilling it. Then +screaming and grabbing at the air, as our fine white dust blew up and out +across the desert highway. A very expensive little twister rising up from +the Great Red Shark. "Oh, Jesus!" he moaned. "Did you see what God just +did to us?" + -- Raoul Duke, "Rolling Stone", issue 95, Nov. 11, 1971 +% +The weed of crime bears bitter fruit... but the leaves are good to smoke! + -- The Shadow +% +Then there was LSD, which was supposed to make you think you could fly. +I remember it made you think you couldn't stand up, and mostly it was right. + -- P.J. O'Rourke +% +There's been no top authority saying what marijuana does to you. I +really don't know that much about it. I tried it once but it didn't do +anything to me. + -- John Wayne +% +There's no room in the drug world for amateurs. + -- Raoul Duke +% +They are cold-blooded. They are completely ruthless about protecting +what they have. The only thing they connect to is the money aspect of +life. Let's face it: That's the American way. + -- Jeffery M. Johnson, regional chairman of the District + of Columbia United Way, speaking of drug dealers. +% +Turn on, tune in, and take over. + -- Tim Leary +% + "We friends, yes?" The shoe shine boy put on his hustling smile +and looked into the Sailor's dead, cold, undersea eyes, eyes without a +trace of warmth or lust or hate or any feeling the boy had experienced +in himself or seen in another, at once cold and intense, impersonal and +predatory. + The Sailor leaned forward and put a finger on the boy's inner arm +at the elbow. He spoke in his dead junky whisper. "With veins like that, +Kid, I'd have myself a time!" + -- William Burroughs +% +We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the +drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit +lightheaded; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible +roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all +swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a +hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was +screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?" + Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and +was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. "What the +hell are you yelling about?" he muttered, staring up at the sun with his +eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sungalsses. "Never mind," +I said. "It's your turn to drive." I hit the brakes and aimed the Great +Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point in mentioning the +bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough. + -- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: + A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream" +% +Whatever became of Strange de Jim? Well, he found a substitute for cocaine: +"You cover Q-tips with sandpaper and ram them up your nostrils as far as they +will go. Then you sniff talcum powder while shredding hundred dollar bills." + -- Herb Caen +% +When I was young we didn't have MTV; we had to take drugs and go to concerts. + -- Steven Pearl +% +When one wants to get rid of an unsupportable pressure, one needs hashish. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +When your conscious becomes unconscious, you are drunk. +When your unconscious becomes conscious, you are stoned. +% +Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible. + -- late night industrial commercial much favored by druggies +% +Would you please have another look at my nose and put in that cocaine stuff.... + -- Adolf Hitler, quoted by Dr. Giesing in Nuremberg trial + testimony, 1947 +% +You notice that after Ginzburg admitted he had tried marijuana everyone got in +line to admit it, too. But you also notice they all said they "experimented" +with marijuana. The didn't "use" it; they "experimented" with it. Let me +tell you something -- Jonas Salk "experiments"; these guys were getting stoned! + -- Johnny Carson +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/ethnic b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/ethnic new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e85e8db --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/ethnic @@ -0,0 +1,1085 @@ + (1) If it doesn't smell like chili, it probably isn't. + (2) If you catch an exploding manhole cover, you can keep it. + (3) Cabs driving on the sidewalk are not permitted to pick up passengers. + (4) It's bad manners to lie down inside someone else's chalk body outline. + (5) Don't lick food from a stranger's beard. + (6) Avoid paperwork for your next of kin by keeping dental records on you. + (7) Jon Gotti Always has the right of way. + (8) Yelling at cab drivers in English wastes your time and theirs. + (9) Remember: Regular hot dogs do not have fingernails. +(10) The city does not employ so called "Wallet Inspectors". + -- David Letterman, "Top Ten New York City Pedestrian Tips" +% +A 6'8", 280-pound Southerner walked into a NY bar, sat down next to a +patron, and said, "Ah'm big, and ah'm bad, and I *loves* to fuck Northern +women!" The guy was so terrified that he put down his beer and ran out +of the bar. + The Rebel moved over to the next guy and said, "Ah'm big and ah'm +bad and I *loves* to fuck New York women." The guy took one look at him, +blanched and ran out of the bar. + The man then went over to a short little guy with "Bronx" written +all over him. "Ah'm big and ah'm bad and I *loves* to fuck your sister." + The short guy looked him up and down and said, "I don't blame +you one bit. She's *got* to be an improvement on yours." +% +A fisherman from Maine went to Alabama on his vacation. He rented a boat, +rowed out to the middle of the lake, and cast his line, but when he looked +down into the water he was horrified to see a man wrapped in chains lying +on the bottom of the lake. He quickly rowed to shore and ran to the police +station. "Sheriff, sheriff," he gasped, there's a guy wrapped in chains, +drowned in the lake!" + "Now ain't that jest like a Yankee," drawled the sheriff, "to steal +more chain than he can swim with?" +% +A gourmet restaurant in Cincinnati is one where you leave the tray on +the table after you eat. +% +A lanky Texan was mad because Texas had just become the second largest state in +the Union, so he made up his mind to move to Alaska. He drove for three days +and three nights to get there and finally he came to what looked like the state +line. He halted his car and walked up to the border guard. "Hi, there! How +do I become a resident of this here biggest state?" demanded the Texan. + The guard looked him up and down and grinned. "Waal," he answered, +there are three things you gotta do to get in. First, drink down a quart of +110 proof corn liquor without blinkin'. Second, kill a grizzly bear, and +third, make love to an Eskimo woman." + "Sounds easy enough," said the Texan. "Where can I get a quart of +this here corn liquor?" + "Got one right here," replied the guard. + The Texan gulped down the whiskey without batting an eyelash. +"Now, do you happen to know where I can find me a grizzly?" + "Yep," answered the guard, "there's a big b'ar over that way, 'bout +a mile... lives in a cave on that cliff." + The Texan lurched merrily off. About an hour later he returned +with his clothes almost torn off and his face scratched and bloody. He was +smiling happily. "Now," he roared, "where's that damn Eskimo woman you +want killed?" +% +A little Mexican boy comes home from school one day and says to his grand- +father, "Granddaddy, today my teacher said that Pancho Villa, the bandit +used to raid towns around here! Did you ever know him?" + "Do *I* know Pancho Villa?" exclaims the man. "Why, boy, before +your father was born, I was riding into town on my horse. Suddenly, from +behind the bushes leaped Pancho with his six-guns drawn! He told me to get +down off the horse and to give him all my money. Then, he told me to scoop +some manure from the ground and eat it!" + "I refused at first, but Pancho had the guns, so I ate the shit. +And he started laughing so hard that it scared his horse into rearing up -- +I grabbed the guns from his hands! I said to Pancho, `Okay, Pancho, now +it's your turn -- you eat the shit!' I had the guns, so he ate the shit. + "And you ask me, child, if I know Pancho Villa, the bandit! Why, +we had *lunch* together!" +% + A man enters a pet shop, seeking to purchase a parrot. He points +to a fine colorful bird and asks how much it costs. + When he is told it costs 70,000 zlotys, he whistles in amazement +and asks why it is so much. "Well, the bird is fluent in Italian and +French and can recite the periodic table." He points to another bird +and is told that it costs 90,000 zlotys because it speaks French and +German, can knit and can curse in Latin. + Finally the customer asks about a drab gray bird. "Ah," he is +told, "that one is 150,000." + "Why, what can it do?" he asks. + "Well," says the shopkeeper, "to tell you the truth, he doesn't +do anything, but the other birds call him Mr. Secretary." + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +A man goes into a bar and begins to tell a Polish joke. The man sitting +next to him, a big hulking powerhouse, turns and says menacingly, "*I'm* +Polish." + He then calls out, "Ivan! Come over here and bring your brother." +Two men, bigger than the first, appear from the back room. + "Josef!" the man calls out, "come here a second, and bring Lendl +with you." Two more men appear, and all five men crowd around the man with +the joke. + "Now," says the first Polish man, "do you want to finish that joke?" + "Nah," says the man. + "Oh, no? And why not? I'm sure it was very funny," says the Polish +man, opening and closing his fist. "Are you scared?" + "No," replies the man. "I just don't feel like having to explain it +five times." +% + A man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. The +first thing he notices is that the arms are too long. + "No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbow +and hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine." + "But the collar is up around my ears!" + "It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little ... no, a +little more ... that's it." + "But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation. + "Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There you +go. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly." + So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto the +street. Reba and Florence see him go by. + "Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!" + "Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit." + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +A man is walking down the street when he sees a man with four arms, and +antennae coming out of his head. He goes up to him and says, "You're not +from around here, are you?" + "No," replies the man with the antennae. + "You know," continues the man, "I don't think you're an American, +either. In fact, I bet you don't even come from this planet!" + "Right again," says the man with four arms. "I'm from Mars." + "Well," says the man, "that's quite some configuration you've got +there, with those four arms and those antennae and everything." + "We Martians all have four arms and antennae." + "Well, that's just amazing," replies the man, "and how about that +big gold colored plate in the middle of your chest, what's that, do all +Martians have that?" + "Well, no," says the Martian. "Not the *goyim*." +% +A Mexican and a Texan worked together for a construction firm, and, +while they were good friends, they had a friendly rivalry over whose wife +was the better cook. One weekend, as the Texan's wife was out of town, the +Mexican invited the Texan to have supper with his family. + The Texan accepted, and that evening sat down to some the best stew +that he had ever eaten. + "Damn! That stew is fantastic!" he exclaimed to his host. "What +kind of meat is it?" + "Rabbeet stew," replied the Mexican. + "Rabbit?" replied the Texan. "There aren't any rabbits around here." + "Si, my freend, the rabbeets make the beeg noise, and I shoot theem." + "Rabbits don't make any noise..." + "Si, my freend, they say meeyow, meeyow!" +% +A New Yorker is riding down the road in his new Mercedes. So intent is he +on the cocaine in his hand he completely misses a turn and his car plunges +over the five-hundred-foot cliff to be smashed into pieces at the bottom. +As the on-lookers rush to the edge of the cliff they see him fifty feet +from the top of the cliff clinging to a stunted bush with all his strength. +"Dear Lord," he prays, "I never asked you for nothin' before, but I'm askin' +you now: Save me, Lord, save me." + Booms the Lord: "LET GO OF THE BRANCH." + "But Lord, if I do that, I'll fall!" + "TRUST ME, LET GO OF THE BRANCH." + "But Lord, I'm gonna fall and die..." + "TRUST ME TO SAVE YOU. LET GO OF THE BRANCH." + Okay, Lord, I'll trust you, here I... here I go!" And he falls +to his death. + "DUMB YANKEE." +% + A Pole, a Soviet, an American, an Englishman and a Canadian were lost +in a forest in the dead of winter. As they were sitting around a fire, they +noticed a pack of wolves eyeing them hungrily. + The Englishman volunteered to sacrifice himself for the rest of the +party. He walked out into the night. + The American, not wanting to be outdone by an Englishman, offered to +be the next victim. The wolves eagerly accepted his offer, and devoured him, +too. + The Soviet, believing himself to be better than any American, turned +to the Pole and says, "Well, comrade, I shall volunteer to give my life to +save a fellow socialist." He leaves the shelter and goes out to be killed by +the wolf pack. + At this point, the Pole opened his jacket and pulls out a machine gun. +He takes aim in the general direction of the wolf pack and in a few seconds +has killed them all. + The Canadian asked the Pole, "Why didn't you do that before the others +went out to be killed? + The Pole pulls a bottle of vodka from the other side of his jacket. +He smiles and replies, "Five men on one bottle -- too many." +% +A Scotsman clad in a kilt walks up to the counter in an Apothecary. From +his pocket he takes a plaid condom that has been heavily used, torn, patched, +sewn, and is currently split down one side. He asks the proprieter, "How much +to replace this, Ian?" The proprieter says, "Why, Angus, that'l be four +pence." Then the Scotsman asks, "How much to repair?" The prop. looks the +condom over carefully, and says "Three pence to repair." The Scotsman ponders +for a moment, then says, "I'll be back." + Later in the day, the Scotsman returns with a smile on his face and +says, "Ian, the Regiment has voted to repair!" +% +A sheriff arrived at the scene of the horrible accident just as his deputy, +all alone, was climbing down from the controls of a bulldozer. "Say, +Junior, what's goin' on?" asked the sheriff. + "A bus full of migrant workers went out of control and over the +cliff, and I just finished buryin' 'em," explained the deputy. + "Good work, boy," replied the sheriff. "Pretty gory work -- were +all of 'em dead?" + Junior nodded sadly and said, "Some of them said they weren't, but +you know how them Mex'cans lie." +% +A teacher announces to her class, "Children, the student who can name the +greatest man who ever lived will win a shiny red apple." + Immediately an Italian boy raises his hand. + "Yes, Tony?" + "Christopher Columbus!" says Tony. + "Well," says the teacher, "Christopher Columbus was a very great man, +but I don't think he was the greatest man who ever lived." + From the back of the room little Bernie Goldstein raises his hand. + "Yes, Bernie?" + "Jesus Christ", says Bernie. + "That is correct, Bernie," pronounces the teacher. "And here is +your apple." + When Bernie gets up to the front of the room to claim his prize, +the teacher says, "Bernie, given the fact that you're Jewish, I'm surprised +that you thought Jesus was the greatest man who ever lived." + "Well, actually," replies Bernie, "I do think Moses had the edge, +but business is business." +% +A Texan, impressing the hell out of a Bostonian with tales about the heroes +of the Alamo, commented, "I'll bet you never had anyone that brave around +*Boston*." + "Ever hear of Paul Revere?", snarled the Bostonian. + "Paul Revere?", pondered the Texan. "Isn't he the guy who ran for +help?" +% +Although a fifth-generation American, Father Sweeny was more Irish than most +of Erin's natives. He spoke with an Irish brogue which had mysteriously +appeared during his nineteenth year and he *hated* the English. Due to his +proclivity to belabor the British from his pulpit, complaints to his +superiors were not infrequent. He would blame anything evil or merely +inconvenient on the English people. If there was an act of terrorism, the +responsibility was promptly laid at the feet of the Brits. If there was a +natural disaster, undoubtedly the English government was an accessory to +the fact, if not outrightly culpable. Repeatedly, his superiors called him +on the carpet for his behavior. After a particularly vituperative +anti-British broadside, the Bishop instructed Father Sweeny to come straight +to his office; do not pass GO; do not collect two hundred dollars. Summing +up a humiliating and soul-marking reprimand, the Bishop ended with: "Next +week is Saint Patrick's Day. If you so much as *mention* the British, it's +your last sermon!" + +The following Sunday, as Father Sweeny spoke lovingly and eloquently of +Saint Patrick, and he made a reference to the last Passover celebrated by +Christ and His disciples. "Sure, an' you're all familiar with the tale. +You know that Our Lord sat at the table and told his disciples that one +among them would betray Him. As He looked around the table, He stopped at +Peter, the Rock, who said, `Not I, Lord!' He looked at Thomas, who doubted, +and Thomas said, `I could never do such a thing!' Then the Lord looked long +and hard at Judas Iscariot, who said, `Cor, bloimy, Guv'na, you couldn't +main may!'" +% +America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it +wags its tail, it knocks over a chair. + -- Arnold Joseph Toynbee +% +America is a melting pot. You know, where those on the bottom get burned, +and the scum rises to the top. + -- Utah Phillips +% + America, Russia and Japan are sending up a two year shuttle mission +with one astronaut from each country. Since it's going to be two long, lonely +years up there, each may bring any form of entertainment weighing 150 pounds +or less. The American approaches the NASA board and asks to take his 125 lb. +wife. They approve. + The Japanese astronaut says, "I've always wanted to learn Latin. I +want 100 lbs. of textbooks." The NASA board approves. The Russian astronaut +thinks for a second and says, "Two years... all right, I want 150 pounds of +the best Cuban cigars ever made." Again, NASA okays it. + Two years later, the shuttle lands and everyone is gathered outside +to welcome back the astronauts. Well, it's obvious what the American's been +up to, he and his wife are each holding an infant. The crowd cheers. The +Japanese astronaut steps out and makes a 10 minute speech in absolutely +perfect Latin. The crowd doesn't understand a word of it, but they're +impressed and they cheer again. The Russian astronaut stomps out, clenches +the podium until his knuckles turn white, glares at the first row and +screams: "Anybody got a match?" +% +[Americans] are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything +we allow them short of hanging. + -- Samuel Johnson + +America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its +tail it knocks over a chair. + -- Arnold Toynbee + +The United States is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine to +everybody and still nobody likes him. + -- Jim Samuels +% +An Aggie farmer was lifting his hogs, one by one, up to the branches of +his apple trees to graze on the apples. A Texas student walked by and +asked him, "Doesn't that take a lot of time?" + Replied the Aggie, "What's time to a hog?" +% +An American businessman in London was given special visitor's privileges at an +exclusive men's club. Striding in one afternoon, the American approached the +only other man in the lounge and tried to strike up a conversation. "Care +for a cigar?" he asked. + "No, thank you," the Englishman replied. "I tried smoking once and +didn't like it." + "Would you care to join me in the bar for a drink, then?" the +businessman asked. + "No, thank you. I tried drinking once and it didn't agree with me." + "Well, how about a game of billiards?" + "Sorry. I tried it once and couldn't seem to get the hang of it." + As the American started to turn away, the Englishman said, "But my +son will be here shortly, and I'm sure he would enjoy a game with you." + "Your son? An only child, I presume." +% +An American couple is in Paris, a much awaited trip, when suddenly the wife +dies of a heart attack. The husband decides to have her buried there as the +visit to France was something they had longed for for many years. All +arrangements are made when he suddenly realizes that he doesn't have a black +hat for the funeral. The hotel concierge tells him that what he wants is a +"chapeau noir." So off he goes to find a store open late. + First he meets a gendarme and in his fractured French asks, "M'sieur, +ou pouvais-je acheter un capeau noir?" + The policeman is a bit surprised but, after thinking a bit, gives our +friend directions. The store -- if that is what it is -- looks a little seedy +and run down, but the man behind the counter looks friendly so in goes our +hero. He speaks first: + "M'sieur, je veux acheter un capeau noir." + "Mais, monsieur, j'ai des capeaux rouges, des capeaux blancs, et des +capeaux marrons, mais pas des capeaux noires. Pourquoi avez vous besoin d'un +capeau noir?" + "Ma femme est morte." + "O Monsieur! Quelle beau sentiment!" +% + An American tourist went into a restaurant in a Spanish provincial +city and asked to be served the specialty of the house. When the dish +arrived he asked what kind of meat it contained. "These, senor," explained +the waiter in halting English, "are the cojones -- the, what you say, the +testicles -- of the bull killed in the ring today. + The tourist gulped but tasted the dish and found it delicious. +Returning the following evening, he asked for the same dish. When it was +served, he commented to the waiter, "But these -- these cojones -- are +much smaller than the ones I had yesterday." + "True, senor, but the bull -- he does not ALWAYS lose." +% +An American walks into an Irish pub around lunchtime, and finds the place +is completely filled and there are no chairs available, with the exception +of one -- seating a Chihuahua next to a woman. He very politely asks her +if she would mind placing her dog on the floor for a few minutes while he +got a quick bite to eat. + "I most certainly would!", the woman haughtily replies. "Little +Fifi *always* sits next to me at lunchtime and there she will stay!" + Whereupon, the American picks up the Chihuahua, throws it out of +an open window and takes the seat. + An Irishman, watching the whole encounter, walks over, taps the +American on the shoulder and says, "Mate, I guess I never will understand +you Americans. You drink your beer cold, drive on the right side of the +street, and you just threw the wrong bitch out the window!" +% + An Englishman, a Frenchman and an American are captured by cannibals. +The leader of the tribe comes up to them and says, "Even though you are about +to killed, your deaths will not be in vain. Every part of your body will be +used. Your flesh will be eaten, for my people are hungry. Your hair will be +woven into clothing, for my people are naked. Your bones will be ground up +and made into medicine, for my people are sick. Your skin will be stretched +over canoe frames, for my people need transportation. We are a fair people, +and we offer you a chance to kill yourself with our ceremonial knife." + The Englishman accepts the knife and yells, "God Save the Queen", +while plunging the knife into his heart. + The Frenchman removes the knife from the fallen body, and yells, +"Vive la France", while plunging the knife into his heart. + The American removes the knife from the fallen body, and yells, +while stabbing himself all over his body, "Here's your lousy canoe!" +% + An Israeli soldier was checking travelers' papers on a road, when a +man and a heavily pregnant woman on a donkey came by. "Your names please?" +said the the soldier. + "My name is Mary," said the woman. + "And mine is Joseph," said the man. + "Oh," said the soldier, a little taken aback, "And where are you +going?" + "To Bethlehem." + "Your reason for going there?" + "To pay our taxes to the government." + "Tell me," said the soldier, "are you going to name the baby Jesus?" + "Of course not," said the woman, "What do you think we are, Puerto +Ricans?" +% +An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity +in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him. + "Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if +you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like +an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an +hour seems like a minute." + The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a +moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?" + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +As an Englishman, an Aussie and a Scotsman are sitting in a pub, quaffing +a few, three flies buzz down from the ceiling and lazily circle each drinker. +Suddenly "buzzzzzzzzplooop", each fly does a kamakazi dive into a different +glass. + The Englishman take a disgusted look at his pint, dips the fly out +with a spoon, flicks the fly over his shoulder, and drains the glass. + The Aussie notices the fly as he puts the glass to his lips. With +a quick puff he blows the bug out in a cloud of foam, and tosses the beer +down in one gulp. + Then, as they both look on, awestruck, the Scotsman gently grasps the +fly by its wings, lifts it out of his brew and shakes it off. Then, in a +firm voice he speaks to the fly: "There y'are now laddie, safe and sound. +NOW SPIT IT OOOOT!" +% +"At a recent meeting in Snowmass, Colorado, a participant from Los +Angeles fainted from hyperoxygenation, and we had to hold his head +under the exhaust of a bus until he revived." +% +Back in the good ole days in Texas, when stagecoaches and the like was +popular, there were three people in a stagecoach one day: a true red- +blooded born and bred Texas gentleman, a tenderfoot city-slicker from +back East, and a beautiful and well-endowed Texas lady. The city-slicker +kept eyeing the lady, and finally he leaned forward and said, "Lady, I'll +give you $10 for a blow job." + +The Texas gentleman looked appalled, pulled out his pistol, and +killed the city-slicker on the spot. The lady gasped and said, "Thank +you, suh, for defendin' mah honor!" + +Whereupon the Texan holstered his gun and said, "Your honor, hell! +No tenderfoot is gonna come 'round here raisin' the price of women in Texas!" +% +Bernard was a young eighty-three, not a gomer, and able to talk. He'd been +transferred from MBH (Man's Best Hospital), the House's Rival. Founded in +Colonial times by the WASPs, the insemination of MBH by non-WASPs had taken +place only mid-twentieth century with the token multidextrous Oriental +surgeon, and finally, with the token red-hot internal-medicine Jew. Yet, +MBH was still Brooks Brothers, while the House was still the Garment District. +For Jews at MBH the password was "Dress British, Think Yiddish." It was +rare to get a TURF from the MBH to the House, and the Fat Man was curious: +"Bernard, you went to the MBH, they did a great work-up, and you told them, +after they got done, you wanted to be transferred here. Why?" + "I rilly don't know," said Bernard. + "Was it the doctors there? The doctors you didn't like?" + "The doctus? Nah, the doctus I can't complain." + "The test or the room?" + "The tests or the room? Vell, nah, about them I can't complain." + "The nurses? The food?" asked Fats, but Bernard shook his head no. +Fats laughed and said, "Listen , Bernie, you went to the MBH, they did this +great workup, and when I asked you why you came to the House of God, all you +tell me is, 'Nah, I can't complain.' So why did you come here? Why, Bernie, +why?" + "Vhy I come heah? Vell, said Bernie, "Heah I can complain." + -- House of God +% +Bingo, gas station, hamburger with a side order of airplane noise, +and you'll be Gary, Indiana. + -- Jessie, "Greaser's Palace" +% +Board the windows, up your car insurance, and don't leave any booze in plain +sight. It's St. Patrick's day in Chicago again. The legend has it that St. +Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, he was arrested for drunk +driving. The snakes left because people kept throwing up on them. +% +California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange. + -- Fred Allen +% +Californians are a strange people. They'll put every chemical known to God +and man up their nostrils and then laugh at you for putting sugar in your +coffee. +% +"Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missile sighted, target +Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept." +% +Calvin: "I wonder where we go when we die." +Hobbes: "Pittsburgh?" +Calvin: "You mean if we're good or if we're bad?" +% +Canada is so square even the female impersonators are women. + -- From the movie "Outrageous" +% +Chicago has journalists' bars, ethnic bars, neighborhood bars, even midget +bars, hundreds, maybe thousands of bars, on on every neighborhood block. +I was drinking on afternoon in O'Rourke's, a bar on the Near North side. +It was dark and empty, which suited my mood. A fat, stubble-bearded, +middle-aged man waddled in, took the stool next to mine, and ordered a +beer. He was completely unremarkable, except that he was dressed, head +to toe, in a white-lace wedding gown. After a silence, I said, "Been to +a wedding?" + He brushed back his veil, rustled his petticoats and said, "Uh... +yeah." + He silently finished his drink and left. The bartender said, "You +know, even the transvestites in this town have five o'clock shadows." +% +Chicagoan: "So, where're you from?" +Hoosier: "What's wrong with Indiana?" +% +"Cleveland? Yes, I spent a week there one day." +% +Dallas still lives. God MUST be dead. +% +France is a country where the money falls apart and you can't tear +the toilet paper. + -- Billy Wilder +% +How can you say that the world isn't Jewish, when the sun's real name is Sol? +% +How should they answer? + -- Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby) in reply to the question + "Why do Jews always answer a question with a question?" +% +I am America's child, a spastic slogging on demented +limbs drooling I'll trade my PhD for a telephone voice. + -- Burt Lanier Safford III, "An Obscured Radiance" +% +I grew up in an Italian family, you know, the strange thing about +Italians -- they're so Jewish. + -- Kay Ballard +% +I have just enough white in me to make my honesty questionable. + -- Will Rogers +% +I know why the sun never sets on the British Empire -- God wouldn't trust +an Englishman in the dark. + -- Duncan Spaeth +% +I married an Italian girl; the way you marry an Italian girl in my family +is to bring a New Yorker home first. +% +I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come +into my neighborhood after dark. + -- Dick Gregory +% +I was 15 years old before I found out that "damn yankee" was two words. +% +If God had meant for Texans to ski he would have made bullshit white. +% +If I had a plantation in Georgia and a home in Hell, I'd sell the plantation +and go home. + -- Eugene P. Gallagher +% +If there really was a Jewish conspiracy to run the world, my rabbi would +have let me in on it by now. I contribute enough to the shule. + -- Saul Goodman +% +If you live in New York, even if you're Catholic, you're Jewish. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +In the romantic days of Warsaw, Viennese whores were known for their +beauty and delicacy. A gallant officer picked up one such lady of the +evening, who took him to her apartment. They made delicious love all +evening before drifting to sleep in each others' arms. In the morning +the man dressed, staring into a full-length mirror. The lady lay in her +bed watching him. Finally, she said softly, + "Didn't you forget something?" + "What did I forget?" asked the officer. + "You forgot about the money," said the lady. + "Oh, no," said the man, standing at ramrod attention. "A Polish +officer never accepts money." +% +Israeli prime minister Shamir invited the Pope to play a round of golf. Since +the Pope hadn't the faintest of an idea how to play, he convened the college of +cardinals to ask their advice. "Call Arnold Palmer," they suggested, "make him +a cardinal and let him play in your place. Tell Shamir you couldn't make it." + Honored by His Holiness' request, Palmer agreed to represent him. +When he returned from the match, the Pope asked him how he had done. "I came +in second," Palmer replied. + "You mean to tell me Shamir beat you?" + "No, Your Holiness. Rabbi Nicklaus did." +% +It seems that a Scotsman and an Irishman walked into a bar. The Scot +immediately singled out the bartender and proclaimed that drinks were +on the house, and that he expected him to serve only his best. The next +day, the headlines read: Irish Ventriloquist Beaten to Death Behind Bar. +% + It was in a bar in midtown Manhattan and the Frenchman and the +American were talking about love over some dry Martinis. "Deed you know, +sir," the Frenchman said, "that een my country thair are 79 different +ways how to make the REAL, passionate luff?" + "Do tell?" said the American. "Well, that's amazing. In this +country there's only one." + "Just one?" the Frenchman said, condescendingly. "And what eez +that?" + "Well, there's a man and a woman, and --" + "Sacre bleu!!" exclaimed the Frenchman. "Numbair 80!" +% +It was the first day of a new term at Princeton, and a Texas A&M freshman +was learning his way around the campus. Stopping a distinguished looking +upperclassman, he inquired, + "Say, buddy, can you tell me where the library is at?" + "My good fellow," came the reply, "at Princeton we do not end our +sentences with a preposition." + "All right," said the freshman, "can you tell me where the library +is at, asshole?" +% + It's midnight. The old man is awake, nervously pacing the floor, as +his 20-year-old son comes in. + "Whatta you mean? You staya out alla night, you runna around widda +bums. Whatta you trying to do?" + "Papa, don't talk like that," replies the boy. + "Who-a you, tella me notta talka like that? You no work, you +chase-a bad women, whatta become of you?" + "Papa, *please* don't talk like that." + "Don'ta talka like that? Whatta you mean? Why shouldn't I talka +likka that?" + "Papa, we're not Italian." +% +It's not a sin not to be Irish, but it is a great shame. + -- Sean O'Huiginn +% + "Jean, what is this attraction between Catholic girls and Jewish men?" + "You really want to know?" + "Yeah." + "Well, Carol, Jewish men are great in bed... right, Bob? And Catholic +girls fuck like bunnies." +% +Jews always know two things: suffering and where to find great Chinese food. + -- From the movie "My Favorite Year". +% +Kansas, where the men are men, the sheep are scared and the women are grateful. +% +Living in Hollywood is like living in a bowl of granola. What ain't +fruits and nuts is flakes. +% +Morris had been down on his luck for months, and, though not a devoutly +religious man, had begun to visit the local synagogue to ask God's help. +One week, out of desperation, he prayed, "God, I've been a good and decent +man all my life. Would it be so terrible if You let me win the lottery +just once?" + The despondent fellow returned week after week. One day, Morris, +nearly hopeless now, prayed, "God, I've never asked You for anything before. +I just want to win one little lottery." + "As he dejectedly rose to leave, God's voice boomed, "Morris, at +least meet Me halfway on this. Buy a ticket!" +% +Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring Chile. +Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping pictures. One day, +without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret military installation. In +an instant, armed troops surround Murray and Esther and hustle them off to +prison. + They can't prove who they are because they've left their passports +in their hotel room. For three weeks they're tortured day and night to get +them to name their contacts in the liberation movement... Finally they're +hauled in front of a military court, charged with espionage, and sentenced +to death. + The next morning they're lined up in front of the wall where they'll +be shot. The sergeant in charge of the firing squad asks them if they have +any last requests. Esther wants to know if she can call her daughter in +Chicago. The sergeant says he's sorry, that's not possible, and turns to +Murray. + "This is crazy!" Murray shouts. "We're not spies!" And he +spits in the sergeants face. + "Murray!" Esther cries. "Please! Don't make trouble." + -- Arthur Naiman +% +Naches (rhymes with Bach' us, with "Bach" pronounced like the composer) +is what every Jewish parent wants from their children, lots of good +returns, good grades, good spouse, good grandchildren. + +So, now that you all understand naches, the joke: + +Two Jewish women are sitting having coffee. + "So, how's your daughter?" + "Oh, Rachel! She's fine, she just married a dentist!" + "Really? Isn't she the one that married the lawyer?" + "Yes, that's my Rachel." + "That's... that's nice. But isn't she the same one that married + the doctor?" + "Yes, that's her!" + "But didn't she marry a bank executive before that?" + "Yes, yes!" + "Ahhh. So much naches from one child!" +% +New Jersey is not the armpit of the nation; it's the asshole of the universe. + -- Jonathan Michael Smith +% +Now a Jew, in the dictionary, is one who is descended from the ancient +tribes of Judea ... but you and I know what a Jew is -- one who killed +Our Lord ... A lot of people say to me "Why did you kill Christ?" What +can I say? It was an accident. It was one of those parties that got out +of hand, you know... We killed him because he didn't want to become +a doctor, that's why we killed him. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +On an isolated stretch of beach near Cannes, a beautiful French girl threw +herself into the sea and drowned despite a young man's attempt to save her. +The man dragged the half-nude body ashore and left it on the sand while he +went to notify the authorities. Upon his return, he was horrified to find +a man making love to the corpse. + "Monsieur, monsieur," he shouted, "that woman is dead, +that woman is dead!" + "Sacre bleu," exclaimed the man, springing up. +"I thought she was an American!" +% + On his first day as a bus driver, Maxey Eckstein handed in +receipts of $65. The next day his take was $67. The third day's +income was $62. But on the fourth day, Eckstein emptied no less than +$283 on the desk before the cashier. + "Eckstein!" exclaimed the cashier. "This is fantastic. That +route never brought in money like this! What happened?" + "Well, after three days on that cockamamy route, I figured +business would never improve, so I drove over to Fourteenth Street and +worked there. I tell you, that street is a gold mine!" +% +On one hot dusty day in 1860, a lone Mexican bandit crossed the border into +Texas. After robbing a small bank and shooting up the town, he led the posse +on a merry chase through the desert. On the sixth day of the chase he was +apprehended. + Sheriff-to-interpreter: "Ask him where the money is." + Interpreter-to-bandit: "He wants to know where you hid the money." + Bandit-to-interpreter: "I'll never tell, never!" + Interpreter-to-sheriff: "He says he'll never tell, senor." +At this point, the sheriff loses his cool. His town has been shot up, his +bank robbed, he's spent a week in the desert tracking this guy, and now he +says he'll never tell. So he takes his pistol, jams it under the bandits' +chin, and, with the veins standing out on his neck, screams "Tell him to tell +me where the money is, or I'm gonna blow his brains all over the desert!" + Interpreter-to-bandit: "He says if you don't tell him where the + money is right now, he will kill you here." + Bandit-to-interpreter: "Do not kill me, senor, the money is hidden + under the big tree at the pass!" + Interpreter-to-sheriff: "He says you ain't got the balls..." +% +Ona day Ima gonna to Detroit to a bigga hotel. Ina morning I go down to +eat breakfast. I tella waitress I wanna two piss's toast. She bringa me +only one piss. I tella her I wanna two piss ona my plate. She says you +better no piss on the plate, you sonna bitch. I don't even know the lady +and she call me sonna bitch. Later I go out to eat at the bigga restaurant. +The waitress bring me a spoon and a knife but no fock. I tell her I wanna +fock. She tells me everone wanna fock. I tell her "you no understand", I +wanna fock on the table. She say you better not fock on the table, you +sonna bitch. So I go back to my room ina hotel and there isa no shits ona +my bed. I calla the manager and tella him I wanna shit. He tella me to go +to the toilet. I say "you no understand", I wanna shit on the bed. He say +you better no shit ona bed, you sonna bitch. I go to check out and the man +at the desk say "peace to you". I say piss on you too, you sonna bitch. I +gonna back to Italy. +% +One day on a busy street corner a huge, burly looking man walked up to a police +officer and asks, "Thcuse me offither, can you tell me where thidee-thid, and +thacramento ith?" + The police officer didn't reply at all, but just looked away. + The large man then asked again, but still no reply. After a few more +attempts which the police officer studiously ignored, the frustrated man +walked away. An onlooking pedestrian then walked up to the officer and asked, +"Officer, why didn't you tell that man where thirty-third and Sacramento was?" +The police officer replied, + "Thure, thure, and dit the thit ticked out of me!" +% +One of my favorite jokes, a telling commentary on Jewish mothers' capacity +to lay on guilt, involves the mother who gave her son two neckties on Chanuka. + The boy hurried into his bedroom, ripped off the tie he was wearing, +put on one of the ties his mother had brought him, and hurried back. "Look, +Mama! Isn't it gorgeous?" + "Mama asked, 'What's the matter? You don't like the other one?'" + -- Leo Rosten, "Hooray For Yiddish" +% +One of the first things schoolchildren in Texas learn is how to +compose a simple declarative sentence without the word "shit" in it. +% +One of the oldest problems puzzled over in the Talmud is: "Why did God create +goyim?" The generally accepted answer is "somebody has to buy retail." + -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" +% +Our readers ask, "Why don't more WASPs go to orgies?" Well, it's really +quite simple. They don't want to have to write all those thank-you notes. +% + Rosenberg wanted to leave the country. + "And what is *your* reason?" asks the official at the Passport Office. + "I am told a pogrom is being prepared against the Jews and the +barbers," replies Rosenberg. + "Why the barbers?" + "Everybody asks that question. That's why I want to leave." +% +Rumour has it that the intrepid New Zealanders have finally discovered +two new uses for sheep. Meat and wool. +% + +Cleveland still lives. God MUST be dead. +% +Save Soviet Jewry -- Win Valuable Prizes!!!! +% +Shamus: A shamus is a guy who takes care of handyman tasks around the +temple, and makes sure everything is in working order. A shamus is at +the bottom of the pecking order of synagog functionaries, and there's +a joke about that: + +A rabbi, to show his humility before God, cries out in the middle of a +service, + "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" +The cantor, not to be bested, also cries out, + "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" +The shamus, deeply moved, follows suit and cries, + "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" +The rabbi turns to the cantor and says, + "Look who thinks he's nobody!" +% +So this traveling salesman got an audience with the Pope. + "Hey, father," he said, "have you heard the joke about the two +Polacks who --" + "My son," the Pope reminded him, "I'm Polish." +The salesman thought for a moment. + "That's okay, Father," he said. "I'll tell it very slowly." +% +Social interaction can be fatal. Come to Irvine and live forever. +% +State license plates we'd like to see: + + NEVADA MASSACHUSETTS + LVME 10DR OW-A CAH +LAND OF 10,00 ELVIS IMPERSONATORS THE GOOFY ACCENT STATE + + HAWAII WISCONSIN + L-O HA CHEDDAR +FRUITY UMBRELLA COCKTAIL WONDERLAND EAT CHEESE OR DIE +% +State license plates we'd like to see: + + ALABAMA ARIZONA + IC1 NOW 120 F +THE UFO SIGHTING STATE THE HEAT PROSTRATION STATE + + CONNECTICUT MISSISSIPPI + 5:36 EXP 4I4S2PS +WHERE THE SMART NY WORK FORCE LIVES THE MOST OFTEN MISSPELLED STATE + + TEXAS FLORIDA + 1-2-3 HIKE ZON KED + PLAY FOOTBALL OR DIE AMERICA'S DRUG DEALER +% +State license plates we'd like to see: + + MICHIGAN CALIFORNIA + 4-GET 74-77 EGO-MN-E-X +EMBARRASSED HOME STATE OF GERALD FORD THE SERIAL KILLER STATE + + NORTH CAROLINA NEW JERSEY + WL-GOLLY ARG GGH +HOME OF GOMER, GOOBER AND JESSE HELMS FIRST IN TOXIC WASTE + + KANSAS WASHINGTON DC + TOTO -2 $10000000 ETC +THE NOT MUCH SINCE THE WIZARD OF OZ WASTING YOUR MONEY SINCE 1810 + MOVIE STATE +% +Texas is Hell on woman and horses. + -- Wayne Oakes +% +The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish child, +was propounded to me by my father: + + "What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- and whistles?" +I knit my brow and thought and thought, and in final perplexity gave up. + "A herring," said my father. + "A herring," I echoed. "A herring doesn't hang on the wall!" + "So hang it there." + "But a herring isn't green!" I protested. + "Paint it." + "But a herring isn't wet." + "If it's just painted it's still wet." + "But -- " I sputtered, summoning all my outrage, + "a herring doesn't whistle!!" + "Right, " smiled my father. "I just put that in to make it hard." + -- Leo Rosten, "The Joys of Yiddish" +% +The Israelis are the Doberman pinschers of the Middle East. They +treat the Arabs like postmen. + -- Franklyn Ajaye +% +The president publicly apologized today to all those offended by his brother's +remark, "There's more Arabs in this country than there is Jews!". Those +offended include Arabs, Jews, and English teachers. + -- Channel 11 News, Baltimore, on Billy Carter +% + The Soviet pre-eminence in chess can be traced to the average +Russian's readiness to brood obsessively over anything, even the arrangement +of some pieces of wood. Indeed, the Russians' predisposition for quiet +reflection followed by sudden preventive action explains why they led the +field for many years in both chess and ax murders. It is well known that as +early as 1970, the U.S.S.R., aware of what a defeat at Reykjavik would do to +national prestige, implemented a vigorous program of preparation and +incentive. Every day for an entire year, a team of psychologists, chess +analysts and coaches met with the top three Russian grand masters and +threatened them with a pointy stick. That these tactics proved fruitless +is now a part of chess history and a further testament to the American way, +which provides that if you want something badly enough, you can always go to +Iceland and get it from the Russians. + -- Marshall Brickman, Playboy, April, 1973 +% +The Soviet Union, which has complained recently about alleged anti-Soviet +themes in American advertising, lodged an official protest this week +against the Ford Motor Company's new campaign: "Hey you stinking, fat +Russian, get off my Ford Escort." + -- Dennis Miller +% +The United States is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine to +everybody and still nobody likes him. + -- Jim Samuels +% +The white race is the cancer of history. + -- Susan Sontag +% +The yankees, son, are up north. The damnyankees are down here. +% +The young Georgia miss came to the hospital for a checkup. + "Have you been X-rayed?" asked the doctor. + "Nope," she said, "but ah've been ultraviolated." +% +Then there was the Scot that wanted to rob a jewelry store -- he tossed a +brick through the show window and ran off with a king's ransom. They +caught him when he came back for the brick. +% +There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess -- and there are few +mistakes they have ever avoided. + -- Winston Churchill, Parliament, August, 1945 +% + There are some goyisha names that just about guarantee that +someone isn't Jewish. For example, you'll never meet a Jew named +Johnson or Wright or Jones or Sinclair or Ricks or Stevenson or Reid or +Larsen or Jenks. But some goyisha names just about guarantee that +every other person you meet with that name will be Jewish. Why is +this? + Who knows? Learned rabbis have pondered this question for +centuries and have failed to come up with an answer, and you think you +can find one? Get serious. You don't even understand why it's +forbidden to eat crab -- fresh cold crab with mayonnaise -- or lobster +-- soft tender morsels of lobster dipped in melted butter. You don't +even understand a simple thing like that, and yet you hope to discover +why there are more Jews named Miller than Katz? Fat Chance. + -- Arthur Naiman +% +There was an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Newfoundlander sitting in +a bar having a few drinks together. + The Englishman turns to the Frenchman, "So tell me, what do you do to +drive your wife wild in bed?" + "Well", replies the Frenchman, "After we make love, I go out to the +garden and pick some roses. Then I take the petals off and put them all over +her body. then I gently blow them off with a soft, even breath, and that drives +her wild with desire." + "Interesting," the Englishman replies. "After my wife and I make love +I massage baby oil gently all over her body -- that works for me!" +Then the pair turn to the Newfie and ask him what he does. + "Well...", he says, "when me and the old lady are through, I jump +out of bed and wipe my dick off on the curtain. And that REALLY drives +her wild." +% +Three fine Irish lads, O'Rourke, O'Malley and O'Donnell, worked together at +the local brewery. One day, as fate would have it, O'Rourke fell into one +of the beer vats and drowned. O'Malley and O'Donnell, completely crestfallen, +had to break the news to his wife. + They went 'round the Widow O'Rourke's house and informed her that her +poor dear Patrick had drowned in a beer vat that very day. Choking back her +tears, she asked them "Tell me now, did me poor Patty suffer much?" + "I don't think so," replied O'Donnell. "He climbed out twice to take +a piss." +% +Three women and Feldstein were brought before the presiding judge. +The women had been arrested for soliciting and he'd been was arrested for +selling ties without a license. "What do you do for a living?" the judge +asked, pointing at the first girl. + "Your honor, I'm a model," she replied. + "Thirty days," was the sentence. The judge turned to the second +girl. "What do you do for a living?" he asked. + "Your honor, I'm an actress." + "Thirty days." Then he turned to the third girl. "And how about +you?" he demanded. + "Well, your honor, I'm a prostitute. I'm not proud of it, but it's +the only way I can support my mother and my children since my husband's been +laid off." + "For telling the truth," he said, "I'm going to suspend sentence. +Furthermore, here's $100 to help your family out." Now he turns to Feldstein, +arrested for selling ties illegally. "And you," he said, "what do you do +for a living?" + "Your honor, I'm a prostitute. I'm not proud..." +% +Tourist to New Yorker: + "Pardon me, sir, do you know what time it is, or should I + just go fuck myself?" +% +Two Englishmen struck up a conversation with an American in the club +car of a train headed east out of Chicago. + "I say," queried the younger Englishman, "have you ever been to +London?" + The American laughed. "It was my home for two years during the war," +he said. "Had some of the wildest times of my life in that old town." + The older Englishman, a little hard of hearing, asked, "What did +he say, Reggie?" + "He said he's been to London, father," the younger Englishman +replied. + After a little lull in the conversation, the young man asked, "You +didn't, by any chance, meet a Hazel Wimbleton in London, did you?" + The American almost fell off his chair. "Hot Pants Hazel!" he +exclaimed. "My God, I shacked up with that horny broad for three months +just before I came back to the States!" + "What did he say, Reggie?" the older Englishman wanted to know. + "He says he knows Mother," the younger Englishman responded. +% +Two Finns and a penguin are sitting on the front porch of a large house. The +penguin is dripping in sweat; his owner looks down and says to the other Finn, +"Hey Urho, I want that you should take the penguin to the zoo, okay?" The +owner then runs off to the sauna. When he gets out of the sauna, he looks +up at the porch, and sure enough, there is Urho and the penguin, sweating +away. So he yells out "Hey, Urho, I thought I told you to take the penguin to +the zoo, I did." And Urho yells back "Yup, and tomorrow we're going to +the movies!" +% +Two friends, an Italian boy and a Jewish boy, come of age at the same time. +The Italian boy's father presents him with a brand-new pistol. On the other +side of town, at his Bar Mitzvah, the Jewish boy receives a beautiful gold +watch. + The next day, in school, the two boys are showing each other what +they got. It turns out that each boy likes the other's present better, and +so they trade. + That night, the Italian boy is at home and his father sees him +looking at his new watch. "Where did you getta thatta watch?" he asks. + The boy explains the trade, and the father blows his top. "Whatta +you? Stupidda boy? Whatsa matta you!" + "Somma day, you maybe gonna getta married. Then maybe somma day +you gonna comma home and finda you wife inna bed with another man. Whatta +you gonna do then? Looka atta you watch and say, `How longa you gonna be?'" +% +Two Russian friends happen to meet in Red Square. One of them says, "By +the way, did you hear that Romanov died?" + "No," replied the other, "I didn't even know he'd been arrested!" +% +Two Swedish guys get of a ship and head for the nearest bars. Each one +orders two vodkas and immediately downs them. They they order two more +and once again quickly throw them back. They then order two more. When +they arrive, one of them picks up his glass, and, turning to the other, +toasts him, "Skoal!" + The other turns to the first man and scolds, "Hey! Did you come +here to screw around, or did you come here to drink?" +% +Very few blacks will take up golf until the requirement for plaid pants is +dropped. + -- Franklyn Ajaye +% +W. Lafayette may not be the asshole of the universe... + but you sure as hell can see it from there! +% +We Americans, we're a simple people... but piss us off, and we'll bomb +your cities. + -- Robin Williams +% +When they tell me to stick it where the sun don't shine, I put it in Oregon. +% +World War III is about to break out, but hidden somewhere in Switzerland, +a small group of international statesmen are trying to avert disaster. +The key members of this group are the representatives from Moscow, Bonn, and +Jerusalem, who, despite their personal enmity, manage to forge a peaceful +settlement, at the last moment. As the treaty is signed, and the war +postponed, almost entirely through the efforts of those three men, an angel +appears. "The earth is saved through the efforts of these three men! +Therefore, I will grant each of them their heart's desire!" + So, the angel asks the German for his wish, and the German, recalling +the nearness of their disaster, and perceiving the cause to have been the +Russians, immediately says "I wish there were no more Russians!" And God +said, "It will be done." + The angel asks the Russian for his wish, which, of course, is "*I* +wish there were no more Germans!" Replies the angel, "It will be done." + So the angel asks the Jew for his wish. The Jew is in a state of +shock. "Will you really grant the German's wish?" he asks, and the angel +avers. "And the Russian's, too?" The angel avers yet again. Then the Jew +thinks a moment, leans back and says, "In that case, I think I'd like a small +cup of coffee." +% +You always introduce the younger person to the older person, using the +wording: "Miss Brown, I'd like to introduce you to an older person" +(unless her name is not "Miss Brown"). If you do not know a person's +age, ask for a driver's license and a major credit card. If you are +introduced to a member of a minority group, use the "high-five" style +handshake, followed by a remark designed to show you don't mind a bit, +such as "I see you are a (name of a minority group)! Good!" + -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette" +% +You are now in Atlanta, Georgia. Please set your clocks back 200 years. +% +You can bring men from other parts of the world who are sane. And you +know what happens? At the very moment they cross those mountains... +they go mad. Instantaneously and automatically, at the very moment +they cross the mountains into California, they go insane. + -- Quentin Genter +% +You've got to pity New Mexico... so far from heaven and so close to Texas. +% +Roumanian-Yiddish cooking has killed more Jews than Hitler. + -- Zero Mostel +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/fortunes b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/fortunes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a02f794 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/fortunes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +Obviously the only rational solution to your problem is suicide. +% +You will be dead within a year. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/hphobia b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/hphobia new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a08d0e --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/hphobia @@ -0,0 +1,405 @@ +A '49er walked into the saloon at Bloody Gulch. He'd been prospecting for +more than a year. + "Hey! Y'got any wimmen around here?" + "Nope," the bartender replied, "But there's George in the back room." + "I don't go for that kind of thing," the prospector scowled. He +downed his drink and left disgustedly. +A few months passed before the miner found his way down the mountain again. +He stumbled into the tavern and asked the bartender, "Any wimmen pass through +this part of town?" + "Nope. Nary a one. But we still got George in the back room." + Angry, the miner shouted, "I told you I don't go for that kind of +thing," and turned on his heel and left. + Within a year he came back from his mine again. With a wild look on +his face he re-entered the saloon. Leaning over the bar he whispered to the +bartender, "If I was to go into the back room with George, how many people +'round here would know?" + "Oh," the bartender said, scratching his chin, "'bout seven, I guess." + "Seven!?" + "Yep. You, me, George, and the four men holdin' him down. You see, +George don't go for that kind of thing neither." +% +A genius is a queer who can whistle while he works. + -- Bobby Knight +% +A huge Rambolike fellow walked into a tavern and took a seat in the middle of +the bar. After downing a double in one gulp, he glared at the six men to his +right and said, "You're all no-good motherfuckers. Anyone have a problem with +that?" + When no one said a word, the brawny fellow ordered another whiskey, +downed it in one gulp, turned to the five men on his left and said, "You're +all cocksuckers. Anyone have a problem with that?" + Everybody on the left stared silently into his drink. Suddenly, a man +on the right stood up and started walking toward the big guy. "Hey, asshole!" +the thug bellowed. "You got a problem with what I said?" + "No problem at all," came the reply. "I was just sitting at the wrong +end of the bar." +% +A lisping fag fell off a pleasure yacht and began to scream. "Help! Help, I +can't thwim!" One of the other passengers heard the caterwauling and leaned +over the rail, remarking, "Really, there's no need to scream. Just reach out +and grab that buoy near you." To which the floundering sodomite answered, +"Buoy! Oh, thith ith no time for thekth, you degenerate... I'm dwowning!" +% +A man rushed into a bar and breathlessly asked the bartender to pour him +three straight scotches. The bartender complied, and watched as he downed +them one after another. + "Why three scotches?" the bartender asked as he paused for breath. + "Well, to be honest, I'm celebrating my first blow-job." + "Hell, congratulations, the next one's on me." + "No, thanks," the young man replied, "if the first three didn't get +the taste out of my mouth, I don't think another one will." +% + A man walks into a bar and orders 3 shots and 3 beers. The +bartender, seeing that the man is distraught, asks what the problem is. + "I just found out that my brother is gay", he replies. + About a week later, the same man walks in and orders 6 shots and +6 chasers. So the bartender inquires, "What's wrong this time?" + To which the man says, "I just found out that two of my brothers +are lovers." + Another week goes by and the man comes back to the bar and orders +NINE shots and NINE beers. The bartenders says "Damn, boy, doesn't anyone +in your family like pussy?" + "Yeah. Me and my sister." +% +A ten-year-old kid came home from school one day, and when his mom +asked how was school he says: "Gee, great, mom. I got laid!" + She's shocked and sends him upstairs, where his dad finds him after +work. "Mommy told me about your day at school, Billy, and I think we men +should keep it a secret. Women just don't understand these things." + So every night Dad goes up to Billy's room after Mom tucks him in: +"You get laid today, Billy?" + "Yeah, Dad." + "How was it?" + "Real neat, Dad, I liked it a lot." + "Good Boy!". + A month later: "You get laid today?" + "No, Dad." + "No? How come?" + "Gee, Dad, my ass is getting really sore." +% +A young man walks into a bus station, and goes into the men's room to relieve +himself. When he steps in he sees a leprechaun with the most enormous penis +he has ever seen. As he urinates, he cannot avoid spying on the giant member +of the tiny man dressed in green. The leprechaun zips up and the man asks him +if he is indeed a real leprechaun. + The little man says, "Aye, me laddie, I'm a leprechaun, and I can +grant you three wishes." + "Oh, wow!" comes the reply, "What do I need to do?" + "Well, havin' such a large cock makes it a bit awkward with the +ladies, the thing not fittin' and all... I'll grant you your three wishes +if you wouldn't mind suckin' me dick 'til I come." The man is a bit taken +aback, but agrees, realizing that the three wishes will be priceless. After +the tiny fellow has come, he starts to walk away. + The man exclaims, "Hey, what about my three wishes?" + Replies the leprechaun, "How old are you, me boy?" + "25." + "Aren't you a wee bit old to be believin' in leprechauns?" +% +Another stupid gay joke!!! + You see, this gay man walks into a Texas bar and orders a strawberry +daquiri. The bartender looks him over with amusement and says: "We don't +serve your kind, buddy, why don't you get out of here before the boys come +in and kick your ass?" + The guy whimpers a little and lisps, "Pleasse misssture I am soooo +thurstay...." + Well, the bartender feels somewhat sorry for him and hands him a beer +on the house on the condition that he drink it in the back and leave as soon +as he's done. A little while later, a hulking cowboy walks in and up to the +bar. He slams his fist on the bar and hollers, "I'm so thirsty, I could +lick the sweat off of a bulls' balls!" + From the back of the bar comes the cry... "Moo, moo, buckaroooooo!!!" +% + Bubba, Jim Bob, and Leroy were fishing out on the lake last November, +and, when Bubba tipped his head back to empty the Jim Beam, he fell out of the +boat into the lake. Jim Bob and Leroy pulled him back in, but as Bubba didn't +look too good, they started up the Evinrude and headed back to the pier. + By the time they got there, Bubba was turning kind of blue, and his +teeth were chattering like all get out. Jim Bob said, "Leroy, go run up to +the pickup and get Doc Pritchard on the CB, and ask him what we should do". + Doc Pritchard, after hearing a description of the case, said "Now, +Leroy, listen closely. Bubba is in great danger. He has hy-po-thermia. Now +what you need to do is get all them wet clothes off of Bubba, and take your +clothes off, and pile your clothes and jackets on top of him. Then you all +get under that pile, and hug up to Bubba real close so that you warm him up. +You understand me Leroy? You gotta warm Bubba up, or he'll die." + Leroy and the Doc 10-4'ed each other, and Leroy came back to the +pier. "Wh-Wh-What'd th-th-the d-d-doc s-s-say L-L-Leroy?", Bubba chattered. + "Bubba, Doc says you're gonna die." +% + Elroy stared at Barb and then leaned quietly over to Shake Tiller +and stuck out his hand. "Son," he said. "Tell the truth. It ain't better +than fried chicken, is it?" + Shake looked solemnly at Elroy, clasping his hand, and said: + "I got to be dead honest, Roy." + And Elroy said yeah, lay it on him. + Shake said slowly, "For a Lesbian who gave up the only real love she +ever knew -- Sister Francis at Our Lady of Victory -- and for a person who +can't make it any more with nothing but an electric toothbrush, she's the +finest I've ever had." + -- Dan Jenkins, "Semi-Tough" +% +Everyone: "Australia, Australia, Australia, Australia, we love you, + Amen!" +Bruce: "Another two! (Bottles opening.) Any questions?" +Bruce: "New-Bruce, are you a Poofter?" +Bruce: "Are you a Poofter?" +New-Bruce: "No!" +Bruce: "No. Right, I just want to remind you of the faculty rules: + Rule One!" +Everyone: "NO POOFTERS!" +Bruce: "Rule Two, no member of the faculty is to maltreat the Abbos + in any way at all -- if there's anybody watching. Rule Three?" +Everyone: "NO POOFTERS!" +Bruce: "Rule Four, now this term, I don't want to catch anybody not + drinking. Rule Five..." +Everyone: "NO POOFTERS!" +Bruce: "Rule Six, there is NO... Rule Six. Rule Seven..." +Everyone: "NO POOFTERS!" +Bruce: "Right, that concludes the readin' of the rules, Bruce. This + here's the wattle, the emblem of our land. You can stick it in a + bottle, you can hold it in your hand. Amen! + -- Monty Python +% +Female ballet dancers are the bravest girls around. Who else would take a +flying leap into the arms of a homosexual and expect to be caught? + -- Rita Rudner +% +For months the loving newlywed had asked his blushing bride to perform oral +sex on him, but to no avail. His sweet entreaties never worked, for she was +simply too innocent and inexperienced to even *think* of such a thing, let +alone attempt it. But a year of gentle persistence finally paid off, and +one night his darling nervously but lovingly performed the act. When it was +over, she looked deeply into his eyes, blushed, and asked, "How was I, +sweetheart?" + He looked at her and replied, "How should I know -- I'm no cocksucker!" +% +He was so gay he'd never lean his ass on a baseball bat -- scared it'd get +serious. +% + "Hello, Police Department." + "This is Thomas Parrish, 903 Sylvester Court. I've just been sexually +molested by a pervert, right here in my own home. It was horrifying!" + "Just remain calm, sir, and tell me about it." + "Well, the man came in the window wearing a ski mask. I was napping +on the bed, in just my pajamas, and the TV set was on so I didn't hear anything. +Suddenly he had his great big old callused hand over my mouth, holding me down. +I tried to scream... he was pulling my pants off. I was so frightened! He +held a knife to my throat and undressed so quickly. What could I do? I +couldn't stop him. He was huge. A great, hairy, beefy man, more than fifty +pounds heavier than I am, and hung like... Oh! it was terrible. He had an +erection, and he knelt on my shoulders and forced the awful thing down my +throat; forced me to suck it. Yes, officer! There was no escaping this man. +Finally, when I thought I would faint, he got off me and turned me over on +my tummy, forcing my legs apart with his knees, and oh! I'm so embarrassed to +say it, he put that huge thing... It must have been a foot long, and I don't +know how thick... into my... Just a minute." + "What's the matter, mister?" + "Listen, I have to hang up now, he's getting out of the shower." +% +HEY KIDS! ANN LANDERS SAYS: + A great way to prevent the tragedy of unwanted pregnancy is to +become a homosexual. Every year, millions of young men and women, just +like you, are making the clean change to worry-free homosexuality. +They're having more sex than ever, and more fun than ever. Send 50 cents +today for my leaflet "Gay sexual techniques". Be sure to specify the +male or female edition. +% +If God doesn't destroy San Francisco, He should apologize to Sodom and +Gomorrah. +% +In a recent survey on why some men are homosexual, 82 percent of the gay +chaps responding said that either genetics or home environment was the +principal factor. The remaining 18 percent revealed that they had been +sucked into it. +% +In San Francisco, Halloween is redundant. + -- Will Durst +% + Liberace was at heaven's gate when Saint Peter told him that he'd been +disqualified from entering. + Stunned, Liberace asked, "Why?" + "Our records show that you once ate a parakeet," Saint Peter answered. + "I never did that," Liberace replied. "Can't you check your records? +They *must* be wrong!" + "It says right here that on August 15, 1981, you ate a chartreuse +parakeet with black trim." + "Hey, listen, you must be thinking of Ozzy Osbourne, " Liberace +replied. "Now, I might have had a cockatoo..." +% +Little Boy Blew... he needed the money. +% +One fall day, two men were out in the woods hunting. Feeling a sudden need +to relieve himself, George went over to a nearby clump of bushes, unzipped +his fly, and started in when a poisonous snake lunged out of the bushes and +bit him on his penis. Hearing George's howl of pain and fright, his friend +Fred came running up and told him to lie still while he used the radio to +call a doctor. + "There's only one way to save your friend's life," said the doctor +gravely. "If you cut a shallow 'X' over the bite and then suck as much of +the poison out as you can, he'll probably be okay, but otherwise there's not +much hope." + Hearing Fred's footsteps, George rose weakly up on one elbow and +cried out, "Fred, what'd he say? What did the doctor say?" + "George, old friend," said Fred sadly, "he said you're gonna die." +% +Out on the great American desert one day, a bald eagle reached a +state of great libidal distress. Pickings were slim, but in time, he saw a +dove flying by. "Better than nothin'", he muttered (birds in jokes can mutter) +and swooped down, grabbed the dove and flew to his nest. Feathers flew, and +eventually the dove tottered to the edge of the cliff and shouted (yes, they +shout, too): + "I'm a dove! I've been loved! And I LIKE it!" + Well, this took care of the old boy for a while but soon enough he +was at it again. All he could find was a lark, so away he went, and feathers +flew and soon the lark tottered to the edge of the cliff and shouted: + "I'm a lark! I've been sparked! And I LIKE it!" + As you can guess, some time later our friend was again in need of +amor... lib... you know! This time, all that happened by was... a duck! +So down he swooped, and feathers flew, and the next thing seen is the duck +tottering to the cliffside and shouting: + "I'M A DRAKE! THERE'S BEEN A MISTAKE! AND I DON'T LIKE IT!!! +% + Sam Lefkovitz is having an intimate party to celebrate his thirty +immensely profitable years in the construction business. + "You know," he laments to his friends, "over the years I have +constructed dozens of enormous projects in and around this city, but +am I known as Sam the Builder? No. + And over the years I have contributed literally millions of +dollars to charitable causes of one sort or another, but am I called +Sam the Philanthropist? No sir! + But suck one little cock..." +% +The most difficult thing about surviving AIDS is trying to convince +your parents that you're Haitian. +% +The new rooster caused a great stir in the barnyard. From resplendent comb +to defiant spurs, he was the picture of young bantamhood. Almost immediately +upon arrival, he was greeted by and elderly rooster who took him behind the +barn and whispered in his ear: "Young fellow, I'm long past my prime. All I +want now is peace and solitude. So you take over right now as ruler of the +roost with my blessings." + The newcomer did just that. He went about his squirely duties as only +a young rooster could. After several days, however, the elder rooster again +took the young champion behind the barn. "Kid," he said, "the hens are after +me for giving up my position so readily. So why don't we have a race, say, +ten laps around the farmhouse? The winner becomes undisputed keeper of the +henhouse and the hens will stop nagging me. + The young rooster, with only contempt for his elder, agreed. +Surprisingly, the older one jumped off to an early lead. His counterpart, +weakened by the activities of the previous week, was never quite able to +overtake him. As they rounded the barn for the fourth time, the elder rooster +maintained a formidable lead. + Suddenly, a shotgun blast rang out. The young rooster fell in the +dust, his plumage riddled with buckshot. + "Dammit, Emmy," said the farmer. "That's the last rooster we buy +from Ferguson. Four of 'em this month, and every one's been queer." +% +The San Francisco police are nothing if not sensitive to the mood of the +community. The word is that Dirty Harry has been replaced by Bitchy Gerald. +% +The warden of the De Luxington preparatory school for boys was holding a +hearing. The lad before his desk, a very popular young fellow, was angrily +accusing one of his schoolmates of having assaulted him sexually. + "I must warn you, m'boy, this is a very serious charge, the warden +said. + "I don't care. I tell you it is true. He raped me, warden." The +youth pointed to another, somewhat larger boy smirking in the corner. +"That's him, sir, the one who forced me to do all those crimes against +nature. The bully!" + "Now tell me, son, as closely as you can, when this happened." + "Sir, two weeks ago on Wednesday at 4:00, then at 7:00 that same +evening, on Friday, twice on Saturday, two times on Monday, once on +Wednesday, and then he met that bitch Roy and he hasn't touched me since." +% +Then there was the girl whose boyfriend didn't smoke, drink or +swear, and never, ever made a pass at her. He also made his own dresses. +% +There is a new model of car being sold in San Francisco -- the pervertible. +The top doesn't go down, but the driver does. +% + This guy is taking a leak in a public men's room when a man enters +with his arms held out from his sides, bent at the elbows with his hands +dangling awkwardly, and comes over to him. + "Would you do me a favor and unzip my fly?" he asks. + Figuring the man to be a poor cripple, perhaps an accident victim, +the guy obliges, not without a flush of embarrassment when the man next +requests that he take out his prick and hold it in the appropriate position. + "Shake it off" is the next instruction, then "zip me up," and the +guy follows orders, wincing at his own embarrassment and at the shame of +being so helpless. + "Say, thanks," says the man, flouncing to the door. "I can't do a +*thing* 'til my nails dry!" +% + Two gay guys, Larry and Phil, were driving down the highway when they +were rear-ended by a huge semi. Somewhat shaken, they maneuvered over to the +side of the road, where Phil instructed Larry to get out and confront the truck +driver. "Tell him we're going to sue, sue, sue!" he shrieked. + Obligingly, Larry got out and went around to the cab of the truck to +deliver this message to the huge, burly driver, whose response was to snarl, +"Ah, why doncha suck my cock." + "Phil," said Larry, coming back to their car, "I think we're going +to be able to settle out of court." +% +Two gentlemen met at the club after a long absence and talked. + "Did you hear about Chumley?", one asked. + "No, old man, what about him?" + "Last seen in Africa, you know." + "No, I didn't." + "Yes. Appalling. Ran off with a gorilla. Fallen in love." + "Queer." + "Not Chumley. Female gorilla." +% +Two men and a woman were stranded on a desert island -- + +Two weeks later, the woman was so ashamed of what she had been doing, +she committed suicide. + +Two weeks later, the men were so ashamed of what they had been doing, +they buried her. + +Two weeks later, the men were so ashamed of what they had been doing, +they dug her back up. +% +Visiting a lawyer for advice, the wife said, "I want you to help me obtain a +divorce. My husband is getting a little queer to sleep with." + +What do you mean?" asked the attorney. "Does he force you to indulge +in unusual sex practices?" + +"No, he doesn't," replied the woman, "and neither does the little queer." +% +Well, it seems that there was this traveling saleswoman whose car broke +down, late at night, in the middle of a torrential downpour. Hoping to +find a phone she ran to a nearby farmhouse. When she was unable to find +a garage still open, the farmer told her that, while they were short of +beds, she could sleep with his daughter. The daughter proved to eighteen +and beautiful. So they went to bed, and shortly afterward, the saleswoman +rolled over toward the daughter and said, "Dear, I'm sure that you're aware +that some women like... to be with... other women. Let me be frank..." + "No!" interrupted the daughter, sternly. "This time *I* want to +be Frank!" +% + WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU MEET A QUEER PERSON: + HINTS FOR HETEROSEXUALS + + +1. Do not run screaming from the room. This is rude. + +2. If you must back away, do so slowly and with discretion. + +3. Do not assume she/he is attracted to you. + +4. Do not assume he/she is not attracted to you. + +5. Do not assume that you are not attracted to her/him. + +6. Do not expect him/her to be as excited about meeting a straight + person as you may be about meeting a queer person. + -- ae606@freenet.carleton.ca (Victoria Edwards) + [soc.women.lesbian-and-bi] +% +Women's Libbers are OK. I just wouldn't want my sister to marry one. +% +You'll be a guest at a gay party that will have important consequences for you. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/limerick b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/limerick new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9a04dbe --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/limerick @@ -0,0 +1,6370 @@ + 1/3 + /\(3) + | 2 1/3 + | t dt cos(3 * PI / 9) = ln (e ) + | + \/ 1 + +The integral of t squared, dt +From 1 to the cube root of 3 + Times the cosine + Of 3 PI over nine +Is the log of the cube root of e +% + (1/2) + / 3 + | 3 1 3 x PI (1/2) + | t dt - cos (------) = ln(e ) + / 1 2 9 + +The integral, from one to root three, +Of t to the third dt, + Times half the cosine + Of 3 pi over nine +Is the log of the square root of e. +% + 1/2 + 12 + 144 + 20 + 3(4) 2 + ---------------------- + 5(11) = 9 + 0 + 7 + +A dozen, a gross and a score, +Plus three times the square root of four, + Divided by seven, + Plus five times eleven, +Equals nine squared plus zero, no more! +% +A bad little girl in Madrid, +A most reprehensible kid, + Told her Tante Louise + That her cunt smelled like cheese, +And the worst of it was that it did! +% +A bather whose clothing was strewed +By breezes that left her quite nude, + Saw a man come along + And, unless I'm quite wrong, +You expected this line to be lewd. +% +A beat schizophrenic said, "Me? +I am not I, I'm a tree." + But another, more sane, + Shouted, "I'm a Great Dane!" +And covered his pants leg with pee. +% +A beautiful belle of Del Norte +Is reckoned disdainful and haughty + Because during the day + She says: "Boys, keep away!" +But she fucks in the gloaming like forty. +% +A beautiful lady named Psyche +Is loved by a fellow named Ikey. + One thing about Ike + The lady can't like +Is his prick, which is dreadfully spikey. +% +A beetling young woman named Pridgets +Had a violent abhorrence of midgets; + Off the end of a wharf + She once pushed a dwarf +Whose truncation reduced her to fidgets. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A big-bosomed Bunny named Gression +Sold cigars at a key-club concession. + When she swiveled about + Even strong men cried out, +For her costume did not keep her flesh in. +% +A bisexual chap name of Lunt +Taught himself an unusual stunt. + He could peel back his spout + Turn the skin inside out +Like a glove, to be used as a cunt! +% +A bobby of Nottingham Junction +Whose organ had long ceased to function + Deceived his good wife + For the rest of her life +With the aid of his constable's truncheon. +% +A broken-down harlot named Tupps +Was heard to confess in her cups: + "The height of my folly + Was fucking a collie -- +But I got a nice price for the pups." +% +A burlesque dancer, a pip +Named Virginia, could peel in a zip; + But she read science fiction + And died of constriction +Attempting a Moebius strip. + -- Cyril Kornbluth, "The Unfortunate Topology" +% +A busy young lady named Gloria +Was had by Sir Gerald du Maurier + And then by six men, + Sir Gerald again, +And the band at the Waldorf-Astoria. +% +A cabin boy on an old clipper +Grew steadily flipper and flipper. + He plugged up his ass + With fragments of glass +And thus circumcised his old skipper. +% +A cautious young fellow named Lodge, +Had seatbelts installed in his Dodge. + With his date all strapped in + He committed a sin +Without even leaving the garage. + -- "A Boy and His Dog" +% +A cautious young fellow named Tunney +Had a whang that was worth any money. + When eased in half-way, + The girl's sigh made him say, +"Why the sigh?" "For the rest of it, honey." +% +A certain young man, it was noted, +Went about in the heat thickly-coated; + He said, "You may scoff, + But I shan't take it off; +Underneath I am horribly bloated." + -- Edward Gorey +% +A certain young person of Ghent, +Uncertain if lady or gent, + Shows his organs at large + For a small handling charge +To assist him in paying the rent. +% +A certain young sheik of Algiers +Said to his harem, "My dears, + Though you may think it odd of me, + I'm tired of just sodomy +Let's try straight fucking." (loud cheers!) +% +A chap down in Oklahoma +Had a cock that could sing La Paloma, + But the sweetness of pitch + Couldn't put off the hitch +Of impotence, size and aroma. +% +A charmer from old Amarillo, +Sick of finding strange heads on her pillow, + Decided one day + That to keep men away +She would stuff up her crevice with Brillo. +% +A chippy who worked in Black Bluff +Had a pussy as large as a muff. + It had room for both hands + And some intimate glands, +And was soft as a little duck's fluff. +% +A clergical student named Simms +Hums liturgical tunes while he rims: + A nice piece of ass + Gets the B-Minor Mass ... +All the others get Anglican hymns. +% +A clerical student named Pryne +Through pain sought to reach the divine: + He wore a hair shirt, + Quite often ate dirt, +And bathed every Friday in brine. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A clever young man named Eugene +Invented a jack-off machine. + On the twenty-third stroke + The fuckin' thing broke +And beat both his balls to a cream. +% +A cocksucking steno named Beeman +Remarked as she swallowed my semen : + "On my minuscule salary + I must watch every calorie, +So I get `ahead' eating you he-men!" +% +A computer called Illiac4 +Had a rather tough bug in its core. + It chewed up its cards + And spewed yards and yards +Of illegible tape on the floor. +% +A computer, to print out a fact, +Will divide, multiply, and subtract. + But this output can be + No more than debris, +If the input was short of exact. + -- Gigo +% +A contortionist hailing from Lynch +Used to rent out his tool by the inch. + A foot cost a quid -- + He could and he did +Stretch it to three in a pinch. +% +A corpulent maiden named Kroll +Had a notion exceedingly droll: + At a masquerade ball, + Dressed in nothing at all, +She backed in as a Parker House roll. +% +A couple was fishing near Clombe +When the maid began looking quite glum, + And said, "Bother the fish! + I'd rather coish!" +Which they did -- which was why they had come. +% +A cowhand way out in Seattle +Had a dooflicker flat as a paddle. + He said, "No, I can't fuck + A lamb or a duck, +But golly! it just fits the cattle." +% +A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison +And had an affair with a Saracen. + She was not oversexed, + Or jealous or vexed, +She just wanted to make a comparison. +% +A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison +And had an affair with a Saracen. + She was not oversexed, + Or jealous or vexed, +She just wanted to make a comparison. +% +A CS student named Lin +Had a prick the size of a pin + It was no good for girls + But just great for squirrels +Who squealed with delight with it in. +% +A cute little twerp from Samoa +Had a cock of one inch and no moa. + It was good for keyholes + And debutantes' peeholes +But not worth a damn on a whoa. +% +A daredevil skater named Lowe, +Leaps barrels arranged in the snow, + But is proudest of doing, + Some incredible screwing, +Since he's jumped thirteen girls in a row! +% +A deep-throated virgin named Netty +Was sucking a cock on the jetty. + She said, "It tastes nice, + Much better than rice, +Though not quite as good as spaghetti." +% +A delighted, incredulous bride +Remarked to her groom at her side : + "I never could quite + Believe till tonight +Our anatomies would coincide." +% +A dentist, young doctor Malone, +Got a charming girl patient alone, + And, in his depravity, + Filled the wrong cavity. +God, how his practice has grown. +% +A despairing old landlord named Fyfe, +With a frigid and quarrelsome wife, + Let his third-story front, + To a willing young cunt, +Who supplied him a new lease on life! +% +A desperate spinster from Clare +Once knelt in the moonlight all bare, + And prayed to her God + For a romp on the sod-- +'Twas a passerby answered her prayer. +% +A distinguished professor from Swarthmore +Got along with a sexy young sophomore. + As quick as a glance + He stripped off his pants, +But he found that the sophomore'd got off more. +% +A do-it-yourselfer named Alice, +Used a dynamite stick for a phallus. + She blew her vagina + To South Carolina, +And her tits landed somewhere in Dallas. + +A cute friend of hers, Fanny Hill, +Used two dynamite sticks for a dil. + They found her vagina, + In South Carolina, +And part of her ass in Brazil. +% +A doctoral student from Buckingham +Wrote his thesis on cunts and on fucking'em. + But a dropout from paree + Taught him Gamahuchee +So he added a footnote on sucking 'em. +% +A dolly in Dallas named Alice, +Whose overworked sex is all callous, + Wore the foreskin away + On uncircumcised Ray, +Through exuberance, tightness, and malice. +% +A dozen, a gross, and a score, +Plus three times the square root of four, + Divided by seven, + Plus five times eleven, +Equals nine squared plus zero, no more. +% +A dreary young bank clerk named Fennis +Wished to foster an aura of menace. + To make people afraid + He wore gloves of grey suede +And white footgear intended for tennis. + -- Edward Gorey, "Amphigorey" +% +A dulcet-voiced callgirl named Shedd, +Who's cultured, well-spoken, well-bred, + Had achieved some reknown + For her tone going down-- +There's a nice civil tongue in her head. +% +A fair-haired young damsel named Grace +Thought it very, very foolish to place + Her hand on your cock + When it turned hard as rock, +For fear it would explode in your face. +% +A farmer I know named O'Doole +Had a long and incredible tool. + He can use it to plow, + Or to diddle a cow, +Or just as a cue-stick at pool. +% +A fellatrix's healthful condition +Proved the value of spunk as nutrition. + Her remarkable diet + (I suggest that you try it) +Was only her clients' emission. +% +A fellow whose surname was Hunt +Trained his cock to perform a slick stunt: + This versatile spout + Could be turned inside out, +Like a glove, and be used as a cunt. +% +A fisherman off of Cape Cod +Said, "I'll bugger that tuna, by God!" + But the high-minded fish + Resented his wish, +And nimbly swam off with his rod. +% +A foolish geologist from Kissen +Just didn't know what he was missin', + By studying rock + And neglecting his cock, +And using it merely for pissin'. +% +A Frenchman who lived in Alsace +Had sex with a virgin named Grace. + When he popped her cherry, + She made things hairy +By bleeding all over his face. +% +A gay young prince from Morocco +Made love in a manner rococco. + He painted his penis + To resemble a venus +And flavored his semen with cocoa. +% +A geneticist living in Delft +Scientifically played with himself, + And when he was done + He labled it: son, +And filed him away on a shelf. +% +A gentleman, otherwise meek, +Detested with passion the leek; + When offered one out + He dealt such a clout +To the maid, she was down for a week. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A german composer named Bruckner +Remarked to a lady while fuckener : + "Less lento, my dear, + With your cute little rear; +I like a hot presto when muckener!" +% +A gift was delivered to Laura +From a cousin who lived in Gomorrah; + Wrapped in tissue and crepe, + It was peeled, like a grape, +And emitted a pale, greenish aura. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A gifted young fellow from Sparta +Was widely renowned as a farta'. + He could fart anything + From "Of Thee I Sing," +To Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." +% +A girl camper once had an affair +With a fellow all covered with hair. + When she gave him his hat + She realized that +She'd been had by Smokey the Bear. +% +A girl of the Enterprise crew +Refused every offer to screw. + But a Vulcan named Spock + Crawled under her smock, +And now she is eating for two. +% +A girl of uncertain nativity +Had an ass of extreme sensitivity + While she sat on the lap + Of a German or Jap, +She could sense Fifth Column activity. +% +A graduate student named Zac +Was said to be great in the sack. + An inch of his boner + Put girls in a coma +And two gave them epileptic attacks. +% +A greedy young lady from Sidney +Liked it in up to her kidney, + Till a man from Quebec + Shoved it up to her neck-- +He really diddled her, didn' he? +% +A green-thumbed young farmer from Leeds +Once swallowed a package of seeds. + In a month, his ass + Was covered with grass +And his balls were grown over with weeds. +% +A guest in a household quite charmless +Was informed its eccentric was harmless: + "If you're caught unawares + At the head of the stairs, +Just remember, he's eyeless and armless." + -- Edward Gorey +% +A habit depraved and unsavory +Held the bishop of Bingham in slavery. + Midst screeches and howls, + He deflowered young owls, +Which he kept in an underground aviary. +% +A habit obscene and bizarre, +Has taken a-hold of papa. + He brings home young camels + And other odd mammals, +And gives them a go at mama. +% +A hacker who screwed a mag tape +Was caught and convicted of rape. + To jail he did go, + From which, to his woe +He couldn't get out with ESC. +% +A hacker-turned-pervert named Fisk +Made love to the drive of his disk. + The thing circumsized him, + Which rather suprised him. +He wasn't aware of *that* risk. +% +A handsome young rodent named Gratian +As a lifeguard became a sensation. + All the lady mice waved + And screamed to be saved +By his mouse-to-mouse resuscitation. +% +A happy old hooker named Grace +Once sponsored a cunt-lapping race. + It was hard for beginners + To tell who were winners : +There were cunt hairs all over the place. +% +A hardware debugger named Court +Shoved his tool in an Ethernet port. + But its buffer array + Only handled 1K, +So the port's driver cut it off short. +% +A haughty young wench of Del Norte +Would fuck only men over forty. + Said she, "It's too quick + With a young fellow's prick; +I like it to last, and be warty." +% +A headstrong young woman in Ealing +Threw her two weeks' old child at the ceiling; + When quizzed why she did, + She replied, "To be rid +Of a strange, overpowering feeling." + -- Edward Gorey +% +A hearty young fellow named Yost +Once had an affair with a ghost. + At the height of the spasm + The poor ectoplasm +Cried, "Goodie, I feel it ... almost." +% +A hidebound young virgin named Carrie +Would say, when the fellows got hairy : + "Keep your prick in your pants + Till the end of this dance--" +Which is why Carrie still has her cherry. +% +A highly aesthetic young Jew +Had eyes of a heavenly blue; + The end of his dillie + Was shaped like a lilly, +And his balls were too utterly two! +% +A highway patrol buff named Claire, +Once screwed half a troop on a dare, + And her parts grew so hot, + There was steam on her twat, +So they nicknamed her Smokey the Bare! +% +A horny young fellow named Reg, +Was jerking off under a hedge. + The gardener drew near + With a huge pruning shear, +And trimmed off the edge of his wedge. +% +A huge-organed female in Dallas, +Named Alice, who yearned for a phallus, + Was virgo intacto, + Because, ipso facto, +No phallus in Dallas fit Alice. +% +A joker who haunts Monticello +Is really a terrible fellow. + In the midst of caresses + He fills ladies dresses +With garter snakes, ice cubes, and jello. +% +A lacklustre lady of Brougham +Weaveth all night at her loom. + Anon she doth blench + When her lord and his wench +Pull a chain in the neighbouring room. +% +A lad from far-off Transvaal +Was lustful, but tactful withal. + He'd say, just for luck, + "Mam'selle, do you fuck?" +But he'd bow till he almost would crawl. +% +A lad of the brainier kind +Had erogenous zones in his mind. + He got his sensations, + By solving equations, +(Of course, in the end, he went blind.) +% +A lad, at his first copulation, +Cried, "What a sensation! Inflation, + Gyration, elation + Throughout the duration, +I guess I'll give up masturbation." +% +A lady born under a curse +Used to drive forth each day in a hearse; + From the back she would wail + Through a thickness of veil: +"Things do not get better, but worse." + -- Edward Gorey +% +A lady both callous and brash +Met a man with a vast black moustache; + She cried, "Shave it, O do! + And I'll put it with glue +On my hat as a sort of panache." + -- Edward Gorey +% +A lady from Kalamazoo +Once found she had nothing to do, + So she sat on the stairs + And she counted her hairs: +4,302. +% +A lady from Old Little Rock +In fidelity took little stock, + And deserted her man + In the streets of Japan +For a boy with a prehensile cock. +% +A lady removing her scanties, +Heard them crackle electrical chanties. + Said her beau, "Have no fear, + For the reason is clear: +You simply have amps in your panties. +% +A lady stockholder quite hetera +Decided her fortune to bettera: + On the floor, quite unclad, + She successively had +Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, et cetera... +% +A lady was seized with intent +To revise her existence misspent. + So she climbed up the dome + Of St. Peter's in Rome, +Where she stayed through the following Lent. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A lady who signs herself "Vexed" +Writes to say she believes she's been hexed: + "I don't mind my shins + Being stuck full of pins, +But I fear I am coming unsexed." + -- Edward Gorey +% +A lady with features cherubic +Was famed for her area pubic. + When they asked her its size + She replied in surprise, +"Are you speaking of square feet, or cubic?" +% +A lady, while dining in Crewe, +Found an elephant's whang in her stew. + Said the waiter, "Don't shout + Or wave it about +Or the others will ask for one, too." +% +A lass at the foot of her class +Asked a brainier chick how to pass. + She replied, "With no fuss + You can get a B-plus, +By letting the prof pat your ass." +% +A lecherous barkeep named Dale, +After fucking his favorite female, + Mixed Drambuie and scotch + With the cream in her crotch +For a lustier, Rusty-er Nail. +% +A licentious old justice of Salem +Used to catch all the harlots and jail 'em. + But instead of a fine + He would stand them in line, +With his common-law tool to impale 'em. +% +A limerick packs laughs anatomical +Into space that is quite economical. + But the good ones I've seen + So seldom are clean, +And the clean ones so seldom are comical. +% +A linguist thought it a farce +That memory space was so sparse. + One day they increased it. + Said he as he seized it: +"At last! Enough core for the parse". +% +A lonely young lad of Eton +Used always to sleep with the heat on, + Till he ran into a lass + Who showed him her ass -- +Now they sleep with only a sheet on. +% +A lovely young diver named Nancy, +Wore a bikini bottom quite chancy, + The fish of Bonaire, + Watched her Derriere, +And the sea fans all tickled her fancy. +% +A lovely young maid from St. Jude +Once rode through the streets in the nude. + The police cried, "Whatam-- + Agnificent bottom" +And slapped it as hard as they cude. +% +A lusty young maid from Seattle +Got pleasure by sleeping with cattle; + Till she found a bull + Who filled her so full +It made both her ovaries rattle. +% +A lusty young woodsman of Maine +For years with no woman had lain, + But he found sublimation + At a high elevation +In the crotch of a pine -- God, the pain! +% +A madam who ran a bordello +Put come in her pineapple jello, + For the rich, sexy taste + And not wanting to waste +That greasy kid stuff from a fellow. +% +A maestro directing in Rome +Had a quaint way of driving it home. + Whoever he climbed + Had to keep her tail timed +To the beat of his old metronome. +% +A maiden who lived in Virginny +Had a cunt that could bark, neigh and whinny. + The horsey set rushed her, + But success finally crushed her +For her tone soon became harsh and tinny. +% +A maiden who travelled in France +Once got on a train, just by chance. + The engineer fucked her, + The conductor sucked her, +And the fireman came in his pants. +% +A maiden who wrote of big cities +Some songs full of love, fun and pities, + Sold her stuff at the shop + Of a musical wop +Who played with her soft little titties. +% +A major, with wonderful force, +Called out in Hyde Park for a horse. + All the flowers looked round, + But no horse could be found; +So he just rhododendron, of course. +% +A man was once heard to boast, +That he received a parcel by post, + It contained, so we heard, + A magnificent turd, +And the balls of his grandfather's ghost. +% +A marine being sent to Hong Kong +Got a doctor to alter his dong. + He sailed off with a tool + Flat and thin as a rule - +When he got there he found he was wrong. +% +A mathematician named Hall +Has a hexahedronical ball, + And the cube of its weight + Times his pecker's, plus eight +Is his phone number -- give him a call... +% +A mathematician named Klein +Thought the Mobius band was divine. + Said he, "If you glue + The edges of two, +You'll get a weird bottle like mine! +% +A middle-aged codger named Bruin +Found his love life completely in ruin, + For he flirted with flirts + Wearing pants and no skirts, +And he never got in for no screwin'. +% +A milkmaid there was, with a stutter, +Who was lonely and wanted a futter. + She had nowhere to turn, + So she diddled a churn, +And managed to come with the butter. +% +A mortician who practised in Fife +Made love to the corpse of his wife. + "How could I know, Judge? + She was cold, did not budge-- +Just the same as she'd acted in life." +% +A nasty old drunk in Carmel +Thinks it funny to piss in the well. + He says, "Some don't favor + That unusual flavor, +But I don't drink the stuff -- what the hell!" +% +A nervous young fellow named Fred +Took a charming young widow to bed. + When he'd diddled a while + She remarked with a smile, +"You've got it all in but the head." +% +A new dramatist of the absurd +Has a voice that will shortly be heard. + I learn from my spies + He's about to devise +An unprintable three-letter word. +% +A new dramatist of the absurd +Has a voice that will shortly be heard. + I learn from my spies + He's about to devise +An unprintable three-letter word. +% +A newly-wed man of Peru +Found himself in a terrible stew: + His wife was in bed + Much deader than dead, +And so he had no one to screw. +% +A newlywed couple from Goshen +Spent their honeymoon sailing the ocean. + In twenty-eight days + They got laid eighty ways -- +Imagine such fucking devotion! +% +A notorious whore named Ms. Hearst, +In the pleasures of men was well-versed. + Reads the sign o'er the head + Of her well-rumpled bed +"The customer always comes first." +% +A novice was told by the Abbot: +"Consider the goat and the rabbit. + While they roll in the hay + You just stay home and pray. +You've got to get out of that habit." +% +A nudist resort at Benares +Took a midget in all unawares. + But he made members weep + For he just couldn't keep +His nose out of private affairs. +% +A nurse motivated by spite +Tied her infantine charge to a kite; + She launched it with ease + On the afternoon breeze, +And watched till it flew out of sight. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A pansy who lived in Khartoum +Took a lesbian up to his room. + They argued all night + Over who had the right +To do what, with which, and to whom. +% +A passionate red-haired girl +When you kissed her, her senses would whirl, + And her twat would get wet, + And would wiggle and fret, +And her cunt-lips would curl and unfurl. +% +A pathetic old maid of Bordeaux +Fell in love with a dashing young beau. + To arrest his regard + She would squat in his yard +And longingly pee in the sneaux. +% +A petulant man once said, "Pish, +Your cunt is as big as a dish." + She replied, "Why, you fool, + With your limp little tool, +It's like driving a pin with a fish." +% +A physical fellow named Fisk +Could screw at a rate very brisk. + So fast was his action + The Fitzgerald contraction +Would shrink up his rod to a disk. +% +A pious old woman named Tweak +Had taught her vagina to speak. + It was frequently liable + To quote from the Bible, +But when fucking -- not even a squeak! +% +A pious young lady named Finnegan +Would caution her friend, "Well, you're in again; + So time it aright, + Make it last through the night, +For I certainly don't want to sin again!" +% +A pious young lady of Chichester +Made all of the saints in their niches stir + And each morning at matin + Her breast in pink satin +Made the bishop of Chichester's breeches stir. +% +A playful young chemist named Byrd +Had an urge that could not be deferred. + So to irritate Knox + He shit in his sox, +And plastered the walls with his turd. +% +A plumber whose name was John Brink +Plumbed the cook as she bent o'er the sink. + Her resistance was stout, + And John Brink petered out, +With his pipe-wrench all limber and pink. +% +A potter who lived in Bombay +Once fashioned a cunt out of clay; + But the heat of his prick + Kilned the damn thing to brick +And chafed all his foreskin away. +% +A pretty wife living in Tours +Demanded her daily amour. + But the husband said, "No! + It's to much. Let it go! +My backsides are dragging the floor." +% +A pretty young boy known as Kevin +Was raped in a pasture by seven + Lascivious beasts + (Oh, those Anglican priests) +And such is the Kingdom of Heaven. +% +A pretty young lady named Vogel +Once sat herself down on a molehill. + A curious mole + Nosed into her hole -- +Ms. Vogel's okay, but the mole's ill. +% +A pretty young maiden from France +Decided she'd "just take a chance." + She let herself go + For an hour or so, +And now all her sisters are aunts. +% +A princess who lived near a bog +Met a prince in the form of a frog. + Now she and her prince + Are the parents of quints, +Four boys and one fine polliwog. +% +A princess who reigned in Baroda +Made her home on a purple pagoda. + She festooned the walls + Of her halls with the balls +And the tools of the fools who be-stroda'. +% +A programmer down in Moline +Said, I'm the match for any machine. + My secret's aversion, + To loops and recursion, +Just acres of in-line routine. + -- W.J. Wilson +% +A progressive professor named Winners +Held classes each evening for sinners. + They were graded and spaced + So the vile and debased +Would not be held back by beginners. +% +A rapist who reeked of cheap booze +Attempted to ravish Miss Hughes. + She cried, "I suppose + There's no time for my clothes, +But PLEASE let me take off my shoes!" +% +A rapturous young fellatrix +One day was at work on five pricks. + With an unholy cry + She whipped out her glass eye: +"Tell the boys I can now take on six." +% +A reckless young lady of France +Had no qualms about taking a chance, + But she thought it was crude + To get screwed in the nude, +So she always went home with damp pants. +% +A remarkable race are the Persians; +They have such peculiar diversions. + They make love the whole day + In the usual way +And save up the nights for perversions. +% +A responsive young girl from the East +In bed was an able artiste. + She had learned two positions + From family physicians, +And ten more from the old parish priest. +% +A romantic attraction has clung +To a chap of whom damsels have sung: + "'Tis the Scourge from the East, + That lascivious beast +Who was known as Attila the Hung!" +% +A sailor who slept in the sun, +Woke to find his fly buttons undone, + He remarked with a smile, + "Good grief, a sun-dial! +And now it's a quarter-past one." +% +A savvy young hooker named Gail +Got busted and lodged in the jail. + But the jailer got hot, + To be lodged in her twat, +And so Gail made the bail with her tail. +% +A scandal involving an oyster +Sent the Countess of Clews to a cloister + She preferred it, in bed, + To the count (so she said) +'Cause it's longer and stronger and moister. +% +A scream from the crypt of St. Giles +Resounded for miles upon miles. + Said the friar, "Good gracious, + The brother Ignatious +Forgeteth the abbot hath piles." +% +A seafaring hacker named Slatey +Went to bed with a VAX/780. + The thing's learned to swear + With a nautical air, +And refers to its users as "matey". +% +A sex-loving coed named Bree +Caught the clap from her Apple IIE. + The joystick, she found, + Had been fooling around +With a neighboring student's PC. +% +A silly young man from Hong Kong +Had hands that were skinny and long. + He ate rice with his fingers-- + The taste of it lingers, +But now all his fingers are gone. +% +A slick talking pirate named Bruce +To steal code, had a plan to seduce + An Apple II+. + Now Bruce wears a truss +And was jailed for computer abuse. +% +A software technician from Digital +Had hardware extremely prodigical. + It's rumoured, I hear, + That when he was near +He made the ladies all flustered and fidgital. +% +A space shuttle pilot named Ventry, +Made love to a lovely girl sentry. + She started to pout, + Because it fell out, +But the mission was saved by re-entry. +% +A sperm faced, alack and forsooth, +His moment of sexual truth. + He'd expected to fall + On a womb's spongy wall +But was dashed to his death on a tooth. +% +A spinster in Kalamazoo +Once strolled after dark by the zoo. + She was seized by the nape, + And fucked by an ape, +And she murmured, "A wonderful screw." + +And she added, "You're rough, yes, and hairy, +But I hope -- yes I do -- that I marry + A man with a prick + Half as stiff and as thick +As the kind that you zoo-keepers carry." +% +A spunky young schoolboy named Fred +Used totoss off each night while in bed. + Said his mother, "Dear lad, + That's exceedingly bad-- +Jump in here with your mamma instead." +% +A starship commander named Kirk +Emerged from his cabin berserk. + He grabbed a girl yeoman + Beneath the abdomen, +And gave her a physical jerk. +% +A stout Gaelic warrior, McPherson, +Was having a captive, a person + Who was not averse + Though she had the curse, +And he'd breeches of bristling furs on. +% +A structured programmer named Drew +Was intensely turned on by "goto". + When he saw it in code + He'd shoot off his load. +It's a good thing his shop used so few. +% +A studious professor named Nestor +Bet a whore all his books that he could best her. + But she drained out his balls + And skipped up the walls, +Beseeching poor Nestor to rest her. +% +A sweetheart named Teresa Arden +Went down on her beau in the garden. + He said, "Good lord, Tess, + Don't swallow that mess!" +And she replied, "Ulp, beg your pardon?" +% +A systems programmer named Sprotic +Found his software intensely erotic. + In jealous distress + He wiped his OS. +It's possible that he's psychotic. +% +A talented fuckstress, Miss Chisholm, +Was renowned for her fine paroxysm. + While the man detumesced + She still spent on with zest, +Her rapture sheer anachronism. +% +A talented girl from Detroit +Could fuck you in ways quite adroit. + She could squeeze her vagina + To a pin-point or finer +Or open it out like a quoit. +% +A team playing baseball in Dallas +Called the umpire blind out of malice. + While this worthy had fits + The team made eight hits +And a girl in the bleachers named Alice. +% +A teenage protester named Lil +Cried, "Those watergate spies make me ill + First they bugged our martinis, + Our bras and bikinis, +And now they are bugging the pill." +% +A thrice-married gal from L.A. +Said, "My hymen's intact to this day, + 'Cause my first (a shrink) talked of it, + The voyeur only gawked at it, +And my most recent man's a gourmet." +% +A tidy young lady of Streator +Dearly loved to nibble a peter. + She always would say, + "I prefer it this way. +I think it is very much neater." +% +A timid young woman named Jane +Found parties a terrible strain; + With movements uncertain + She'd hide in a curtain +And make sounds like a rabbit in pain. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A tired young trollop of Nome +Was worn out from her toes to her dome. + Eight miners came screwing, + But she said, "Nothing doing; +One of you has to go home!" +% +A trapper named Francois Lefebvre +Once captured and buggered a beabvre. + The result of this fuck + Was a three titted duck, +A canoe, and an Irish retriebvre. +% +A tutor who tooted a flute +Tried to tutor two tutors to toot + Said the two to the tutor: + "Is it harder to toot or +To tutor two tutors to toot" +% +A UNIX saleslady, Lenore, +Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more. + She found a good way + To combine work and play: +She sells C shells by the seashore. +% +A vengeful technician named Schmitz +Caused a disk drive to go on the fritz. + He covered the platter + With bats' fecal matter. +Now it's seek time is really the pits. +% +A very intelligent turtle +Found programming UNIX a hurdle + The system, you see, + Ran as slow as did he, +And that's not saying much for the turtle. +% +A very intelligent turtle +Found programming UNIX a hurdle + The system, you see, + Ran as slow as did he, +And that's not saying much for the turtle. +% +A very odd pair are the Pitts: +His balls are as large as her tits, + Her tits are as large + As an invasion barge-- +Neither knows how the other cohabits. +% +A wanton young lady from Wimley +Reproached for not acting quite primly + Said, "Heavens above! + I know sex isn't love, +But it's such an entrancing facsimile." +% +A water pipe suited miss Hunt; +She used it for many a bunt. + But the unlucky wench + Got it caught in her trench --- +It took twenty-two men and a big Stillson wrench, +To get the thing out of her cunt. +% +A weary old lecher named Blott +Took a luscious young blond to his yacht. + Too lazy to rape her, + He made darts out of paper, +Which he leisurely tossed at her twat. +% +A whimsical fellow named Bloch +Could beat the base drum with his cock. + With a special erection + He could play a selection +From Johann Sebastian Bach. +% +A wicked stone cutter named Cary +Drilled holes in divine statuary. + With eyes full of malice + He pulled out his phallus, +And buggered a stone Virgin Mary. +% +A wide-bottomed girl named Trasket +Had a hole as big as a basket. + A spot, as a bride, + In it now, you could hide, +And include with your luggage your mascot. +% +A widow who fancied a man some +Was diddled three times in a hansome. + When she clamored for more + Her young man became sore +And exclaimed "My name's Simpson not Samson." +% +A widow whose singular vice +Was to keep her late husband on ice + Said, "It's been hard since I lost him -- + I'll never defrost him! +Cold comfort, but cheap at the price." +% +A wonderful bird is the pelican. +His mouth can hold more than his belican. + He can take in his beak + Enough food for a week. +I'm darned if I know how the helican. +% +A wonderful tribe are the Sweenies, +Renowned for the length of their peenies. + The hair on their balls + Sweeps the floors of their halls, +But they don't look at women, the meanies. +% +A wood-fetish busboy named Gable +Is rapid, is thorough, is able; + But when everything's cleared, + He gives way to the weird, +As he lovingly busses each table. +% +A worn-out young husband named Lehr +Her daily his wife's plaintive prayer: + "Slip on a sheath, quick, + Then slip your big dick +Between these lips covered with hair." +% +A worried young man from Stamboul +Founds lots of red spots on his tool. + Said the doctor, a cynic, + "Get out of my clinic; +Just wipe off the lipstick, you fool!" +% +A young bride and groom of Australia +Remarked as they joined genitalia : + "Though the system seems odd, + We are thankful that God +Developed the genus Mammalia." +% +A young fellow discovered through Freud +That although of penis devoid, + He could practice coitus + By eating a foetus, +And his parents were quite overjoyed. +% +A young Juliet of St. Louis +On a balcony stood acting screwy. + Her Romeo climbed, + But he wasn't well timed, +And half-way up, off he went -- blooey! +% +A young lad named Lester McGraw +Caught a stranger on top of his Maw. + As he watched him stick her + He said, with a snicker, +"You do it much faster than Paw." +% +A young lady sat by the sea, +Just as proper as proper could be. + A young fellow goosed her, + And roughly seduced her, +So she thanked him and went home to tea. +% +A young lady who lived by the Usk +Subsisted each day on a rusk; + She ate the first bite + Before it was light, +And the last crumb sometime after dusk. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A young maiden from France was no prude, +She decided to dive in the nude, + But her buddy, behind, + Went out of his mind, +When he noticed where she was tatooed. +% +A young man by a girl was desired +To give her the thrills she required, + But he died of old age + Ere his cock could assuage +The volcanic desire it inspired. +% +A young man from the banks of the Po +Found his cock had elongated so, + That when he'd pee + It was never he +But only his neighbors who'd know. +% +A young man grew increasingly peaky +In a house where the hinges were squeaky, + The ferns curled up brown, + The ceilings flaked down, +And all of the faucets were leaky. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A young man maintained that his trigger +Was so big that there weren't any bigger. + But this long and thick pud + Was so heavy it could +Scarcely lift up its head. It lacked vigor. +% +A young man of acumen and daring, +Who'd amassed a great fortune in herring, + Was left quite alone + When it soon became known +That their use at his board was unsparing. + -- Edward Gorey +% +A young man of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll +While bent over plucking a dingle + Had the whole of Eisteddfod + Taking turns at his pod +While they sang some impossible jingle. +% +A young man with passions quite gingery +Tore a hole in his sister's best lingerie. + He slapped her behind + And made up his mind +To add incest to insult and injury. +% +A young polo-player of Berkeley +Made love to his sweetheart beserkly. + In the midst of each chukker + He would break off and fuck her +Horizontally, laterally and verkeley. +% +A young systems programmer of Sprotic +Found his software intensely erotic. + In jealous distress + He wiped his OS. +It's possible that he's a psychotic. +% +A young violinist from Rio +Was seducing a woman named Cleo. + As she took down her panties + She said, "No andantes; +I want this allegro con brio!" +% +A young wife in the outskirts of Reims +Preferred frigging to going to mass. + Said her husband, "Take Jacques, + Or any young cock, +For I cannot live up to your ass." +% +A young woman got married at Chester, +Her mother she kissed her and blessed her. + Says she, "You're in luck, + He's a stunning good fuck, +For I've had him myself down in Leicester." +% +Aboard the good ship Venus, The cabin boy, the captain's joy, +The mast it was a penis, A cunning little nipper, + Her figurehead They filled his ass, + A whore in bed, With broken glass, +Good grief you should have seen us! And circumcized the skipper. + +The first mate's name was Higgins, The captain's daughter Mabel, +And Higgins was a biggins, They screwed when they were able, + Once round the deck, They nailed her tits, + Twice up the mast, Those nasty shits, +And the rest was used for riggins'! Right to the captain's table. + +The engineer's name was Carter, The second mate's name was Andy, +And Carter was a farter, By God, he was a dandy, + When the wind wouldn't blow, They broke his cock, + And the ship couldn't go, With chunks of rock, +Carter the farter would start her! For conking in the brandy! +% +According to experts, the oyster +In its shell - a crustacean cloister - + May frequently be + Either he or a she +Or both, if it should be its choice ter. +% +Alas for the Countess d'Isere, +Whose muff wasn't furnished with hair. + Said the Count, "Quelle surprise!" + When he parted her thighs; +"Magnifique! Pourtant pas de la guerre." +% +All the female apes ran from King Kong +For his dong was unspeakably long. + But a friendly giraffe + Quaffed his yard and a half, +And ecstatically burst into song. +% +An aesthete from South Carolina +Had a cock that tickled like China, + But while shooting his load + It cracked like old Spode, +So he's bought him a Steuben vagina. +% +An agreeable girl named Miss Doves +Likes to jack off the young men she loves. + She will use her bare fist + If the fellows insist +But she really prefers to wear gloves. +% +An AI researcher named Bluth +Wrote, to find out the sexual truth, + Eroticon VI, + Which he taught certain tricks +Which I'm sure can't be found in Knuth. +% +An amazon giantess named Dunne +Let a midget screw her for fun. + But the poor little runt + Was engulfed in her cunt +And re-born as the twin of his son. +% +An ambitious lady named Harriet +Once dreamed she was raped in a chariot + By seventeen sailors + A monk and three tailors, +Mohammed and Judas Iscariot. +% +An anonymous woman we knew +Was dozing one day in her pew; + When the preacher yelled "Sin!" + She said, "Count me in +As soon as the service is through." +% +An architect fellow named Yoric +Could, when feeling euphoric, + Display for selection + Three kinds of erection-- +Corinthian,ionic,and doric. +% +An ardent young man named Magruder +Once wooed a girl nude in Bermuda. + She thought it quite lewd + To be wooed in the nude, +But magruder was shrewder, he screwed her. +% +An Argentine gaucho named Bruno +Who said, "Fucking is one thing I do know. + Women are fine + And sheep are divine +But llamas are numero uno." +% +An ARPAnaut name of Corvette +Had a fetish involving the net. + As he fondled his IMP + His cock went from limp +To as hard as concrete which has set. +% +An arrogant wench from Salt Lake +Liked to tease all the boys on the make. + She was finally the prize + Of a man twice her size +And all she recalls is the ache. +% +An artist who lived in Australia +Once painted his ass like a Dahlia. + The drawing was fine, + The colour -- divine, +The scent -- ah, that was a failia. +% +An eager young hacker named Gus +Once buggered a VAX Unibus. + The hardware went bad, + But not the young lad +He didn't expect all that fuss! +% +An Edwardian father named Udgeon, +Whose offspring provoked him to dudgeon, + Used on Saturday nights + To turn down the lights, +And chase them around with a bludgeon. + -- Edward Gorey +% +An envious girl named McMeanus +Was jealous of her lover's big penis. + It was small consolation + That the rest of the nation +Of women were with her in weeness. +% +An exotic young lady named Suki +Once danced in a troupe of kabuki + When asked for a fuck + She said, "Solly, no luck-- +See here: looky looky, no nuki " +% +An impish young fellow named James +Had a passion for idiot games. + He lighted the hair + Of his lady's affair +And laughed as she pissed through the flames. +% +An impotent Scot named MacDougall +Had to husband his sperm and be frugal. + He was gathering semen + To gender a he-man, +By screwing his wife through a bugle. +% +An incautious young woman named Venn +Was seen with the wrong sort of men; + She vanished one day, + But the following May +Her legs were retrieved from a fen. + -- Edward Gorey +% +An indefatigable woman named Bavel +Had often occasion to travel; + On the way she would sit + And furiously knit, +And on the way back she'd unravel. + -- Edward Gorey +% +An ingenious young man in South Bend +Made a synthetic ass for a friend, + But the friend shortly found + Its construction unsound, +It was simply a bother -- no end. +% +An innocent maiden named Herridge +Was cruelly tricked ito marriage; + When she later found out + What her spouse was about, +She threw herself under a carriage. + -- Edward Gorey +% +An inquisitive virgin named Dora +Asked the man who started to bore 'er : + "Do you mean birds and bees + Go through antics like these, +To suppy us our fauna and flora?" +% +An irate young lady named Booker +Told her husband, "You beast, I'm no hooker! + If you want it queer ways, + Go to whores for your lays!" +So he packed up his tool and forsook 'er. +% +An octagenerian Jew +To his wife remained steadfastly true. + This was not from compunction, + But due to dysfunction +Of his spermatic glands -- nuts to you. +% +An old couple just at Shrovetide +Were having a piece -- when he died. + The wife for a week + Sat tight on his peak, +And bounced up and down as she cried. +% +An old electronic designer +Had designs on a minor named Dinah. + He couldn't carry them out + For his prick was too stout, +And too small was the minor's vagina. +% +An old gentleman's crotchets and quibblings +Were a terrible trial to his siblings, + But he was not removed + Till one day it was proved +That the bell-ropes were damp with his dribblings. + -- Edward Gorey +% +An old maid who had a pet ape +Lived in fear of perpetual rape. + His red, hairy phallus + So filled her with malice +That she sealed up her snatch with Scotch tape. +% +An old man at the Folies Bergere +Had a jock, a most wondrous affair: + It snipped off a twat-curl + From each new chorus girl, +And he had a wig made of the hair. +% +An organist playing in York +Had a prick that could hold a small fork, + And between obbligatos + He'd munch at tomatoes, +To keep up his strength while at work. +% +An orgasmic young sex star named Sue +Was a hit as she writhed to a screw. + Her climatic fame spread + With an ad blitz that said: +Coming soon at a theater near you! +% +An uptight young lady named Breerley +Who valued her morals too dearly + Had sex, so I hear, + Only once every year, +And she strained her vagina severely. +% +And earnest young woman in Thrace +Said, "Darling, that's not the right place!" + So he gave her a thwack, + And did on her back, +What he couldn't have done face to face. +% +And then there's the story that's fraught +With disaster -- of balls that got caught, + When a chap took a crap + In the woods, and a trap +Underneath... Oh, I can't bear the thought! +% +As for weirdness, the guy who's the tops +Is a kinky old butcher named Pops. + Since he thinks it's effete + To be beating his meat, +What he's into is licking his chops. +% +As he came in his chubby choirboy, +Father Burke said, "There's no greater joy! + If no sodomy levens + And possible heavens, +Existence will merely annoy." +% +As the breeches-buoy swung towards the rocks, +Its occupant cried, "Save my socks! + I could not bear the loss, + For with scarlet silk floss +My mama has embroidered their clocks." + -- Edward Gorey +% +As tourists inspected the apse +An ominous series of raps + Came from under the altar, + Which caused some to falter +And others to shriek and collapse. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Asked a supplicant priest of the pontiff, +"Do I sin if I do what I want, if + I screw a young nun + In the eastertide sun?" +His holiness murmured, "Gut yontiff." +% +At a contest for farting in Butte +One lady's exertion was cute : + It won the diploma + For fetid aroma, +And three judges were felled by the brute. +% +At a dance, a girl from Connecticut +Showed an absolute absence of etiquette + Letting all comers press + Through the skirt of her dress +And wiping the mess with her petticoat. +% +At the end of all civilization +Is the planet Terminus's location. + There's a girl there whose feat, + Without stone or concrete, +Nonetheless, was to lay the Foundation. +% +At the moment Japan declared war +A sailor was fucking a whore. + He said, "After this poke + `Long and hard' ain't no joke; +This means months 'til I get back ashore." +% +At the Villa Nemetia the sleepers +Are disturbed by a phantom in weepers; + It beats all night long + A dirge on a gong +As it staggers about in the creepers. + -- Edward Gorey +% +At Vassar, sex isn't injurious, +Though of love we are never penurious. + Thanks to vulcanized aids, + Though we may die old maids, +At least we shall never die curious. +% +At whist drives and strawberry teas +Fan would giggle and show off her knees; + But when she was alone + She'd drink eau de cologne, +And weep from a sense of unease. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Augustus, for splashing his soup, +Was put for the night on the stoop; + In the morning he'd not + Repented a jot, +And next day he was dead of the croup. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Back in the days of old Adam +The grass served as mattress for madam, + And they spent the whole day + On the sex that today +They would bounce on box springs, if they had 'em. +% +Conflicting research paradigms +Have legitimized various crimes. + The worst we can see + Is in psychology, +Measuring reaction times. +% +Dame Catherine of Ashton-on-Lynches +Got on with her grooms and her wenches: + She went down on the gents, + And pronged the girl's vents +With a clitoris reaching six inches. +% +De Hispanice puella verumque +Simplex oris verborumque + Tulit potens vagina + Hominum agmina +Iterum iterum iterumque. +% +Despising machines to a man, +The Luddites joined up with the Klan, + And ride out by night + In a sheeting of white +To lynch all the robots they can. + -- C. M. and G. A. Maxson +% +Did you hear about young Henry Lockett? +He was blown down the street by a rocket. + The force of the blast + Blew his balls up his ass, +And his pecker was found in his pocket. +% +Don't dip your wick in a WAC, +Don't ride the breast of a WAVE, + Just sit in the sand + And do it by hand, +And buy bonds with the money you save. +% +Down by the old model T, +Where she first showed it to me. + It was furry and black, + And she called it a crack, +But it looked like a manhole to me. +% +DuPont, I.G., Monsanto, and Shell +Built a world-circling pussy cartel, + And by planned obsolescence, + So controlled detumescence, +A poor man could not get a smell. +% +Each Friday his engines abort, +But Scotty is never caught short. + He fills his machines + With space-navy beans, +And farts the ship back into port. +% +Each night Father fills me with dread +When he sits on the foot ofmy bed; + I'd not mind that he speaks + In gibbers and squeaks, +But for the seventeen years he's been dead. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Es giebt ein Arbeiter von Tinz, +Er schlaft mit ein Madel von Linz. + Sie sagt, "Halt sein' plummen, + Ich hore Mann kommen." +"Jacht, jacht," sagt der Plummer, "Ich binz." +% +Ethnologists up with the Sioux +Wired home for two punts, one canoe. + The answer next day, + Said, "Girls on the way, +But what the hell's a `panoe'?" +% +Exuberant Sue from Anjou +Found that fucking affected her hue. + She presented to sight + Nipples pink, bottom white; +But her asshole was purple and blue. +% +Flappity, floppity, flip +The mouse on the Mobius strip; + The strip revolved, + The mouse dissolved +In a chronodimensional skip. +% +Floating idly one day through the air, +A circus performer named Blair, + Tied a sizeable rock, + To the end of his cock, +And shattered a balcony chair. +% +Fond of equestrians, Mabel +Looked for true love in the stable. + But she found the studs, + For her were all duds, +Now she's out with the leg of a table. +% +For a house-to-house salesman named Moore, +Getting housewives' attention's no chore: + He's endowed with a dong + That is 12 inches long, +So he wedges his foot in the door. +% +For the sores on his prick he used Dial. +That failed; he gave Lava a trial. + But the one remedy + For contagious V.D. +Is the wonder drug sulfa-denial. +% +"For the tenth time, dull Daphnis," said Chloe, +"You have told me my bosom is snowy; + You have made much fine verse on + Each part of my person, +Now do something -- there's a good boy!" +% +From deep in the crypt at St. Giles +Came a bellow that echoed for miles. + Said the rector, "My gracious, + Has Father Ignatius +Forgotten the Bishop has piles!?" +% +From Number Nine, Penwiper Mews, +There is really abominable news; + They've discovered a head + In the box for the bread, +But nobody seems to know whose. + -- Edward Gorey +% +From the bathing machine came a din +As of jollification within; + It was heard far and wide, + And the incoming tide +Had a definite flavour of gin. + -- Edward Gorey +% +"Fucked by the finger of Fate!" +Bewailed a young fellow named Tate. + "Since dating Miss Baugh, + My whole tongue has been raw-- +It must have been something I ate." +% +Fucking is a filthy deed. -- I like it. +It satisfies a normal need. -- I like it. + It makes you sick, it makes you well, + It turns your spine to fucking jell, +It damns your soul to Eternal Hell! -- I like it. +% +Getting Cheryl to shed her apparel +Is like shooting goldfish in a barrel. + But her genital area + Is so vast it'll scareya, +And you venture inside at your peril. +% +God's plan made a hopeful beginning +But man spoiled his chances by sinning. + We trust that the story + Will end in God's glory +But at present, the other side's winning. +% +Have you heard about Magda Lupescu, +Who came to Rumania's rescue? + It's a wonderful thing + To be under a king-- +Is democracy better, I esk you? +% +Have you heard of knock-kneed Samuel McGuzzum +Who married Samantha, his bow-legged cousin? + Some people say, + Love finds a way, +But for Sam and Samantha it doesn'. +% +Have you heard of the lady named Cox +Who had a capacious old box? + When her lover was in place + She said, "Please turn your face. +I look like a gal, but I screw like a fox." +% +Have you heard of those trollops of Birmingham +And the scandal that's currently concerning'em? + How they lift the frock + And tickle the cock +Of the bishop while he was confirming 'em? +% +Having made a remark rather coarse, +A young lady was seized with remorse; + She fled from the room, + And later, a groom +Saw her rolling about in the gorse. + -- Edward Gorey +% +He dove down overweighted with lead. +Passed one hundred and flat lost his head. + He flapped and he flailed, + Spit his hose and he wailed, +Swallowed water and found himself dead. +% +He hated to mend, so young Ned +Called in a cute neighbor instead. + Her husband said, "Vi, + When you stitched up his torn fly, +Did you have to bite off the thread?" +% +He played smooch and stinkfinger with Daisy +Till this virgin was gotch-eyed and hazy. + Then his gargantuan pole in + Her pink, tight, and swollen +Young cunt just about drove her crazy. +% +He'd kiss and the girls called him Georgie +They'd cry and the girls called him Porgie. + So he put Spanish fly + In their pudding and pie +And had the first tiny-tot orgy. +% +"Hell, no," said the Duchess of Quick, +"I won't suck his filthy old prick! + It's not that I funk + At a mouthful of spunk, +But the smell of his ass makes me sick!" +% +Her brother, a bastard named Ben, +Could rotate his pecker, and then + He would shoot through his rear + Which made him dear +Of the girls, and the envy of men. +% +Her daughter, thought worried Ms. Coffin, +Had morals the city might soften. + So she phoned and asked, "Lynn, + Are you living in sin?" +Lynn said, "No -- but I visit there often." +% +His shy bride admitted to Crandall +That for years she'd worked off with a candle, + But a cock like his dick + Gave her ten times the kick, +Though it stained her wee peehole to handle! +% +I dined with Lord Hughing Fitz-Bluing +Who said, "Do you squirm when you're screwing?" + I replied, "Simple shagging + Without any wagging +Is only for screwing canoeing." +% +"I do love a lay every day, +So whenever you're coming this way + Just phone in advance + And I'll jerk off my pants, +And we're set for a sexy soiree!" +% +I know of a fortunate Hindu +Who is sought in the towns that he's been to + By the ladies he knows, + Who are thrilled to the toes +By the tricks that he makes his foreskin do. +% +I met a young man in Chungking +Who had a very long thing -- + But you'll guess my surprise + When I found that its size +Just measured a third-finger ring! +% +I never had Miss Defauw, +But it wouldn't have been quite so raw + If she'd only said "No" + When I wanted her so; +But she didn't -- she laughed and said "Naw!" +% +I once had the wife of a Dean +Seven times while the Dean was out skiin'. + She remarked with some gaiety, + "Not bad for the laiety, +Though the Bishop once managed thirteen." +% +I once met a lassie named Ruth +In a long distance telephone booth. + Now I know the perfection + Of an ideal connection +Even if somewhat uncouth. +% +I once was annoyed by a queer +Who made his intentions quite clear. + Said I, "I'm no prude, + So don't think me rude, +But I'm already stewed, screwed, and tattooed." +% +I wish that my room had a floor; +I don't so much care for a door, + But this walking around + Without touching the ground +Is getting to be quite a bore! + -- Gelett Burgess +% +I wonder what my wife will want tonight; +Wonder if the wife will fuss and fight? + I wonder can she tell + That I've been raising hell; +Wonder if she'll know that I've been tight? + +My wife is just as nice as can be, +I hope she doesn't feel too nice toward me. + For an afternoon of joy, + Is hell on the old boy, +I wonder what the wife will want tonight! +% +I wooed a stewed nude in Bermuda, +I was lewd, but my God! she was lewder. + She said it was crude + To be wooed in the nude-- +I persued her, subdued her, and screwed her! +% +I would like to say, Mister Bunce, +I'm a great connoisseur of hot cunts. + And in all my lewd life + I've met none like your wife, +So why leave her to me, you big dunce? +% +I'd rather have fingers than toes, +I'd rather have ears than a nose, + And a happy erection + Brought just to perfection +Makes me terribly sad when it goes. +% +If continence causes neurosis +And intercourse causes thrombosis + I'd rather expire + Fulfilling desire +Than live in a state of psychosis. +% +If you find for your verse there's no call, +And you can't afford paper at all, + For the true poet born, + However forlorn, +There is always the lavat'ry wall. +% +If you're speaking of actions immoral +The how about giving the laurel + To doughty Queen Esther, + No three men could best her -- +One fore, and one aft, and one oral. +% +If your thesis is utterly vacuous, +Employ first-order predicate calculus. + With sufficient formality, + The sheerest banality, +Will be hailed by all as miraculous! +% +Il y a une jeune fille amoureuse +D'un homme qu'a une conduite honteuse; + Il la mene chaque soir + A son caveau noir +Et la bat avec plaintes crapuleuses. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Il y avait un jeune homme de dijon, +Qui n'avait que peu de religion. + Il dit:"quant a' moi, + Je deteste tous les trois, +Le pere, et le fils, et le pigeon-" +% +Il y avait un plombier, Francois, +Qui plombait sa femme dans le Bois. + Dit-elle, "Arretez! + J'entends quelqu'un venait." +Dit le plombier, en plombant, "C'est moi." +% +Il y avait une madame de Lahore +Dont la figure n'etait la meilleure, + Mais la vagine tres forte, + Toujours ouverte la porte, +Encore, et encore, et encore. +% +In bed Dr. Oscar McPugh +Spoke of Spengler -- and ate crackers too. + His wife said, "Oh, stuff + That philosophy guff +Up your ass, dear, and throw me a screw!" +% +In Duluth there's a hostess, forsooth, +Who doesn't know gin from vermouth, + But this lubricant lapse + Isn't noticed, perhaps +Because nobody does in Duluth. +% +In my sweet little Alice Blue gown +Was the first time I ever laid down, + I was both proud and shy + As he opened his fly +And the moment I saw it I thought I would die. + +Oh it hung almost down to the ground, +As it went in I made not a sound, + The more that he shoved it + The more that I loved it, +As he came on my Alice Blue gown. +% +In my sweet little night gown of blue, +On the first night that I slept with you, + I was both shy and scared + As the bed was prepared, +And you played peekaboo with my ribbons of blue. + +As we both watched the break of day, +And in peaceful submission I lay, + You said you adored it + But dammit, you tore it, +My sweet little night gown of blue. +% +In the case of a lady named Frost, +Whose cunt's a good two feet acrost, + It's the best part of valor + To bugger the gal, or +You're apt to fall in and get lost. +% +In the Garden of Eden sat Adam, +Massaging the bust of his madam, + He chuckled with mirth, + For he knew that on earth, +There were only two boobs and he had 'em. +% +In the little French town of Le'Beau, +Lived a maiden exceedingly droll. + At a masquerade ball, + Clad in nothing at all, +She backed in as a Parker house roll. +% +In the shade of the old apple tree +Where between her fat legs I could see + A little brown spot + With the hair in a knot, +And it certainly looked good to me. + +I asked as I tickled her tit +If she thought that my big thing would fit. + She said it would do + So we had a good screw In the shade of the old apple tree +In the shade of the old apple tree. I got all that was coming to me. + In the soft dewy grass +I could hear the dull buzz of the bee I had a fine piece of ass +As he sunk his grub hooks into me. From a maiden that was fine to see. + Her ass it was fine + But you should have seen mine +In the shade of the old apple tree. +% +It always delights me at Hank's +To walk up the old river banks. + One time in the grass + I stepped on an ass, +And heard a young girl murmur, "Thanks." +% +It had snowed, and the man in the drift, +Flagged her down and asked, "Give me a lift?" + They sat in her Bentley, + She fondled him gently, +And the lift that he'd asked for was swift! +% +It takes little strain and no art +To bang out an echoing fart. + The reaction is hearty + When you fart at a party, +But the sensitive persons depart. +% +King Louis gave a lesson in class, +One time while enjoying a lass. + When she used the word "Damn" + He rebuked her: "Please ma'am, +Keep a more civil tongue in my ass." +% +"Last night," said a lassie named Ruth, +"In a long-distance telephone booth, + I enjoyed the perfection + Of an ideal connection -- +I was screwed, if you must know the truth." +% +Les salons de la ville de Trieste +Sont vaseux, suraigus, at funestes; + Parmi les grandes chaises + On cause des malaises, +Des estropiements, et des pestes. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Limericks are art forms complex, +Their topics run chiefly to sex. + They usually have virgins, + And masculine urgin's, +And other erotic effects. +% +Limericks are art forms complex, +Their topics run chiefly to sex. + They usually have virgins, + And masculine urgin's, +And other erotic effects. +% +Love letters no longer they write us, +To their homes they so seldom invite us. + It grieves me to say, + They have learned with dismay, +We can't cure their `vulva pruritus'. +% +Marlene wanted Joy to relent, +She said, "AIDS is so hard to prevent. + If you want to get laid, + Then we'll have to tribade!" +(But Joy didn't know what she meant.) +% +McCoy's a seducer galore, +And of virgins he has quite a score. + He tells them, "My dear, + You're the Final Frontier, +Where man never has gone before." +% +Meet Elmer, young son of the Thorpes, +Afflicted with psychotic warps. + His idea of fun + Is to bugger a nun, +And then vomit all over the corpse. +% +Mrs. Kelly is partial to cocks; +Mr. Kelly likes rye on the rocks. + When he's under the weather + They can't get together, +So others get into her box. +% +`My trip? It was vile. Balaclava +I loathed. Etna was crawling with lava. + The ship was all white + But it creaked in the night, +And the band, they did not know la java." + -- Edward Gorey +% +Now hear this fair lass from Rhode Isle +Who said with a wink and a smile, + "Sure, please stick it in, + Be it thick be it thin, +But if rough I won't do as a file." +% +Oden the bardling averred +His muse was the bum of a bird, + And his Lesbian wife + Would finger his fife +While Fisherwood waited as third. +% +Of his face she thought not very much, +But then, at the very first touch, + Her attitude shifted -- + He was terribly gifted +At frigging and fucking and such. +% +Oh pity the prince, Montezuma +He tried to make love to a puma. + Seems the puma, in play, + Tore his testes away -- +An example of animal huma. +% +Oh, pity the Duchess of Kent! +Her cunt is so dreadfully bent, + The poor wench doth stammer, + "I need a sledgehammer +To pound a man into my vent." +% +On a cannibal isle near Malaysia +Lives a lady they call Anastasia. + Not russian elite- + She's eager to eat +Whatever or whoever lays her. +% +On a ship wrecked far out at sea, +The girl said, "I can't seem to pee." + "Aha!" said the mate, + "That settles the fate +Of the captain, the pilot, and me." +% +On day a Monterey daughter +Did scuba down under the water. + She later turned up + The mom of a pup, +And they say t'was a otter that gotter. +% +On the breast of a lady named Gail, +Was tattooed the price of her tail. + And on her behind, + For the sake of the blind, +Was the same information -- in Braille. +% +On the porch of a dude named Horatio, +His girl got a yen for fellatio. + As she sucked on his dingus + He tried cunnilingus +But the cops ran 'em off of that patio. +% +Once a young gay from Khartoum, +Took a lesbian up to his room. + They argued all night + Over who had the right +To do what, and with which, and to whom. +% +Once was a hooker named Gail, +Busted and sent-off to jail, + She liked the jailer, + He wanted to nail her, +So Gail made bail with her tail. +% +One evening a guru had coitus +With an actress, a whore and a poetess. + When asked what position + He used for coition, +He answered serenely, "the lotus." +% +One night a girl had an affair +With a fellow all covered with hair. + Then she picked up his hat + And realized that +She'd been had by Smokey the Bear. +% +Our staff proctologist, Dr. Barr, +Has invented a new kind of car. + With a tank full of shit + There's no stopping it -- +For short trips, two poots take you far. +% +Perplexed, a shy virgin named Plummer +Asked, "what's there to do in the summer?" + She declined and declined + Till approached from behind... +When her summer turned out quite a bummer! +% +Playing poker with busty Ms. Ware, +He announced as he folded with flair, + "I had four of a kind, + But those aces combined, +Don't stack up, I'm afraid, with your pair." +% +Poor Alice who lived in Corvallis +Had heard of, but not seen, the male phallus. + At her first sight of one + She started to run, +And last was seen sprinting through Dallas. +% +Pour guerir un acces de fievre +Un jeune homme poursuivit un lievre; + Il le prit a son trou, + Et fit faire un ragout +Des entrailles et des pattes au genievre. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Prince Absalom lay with his sister +And bundled and nibbled and kissed her, + But the kid was so tight, + And it was deep night -- +Though he shot at the target, he missed her. +% +Prince Hamlet thought Uncle a traitor +For having it off with his Mater; + Revenge Dad or not? + That's the gist of the plot, +And he did -- nine soliloquies later. + -- Stanley J. Sharpless +% +Prope mare erat tubulator +Qui virginem ingrediebatur. + Dessine ingressus + Audivi progressus: +Est mihi inquit tubulator. +% +Said a dainty young whore named Ms. Meggs, +"The men like to spread my two legs, + Then slip in between, + If you know what I mean, +And leave me the white of their eggs." +% +Said a decadent wench of Bombay : +"This has been a most wonderful day. + Three cherry tarts, + At least twenty farts, +Two shits, and a bloody fine lay." +% +Said a girl who upon her divan +Was attacked by a virile young man: + "Such excess of passion + Is quite out of fashion" +And she fractured his wrist with her fan. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Said a happy young man of Fort Drum : +"What care I for this shortage of gum? + My favorite chew + Is a condom or two, +With a goodly amount of fresh come." +% +Said a horny young girl from Milpitas, +"My favorite sport is coitus." + But a fullback from State + Made her period late, +And now she has athlete's fetus +% +Said a lecherous fellow named Shea, +When his prick wouldn't rise for a lay, + "You must seize it, and squeeze it, + And tease it, and please it, +For Rome wasn't built in a day." +% +Said a lesbian lady, "It's sad; +Of all the girls that I've had, + None gave me the thrill + Of real rapture until +I learned how to be a tribade." +% +Said a madam named Mamie La Farge +To a sailor just off of a barge, + "We have one girl that's dead, + With a hole in her head-- +Of course there's a slight extra charge." +% +Said a modest young miss to de Sade, +I'm simply too shy and afraid + To take part in your pranks. + But to show you my thanks, +I'd just love to become your first aide. +% +Said a pornographistic young poet +"Although I perhaps do not show it, + My interest in sin + Is wearing quite thin, +And I'll soon tell those fuckers to stow it." +% +Said a swinging young chick named Lyth +Whose virtue was largely a myth, + "Try as hard as I can, + I can't find a man +That it's fun to be virtuous with!" +% +Said crew girl Angelica Bauer : +"The captain's withdrawn, cold, and sour." + Uhura said, "No, + At night that's not so-- +He doesn't withdraw for an hour." +% +Said Einstein, "I have an equation +Which to some may seem rabelaisian: + Let _V be virginity + Approaching infinity; +Let _P be a constant persuasion; + +"Let _V over _P be inverted +With the square root of _M_u inserted + _N times into _V ... + The result, Q.E.D., +Is a relative!" Einstein asserted. +% +Said Francesca, "My lack of volition +Is leading me straight to perdition; + But I haven't the strength + To go to the length +Of making an act of contrition." + -- Edward Gorey +% +Said President Jobcock one day : +"War's better than love, I should say. + Instead of a virgin, + It's murder I'm urgin'-- +You get lots more blood that-a-way." +% +Said sneering Mohammed el-Din : +"Only infidel dogs put it in. + Back home in Arabia + We nibble the labia +Till the juice dribbles off of our chin." +% +Said the cunt-lapping Bey of Algiers, +In a cunt halfway up to his ears : + "This nautch is delicious, + And without doubt nutritious. +She's my best-tasting wife in ten years!" +% +Said the Duchess of Danzer at tea, +"Young man, do you fart when you pee?" + I replied with some wit, + "Do you belch when you shit?" +I think that was one up for me. +% +Said the nun as the bishop withdrew, +"This must be our final adieu, + For the vicar is slicker, + And thicker, and quicker, +And two inches longer than you." +% +Saint Peteer was once heard to boast +That he'd had all the heavenly host : + The Father and Son, + And then - just for fun - +The hole in the Holy Ghost. +% +Says an airlining wanton named Vi: +"I'm a pantyless stew when I fly. + To a muffer's delight, + I'll take head on a flight, +So the guy can have pie in the sky." +% +She begged and she pleaded for more. +I said, "We've already had four, + And I'm sure that you've heard, + Though it's somewhat absurd, +That eros spelt backwards is sore." +% +She made a thing of soft leather, +And topped off the end with a feather. + When she poked it inside her + She took off like a glider, +And gave up her lover forever. +% +She stood there and peeled off her clothes, +And begged for a bang : goodness knows + I am surely impure + And I sizzled to scrure, +But the push had gone out of my hose. +% +She was coming round the mountain doin' ninety, +When the chain on her motorcycle broke, + Now she's lying in the grass, + With the muffler up her ass, +And her tits a-playin' Dixie on the spokes. +% +She was peeved, and called her beau "Mr." +Not because, when she came in, he kr., + But she knew, just before + She opened the door, +This same Mr. had kr. sr. +% +She wasn't what one could call pretty +And other girls offered her pity, + So nobody guessed + That her Wasserman test +Involved half the men in the city. +% +Shouted Frosty the Snowman "Hooray! +I'm agog with excitement today! + And the reason of course, + A reliable source, +Said the snow blower's heading this way!" +% +Sighed a neat little package named Annie : +"I've the tits and the twat and the fanny, + Plus the yen, but the men + Only call now and then-- +Can it be I've B.O. in my cranny?" +% +"Snyder's got a stiff ticket," said Kay, +"Come on, take it out, and let's play." + He pulled it on out, + But she started to pout, +His ticket was only a quarter-inch stout. +% +So here was this fellow of Strensall +Whose pecker was shaped like a pencil, + Anemic, 'tis true, + But an interesting screw, +Inasmuch as the tip was prehensile. +% +So it's ai yi yi yi, +Your mother scores more than Wayne Gretzky! +So sing me another verse that worse than the other verse, +And waltz me around by my willie! + + There once was a man from Nantucket! + Whose cock was so long he could suck it! + He said with a grin, + As he wiped off his chin, + If my ear were a cunt I could fuck it! + +So it's ai yi yi yi, +Your sister does squat thrusts on flag poles! +So sing me another verse that worse than the other verse, +And waltz me around by my willie! + + There once was a young man from Boston! + Who drove around town in an Austin! + There was room for his ass, + And a gallon of gas, + So he hung out his balls and he lost 'em! +% +So it's ai yi yi yi, +Your sister swims out to meet troop ships! +So sing me another verse that worse than the other verse, +And waltz me around by my willie! + + There once was a man from Racine! + Who invented a screwing machine! + Both concave and convex, + It could please either sex, + But, oh, what a bastard to clean! + +So it's ai yi yi yi, +Your girlfriend douches with Drano! +So sing me another verse that worse than the other verse, +And waltz me around by my willie! + + One night a girl had an affair! + With a fellow all covered with hair! + His enormous red whang, + Gave her a wonderful bang -- + She'd been diddled by Smokey the bear! +% +Some Harvard men, stalwart and hairy, +Drank up several bottles of sherry; + In the Yard around three + They were shrieking with glee: +"Come on out, we are burning a fairy!" + -- Edward Gorey +% +Thank God for the Duchess of Gloucester, +She obliges all who accost her. + She welcomes the prick + Of Tom, Harry or Dick, +Or Baldwin, or even Lord Astor. +% +That Harvard don down at El Djim -- +Oh, wasn't it nasty of him, + With the whole harem randy, + The sheik himself handy, +To muss up a young camel's quim. +% +That naughty old Sappho of Greece +Said: "What I prefer to a piece + Is to have my pudenda + Rubbed hard by the enda +The little pink nose of my niece." +% +The acrobats -- Tom and Louise -- +Do an act in the nude on their knees. + They crawl down the aisle + While screwing dog-style, +As the orchestra plays Kilmer's "Trees." +% +The babe, with a cry brief and dismal, +Fell into the water baptismal; + Ere they'd gathered its plight, + It had sunk out of sight, +For the depth of the font was abysmal. + -- Edward Gorey +% +The bedsprings next door jounce and creak : +They have kept me awake for a week. + Why do newlyweds + Select squeaky beds +To develop their fucking technique? +% +The bishop of Alexandretta +Loved a girl and he couldn't forget her. + So he thought he'd enshrine her + As the Holy Vagina +In the Church of the Sacred French Letter. +% +The bustard's a remarkable fowl +With surely no reason to growl + He escapes what would be + Illegitimacy +By the grace of a fortunate vowel. +% +The cruelest of creatures' the crab +With claws that can pinch you or stab, + And then when you dine + On crab and white wine +It gets you as well with the tab. +% +The Dowager Duchess of Spout +Collapsed at the height of a rout; + She found strength to say + As they bore her away: +"I should never have taken the trout." + -- Edward Gorey +% +The Enterprise crew when off work +Will fuck like an Ottoman Turk. + Uhura the Zulu + Is shacked up with Sulu, +And Spock shares a crew girl with Kirk. +% +The Enterprise girls, so one hears, +Have chased Spock for several years. + His look of disdain + Has spared them great pain, +For his prick is as sharp as his ears. +% +The fearless old bishop of Brest +Put his faith in the Lord to the test. + He fucked whores in the apse + With chancres and claps, +But first they were sprinkled and blessed. +% +The first child of a Mrs. Keats-Shelley +Came to light with its face in its belly; + Her second was born + With a hump and a horn, +And her third was as shapeles as jelly. + -- Edward Gorey +% +The genital area of Ann +Will accommodate any size man, + From the wee that cause titters + To the mighty twat-splitters +That cause screams peasants hear in Japan. +% +The Gray-haired Woman's Complaint + +My back aches, my pussy is sore; +I simply can't fuck any more; + I'm covered with sweat, + And you haven't come yet, +And my God, it's a quarter to four! +% +The Grecians were famed for fine art, +And buildings and stonework so smart. + They distinguished with poise + The men from the boys, +And used crowbars to keep them apart. +% +The King named Oedipus Rex +Who started this fuss about sex + Put the world to great pains + By the spots and the stains +Which he made on his mother's pubex. +% +The King plugged the Queen's ass with mustard +To make her fuck hot, but got flustered, + And cried, "Oh, my dear, + I am coming, I fear, +But the mustard will make you come `plus tard'." +% +The kings of Peru were the Incas, +Who were known far and wide as great drincas. + They worshipped the sun + And had lots of fun, +But the peasants all thought they were stincas. +% +The late Brigham Young was no neuter -- +No faggot, no fairy, no fruiter. + Where ten thousand virgins + Succumbed to his urgin's +There now stands the great State of Utah. +% +The latest reports from Good Hope +State that apes there have pricks thick as rope, + And fuck high, wide, and free, + From the top of one tree +To the top of the next -- what a scope! +% +The limerick is furtive and mean; +You must keep her in close quarantine, + Or she sneaks to the slums + And promptly becomes +Disorderly, drunk, and obscene. + -- Morris Bishop +% +The limerick, a verse form iniquitous, +Has nonetheless been ubiquitous. + Once Congress in session, + Declared its suppression, +But people got around that by writing the last line with no rhyme or meter. +% +The long-peckered Bey of Algiers +Loved to spear chubby lads in their rears. + A demon for semen, + This buffersome he-man +Shot the chute till it seeped from their ears. +% +The moyel who treated young Alec +Was cross-eyed and hydrocephalic. + Presented the child + His aim was so wild +He rendered the poor boy biphallic. +% +The new cinematic emporium +Is not just a super-sensorium, + But a highly effectual + Heterosexual +Mutual masturbatorium. +% +The nipples of Sarah Sarong +When excited are twelve inches long + This embarassed her lover + Who was pained to discover +She expected no less of his dong +% +The notorious Duchess of Peels +Saw a fisherman fishing for eels. + Said she, "Would you mind? -- + Shove one up my behind. +I am anxious to know how it feels." +% +The office brown-noser named Bunky +Would claim he was nobody's flunky. + But when the chips were all down, + His proboscis was brown, +And there hung many strands which were gunky. +% +The old archeologist, Throstle, +Discovered a marvelous fossil. + He knew from its bend + And the knot on the end, +'Twas the penis of Paul the Apostle. +% +The once was a man from Bombay +Who modeled his cunts out of clay + So hot was his prick + That he turned them to brick +And rubbed all his foreskin away. +% +The partition of Vavasour Scowles +Was a sickener: they came on his bowels + In a firkin; his brain + Was found clogging a drain, +And his toes were inside of some towels. + -- Edward Gorey +% +The prick of the engineer, Scott, +Fell off from Saturnian rot. + He went to the basement + And made a replacement +Of tungsten and plastic and snot. +% +The randy old Bey of Algiers +Who'd confined his cock-poking to queers, + Tried a cunt for a change, + And remarked : "It felt strange ... +Just think what I've missed all these years!" +% +The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher +Called a girl a most elegant creature. + So she laid on her back + And, exposing her crack, +Said, "Fuck that, you old Sunday School Teacher!" +% +The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher +Called a hen a most elegant creature. + The hen, pleased with that, + Laid an egg in his hat -- +And thus did the hen reward Beecher. + -- Oliver Wendell Holmes +% +The Shah of the Empire of Persia +Lay for days in a sexual merger. + When the nautch asked the Shah, + "Won't you ever withdraw?" +He replied with a yawn, "It's inertia." +% +The sight of his guests filled Lord Cray +At breakfast with horrid dismay, + So he launched off the spoons + The pits from his prunes +At their heads as they neared the buffet. + -- Edward Gorey +% +The skater, Barbara Ann Scott +Is so fuckingly "winsome" a snot, + That when posed on her toes + She elaborately shows +Teeth, fat ass, titties and twat. +% +The spouse of a pretty young thing +Came home from the wars in the spring. + He was lame but he came + With his dame like a flame -- +A discharge is a wondeful thing. +% +The star of that X-rated hit +Plays a nurse with a throat full of clit. + This serves as a palace + For each turgid phallus-- +Some say that the plot is pure shit. +% +The Sultan was peeved with his harem, +And cooked up a scheme for to scare'em. + He caught a big mouse + Which he loosed in the house. +(Such confusion is called harem-scarem). +% +"The testes are cooler outside," +Said the doc to the curious bride, + "For the semen must not + Get too fucking hot, +And the bag fans your bum on the ride." +% +The wife of young Richard of Limerick +Complained to her husband, "My quim, Rick, + Still grows in diameter + Each time that you ram at her; +How can your poor tool stay so slim, Rick?" +% +The woman who lives on the moon +Is still cherishing the balloon + Of an earthling who'd come + And given her some, +But had dribbled away all too soon. +% +The work of Mess Sergeant Potgieter +Is not merely reading a meter. + By orders of Kirk + A part of his work +Is dosing the food with saltpeter. +% +The world is so full of a number of things, +I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings. + I'll tell you a story-- + It won't take me long-- +Of a brother and sister whose tale is my song. + +There was an old fellow and what do you think? +He lived on the cheese that he scraped from his dink. + He whacked it, he hacked it, + He ate it with glee- +Was there ever a fellow so happy as he? + +This charming old chap had a sister as well : +She was ugly and gaunt, with a horrible smell. + Her cunt was so dirty + It stank like a beast, +And the odor killed flies as they gathered to feast. + +What a wonderful family! What marvellous style! +I'll bet you and I aren't close by a mile. + Their odor and diet + Won't soon be forgotton, +And one day you and I may be equally rotten. +% +There a young man from the Coast +Who had an affair with a ghost. + At the height of orgasm + Said the pallid phantasm, +"I think I can feel it -- almost!" +% +There are some things we mustn't expose, +So we hide them away in our clothes. + Oh, it's shocking to stare + At what's certainly there-- +But why this is so, heaven knows. +% +There is a young faggot named Mose +Who insists that you fuck his long nose. + And you'll double the joy + Of this lecherous boy +If you'll tickle his balls with your toes. +% +There is a young lady named Aird, +Whose bottom is always kept bared. + When asked why she pouts, + She says "The Boy Scouts, +All beg me to please Be Prepared!" +% +There once was a bishop from Birmingham +Who deflowered young girls while confirming 'em. + As they knelt on the hassock + He lifted his cassock +And slipped his episcopal worm in 'em. +% +There once was a boy named Carruthers +Who was busily fucking his mother + "I know it's a sin," + He said, shoving it in, +"But it's better than blowing my brother." +% +There once was a chick named Longet, +Who went out to Aspen to play. + Along came a Spyder, + Who sat down beside her +And she blew the poor bastard away. +% +There once was a clergyman's daughter +Who detested the pony he bought her, + Till she found that its dong + Was as hard and as long +As the prayers her father had taught her. + +She married a fellow named Tony +Who soon found her fucking the pony. + Said he, "What's it got, + My dear, that I've not?" +Sighed she, "Just a yard-long bologna." +% +There once was a couple named Kelley, +Who lived their life belly to belly. + Because in their haste + They used library paste, +Instead of petroleum jelly. +% +There once was a dentist named Stone +Who saw all his patients alone. + In a fit of depravity + He filled the wrong cavity, +And my, how his practice has grown! +% +There once was a Duchess of Beever +Who slept with her golden retriever. + Said the potted old Duke : + "Such tricks make me puke! +Were it not for her money, I'd leave her." +% +There once was a Duchess of Bruges +Whose cunt was incredibly huge. + Said the king to this dame + As he thunderously came: +"Mon Dieu! Apres moi, le deluge!" +% +There once was a fairy named Avers +Who encircled his cock with lifesavers. + Though buggers all claimed + That their asses were maimed, +Sixy-niners all cheered the new flavors. +% +There once was a fellow named Bob +Who in sexual ways was a snob. + One day he was swimmin' + With twelve naked women +And deserted them all for a gob. +% +There once was a fellow named Brewster +Who said to his wife, as he goosed her, + "It used to be grand + But look at my hand +You're not wiping as clean as ya uster." +% +There once was a fellow named Howard, +Whose tool it was nuclear-powered, + While grabbing some ass, + He reached critical mass, +But think of the girl he deflowered! +% +There once was a fellow named Potts +Who was prone to having the trots + But his humble abode + Was without a commode +So his carpet was covered with spots. +% +There once was a fellow named Siegel +Who attempted to bugger a beagle, + But the mettlesome bitch + Turned and said with a twitch, +"It's fun, but you know it's illegal." +% +There once was a fellow named Sweeney +Who spilled gin all over his weenie. + Not being uncouth, + He added vermouth +And slipped his amour a martini. +% +There once was a fiesty young terrier +Who liked to bite girls on the derriere. + He'd yip and he'd yap, + Then leap up and snap; +And the fairer the derriere the merrier. +% +There once was a floozie named Annie +Whose prices were cosy--but cannie: + A buck for a fuck, + Fifty cents for a suck, +And a dime for a feel of her fanny. +% +There once was a freshman named Lin, +Whose tool was as thin as a pin, + A virgin named Joan + From a bible belt home, +Said "This won't be much of a sin." +% +There once was a gangster named Brown +-- the sneakiest bastard in town. + He was caught by G-men + Shooting his semen +Where the cops would slip and fall down. +% +There once was a gaucho named Bruno, +Who said, "About sex, well, I do know, + Sheep are just fine, + Chickens, divine, +But iguanas are Numero Uno." +% +There once was a gay young Parisian +Who screwed an appendix incision, + And the girl of his choice + Could hardly rejoice +At the horrible lack of precision. +% +There once was a girl from Cornell +Whose teats were shaped like a bell. + When you touched them they shrunk, + Except when she was drunk, +And then they got bigger than hell. +% +There once was a girl from Decatur, +Who got laid by a big alligator. + Now nobody knew + The result of that screw, +'Cause after he laid her, he ate her. +% +There once was a girl from Madras +Who had such a beautiful ass -- + It was not round and pink + (As you bastards think) +But had two ears, a tail, and ate grass. +% +There once was a girl from Spokane, +Went to bed with a one-legged man. + She said, "I know you-- + You've really got two! +Why didn't you say so when we began?" +% +There once was a girl named Irene +Who lived on distilled kerosene + But she started absorbin' + A new hydrocarbon +And since then has never benzene. +% +There once was a girl named Irene +Who lived on distilled kerosene + But she started absorbin' + A new hydrocarbon +And since then has never benzene. +% +There once was a girl named Louise +Who cunt hair hung down to her knees + The crabs in her twat + Tied the hairs in a knot +And constructed a flying trapeze +% +There once was a girl named Mcgoffin +Who was diddled amazingly often. + She was rogered by scores + Who'd been turned down by whores, +And was finally screwed in her coffin. +% +There once was a girl named Priscilla +Whose vagina was flavored vanilla. + The taste was so fine + Man and beast stood in line +(Including a stud armadilla). +% +There once was a girl so lovely, +Who wanted to make love in the bubbly, + She strapped on her tanks, + And started her pranks, +But the lobsters all thought she was ugly. +% +There once was a golfer named Leer, +Who got put in the clink for a year, + For an action obscene, + On the very first green. +Where the sign said "Enter course here." +% +There once was a gouty old colonel +Who grew glum when the weather grew vernal, + And he cried in his tiffin + For his prick wouldn't stiffen, +And the size of the thing was infernal. +% +There once was a guardsman from Buckingham +Who said, "As for girls, I hate fucking 'em. + But when I meet boys, + God! how I enjoys +Just licking their peckers and sucking 'em." +% +There once was a hacker named Ken +Who inherited truckloads of Yen. + So he built him some chicks, + Of silicon chips, +And hasn't been heard from since then. +% +There once was a handsome young seaman +Who with ladies was really a demon. + In peace or in war, + At sea or on shore, +He could certainly dish out the semen. +% +There once was a horny old bitch +With a motorized self-frigger which + She would use with delight + All day long and all night - +Twenty bucks: Abercrombie & Fitch. +% +There once was a horse named Lily +Whose dingus was really a dilly. + It was vaginoid duply, + And labial quadruply -- +In fact, he was really a filly. +% +There once was a husky young Viking +Whose sexual prowess was striking. + Every time he got hot + He would scour the twat +Of some girl that might be to his liking. +% +There once was a jolly old bloke +Who picked up a girl for a poke. + He took down her pants, + Fucked her into a trance, +And then shit into her shoe for a joke. +% +There once was a kiddie named Carr +Caught a man on top of his mar. + As he saw him stick 'er, + He said with a snicker, +"You do it much faster than par." +% +There once was a lady from Exeter, +So pretty that men craned their necks at her. + One was even so brave + As to take out and wave +The distinguishing mark of his sex at her. +% +There once was a lady from Kansas +Whose cunt was as big as Bonanzas. + It was nine inches deep + And the sides were quite steep -- +It had whiskers like General Carranza's. +% +There once was a lady named Carter, +Fell in love with a virile young Tartar. + She stripped off his pants, + At his prick quickly glanced, +And cried: "For that I'll be a martyr!" +% +There once was a lady named Clair, +Who posessed a magnificent pair. + Or that's what I thought, + Till I saw one get caught, +On a thorn and begin losing air. +% +There once was a lady named Myrtle +Who had an affair with a turtle. + She had crabs, so they say, + In a year and a day +Which proved that that turtle was fertile. +% +There once was a lawyer named Rex +With minuscule organs of sex. + Arraigned for exposure, + He maintained with composure, +"De minimis non curat lex." + + [Trans: the law does not concern itself with small things. Ed.] +% +There once was a lifeguard named Lee +Who rescued a girl from the sea + She asked how to pay, + And he said "Try this way, +Go down for the third time on me." +% +There once was a maid from Mobile +Whose cunt was made of blue steel. + She only got thrills + From pneumatic drills +And an off-centered emery wheel. +% +There once was a man from Bombay +He would do it all night and all day + He soon became sore + You shoulda' heard him roar +When his wife rubbed his balls with Ben-Gay! +% +There once was a man from Calcutta +Who used to beat off in the gutta + The heat of the sun + Affected his gun +And turned all his cream into butta! +% +There once was a man from Dunoon, +Who always ate soup with a fork. + He said "When I eat + Either fish, foul or flesh, +I otherwise finish too quick." +% +There once was a man from Exameter +Who had a prodigious diameter + But it wasn't the size + That brought forth the cries +'Twas his rythm, iambic pentameter. +% +There once was a man from Madras, +Whose balls were made out of brass. + When they clanged together, + They played "Stormy Weather", +And lightning shot out of his ass. +% +There once was a man from Nantee +Who buggered an ape in a tree. + The results were most horrid + All ass and no forehead +Three balls and a purple goatee. +% +There once was a man from Nantucket +Who kept all his cash in a bucket. + His daughter, named Nan, + Ran away with a man, +And as for the bucket, Nantucket. + +The pair of them went to Manhasset, +(Nan and the man with the asset.) + Pa followed them there, + But they left in a tear, +And as for the asset, Manhasset. + +Pa followed the pair to Pawtucket, +(Nan and the man with the bucket.) + Pa said to the man, + "You're welcome to Nan." +But as for the bucket, Pawtucket. +% +There once was a man from Nantucket +Whose dick was so long he could suck it. + He said with a grin + As he wiped off his chin, +"If my ear was a cunt, I could fuck it." +% +There once was a man from Racine, +Who invented a screwing machine. + Both concave and convex, + It could please either sex, +But, oh, what a bastard to clean! +% +There once was a man from Sandem +Who was making his girl on a tandem. + At the peak of the make + She jammed on the brake +And scattered his semen at random. +% +There once was a man from Sydney +Who could put it up to her kidney. + But the man from Quebec + Put it up to her neck; +He had a big one, now didn't he? +% +There once was a man named Eugene +Who invented a screwing machine + Concave and convex + It served either sex +And it played with itself in between. +% +There once was a man named McGruder, +Who canoed with a girl in Bermuder. + But the girl thought it crude, + To be wooed in the nude, +So McGru took an oar and subduder. +% +There once was a man named McSweeny +Who spilled lots of gin on his weeney + So just to be couth + He added vermouth +And slipped his best girl a martini. +% +There once was a man named Parridge +With peculiar views on marriage. + He sucked off his brother, + Fucked his own mother, +And gobbled his sister's miscarriage. +% +There once was a man with a hernia +Who said to his doctor, "Gol dern ya, + When you work on my middle + Be sure you don't fiddle +With things that do not concern ya." +% +There once was a member of Mensa +Who was a most excellent fencer. + The sword that he used + Was his -- (line is refused, +And has now been removed by the censor). +% +There once was a miner named Dave, +Who kept a dead whore in his cave. + She was ugly as shit, + And missing one tit, +But think of the money he saves. +% +There once was a monk of Camyre +Who was seized with a carnal desire + And the primary cause + Was the abbess's drawers +Which were hung up to dry by the fire. +% +There once was a newspaper vendor, +A person of dubious gender. + He would charge one-and-two + For permission to view +His remarkable double pudenda. +% +There once was a plumber from Leigh, +Who was plumbing his maid by the sea, + Said she, "Please stop plumbing, + I think someone's coming!" +Said he, "Yes, love, I know that, it's me." +% +There once was a pretty young Mrs. +Whose tearful but short story thrs. + Her mind lost its grasp -- + Now she thinks she's an asp +And just sits in the corner and hrs. +% +There once was a queen of Bulgaria +Whose bush had grown hairier and hairier, + Till a prince from Peru + Who came up for a screw +Had to hunt for her cunt with a terrier. +% +There once was a reverend at Kings +Whose mind 'twas on heavenly things. + But his heart was on fire + For a boy in the choir +Whose buns were like jelly on springs. +% +There once was a sad Maitre d'hotel +Who said, "They can all go to hell! + What they do to my wife -- + Why it ruins my life; +And the worst is they all do it well." +% +There once was a sailor named Gasted, +A swell guy, as long as he lasted, + He could jerk himself off + In a basket, aloft, +Or a breeches-buoy swung from the masthead. +% +There once was a Scot named McAmeter +With a tool of prodigious diameter. + It was not the size + That cause such surprise; +'Twas his rhythm -- iambic pentameter. +% +There once was a son-of-a-bitch, +Neither clever, nor handsome, nor rich, + Yet the girls he would dazzle, + And fuck to a frazzle, +And then ditch them, the son-of-a-bitch! +% +There once was a spaceman named Spock +Who had a huge Vulcanized cock. + A girl from Missouri + Whose name was Uhura +Just fainted away from the shock. +% +There once was a Swede in Minneapolis, +Discovered his sex life was hapless: + The more he would screw + The more he'd want to, +And he feared he would soon be quite sapless. +% +There once was a Usenetter named Mark, +Whose gender was kept in the dark. + He/she/it said with a nod, + "My ancestors were odd!" +Did Noah need two for the ark? +% +There once was a whore from Regina +Who had a stupendous vagina. + To save herself time, + She had six at a time, +And another one working behind her. +% +There once was a woman from Arden +Who sucked off a man in a garden. + He said, "My dear Flo, + Where does all that stuff go?" +And she said, "[Swallow hard] I beg pardon?" +% +There once was a yokel of Beaconsfield +Engaged to look after the deacon's field, + But he lurked in the ditches + And diddled the bitches +Who happened to cross that antique 'un's field. +% +There once was a young fellow named Blaine, +And he screwed some disgusting old jane. + She was ugly and smelly, + With an awful pot-belly, +But... well, they were caught in the rain. +% +There once was a young girl from Natchez +Who chanced to be born with two snatches + She often said, "Shit! + I'd give either tit +For a guy with equipment that matches." +% +There once was a young man from Boston +Who drove around town in an Austin, + There was room for his ass, + And a gallon of gas, +So he hung out his balls and he lost 'em. +% +There once was a young man from France +Who waited ten years for his chance; +Then he muffed it... +% +There once was a young man from Yuma +Who attempted sex with a puma + He gave up real quick + Minus nose, toes, and prick +In obvious pain and ill huma. +% +There once was a young man from Yuma, +Who told an elephant joke to a puma. + Now his dry bleached bones lie, + Under hot Asian skies, +'Cause the puma had no sense of huma. +% +There once was a young man named Clyde +Who fell in an outhouse, and died. + He had a twin brother + Who fell in another +And now they're interred side by side. +% +There once was a young man named Gene, +Who invented a screwing machine. + Concave and convex, + It served either sex, +And it played with itself inbetween. +% +There once was a young man named Lancelot +Whom the townsfolk would look at askance a lot + For when he should pass + A desirable lass +The front of his pants would advance a lot. +% +There once was an Arpanet freak, +Who better response-time did seek. + He searched coast to coast, + For a reliable host, +Whose logger took less than a week. +% +There once was an old man from Esser, +Who's knowledge grew lesser and lesser. + It at last grew so small, + He knew nothing at all, +And now he's a College Professor. +% +There once was an old man from Esser, +Whose knowledge grew lesser and lesser. + It at last grew so small, + He knew nothing at all, +And now he's a College Professor. +% +There once were two brothers named Luntz +Who buggered each other at once. + When asked to account + For this intricate mount, +They said, "Ass-holes are tighter than cunts." +% +There once were two women from Birmingham. +And this is the story concerning 'em. + They lifted the frock + And fondled the cock +Of the bishop as he was confirming 'em. +% +There was a bluestocking in Florence +Wrote anti-sex pamphlets in torrents, + Till a Spanish grandee, + Got her off with his knee, +And she burned all her works with abhorrence. +% +There was a family named Doe, +An ideal family to know. + As father screwed mother, + She said, "You're heavier than brother." +And he said, "Yes, Sis told me so!" +% +There was a fat lady of China +Who'd a really enormous vagina, + And when she was dead + They painted it red, +And used it for docking a liner. +% +There was a fat man from Rangoon +Whose prick was much like a ballon. + He tried hard to ride her + And when finally inside her +She thought she was pregnant too soon. +% +There was a gay countess of Bray, +And you may think it odd when I say, + That in spite of high station, + Rank and education, +She always spelled cunt with a 'k'. +% +There was a gay dog from Ontario +Who fancied himself a Lothario. + At a wench's glance + He'd snatch off his pants +And make for her Mons Venerio. +% +There was a gay parson of Norton +Whose prick, although thick, was a short 'un. + To make up for this loss, + He had balls like a horse, +And never spent less than a quartern. +% +There was a gay parson of Tooting +Whose roe he was frequently shooting, + Till he married a lass + With a face like my arse, +And a cunt you could put a top-boot in. +% +There was a girl from Aberystwyth +Who brought grain to the mill to get grist with. + The miller's son Jack + Laid her flat on her back +And united the organs they pissed with. +% +There was a lewd fellow named Duff +Who loved to dive deep in the muff. + With his head in a whirl + He said, "Spread it, Pearl; +I cunt get enough of the stuff!" +% +There was a man from Mich. +Who used to wish and wich. + That spring would come + So he could bum +Around and go out fich. +% +There was a pianist named Liszt +Who played with one hand while he pissed, + But as he grew older + His technique grew bolder, +And in concert jacked off with his fist. +% +There was a poor parson from Goring, +Who made a small hole in his flooring, + Fur-lined it all round, + Then laid on the ground, +And declared it was cheaper than whoring. +% +There was a strong man of Drumrig +Who one day did seven times frig. + He buggered three sailors, + Four dogs and two tailors, +And ended by fucking a pig. +% +There was a teenager named Donna +Who never said, "No, I don't wanna." + Two days out of three + She would shoot LSD, +And on weekends she smoked marijuana. +% +There was a young belle of old Natchez +Whose garments were always in patchez. + When comment arose + On the state of her clothes +She, drawled, "When ah itchez, ah scratchez." +% +There was a young blade from South Greece +Whose bush did so greatly increase + That before he could shack + He must hunt needle in stack. +'Twas as bad as being obese. +% +There was a young bride of Antigua +Whose husband said, "Dear me, how big you are!" + Said the girl, "What damn'd rot! + Why, you've only felt my twot, +My legs and my arse and my figua!" +% +There was a young bride, a Canuck, +Told her husband, "Let's do more than suck. + You say that I, maybe, + Can have my first baby-- +Let's give up this Frenchin' and fuck!" +% +There was a young chap in Arabia +Who courted a widow named Fabia. + "Yes, my tongue is as long + As the average man's dong," +He said, licking the lips of her labia. +% +There was a young cook with the art +Of making a delicious tart + With a handful of shit, + Some snot and some spit, +And he'd flavor the whole with a fart. +% +There was a young curate whose brain +Was deranged from the use of cocaine; + He lured a small child + To a copse dark and wild, +Where he beat it to death with his cane. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young damsel named Baker +Who was poked in a pew by a Quaker. + He yelled, "My God! what + Do you call this -- a twat? +Why, the entrance is more than an acre!" +% +There was a young dolly named Molly +Who thought that to frig was a folly. + Said she, "Your pee-pee + Means nothing to me, +But I'll do it just to be jolly." +% +There was a young fellow called Clyde +Who fell in an outhouse and died. + He had a twin brother + Who fell in another +So now they're interred side by side. +% +There was a young fellow from Cal., +In bed with a passionate gal. + He leapt from the bed, + To the toilet he sped; +Said the gal, "What about me, old pal?" +% +There was a young fellow from Florida +Who liked a friend's wife, so he borrowed her. + When they got into bed + He cried, "God strike me dead! +This ain't a cunt -- it's a corridor!" +% +There was a young fellow from Kent +Whose cock was so long that it bent + To save himself trouble + He put it in double +And instead of coming, he went. +% +There was a young fellow from Leeds +Who swallowed a package of seeds. + Great tufts of grass + Sprouted out of his ass +And his balls were all covered with weeds. +% +There was a young fellow from Parma +Who was solemnly screwing his charmer. + Said the damsel demure, + "You'll excuse me, I'm sure, +But I must say you fuck like a farmer." +% +There was a young fellow name Tucker +Who, instructing a novice cock-sucker, + Said, "Don't bow out your lips + Like an elephant's hips, +The boys like it best when they pucker." +% +There was a young fellow named Ades +Whose favorite fruit was young maids. + But sheep, nigger boys, whores, + And the knot holes in doors +Were by no means exempt from his raids. +% +There was a young fellow named Babbitt +Who could screw nine times like a rabbit, + But a girl from Johore + Could do it twice more, +Which was just enough extra to crab it. +% +There was a young fellow named Bill, +Who took an atomic pill, + His navel corroded, + His asshole exploded, +And they found his nuts in Brazil. +% +There was a young fellow named Blaine, +And he screwed some disgusting old jane. + She was ugly and smelly + With an awful pot-belly, +But... well, they were caught in the rain. +% +There was a young fellow named Bliss +Whose sex life was strangely amiss, + For even with Venus + His recalcitrant penis +Would never do better than t + h + i + s + . +% +There was a young fellow named Bowen +Whose pecker kept growin' and growin'. + It grew so tremendous, + So long and so pendulous, +'Twas no good for fuckin' -- just showin'. +% +There was a young fellow named Brewer +Whose girl made her home in a sewer. + Thus he, the poor soul, + Could get into her hole, +And still not be able to screw her! +% +There was a young fellow named Case +Who entered a cunt-lapping race. + He licked his way clean + Through Number thirteen, +But then slipped and got pissed in the face. +% +There was a young fellow named Charteris +Put his hand where his young lady's garter is. + Said she, "I don't mind, + And higher up you'll find +The place where my fucker and farter is." +% +There was a young fellow named Cribbs +Whose cock was so big it had ribs. + They were inches apart, + And to suck it took art, +While to fuck it took forty-two trips. +% +There was a young fellow named Dick +Who had a magnificent prick. + It was shaped like a prism + And shot so much gism +It made every cocksucker sick. +% +There was a young fellow named Feeney +Whose girl was a terrible meany. + The hatch of her snatch + Had a catch that would latch +-- She could only be screwed by Houdini. +% +There was a young fellow named Fletcher, +Was reputed an infamous lecher. + When he'd take on a whore + She'd need a rebore, +And they'd carry him out on a stretcher. +% +There was a young fellow named Fyfe +Whose marriage was ruined for life, + For he had an aversion + To every perversion, +And only liked fucking his wife. + +Well, one year the poor woman struck, +And she wept, and she cursed at her luck, + And said, "Where have you gotten us + With your goddamn monotonous +Fuck after fuck after fuck? + +"I once knew a harlot named Lou -- +And a versatile girl she was, too. + After ten years of whoredom + She perished of boredom +When she married a jackass like you!" +% +There was a young fellow named Gene +Who first picked his asshole quite clean. + He next picked his toes, + And lastly his nose, +And he never did wash in between. +% +There was a young fellow named Gluck +Who found himself shit out of luck. + Though he petted and wooed, + When he tried to get screwed +He found virgins just don't give a fuck. +% +There was a young fellow named Goody +Who claimed that he wouldn't, but would he? + If he found himself nude + With a gal in the mood +The question's not woody but could he? +% +There was a young fellow named Grant +Who was made like the sensitive plant. + When they asked "Do you fuck?" + He replied, "No such luck. +I would if I could, but I can't." +% +There was a young fellow named Grimes +Who fucked his girl seventeen times + In the course of a week -- + And this isn't to speak +Of assorted venereal crimes. +% +There was a young fellow named Harry, +Had a joint that was long, huge and scary. + He grabbed him a virgin, + Who, without any urgin', +Immediately spread like a fairy. +% +There was a young fellow named Hatch +Who was fond of the music of Bach. + He said: "It's not fussy + Like Brahms and Debussy; +Sit down, and I'll play you a snatch." +% +There was a young fellow named Kimble +Whose prick was exceedingly nimble, + But fragile and slender, + And dainty and tender, +So he kept it encased in a thimble. +% +There was a young fellow named Meek +Who invented a lingual technique. + It drove women frantic, + And made them romantic, +And wore all the hair off his cheek. +% +There was a young fellow named Morgan +Who possessed an unusual organ: + The end of his dong, + Which was nine inches long, +Was tipped with the head of a gorgon. +% +There was a young fellow named Paul +Who confessed, "I have only one ball. + But the size of my prick + Is God's dirtiest trick, +For my girls always ask, 'Is that all?'" +% +There was a young fellow named Pell +Who didn't like cunt very well. + He would finger or fuck one, + But never would suck one-- +He just couldn't get used to the smell. +% +There was a young fellow named Price +Who dabbled in all sorts of vice. + He had virgins and boys + And mechanical toys, +And on Mondays... he meddled with mice! +% +There was a young fellow named Prynne +Whose prick was so short and so thin, + His wife found she needed + A Fuckoscope -- she did -- +To see if he'd gotten it in. +% +There was a young fellow named Skinner +Who took a young lady to dinner + At a quarter to nine, + They sat down to dine, +At twenty to ten it was in her. +The dinner, not Skinner -- Skinner was in her before dinner. + +There was a young fellow named Tupper +Who took a young lady to supper. + At a quarter to nine, + They sat down to dine, +And at twenty to ten it was up her. +Not the supper -- not Tupper -- It was some son-of-a-bitch named Skinner! +% +There was a young fellow named Sweeney, +Whose girl was a terrible meanie, + The hatch of her snatch, + Had a catch that would latch, +She could only be screwed by Houdini. +% +There was a young fellow of Burma +Whose betrothed had good reason to murmur. + But now that he's married he's + Been using cantharides +And the root of their love is much firmer. +% +There was a young fellow of Greenwich +Whose balls were all covered with spinach. + He had such a tool + It was wound on a spool, +And he reeled it out inich by inich. + +But this tale has an unhappy finich, +For due to the sand in the spinach + His ballocks grew rough + And wrecked his wife's muff, +And scratched up her thatch in the scrimmage. +% +There was a young fellow of Harrow +Whose john was the size of a marrow. + He said to his tart, + "How's this for a start? +My balls are outside in a barrow." +% +There was a young fellow of Kent +Whose prick was so long that it bent, + So to save himself trouble + He put it in double, +And instead of coming he went. +% +There was a young fellow of Mayence +Who fucked his own arse in defiance + Not only of custom + And morals, dad-bust him, +But of most of the known laws of science. +% +There was a young fellow of Perth +Whose balls were the finest on earth. + They grew to such size + That one won a prize, +And goodness knows what they were worth. +% +There was a young fellow of Strensall +Whose prick was as sharp as a pencil. + On the night of his wedding + It went through the bedding, +And shattered the chamber utensil. +% +There was a young fellow of Warwick +Who had reason for feeling euphoric, + For he could by election + Have triune erection: +Ionic, Corinthian, and Doric. +% +There was a young fellow whose dong +Was prodigiously massive and long. + On each side of his whang + Two testes did hang +That attracted a curious throng. +% +There was a young gaucho named Bruno +Who said, "Screwing is one thing I do know. + A woman is fine, + And a sheep is divine, +But a llama is Numero Uno." +% +There was a young German named Ringer +Who was screwing an opera singer. + Said he with a grin, + "Well, I've sure got it in!" +Said she, "You mean that ain't your finger?" +% +There was a young girl from Annista +Who dated a lecherous mister. + He fondled her titty, + Got one finger shitty, +Then screwed up his courage and kissed 'er. +% +There was a young girl from Decatur +Who was raped by an alligator. + But no one quite knew + How she relished that screw, +For after he screwed her, he ate her. +% +There was a young girl from Dundee, +From her fanny there grew a plum tree. + No one ate the nice fruit, + To tell you the truth, +Because they knew it came from her tooty-toot-toot. +% +There was a young girl from East Lynn +Whose mother ( to save her from sin ) + Had filled up her crack + With hard-setting shellac, +But the boys picked it out with a pin. +% +There was a young girl from Hong Kong +Who said, "You are utterly wrong + To say my vagina + Is the largest in China +Just because of your mean little dong." +% +There was a young girl from Hong Kong +Whose cervical cap was a gong. + She said with a yell, + As a shot rang her bell, +"I'll give you a ding for a dong!" +% +There was a young girl from Medina +Who could completely control her vagina. + She could twist it around + Like the cunts that are found +In Japan, Manchukuo and China. +% +There was a young girl from New York +Who plugged up her cunt with a cork. + A woodpecker or two + Made the grade it is true, +But it totally baffled the stork. + +Till along came a man who presented +A tool that was strangely indented. + With a dizzying twirl + He punctured that girl, +And thus was the cork-screw invented. +% +There was a young girl from Peru, +Who noticed her lovers were few; + So she walked out her door + With a fig leaf, no more, +And now she's in bed - with the flu. +% +There was a young girl from Samoa +Who pledged that no man would know her. + One young fellow tried, + But she wriggled aside, +And he spilled all his spermatozoa. +% +There was a young girl from Seattle, +Whose hobby was sucking off cattle. + But a bull from the South + Shot a wad in her mouth +That made both her ovaries rattle. +% +There was a young girl from Siam +Who said to her boyfriend Priam, + "To seduce me, of course, + You'll have to use force, +And thank goodness you're stronger than I am. +% +There was a young girl from St. Cyr +Whose reflex reactions were queer. + Her escort said, "Mable, + Get up off the table; +That money's to pay for the beer." +% +There was a young girl from St. Paul +Who went to a newspaper ball. + Her dress caught on fire + And burnt her entire +Front page and sport section and all. +% +There was a young girl from the Bronix +Who had a vagina of onyx. + She had so much `tsoris' + With her clitoris, +She traded it in for a Packard. +% +There was a young girl from the coast +Who, just when she needed it most, + Lost her Kotex and bled + All over the bed, +And the head and the beard of her host. +% +There was a young girl in Berlin +Who eked out a living through sin. + She didn't mind fucking, + But much preferred sucking, +And she'd wipe off the pricks on her chin. +% +There was a young girl in Berlin +Who was fucked by an elderly Finn. + Though he diddled his best, + And fucked her with zest, +She kept asking, "Hey, Pop, is it in?" +% +There was a young girl in Dakota +Had a letter from Ickes; he wrote her: + "In addition to gas + We are rationing ass, +And you've greatly exceeded your quota." +% +There was a young girl name McKnight +Who got drunk with her boy-friend one night. + She came to in bed, + With a split maidenhead-- +That's the last time she ever was tight. +% +There was a young girl named Ann Heuser +Who swore that no man could surprise her. + But Pabst took a chance, + Found a Schlitz in her pants, +And now she is sadder Budweiser. +% +There was a young girl named Heather +Whose twitcher was made out of leather. + She made a queer noise, + Which attracted the boys, +By flapping the edges together. +% +There was a young girl named McCall +Whose cunt was exceedingly small, + But the size of her anus + Was something quite heinous -- +It could hold seven pricks and one ball. +% +There was a young girl named O'Clare +Whose body was covered with hair. + It was really quite fun + To probe with one's gun, +For her quimmy might be anywhere. +% +There was a young girl named O'Malley +Who wanted to dance in the ballet. + She got roars of applause + When she kicked off her drawers, +But her hair and her bush didn't tally. +% +There was a young girl named Sapphire +Who succumbed to her lover's desire. + She said, "It's a sin, + But now that it's in, +Could you shove it a few inches higher?" +% +There was a young girl of Aberystwyth +Who screwed every man that she kissed with. + She tickled the balls + Of the men in the halls, +And pulled on the prongs that they pissed with. +% +There was a young girl of Aberystwyth +Who took grain to the mill to get grist with. + The miller's sun, Jack, + Laid her flat on her back, +And united the organs they pissed with. +% +There was a young girl of Angina +Who stretched catgut across her vagina. + From the love-making frock + (With the proper sized cock) +Came Toccata and Fugue in D minor. +% +There was a young girl of Asturias +With a penchant for practices curious. + She loved to bat rocks + With her gentlemen's cocks -- +A practice both rude and injurious. +% +There was a young girl of Batonger +who diddled herself with a conger, + When asked how it feels + To be pleasured by eels +She said, "Just like a man, only longer. +% +There was a young girl of Ca'lina, +Had a very capricious vagina: + To the shock of the fucker + "Twould suddenly pucker, +And whistle the chorus of "Dinah." +% +There was a young girl of Cape Cod +Who dreamt she'd been buggered by God. + But it wasn't Jehovah + That turned the girl over, +'Twas Roger the lodger, the dirty old codger, + the bugger, the bastard, the sod! +% +There was a young girl of Cape Town +Who usually fucked with a clown. + He taught her the trick + Of sucking his prick, +And when it went up -- she went down. +% +There was a young girl of Coxsaxie +Whose skirt was more mini than maxi. + She was fucked at the show + In the twenty-third row, +And once more going home in the taxi. +% +There was a young girl of Darjeeling +Who could dance with such exquisite feeling + There was never a sound + For miles around +Save of fly-buttons hitting the ceiling. +% +There was a young girl of Des Moines +Whose cunt could be fitted with coins, + Till a guy from Hoboken + Went and dropped in a token, +And now she rides free on the ferry. +% +There was a young girl of Detroit +Who at fucking was very adroit: + She could squeeze her vagina + To a pin-point, or finer, +Or open it out like a quoit. + +And she had a friend named Durand +Whose cock could contract or expand. + He could diddle a midge + Or the arch of a bridge -- +Their performance together was grand! +% +There was a young girl of East Lynne +Whose mother, to save her from sin, + Had filled up her crack, + To the brim with shellac, +But the boys picked it out with a pin. +% +There was a young girl of Gibraltar +Who was raped as she knelt at the altar. + It really seems odd + That a virtuous God +Should answer her prayers and assault her. +% +There was a young girl of LLewellyn +Whose breasts were as big as a melon. + They were big it is true, + But her cunt was big too, +Like a bifocal, full-color, aerial view +Of Cape Horn and the Straits of Magellan. +% +There was a young girl of Mobile, +Who hymen was made of chilled steel, + To give her a thrill, + Took a rotary drill, +Or a number nine emery wheel. +% +There was a young girl of Moline +Whose fucking was sweet and obscene. + She would work on a prick + With every known trick, +And finish by winking it clean. +% +There was a young girl of Newcastle +Whose charms were declared universal. + While one man in front + Wired into her cunt, +Another was engaged at her arsehole. +% +There was a young girl of Pawtucket +Whose box was as big as a bucket. + Her boy-friend said, "Toots, + I'll have to wear boots, +For I see I must muck it, not fuck it." +% +There was a young girl of Penzance +Who boarded a bus in a trance. + The passengers fucked her, + Likewise the conductor, +While the driver shot off in his pants. +% +There was a young girl of Pitlochry +Who was had by a man in a rockery. + She said, "Oh! You've come + All over my bum; +This isn't a fuck -- it's a mockery." +% +There was a young girl of Rangoon +Who was blocked by the Man in the Moon. + "Well, it has been great fun," + She remarked when he'd done, +"But I'm sorry you came quite so soon." +% +There was a young girl of Spitzbergen, +Whose people all thought her a virgin, + Till they found her in bed + With her twat very red, +And the head of a kid just emergin'. +% +There was a young girl who begat +Three babies named Nat, Pat and Tat. + T'was fun in the breeding + But hell in the feeding +When she found there's no tit for Tat. +% +There was a young girl, very sweet, +Who thought sailors' meat quite a treat. + When she sat on their lap + She unbuttoned their flap, +And always had plenty to eat. +% +There was a young harlot from Kew +Who filled her vagina with glue. + She said with a grin, + "If they pay to get in, +They'll pay to get out of it too." +% +There was a young harlot named Schwartz +Whose cock-pit was studded with warts, + And they tickled so nice + She drew a high price +From the studs at the summer resorts. + +Her pimp, a young fellow named Biddle, +Was seldom hard up for a diddle, + For according to rumor + His tool had a tumor +And a fine row of warts down the middle. +% +There was a young hayseed from Tiffan +Whose cock would constantly stiffen. + The knob out in front + Attracted foul cunt +Which he greatly delighted in sniffin'. +% +There was a young idler named Blood, +Made a fortune performing at stud, + With a fifteen-inch peter, + A double-beat metre, +And a load like the Biblical Flood. +% +There was a young Jew of Far Rockaway +Whose screams could be heard for a block away. + Perceiving his error, + The Rabbi in terror +Cried, "God! I have cut his whole cock away!" +% +There was a young lad -- name of Durcan +Who was always jerkin' his gherkin. + His father said, "Durcan + Stop jerkin' your gherkin +Your gherkin's for ferkin', not jerkin'. +% +There was a young lad from Nahant +Who was made like the Sensitve Plant. + When asked, "Do you fuck?" + He replied, "No such luck. +I would if I could but I can't." +% +There was a young lad from Siam, +Whose sexlife was caught in a jam. + He loved them real small, + 'Cause they're funner to ball, +So he went out and bought him a lamb! +% +There was a young lad name of Durcan +Who was always jerkin' his gherkin. + His father said, "Durcan! + Stop jerkin' your gherkin! +Your gherkin's for ferkin', not jerkin'. +% +There was a young lad name of Ward +Who strung himself up with a cord + Said he, of his work + (Ere the rope snapped with a jerk) +"I am leaving because I am bored." + - E.A. Guest +% +There was a young lad named McFee +Who was stung in the balls by a bee + He made oodles of money + By oozing pure honey +Every time he attempted to pee. +% +There was a young lady at sea +Who said, "God, how it hurts me to pee." + "I see," said the mate, + "That accounts for the state +Of the captain, the purser, and me." +% +There was a young lady called Ciss +Who went to the river to piss. + A young man in a punt + Put his hand on her cunt; +No wonder she thought it was bliss. +% +There was a young lady from Bangor +Who slept while the ship lay at anchor + She woke in dismay + When she heard the mate say: +"Let's lift up the topsheet and spanker!" +% +There was a young lady from Bright, +Whose speed was much faster than light. + She went out one day + In a relative way +And returned on the previous night. +% +There was a young lady from Bristol +Who went to the Palace called Crystal. + Said she, "It's all glass, + And as round as my ass," +And she farted as loud as a pistol. +% +There was a young lady from Brussels +Who was proud of her vaginal muscles. + She could easily plex them + And so interflex them +As to whistle love songs through her bustles. +% +There was a young lady from Drew +Who ended her verse at line two. +% +There was a young lady from Dumfries +Who said to her boyfriend, "It's some freeze! + My navel's all bare, + So stick it in there, +Before both my legs and my bum freeze." +% +There was a young lady from Exeter, +So pretty that men craned their necks at her. + One was even so brave + As to take out and wave +The distinguishing mark of his sex at her. +% +There was a young lady from Hyde +Who ate a green apple and died. + While her lover lamented + The apple fermented +And made cider inside her inside. +% +There was a young lady from Hyde +Who ate a green apple and died. + While her lover lamented + The apple fermented +And made cider inside her inside. +% +There was a young lady from Maine +Who claimed she had men on her brain. + But you knew from the view, + As her abdomen grew, +It was not on her brain that he'd lain. +% +There was a young lady from Munich +Who had an affair with a eunuch. + At the height of their passion + He dealt her a ration +From a squirt gun concealed in his tunic. +% +There was a young lady from Norway +Who hung by her heels in a doorway. + She told her young man, + "Get off the divan, +I think I've discovered one more way " +% +There was a young lady from Prentice +Who had an affair with a dentist. + To make things easier + He used anesthesia, +And diddled her, `non compos mentis'. +% +There was a young lady from Rheims +Who amazingly pissed in four streams. + A friend poked around + And a fly-button found +Lodged tight in her hole so it seems. +% +There was a young lady from Rio +Who slept with the Fornier trio. + As she dropped her panties + She said, "No andanties +I want this allegro con brio." +% +There was a young lady from Siam +Who said to her lover, one Kiam, + "You may kiss me of course, + But you'll have to use force. +Though god knows you're stronger than I am." +% +There was a young lady from Spain +Who demurely undressed on a train. + A helpful young porter + Helped more than he orter, +And she promptly cried "Help me again" +% +There was a young lady from Spain +Who got sick as she rode on a train; + Not once, but again, + And again, and again, +And again, and again, and again. +% +There was a young lady from Spain +Whose face was exceedingly plain, + But her cunt had a pucker + That made the men fuck her, +Again, and again, and again. +% +There was a young lady from Troy +Had a moustache, just like a young boy + Though it tickled to kiss + 'Twas a source of much bliss +When she used it to brush a man's toy. +% +There was a young lady from Wheeling +Who claimed to lack sexual feeling. + But a cynic named Boris + Just touched her clitoris +And she had to be scraped off the ceiling. +% +There was a young lady from Wheeling +Who had a peculiar feeling. + She laid on her back + And tickled her crack +And pissed all over the ceiling. +% +There was a young lady from Wooster +Who complained that too many men gooster. + So she traded her scanties + For sandpaper panties, +Now they goose her much less than they used 'ter. +% +There was a young lady in Reno, +Who lost all her dough playing Keno. + But she lay on her back, + And opened her crack, +So now she owns the Casino! +% +There was a young lady named Alice +Who was known to have peed in a chalice. + 'Twas the common belief + It was done for relief, +And not out of protestant malice. +% +There was a young lady named Astor +Who never let any get past her. + She finally got plenty + By stopping twenty, +Which certainly ought to last her. +% +There was a young lady named Banker, +Who slept while the ship lay at anchor, + She woke in dismay, + When she heard the mate say, +"Now hoist up the topsheet and spanker." +% +There was a young lady named Blount +Who had a rectangular cunt. + She learned for diversion + Posterior perversion, +Since no one could fit here in front. +% +There was a young lady named Bower +Who dwelt in an Ivory Tower. + But a poet from Perth + Laid her flat on the earth, +And proceeded with penis to plough her. +% +There was a young lady named Brent +With a cunt of enormous extent, + And so deep and so wide, + The acoustics inside +Were so good you could hear when you spent. +% +There was a young lady named Bright +Who could travel much faster than light. + She took off one day, + In a relative way, +And returned on the previous night. +% +There was a young lady named Brook +Who never could learn how to cook. + But on a divan + She could please any man- +She knew every darn trick in the book! +% +There was a young lady named Cager +Who, as the result of a wager, + Consented to fart + The entire oboe part +Of Mozart's quartet in F major. +% +There was a young lady named Ciss +Who said, "I think skating's a bliss " + But she'll never restate, + For a wheel off her skate +.siht ekil gnihtemos pu hsinif reh edaM +% +There was a young lady named Clair +Who possessed a magnificent pair; + At least so I thought + Till I saw one get caught +On a thorn, and begin losing air. +% +There was a young lady named Dot +Whose cunt was so terribly hot + That ten bishops of Rome + And the Pope's private gnome +Failed to quench her Vesuvial twat. +% +There was a young lady named Duff +With a lovely, luxuriant muff. + In his haste to get in her + One eager beginner +Lost both of his balls in the rough. +% +There was a young lady named Etta +Who was constantly seen in a swetta. + Three reasons she had: + To keep warm wasn't bad, +But the other two reasons were betta. +% +There was a young lady named Fleager +Who was terribly, terribly eager + To be all the rage + On the tragedy stage, +Though her talents were pitifully meagre. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young lady named Flo +Whose lover had pulled out too slow. + So they tried it all night, + Till he got it just right... +Well, practice makes pregnant, you know. +% +There was a young lady named Flynn +Who thought fornication a sin, + But when she was tight + It seemed quite all right, +So everyone filled her with gin. +% +There was a young lady named Gilda +Who went on a date with a builder. + He said that he would, + And he could and he should, +And he did and it damn well near killed her. +% +There was a young lady named Gloria +Who was had by Sir Gerald Du Maurier, + And then by six men, + Sir Gerald again, +And the band at the Waldorf-Astoria. +% +There was a young lady named Gloria, +Whose boyfriend said, "May I explore ya?" + She replied to the chap, + "I'll draw you a map, +Of where others have been to before ya." +% +There was a young lady named Grace +Who would not take a prick in her "place." + Though she'd kiss it and suck it, + She never would fuck it-- +She just couldn't relax face-to-face. +% +There was a young lady named Hall, +Wore a newspaper dress to a ball. + The dress caught on fire + And burned her entire +Front page, sporting section, and all. +% +There was a young lady named Hatch +Who would always come through in a scratch. + If a guy wouldn't neck her, + She'd grab up his pecker +And shove the damn thing up her snatch. +% +There was a young lady named Mabel +Who liked to sprawl out on the table, + Then cry to her man, + "Stuff in all you can -- +Get your ballocks in, too, if you're able." +% +There was a young lady named Mandel +Who caused quite a neighborhood scandal + By coming out bare + On the main village square +And frigging herself with a candle. +% +There was a young lady named Maud, +A terrible society fraud: + In company, I'm told, + She was distant and cold, +But if you got her alone, Oh God! +% +There was a young lady named May +Who strolled in a park by the way, + And she met a youg man + Who fucked her and ran -- +Now she goes to the park every day. +% +There was a young lady named Nance +Who learned about fucking in France, + And when you'd insert it + She'd squeeze till she hurt it, +And shoved it right back in your pants. +% +There was a young lady named Nelly +Whose tits would jiggle like jelly. + They could tickle her twat + Or be tied in a knot, +And could even swat flies on her belly. +% +There was a young lady named Ransom +Who was rogered three times in a hansom + When she cried out for more + Said a voice from the floor, +"My name, ma'am, is Simpson, not Samson +% +There was a young lady named Riddle +Who had an untouchable middle. + She had many friends + Because of her ends, +Since it isn't the middle you diddle. +% +There was a young lady named Rose +Who fainted whenever she chose; + She did so one day + While playing croquet, +But was quickly revived with a hose. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young lady named Rose +With erogenous zones in her toes. + She remained onanistic + Till a foot-fetishistic +Young man became one of her beaux. +% +There was a young lady named Schneider +Who often kept trysts with a spider. + She found a strange bliss, + In the hiss of her piss, +As it strained through the cobwebs inside her. +% +There was a young lady named Smith +Whose virtue was largely a myth. + She said, "Try as I can + I can't find a man +Who it's fun to be virtuous with." +% +There was a young lady named Twiss +Who said she thought fucking a bliss, + For it tickled her bum + And caused her to come +.siht ekil gniyl ylbatrofmoc elihW +% +There was a young lady named Wylde +Who kept herself quite undefiled + By thinking of Jesus; + Contagious diseases; +And the bother of having a child. +% +There was a young lady of Arden, +The tool of whose swain wouldn't harden. + Said she with a frown, + "I've been sadly let down +By the tool of a fool in a garden." +% +There was a young lady of Bicester +Who was nicer by far than her sister: + The sister would giggle + And wiggle and jiggle, +But this one would come if you kissed her. +% +There was a young lady of Brabant +Who slept with an impotent savant. + She admitted, "We shouldn't, + But it turned out he couldn't- +So you can't say we have when we haven't." +% +There was a young lady of Bude +Who walked down the street in the nude. + A bobby said, "Whattum + Magnificent bottom!" +And slapped it as hard as he could. +% +There was a young lady of Carmia +Whose housekeeping ways would alarm ya. + At every cold snap + She would climb in your lab, +So her little base burner could warm ya. +% +There was a young lady of Dee +Who went down to the river to pee. + A man in a punt + Put his hand on her cunt, +And God! how I wish it were me. +% +There was a young lady of Dee +Whose hymen was split into three. + And when she was diddled + The middle string fiddled : +"Nearer My God To Thee." +% +There was a young lady of Dexter +Whose husband exceedingly vexed her, + For whenever they'd start + He'd unfailingly fart +With a blast that damn nearly unsexed her. +% +There was a young lady of Dover +Whose passion was such that it drove her + To cry, when you came, + "Oh dear! What a shame! +Well, now we shall have to start over." +% +There was a young lady of Ealing +And her lover before her was kneeling. + Said she, "Dearest Jim, + Take your hands off my quim; +I much prefer fucking to feeling." +% +There was a young lady of fashion +Who had oodles and oodles of passion. + To her lover she said, + As they climbed into bed, +"Here's one thing the bastards can't ration!" +% +There was a young lady of Fez +Who was known to the public as "Jez." + Jezebel was her name, + Sucking cocks was the game +She excelled at (so everyone says). +% +There was a young lady of Gaza +Who shaved her cunt bare with a razor. + The crabs, in a lump, + Made tracks to her rump -- +This passing parade did amaze her. +% +There was a young lady of Gloucester +Whose friends they thought they had lost her + Till they found on the grass + The marks of her arse, +And the knees of the man who had crossed her. +% +There was a young lady of Gloucester, +Met a passionate fellow who tossed her. + She wasn't much hurt, + But he dirtied her skirt, +So think of the anguish it cost her. +% +There was a young lady of Kent, +Who admitted she knew what it meant + When men asked her to dine, + And plied her with wine, +She knew, oh she knew -- but she went! +% +There was a young lady of Lee +Who scrambled up into a tree, + When she got there + Her arsehole was bare, +And so was her C U N T. +% +There was a young lady of Lincoln +Who said that her cunt was a pink'un, + So she had a prick lent her + Which turned it magenta, +This artful old lady of Lincoln. +% +There was a young lady of Natchez +Who chanced to be born with two snatches, + And she often said, "Shit! + Why, I'd give either tit +For a man with equipment that matches." + +There was a young fellow named Locke +Who was born with a two-headed cock. + When he'd fondle the thing + It would rise up and sing +An antiphonal chorus by Bach. + +But whether these two ever met +Has not been recorded as yet, + Still, it would be diverting + To see him inserting +His whang while it sang a duet. +% +There was a young lady of Norway +Who hung by her toes in a doorway. + She said to her beau + "Just look at me, Joe! +I think I've discovered one more way!" +% +There was a young lady of Rhyll +In an omnibus was taken ill, + So she called the conductor, + Who got in and fucked her, +Which did more good than a pill. +% +There was a young lady of Spain +Who was fucked by a monk in a drain. + They did it again + And again and again, +And again and again and again. +% +There was a young lady of Twickenham +Who thought men had not enough prick in 'em. + On her knees every day + To God she would pray +To lengthen and strengthen and thicken 'em. +% +There was a young lady of Wheeling +Said to her beau, "I've a feeling + My little brown jug + Has need of a plug" -- +And straightaway she started to peeling. +% +There was a young lady who said, +As her bridegroom got into the bed, + "I'm tired of this stunt, + That they do with one's cunt, +You can get up my bottom instead." +% +There was a young lady whose cunt +Could accomodate a small punt. + Her mother said, "Annie, + It matches your fanny, +Which never was that of a runt." +% +There was a young lady whose thighs, +When spread showed a slit of such size, + And so deep and so wide, + You could play cards inside, +Much to her bridegroom's surprise. +% +There was a young lass from Surat. +The cheeks of her ass were so fat + That they had to be parted + Whenever she farted, +And also whenever she shat. +% +There was a young laundress named Wrangle +Whose tits tilted up at an angle. + "They may tickle my chin," + She said with a grin, +"But at least they keep out of the mangle." +% +There was a young maiden from Osset +Whose quim was nine inches across it. + Said a young man named Tong, + With tool nine inches long, +"I'll put bugger-in if I loss it." +% +There was a young man from Bear Ridge +Who had strange ideas about marriage. + He fucked his wife's mother + And sucked off her brother +And ate up her sister's miscarriage. +% +There was a young man from Bel-Aire +Who was screwing his girl on the stair. + But the banister broke + So he doubled his stroke +And finished her off in mid-air. +% +There was a young man from Bengal +Who claimed he had only one ball, + But two little bitches + Pulled down this man's breeches +And proved he had nothing at all. +% +There was a young man from Biloxi +Whose bowels responded to Moxie. + Drinking glass after glass, + He would tune up his ass, +Till he played like the band at the Roxy. +% +There was a young man from Bombay +Who fashioned a cunt out of clay + But the heat of his prick + Turned it into a brick +And rubbed all his foreskin away. +% +There was a young man from Boston +Who rode around in an Austin. + There was room for his ass + And a gallon of gas, +But his balls hung out and he lost 'em. +% +There was a young man from Calcutta +Who was heard in his beard to mutter, + "If her Bartholin glands + Don't respond to my hands, +I'm afraid I shall have to use butter." +% +There was a young man from Dallas +Who had an exceptional phallus. + He couldn't find room + In any girl's womb +Without rubbing it first with Vitalis. +% +There was a young man from Dundee +Who buggered an ape in a tree. + The results were quite horrid: + All ass and no forehead, +Three balls and a purple goatee. +% +There was a young man from East Lizes +Whose balls were of two different sizes + One was so small + It was no ball at all +The other was large and won prizes. +% +There was a young man from East Wubley +Whose cock was bifurcated doubly. + Each quadruplicate shaft + Had two balls hanging aft, +And the general effect was quite lovely. + +There was a young man from Hong Kong +Who had a trifurcated prong: + A small one for sucking, + A large one for fucking, +And a `boney' for beating a gong. +% +There was a young man from Glengozzle +Who found a remarkable fossil. + He knew by the bend + And the wart on the end, +'Twas the peter of Paul the Apostle. +% +There was a young man from Jodhpur +Who found he could easily cure + His dread diabetes + By eating a foetus +Served up in a sauce of manure. +% +There was a young man from Kent +Whose tool was so long that it bent. + To save himself trouble + He put it in double +And instead of coming, he went. +% +There was a young man from LeDoux, +Whose limericks stopped at line two. + +There was a young man from Verdunne. + + [Actually, there are three limericks in this series, the third one + is about some guy named Nero. If anyone has a copy of it, please + mail it to "fortune". Ed.] +% +There was a young man from Lynn +Whose cock was the size of a pin. + Said his girl with a laugh + As she felt his staff, +"This won't be much of a sin." +% +There was a young man from Maine +Whose prick was as strong as a crane; + It was almost as long, + So he strolled with his dong +Extended in sunshine and rain. +% +There was a young man from Nantucket +Whose cock was so long he could suck it. + But he looked in the glass, + And saw his own ass, +And broke his neck trying to fuck it. +% +There was a young man from Nantucket +Whose cock was so long he could suck it. + He said with a grin, + While wiping his chin, +"If my ear was a cunt, I could fuck it." +% +There was a young man from New Haven +Who had an affair with a raven. + He said with a grin + As he wiped off his chin, +"Nevermore!" +% +There was a young man from Peru, +Who took a long trip by canoe. + While staring at Venus, + And rubbing his penis, +He wound up with a handful of goo. +% +There was a young man from Purdue +Who was only just learning to screw, + But he hadn't the knack, + And he got too far back -- +In the right church, but in the wrong pew. +% +There was a young man from Racine +Who invented a fucking machine. + Concave or convex, + It served either sex, +But oh what a bitch to keep clean. +% +There was a young man from Rangoon +Who used to lament 'neath the moon + That he had the luck + To be born of a fuck +That was scraped off the sheets with a spoon. +% +There was a young man from Salinas +Who had an extremely long penis: + Believe it or not, + When he lay on his cot +It reached from Marin to Martinez. +% +There was a young man from Seattle +Whose testicles tended to rattle. + He said as he fuck-ed + Some stones in a bucket, +"If Stravinsky won't deafen you -- that'll." +% +There was a young man from Siam +Who said, "I go in with a wham, + But I soon lose my starch + Like the mad month of March, +And the lion comes out like a lamb." +% +There was a young man from St. Paul's +Who read "Harper's Bazaar" and "McCall's" + Till he grew such a passion + For feminine fashion +That he knitted a snood for his balls. +% +There was a young man from Stamboul +Who boasted so torrid a tool + That each female crater + Explored by this satyr +Seemed almost unpleasantly cool. +% +There was a young man from Tibet-- +And this is the strangest one yet-- + Whose tool was so long, + So pointed and strong, +He could bugger six Greeks "en brochette". +% +There was a young man in Havana, +Banged his girl on a player-piana. + At the height of their fever + Her ass hit the lever +And: yes, he has no banana. +% +There was a young man in Norway, +Tried to jerk himself off in a sleigh, + But the air was so frigid + It froze his cock rigid, +And all he could come was frappe. +% +There was a young man in the choir +Whose penis rose higher and higher, + Till it reached such a height + It was quite out of sight -- +But of course you know I'm a liar. +% +There was a young man named Crockett +Whose balls got caught in a socket. + His wife was a bitch, + Yeah, she threw the switch, +And Crockett went off like a rocket. +% +There was a young man named Hughes +Who swore off all kinds of booze. + He said, "When I'm muddled + My senses get fuddled, +And I pass up too many screws." +% +There was a young man named Knute +Who had warts all over his root. + He put acid on these + And now when he pees, +He fingers the thing like a flute. +% +There was a young man named Laplace +Whose balls were made out of spun glass. + When they banged together + They played "Stormy Weather" +And lightning shot out of his ass. +% +There was a young man named McNamiter +With a tool of prodigious diameter. + But it wasn't the size + Gave the girls a surprise, +But his rythm -- iambic pentameter. +% +There was a young man named Rex +Who really was small for his sex. + When tried for exposure + The judge's disclosure +Was "de minimus non curat lex." +% +There was a young man named Zerubbabel +Who had only one real, and one rubber ball. + When they asked if his pleasure + Was only half measure, +He replied, "That is highly improbable." +% +There was a young man named Zerubbabub +Who belonged to the Block, Fuck & Bugger Club + But the pride of his life + Were the tits of his wife -- +One real, and one India-rubber bub. +% +There was a young man of Arras +Who stretched himself out on the grass, + And with no little trouble, + He bent himself double, +And stuck his prick well up his ass. +% +There was a young man of Australia +Who went on a wild bacchanalia. + He buggered a frog, + Two mice and a dog, +And a bishop in fullest regalia. +% +There was a young man of Belgrade +Who remarked, "I'm a queer piece of trade. + I will suck, without charge, + Any cock, if it's large. +If it's small, I expect to be paid." +% +There was a young man of Belgrade +Who slept with a girl in the trade. + She said to him, "Jack, + Try the hole in the back; +The front one is badly decayed." +% +There was a young man of Bengal +Who swore he had only one ball, + But two little bitches + Unbuttoned his britches, +And found he had no balls at all. +% +There was a young man of Bombay +Who buggered his dad once a day. + He said, "I like, rather, + Fucking my father -- +He's clean, and there's nothing to pay." +% +There was a young man of Calcutta, +Who tried to write "cunt" on a shutter. + When he got to c-u, + A pious Hindoo +Knocked him ass-over-head in the gutter. +% +There was a young man of Cape Horn +Who wished he had never been born, + And he wouldn't have been + If his father had seen +That the end of the rubber was torn. +% +There was a young man of Coblenz +Whose ballocks were simply immense: + It took forty-four draymen, + A priest and three laymen +To carry them thither and thence. +% +There was a young man of Darjeeling +Whose cock reached up to the ceiling. + In the electric light socket, + He'd put it and rock it-- +Oh God! What a wonderful feeling! +% +There was a young man of Devizes, +Whose balls were of different sizes. + One was so small, + It was nothing at all; +The other took numerous prizes. +% +There was a young man of Dumfries +Who said to his girl, "If you please, + It would give me great bliss + If, while playing with this, +You would pay some attention to these!" +% +There was a young man of Greenwich +Whose balls were all covered with spinach. + So long was his tool + That it wound round a spool, +And he let it out inach by inach. +% +There was a young man of high station +Who was found by a pious relation + Making love in a ditch + To -- I won't say a bitch -- +But a woman of no reputation. +% +There was a young man of Khartoum +Who lured a poor girl to her doom. + He not only fucked her, + But buggered and sucked her-- +And left her to pay for the room. +% +There was a young man of Khartoum, +The strength of whose balls was his doom. + So strong was his shootin', + The third law of Newton +Propelled the poor chap to the Moon. +% +There was a young man of Kildare +Who was fucking a girl on the stair. + The bannister broke, + But he doubled his stroke +And finished her off in mid-air. +% +There was a young man of Kutki +Who could blink himself off with one eye. + For a while though, he pined, + When his organ declined +To function, because of a stye. +% +There was a young man of Lahore +Whose prick was one inch and no more. + It was all right for key-holes + And little girl's pee-holes, +But not worth a damn with a whore. +% +There was a young man of Lake Placid +Whose prick was lethargic and flaccid. + When he wanted to sport + He would have to resort +To injections of sulphuric acid. +% +There was a young man of Madras +Whose balls were constructed of brass. + When jangled together + They played "Stormy Weather", +And lightning shot out of his ass. +% +There was a young man of Missouri +Who fucked with a terrible fury. + Till hauled into court + For his beastial sport, +And condemned by a poorly-hung jury. +% +There was a young man of Natal +And Sue was the name of his gal. + One day, north of Aden, + He got his hard rod in, +And came clear up Suez Canal. +% +There was a young man of Natal +Who was fucking a Hottentot gal. + Said she, "You're a sluggard!" + Said he, "You be buggered! +I like to fuck slow and I shall." +% +There was a young man of Ostend +Who let a girl play with his end. + She took hold of Rover, + And felt it all over, +And it did what she didn't intend. +% +There was a young man of Ostend +Whose wife caught him fucking her friend. + "It's no use, my duck, + Interrupting our fuck, +For I'm damned if I draw till I spend." +% +There was a young man of Saskatchewan, +Whose penis was truly gargantuan. + It was good for large whores, + And for small dinosaurs, +And was rough enough to scratch a match upon. +% +There was a young man of Seattle +Who bested a bull in a battle. + With fire and gumption + He assumed the bull's function, +And deflowered a whole herd of cattle. +% +There was a young man of St. John's +Who wanted to bugger the swans. + But the loyal hall porter + Said, "Pray take my daughter! +Those birds are reserved for the dons." +% +There was a young man of Tibet +-- And this is the strangest one yet -- + His prick was so long, + And so pointed and strong, +He could bugger six sheep en brochette. +% +There was a young man of Toulouse +Who had a deficient prepuce, + But the foreskin he lacked + He made up in his sac; +The result was, his balls were too loose. +% +There was a young man who appeared +To his friends with a full growth of beard; + They at once said, "Although + We can't say why it's so, +The effect is uncommonly weird." + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young man who said "God, +I find it exceedingly odd, + That the willow oak tree + Continues to be, +When there's no one about in the Quad." + +"Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd, +For I'm always about in the Quad; + And that's why the tree, + Continues to be," +Signed "Yours faithfully, God." +% +There was a young man with a fiddle +Who asked of his girl, "Do you diddle?" + She replied, "Yes, I do, + But prefer to with two -- +It's twice as much fun in the middle." +% +There was a young man with a prick +Which into his wife he would stick + Every morning and night + If it stood up all right -- +Not a very remarkable trick. + +His wife had a nice little cunt: +It was hairy, and soft, and in front, + And with this she would fuck him, + Though sometimes she'd suck him -- +A charming, if commonplace, stunt. +% +There was a young man with one foot +Who had a very long root. + If he used this peg + As an extra leg +Is a question exceedingly moot. +% +There was a young man, name of Fred, +Who spent every Thursday in bed; + He lay with his feet + Outside of the sheet, +And the pillows on top of his head. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young man, name of Saul, +Who was able to bounce either ball, + He could stretch them and snap them, + And juggle and clap them, +Which earned him the plaudits of all. +% +There was a young miss from Johore +Who'd lie on a mat on the floor; + In a manner uncanny + She'd wobble her fanny, +And drain your nuts dry to the core. +% +There was a young monk from Siberia +Whose life got drearia' and drearia' + Till he did to a nun + What shouldn't be done +And made her a mother superia'. +% +There was a young monk of Dundee +Who complained that it hurt him to pee, + He said, "Pax vobiscum, + Now why won't the piss come? +I'm afraid I've the c-l-a-p." +% +There was a young parson of Harwich, +Tried to grind his betrothed in a carriage. + She said, "No, you young goose, + Just try self-abuse. +And the other we'll try after marriage." +% +There was a young peasant named Gorse +Who fell madly in love with his horse. + Said his wife, "You rapscallion, + That horse is a stallion -- +This constitutes grounds for divorce." +% +There was a young person of Kent +Who was famous wherever he went. + All the way through a fuck, + He would quack like a duck, +And he crowed like a cock when he spent. +% +There was a young plumber named Lee +Who was plumbing his girl by the sea. + She said, "Stop your plumbing, + There's somebody coming" +Said the plumber, still plumbing, "It's me." +% +There was a young poet named Dan, +Whose poetry never would scan. + When told this was so, + He said, "Yes, I know, +It's because I try to put every possible syllable into that + Last line that I can." +% +There was a young royal marine, +Who tried to fart "God Save the Queen". + When he reached the soprano + Out came only guano +And his britches weren't fit to be seen. +% +There was a young sailor from Brighton, +Who remarked to his girl, "You're a tight one." + She replied, "'Pon my soul, + You're in the wrong hole; +There's plenty of room in the right one." +% +There was a young sapphic named Anna +Who stuffed her friend's cunt with banana, + Which she sucked, bit by bit, + From her partner's warm slit, +In the most approved lesbian manner. +% +There was a young Scot in Madrid +Who got fifty-five fucks for a quid. + When they said, "Are you faint?" + He replied, "No, I ain't, +But I don't feel as good as I did." +% +There was a young soldier from Munich +Whose penis hung down past his tunic, + And their chops girls would lick + When they thought of his prick, +But alas! he was only a eunuch. +% +There was a young sportsman named Peel +Who went for a trip on his wheel; + He pedalled for days + Through crepuscular haze, +And returned feeling somewhat unreal. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young squaw of Wohunt +Who possessed a collapsible cunt. + It had many odd uses, + Produced no papooses, +And fitted both giant and runt. +% +There was a young student from Yale +Who was getting his first piece of tail. + He shoved in his pole, + But in the wrong hole, +And a voice from beneath yelled: "No sale!" +% +There was a young tenor named Springer, +Got his testicles caught in a wringer. + He hollered in pain, + As they rolled down the drain, +"There goes my career as a singer!" +% +There was a young trollop at Yale, +Who had verses tattooed on her tail, + And on her behind, + For the sake of the blind, +A duplicate version in Braille. +% +There was a young whore from Kaloo +Who filled her vagina with glue. + She said with a grin, + "If they pay to get in, +They can pay to get out again too!" +% +There was a young woman called Pearl +Who quite resembled a churl; + When she asked a young man named Tex + Whether he would like to have sex, +"Certainly," quoth he, "Who's the girl?" +% +There was a young woman from Bude, +Who went for a swim in the nude, + But a man in a punt, + Grabbed at her elbow, +And said "Hey, lady, you can't swim here, it's private property." +% +There was a young woman in Dee +Who stayed with each man she did see. + When it came to a test + She wished to be best, +And practice makes perfect, you see. +% +There was a young woman named Alice +Who peed in a Catholic chalice. + She said, "I do this + From a great need to piss, +And not from sectarian malice." +% +There was a young woman named Ells +Who was subject to curious spells + When got up very oddly, + She'd cry out things ungodly +by the palms in expensive hotels. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young woman named Florence +Who for fucking professed an abhorrence, + But they found her in bed + With her cunt flaming red, +And her poodle-dog spending in torrents. +% +There was a young woman named Plunnery +Who rejoiced in the practice of gunnery. + Till one day unobservant, + She blew up a servant, +And was forced to retire to a nunnery. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young woman named Sutton +Who said, as she carved up the mutton, + "My father preferred + The last sheep in the herd -- +This is one of his children I'm cuttin'." +% +There was a young woman of Cheadle, +Who once gave the clap to a beadle. + Said she, "Does it itch?" + "It does, you damned bitch, +And it burns like hell-fire when I peedle." +% +There was a young woman of Condover +Whose husband had ceased to be fond of 'er. + Her pussy was juicy, + Her arse soft and goosey, +But peroxide had now made a blonde of 'er. +% +There was a young woman of Croft +Who played with herself in a loft, + Having reasoned that candles + Could never cause scandals, +Besides which they did not go soft. + +Said another young woman of Croft, +Amusing herself in the loft, + "A salami or wurst + Is what I'd choose first -- +With bologna you know you've been boffed." +% +There was a young woman whose stammer +Was atrocious, and so was her grammar; + But they were not improved + When her husband was moved +To knock out her teeth with a hammer. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There was a young woman, quite handsome, +Who got stuck in a sleeping room transom. + When she offered much gold + For release, she was told +That the view was worth more than the ransom. +% +There was an old abbess quite shocked +To find nuns where the candles were locked. + Said the abbess, "You nuns + Should behave more like guns, +And never go off till you're cocked." +% +There was an old bishop from Buckingham +Who fell in love with some oysters while shuckingham. + His wife with distain + Could scarcely restrain +That sprightly old bishop from fuckingham. +% +There was an old count of Swoboda +Who would not pay a whore what he owed her. + So, with great savoir-faire, + She stood on a chair +And pissed in his whiskey-and-soda. +% +There was an old curate of Hestion +Who'd errect at the slightest suggestion. + But so small was his tool + He could scarce screw a spool, +And a cunt was quite out of the question. +% +There was an old fellow named Art +Who awoke with a horrible start, + For down by his rump + Was a generous lump +Of what should have been just a fart. +% +There was an old fellow named Skinner +Whose prick, his wife said, had grown thinner. + But still, by and large, + It would always discharge +Once he could just get it in her. +% +There was an old feminine blighter +Who trained a Chow dog to delight her. + She would cream her own pool + While she sucked off his tool -- +How his cock in her cunt would excite her! +% +There was an old gent from Kentuck +Who boasted a filigreed schmuck, + But he put it away + For fear that one day +He might put it in and get stuck. +% +There was an old girl of Kilkenny +Whose usual charge was a penny. + For half of that sum + You could finger her bum-- +A source of amusement to many. +% +There was an old harlot from Dijon +Who in her old age got religion. + "When I'm dead & gone," + Said she, "I'll take on +The Father, the Son, and the Pigeon." +% +There was an old hermit named Dave +Who kept a dead whore in his cave. + He said "I'll admit + I'm a bit of a shit, +But look at the money I save." +% +There was an old lady of Bingly +Who wailed, "I do hate to sleep singly. + I thought I had got + A bloke for my twat, +But he seems rather queenly than kingly." +% +There was an old lady of Glascow, +Whose party proved quite a fiasco. + At nine-thirty, about, + The lights all went out, +Through a lapse on the part of the Gas Co. +% +There was an old lady of Kewry +Whose cunt was a `lusus naturae': + The `introitus vaginae', + Was unnaturally tiny, +And the thought of it filled her with fury. +% +There was an old lady who lay +With her legs wide apart in the hay, + Then, calling the ploughman, + She said, "Do it now, man! +Don't wait till your hair has turned gray." +% +There was an old maid from Cape Cod +Who thought all good things came from god. + But it wasn't the almighty + Who lifted her nighty, +It was Roger, the lodger, by god. +% +There was an old man from Bengal +Who liked to do tricks in the hall. + His favorite trick + Was to stand on his dick +While he rolled around on one ball. +% +There was an old man from Duluth +Whose cock was shot off in his youth. + He fucked with his nose + Or his fingers and toes +And he came thru a hole in his tooth. +% +There was an old man from Fort Drum +Whose son was incredibly dumb. + When he urged him ahead, + He went down instead, +For he thought to succeed meant succumb. +% +There was an old man of Alsace +Who played the trombone with his ass. + He put in a trap + To take out the crap, +But the vapors corroded the brass. +% +There was an old man of Brienz +The length of whose cock was immense: + With one swerve he could plug + A boy's bottom in Zug, +And a kitchen-maid's cunt in Coblenz. +% +There was an old man of Cajon +Who never could get a good bone. + With the aid of a gland + It grew simply grand; +Now his wife cannot leave it alone. +% +There was an old man of Calcutta +Who spied through a chink in the shutter. + But all he could see + Was his wife's bare knee, +And the back of the bloke who was up her. +% +There was an old man of Connaught +Whose prick was remarkably short. + When he got into bed, + The old woman said, +"This isn't a prick, it's a wart." +% +There was an old man of Duddee +Who came home as drunk as could be. + He wound up the clock + With the end of his cock, +And buggered his wife with the key. +% +There was an old man of Duluth +Whose cock was shot off in his youth. + He fucked with his nose + And with fingers and toes, +And he came through a hole in his tooth. +% +There was an old man of Hong Kong +Who never did anything wrong. + He would lie on his back + With his head in a sack +And secretly finger his dong. +% +There was an old man of St. Bees, +Who was stung in the arm by a wasp. + When asked, "Does it hurt?" + He relied, "No, it doesn't. +I'm so glad that it wasn't a hornet." + -- W.S. Gilbert +% +There was an old man of Tagore +Whose tool was a yard long or more, + So he wore the damn thing + In a surgical sling +To keep it from wiping the floor. +% +There was an Old Man of the Mountain +Who frigged himself into a fountain + Fifteen times had he spent, + Still he wasn't content, +He simply got tired of the counting. +% +There was an old man of the port +Whose prick was remarkably short. + When he got into bed, + The old woman said, +"This isn't a prick; it's a wart!" +% +There was an old man who said, "Tush! +My balls always hang in the brush, + And I fumble about, + Half in and half out, +With a pecker as limber as mush." +% +There was an old man with a beard +Who said, "It is just what I feared! + Two owls and a hen, + Four larks and a wren +Have all built their nests in my beard!" +% +There was an old person of Ware +Who had an affair with a bear. + He explained, "I don't mind, + For it's gentle and kind, +But I wish it had slightly less hair." +% +There was an old pirate named Bates +Who was learning to rhumba on skates. + He fell on his cutlass + Which rendered him nutless +And practically useless on dates. +% +There was an old satyr named Mack +Whose prick had a left handed tack. + If the ladies he loves + Don't spin when he shoves, +Their cervixes frequently crack. +% +There was an old Scot named McTavish +Who attempted an anthropoid ravish. + The object of rape + Was the wrong sex of ape, +And the anthropoid ravished McTavish. +% +There was an old whore from Silesia +Who'd croke: "If my box doesn't please ya, + For a slight extra sum + You can go up my bum +But watchout or my tapeworm'll seize ya." +% +There was an old whore in the Azores +Whose body was covered with festers & sores. + Why the dogs in the street + Wouldn't eat the green meat +That hung in festoons from her drawers. +% +There was an old woman of Ghent +Who swore that her cunt had no scent. + She got fucked so often + At last she got rotten, +And didn't she stink when she spent. +% +There was once a mechanic named Bench +Whose best tool was a sturdy gut-wrench. + With this vibrant device + He could reach, in a trice, +The innermost parts of a wench. +% +There was once a sad Maitre d'hotel +Who said, "They can all go to hell! + What they do to my wife-- + Why it ruins my life; +And the worst is, they all do it well. +% +There were three ladies of Huxham, +And whenever we meets 'em we fuxham, + And when that game grows stale + We sits on a rail, +And pulls out our pricks and they suxham. +% +There were three young ladies of Birmingham, +And this is the scandal concerning 'em. + They lifted the frock + And tickled the cock +Of the Bishop engaged in confirming 'em. + +Now, the Bishop was nobody's fool, +He'd been to a good public school, + So he took down their britches + And buggered those bitches +With his ten-inch episcopal tool. + +Then up spoke a lady from Kew, +And said, as the Bishop withdrew, + "The vicar is quicker + And thicker and slicker, +And longer and stronger than you." + -- Abuses of the Clergy +% +There's a charming young girl in Tobruk +Who refers to her quiff as a nook. + It's deep and it's wide, + -- You can curl up inside +With a nice easy chair and a book. +% +There's a charming young lady named Beaulieu +Who's often been screwed by yours truly, + But now--it's appallin'-- + My balls always fall in! +I fear that I've fucked her unduly. +% +There's a dowager near Sweden Landing +Whose manners are odd and demanding. + It's one of her jests + To suck off her guests -- +She hates to keep gentlemen standing. +% +There's a lovely young lady named Shittlecock +Who loves to play diddle and fiddle-cock, + But her cunt's got a pucker + That's best not to fuck, or +When least you expect it to, it'll lock. +% +There's a rather odd couple in Herts +Who are cousins (or so each asserts); + Their sex is in doubt + For they're never without +Their moustaches and long, trailing skirts. + -- Edward Gorey +% +There's a sports-minded coed named Sue, +Who's been coxing the varsity crew. + In the shell Sue is great, + But her boyfriend's irate, +When she calls out the stroke as they screw. +% +There's a tavern in London that's staffed, +By a barmaid who's tops at her craft: + In her striving to please, + She serves ale on her knees, +So the patrons get head with their draft. +% +There's a very hot babe at the Aggies +Who's to men what to bulls a red rag is. + The seniors go round + Hanging down to the ground, +And one extra-large Soph has to drag his. +% +There's a vicar who's classed as nefarious, +Since his shocking perversions are various... + He will bugger some lad + With a dildo (the cad!) +While exulting, "My pleasure's vicarious!" +% +There's a young Yiddish slut with two cunts, +Whose pleasure in life is to pruntz. + When one pireg is shot, + There's that alternate twat, +But the ausgefuckt male merely grunts. +% +There's an oversexed lady named Whyte +Who insists on a dozen a night. + A fellow named Cheddar + Had the brashness to wed her- +His chance of survival is slight. +% +There's an unbroken babe from Toronto, +Exceedingly hard to get onto, + But when you get there, + And have parted the hair, +You can fuck her as much as you want to. +% +They had come in the fugue to the stretto +When a dark, bearded man from a ghetto + Slipped forward and grabbed + Her tresses and stabbed +Her to death with a rusty stiletto. + -- Edward Gorey +% +This limerick is **SO**FILTHY** that it would offend even you. So I'll put +"di-dah" for the filthy words: + + Di-dah, di-dah, di-dah di-dah, + Di-dah di-dah di-dah, di-dah; + di-dah di-dah di-dah? + Di-dah di-dah di-dah. + Di-dah di-dah, di-dah di-fuck. +% +Though his plan, when he gave her a buzz, +Was to do what man normally does, + She declared, "I'm a Soul-- + Not a sexual goal!" +So he shrugged and called someone who was. +% +Though most of the crewmen are whites, +Uhura has full equal rights. + Her crewmates, you see, + Love De-mo-cra-cy, +And the way that she fills out her tights. +% +Though the invalid Saint of Brac +Lay all of his life on his back, + His wife got her share, + And the pilgrims now stare +At the scene, in his shrine, on a plaque. +% +'Tis a custom in Castellamare +To fuck in the back of a lorry. + The chassis and springs + Are like woodwinds and strings +In the midst of a musical soiree. +% +To a weepy young woman in Thrums +Her betrothed remarked, "This is what comes + Of allowing your tears + To fall into my ears - +I think they have rotted the drums." + -- Edward Gorey +% +To bear offspring, Noah's snakes were unable. +Their fertility was somewhat unstable. + He constructed a bed + Out of tree trunks and said, +"Even adders can multiply on a log table." +% +To his bride a young bridegroom said, "Pish! +Your cunt is as big as a dish!" + She replied, "Why, you fool, + With your limp little tool +It's like driving a nail with a fish!" +% +To his bride said a numskull named Clarence : +"I trust you will show some forbearance. + My sexual habits + I picked up from rabbits, +And occasionally watching my parents." +% +To his bride said economist Fife : +"The semen you'll launch as my wife, + We will salvage and freeze + To resemble goat's cheese, +And slice for hors d'oeuvres with a knife." +% +To his bride, said the sharp eyed detective, +"Can it be that my eyesight's defective? + Is your east tit the least bit + The best of your west tit, +Or is it a trick of perspective?" +% +To his clubfooted child said Lord Stipple, +As he poured his post-prandial tipple, + "Your mother's behaviour + Gave pain to Our Saviour, +And that's why He made you a cripple." + -- Edward Gorey +% +Two anglers were fishing off Wight +And his bobber was dipping all night. + Murmured she, with a laugh, + "It's ready to gaff, +But don't break your rod which is light." + +A couple was fishing near Clombe +When the maid began looking quite glum, + And said, "Bother the fish! + I'd rather coish!" +Which they did -- which was why they had come. + +As two consular clerks in Madras +Fished, hidden in deep shore-grass, + "What a marvelous pole," + Said she, "but control +Your sinkers -- they're banging my ass." +% +Two eager young men from Cawnpore +Once buggared and fucked the same whore. + But her partition split + And the blood and the shit +Rolled out in a mess on the floor. +% +Two roosters in one of our pens +Found their pricks were no larger than wens. + As they looked at their foreskins + And wished they had more skins, +They discovered they'd both become hens. +% +Un moine au milieu de la messe A monk in the middle of mass +S'eleva et cria en detresse; Stood up and cried out in distress; + "La vie religieuse, "The religious life + C'est sale et affreuse," Is dirty and horrid," +Et se poignarda dans les fesses. And stabbed himself in the ass. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Under the spreading chestnut tree +The village smith he sat, + Amusing himself + By abusing himself +And catching the load in his hat. +% +Une joile epousetta a Tours +Voulait de gig-gig tous le jours. + Mais le mari disait, "Non! + De trop n'est pas bon! +Mon derriere exige du secours!" +% +Visas erat: huic geminarum +Dispar modus testicularum: + Minor haec nihili, + Palma triplici, +Jam fecerat altera clarum. +% +We dedicate this to the cunt, +The kind the broad-minded guys hunt : + All hail to the twat, + Willing, thrilling, and hot, +That wears peckers down, limp and blunt! +% +We sailed on the good ship Venus, +My God, you should have seen us + With a figurehead + Of a whore in bed +And the mast an upright penis + +The captain of the lugger +Was known as a filthy bugger + Declared unfit + To shovel shit +From one ship to another + +The first mate's name was Cooper, +By god he was a trooper + He jerked and jerked + Until he worked +Himself into a stupor + +The cabin boy was chipper, +A dandy little nipper + He shoved cracked glass + Inside his ass +And circumcised the skipper + +The captain's wife was Charlotte, +Born and bred a harlot + Her thighs at night + Were lily white +By morning they were scarlet + +The captain's youngest daughter +Slipped into the water + Her plaintive squeals + Announced that eels +Had found her sexual quarter + +The ship's dog's name was Rover, +They turned the poor beast over + And ground and ground + That faithful hound +From Tenerief to Dover +% +Well buggered was a boy named Delpasse +By all of the lads in his class + He said, with a yawn, + "Now the novelty's gone +And it's only a pain in the ass." +% +"Well, I took your advice, Doc", said Knopp, +"And told my wife to try it on top. + She bounced for an hour, + Till she ran out of power, +And the kids, who'd grown bored, made us stop." +% +"Well, madam," the bishop declared, +While the vicar just mumbled and stared, + "'Twere better, perhaps, + In the crypt or the apse, +Because sex in the nave must be shared." +% +When he tried to inject his huge whanger +A young man aroused his girl's anger. + As they strove in the dark + She was heard to remark, +"What you need is a zeppelin hanger." +% +When I was a baby, my penis +Was as white as the buttocks of Venus. + But now 'this as red + As her nipples instead-- +All because of the feminie genus! +% +When they asked a pert baggage name Alice, +Who'd been bedded and banged in the palace, + "Was he modest or vain?" + "Was he regal or plain?" +She replied, "He's a jolly good phallus!" +% +When you fuck little Annie in Anza +You get a great bossom bonanza: + Sucking Annie's soft tits + Makes her throw fifty fits, +And the fuck is a sextravaganza! +% +While his duchess lay practically dead, +The Duke of Daguerrodargue said: + "Can it be this is all? + How puny! How small! +Have destroyed this disgrace to my bed." + -- Edward Gorey +% +While I, with my usual enthusiasm, +Was exploring in Ermintrude's busiasm, + She explained, "They are flat, + But think nothing of that -- +You will find that my sweet sister Susiasm." +% +While I, with my usual enthusiasm, +Was exploring in Ermintrude's busiasm, + She explained, "They are flat, + But think nothing of that -- +You will find that my sweet sister Susiasm." +% +While out on a date in his Fiat, +The man exclaimed "Where's my key at?" + As he bent down to seek, + She let out a shriek: +"That's not where it's likely to be at." +% +While spending the winter at Pau +Lady Pamela forgot to say "No." + So the head-porter made her + And the second-cook laid her; +The waiters were all hanging low. +% +While Titian was mixing rose madder, +His model reclined on a ladder. + Her position to Titian + Suggested coition, +So he leapt up the ladder and had 'er. +% +While travelling in farthest Tibet, +Lord Irongate found cause to regret + The buttered-up tea, + A pain in his knee, +And the frivolous tourists he met. + -- Edward Gorey +% +Winter is here with his grouch, +The time when you sneeze and you slouch. + You can't take your women + Canoein' or swimmin', +But a lot can be done on a couch. +% +With his penis in turgid erection, +And aimed at woman's mid-section, + Man looks most uncouth + In that Moment of Truth, +But she sheathes it with loving affection. +% +You Women's Lib gals won't agree, +But dependent on men you must be: + You'll need a him + With a rod firm and trim, +To puggle your water-drains free! +% +You've heard of the bishop of Birmingham, +Well, here's the new story concerning 'im : + He buggers the choir + As they sing "Ave Maria," +And fucks all the girls whilst confirming 'em. +% +Young Frederick the great was a beaut. +To a guard he cried, "Hey, man, you're cute. + If you'll come to my palace, + I'll finger your phallus, +And then I shall blow on your flute." +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/linux b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/linux new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e26172f --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/linux @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +A word to the wise: a credentials dicksize war is usually a bad idea +on the net. + -- David Parsons in c.o.l.development.system, about coding in C +% +What's this script do? + unzip ; touch ; finger ; mount ; gasp ; yes ; umount ; sleep +Hint for the answer: not everything is computer-oriented. Sometimes you're +in a sleeping bag, camping out with your girlfriend. + -- Contributed by Frans van der Zande +% +You can see that there are 25 unread articles in `news.announce.newusers'. +There are no unread articles, but some ticked articles, in +`alt.fan.andrea-dworkin' (see that little asterisk at the beginning of the +line?) + +You can fuck that up to your heart's delight by fiddling with the +`gnus-group-line-format' variable. + -- From the (ding) Gnus 5 documentation, by Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen +% + printk("ufs_read_super: fucking Sun blows me\n"); + -- /usr/src/linux/fs/ufs/ufs_super.c +% +KDE == (see GayDE) Kool Desktop Environment - Make X Window look like winbloze... +What a fucking great idea! The developers of this have a mental sickness, please +avoid this product -> see GNOME. + -- Jakes on #Debian +% + "Oxford University has joined with IBM and the UK + Government to build a sophisticated computing Grid based + on the open standards of Linux that will enable early + screening and diagnosis of breast cancer...." Press + release within. + In gratitude, the women of the world should all let Linux + developers fondle their breasts, and the lactating ones + should permit developers to drink. +% +No, I'd rather look for porn. + + -- Debian Project Leader Martin Michlmayr, when asked to do some + real work +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/misandry b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/misandry new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f081c09 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/misandry @@ -0,0 +1,83 @@ +A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who has never owned a car. + -- Carrie Snow +% +A male mathematician is someone who can count to twenty-one without +unzipping his fly. +% +A man who cannot seduce men cannot save them either. + -- Soren Kierkegaard +% +A man without a woman is like a fish without gills. +% +A woman's a woman until the day she dies, but a man's only a man as long +as he can. + -- Moms Mabley +% +Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade, since it consists principally +of dealings with men. + -- Conrad +% +Does he treat your breasts like unripe grapefruit? Who needs him? + -- `J', "The Sensuous Woman" +% +Don't accept rides from strange men -- and remember that all men are strange +as hell. + -- Robin Morgan, "Sisterhood Is Powerful" +% +If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. +% +If men couldn't fuck there'd be a bounty on their heads. +% +If they sent one man to the moon, why can't they send them all? +% +If you catch a man, throw him back. + -- Woman's Liberation Slogan, c. 1975 +% +Lysistrata had a good idea. +% +Men -- can't live with 'em, can't leave 'em by the curb when you're done. +% +Men will fuck mud. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +Most men would never get laid if it weren't for the pity fuck. +% +The only one of your children who does not grow up and move away +is your husband. +% +The sex life of spiders is very interesting. +He fucks her. +She bites his head off. + -- From a Women's Lib Poster +% +There are three women on the fast track in a particular company. The +president realizes it's time to promote one of them, but they're all so +competent that he's not sure which one to choose. So he devises a little +test. One day while they're all at lunch, he places $500 on each of their +desks. #1 returns it to him immediately. #2 pockets it. #3 invests +in the market and returns $1,500 to him in the morning. Who gets the +promotion? The one with the big tits! +% +Upon leaving a hotel bar one evening, an executive noticed a drunk sitting +on the edge of a potted palm in the lobby, crying like a baby. Because he'd +had a couple himself that night, and was feeling rather sorry for his fellow +man, he asked the inebriated one what the trouble was. + "I did a terrible thing tonight," sniffled the drunk. "I sold my +wife to a guy for a bottle of Scotch." + "That is terrible," said the man, too much under the weather to +muster any real indignation. "And now that she's gone, you wish you had her +back." + "Thas right," said the drunk, still sniffling. + "You're sorry you sold her, because you realize too late that you +love her," sympathized the executive. + "No, no," said the drunk. "I wish I had her back because I'm +thirsty again." +% +War is menstruation envy. +% +When God created man, She was only testing. +% +You know the Norplant thing? It's a new birth control device for women. +It's a cartridge, that goes in your arm. Well, they're coming out with +a new one for men: it's a brain, that goes in your head. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/miscellaneous b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/miscellaneous new file mode 100644 index 0000000..441479c --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/miscellaneous @@ -0,0 +1,335 @@ +A game can by God repent or we'll punish it. +That's how they did it in Salem in the seventeenth century, +and that's how we'll do it now. + -- Dick Hamlet +% +America, I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel. + -- Allen Ginsberg +% +An Army travels on her stomach. +% +Being a woman is of special interest only to aspiring male transsexuals. +To actual women it is merely a good excuse not to play football. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" +% +Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil. +% +Bringing your mate to a convention is like taking a game warden hunting. +% +Britain has lowered the tax on chastity belts by about 60 cents each... +[reclassifying them] as a safety device rather than... clothing + -- NY Times +% +But sex and drugs and rock & roll, why, they'd bring our blackest day. +% +Clark Kent is a transvestite. +% +Dad," the 13-year-old boy asked, looking up from his social-studies text, +"what did you do during the sexual revolution?" + +"Well, son," his father confided, "I guess you could say I was captured +early and spent the duration doing the dishes." +% +Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today! +% +Don't eat yellow snow. +% +Don't forget to support the ERA apersonment. +% +Evening hours "all clear" for romance! + +(Tell mate you have to work late.) +% +Ever wondered why you always run out of breath when you throw up? +Ah, but a man's retch should exceed his gasp, else what's a heaving for? +% +Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic +without looking to see whether the seeds move. +% +"For an adequate time call 555-3321" +% +Fortune's Rules for Memo Wars: #1 + + Any attempt to say that someone's personal beliefs are wrong, even if +you supply conclusive evidence to support your claim, is an outright attack. +If you show someone a flaw in his/her logic, they have every right to punch +you in the face. Mathematical proofs of errors are the moral equivalent +of rape and should be avoided at all cost. + Now... your opponent has requested a "rational discussion". What do +you do? Well, remember that people are normally willing to discuss things +rationally if and only if you agree with them; anything less would obviously +not be rational. Therefore, agree immediately, and continue as before. + Always assume that whenever you see someone making a statement about +"certain parties who shall remain nameless", "some people", "assholes", etc., +they are talking about *you*. It is also correct to assume that words you +don't understand, such as "prestidigatory", "lapidarian", and "buprestid", +are direct personal attacks aimed at your loved ones and merit an equally +scathing response. Failure to do this results in many lost opportunities for +rational discussion. (See above.) +% +Fortune's Rules for Memo Wars: #3 + +The proper time for a vicious ad hominem attack is when you have no logical +recourse. If you have been arguing a point with a person or persons for +30 odd weeks, and an memo comes across that logically tears down the +final shred of evidence that you thought you had, that is the time to call +the author of that memo: + 1: a mindless twit who attacks other people's beliefs for no reason. + 2: an egotistical flaming typical wombat aggie melon-humping + cheese-whizzing nanosexual subuseless clamsucker whose memos + are apparently sneezed onto his/her terminal. + 3: something unpleasant. +The OTHER proper time for an ad hominem attack is immediately after someone +has posted something you don't understand. Given the current state of modern +electronic communications technology your inability to comprehend the meaning +of an memo constitutes a violation of western moral tradition on the part of +the author of that memo, and the author should be taken to task publicly via +a series of really nasty, name-calling oriented memos. +% +Four Oxford dons were taking their evening walk together and as +usual, were engaged in casual but learned conversation. On this particular +evening, their conversation was about the names given to groups of animals, +such as a "pride of lions" or a "gaggle of geese." + One of the professors noticed a group of prostitutes down the block, +and posed the question, "What name would be given to that group?" The four +fell into silence for a moment, as they pondered the possibilities... + At last, one spoke: "How about 'a Jam of Tarts'?" The others nodded +in acknowledgement as they continued to consider the problem. A second +professor spoke: "I'd suggest 'an Essay of Trollops.'" Again, the others +nodded. A third spoke: "I propose 'a Flourish of Strumpets.'" + They continued their walk in silence, until the first professor +remarked to the remaining professor, who was the most senior and learned of +the four, "You haven't suggested a name for our ladies. What are your +thoughts?" + Replied the fourth professor, "'An Anthology of Prose.'" +% +"He could be a poster child for retroactive birth control." +% +He who sneezes without a handkerchief takes matters into his own hands. +% +Home is where the hurt is. + -- Strange de Jim +% +Hugh Hefner is a virgin. +% +Hypocrisy is the vaseline of social intercourse. +% +I don't care who you are, Fatso. Get those reindeer off my roof. +% +I just got off the phone with Sonny Barger [President of the Hell's Angels]. +He wants me to appear as a character witness for him at his murder trial +and said he'd be glad to appear as a character witness on my behalf if I +ever needed one. Needless to say, I readily agreed. + -- Thomas King Forcade, publisher of "High Times" +% + "I was plodding through the woods when suddenly a giant brown bear +grabbed me from behind and made me drop my gun. He picked it up and +stuck it in my back." + "What did you do?" + "What *could* I do? I married his daughter." +% + I went into a bar feeling a little depressed, the bartender said, +"What'll you have, Bud"? + I said," I don't know, surprise me". + So he showed me a nude picture of my wife. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +"I've had one child. My husband wants to have another. I'd like to +watch him have another." +% +If I could reach, I'd never leave the house. + -- George Carlin +% +Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion. + -- Robert Burton +% +In breeding cattle you need one bull for every twenty-five cows, unless +the cows are known sluts. + -- Johnny Carson +% +In light of the New Morality, Playboy Inc. is offering a new version of +its magazine, for married men. Every month it has the same centerfold. +% +It is better to have Uranus in Cancer than to have Cancer in Uranus. +% +It takes a brave man to admit his mistakes. + +Especially in a paternity hearing. +% +It was a female that drove me to drink and I didn't even have the kindness +to thank her. + -- R.E. Baber +% +It was New Year's Eve and the house was brightly decorated with holiday +trappings. The only sound that broke the quiet was the click of Grandma's +knitting needles. The children; Jane, eight and Mary, five, were seated +in front of a cheerily burning fire, leafing through a picture book. +Tiring of this, they went over to Grandma's rocker. Jane climbed up on +the arm of the chair and Mary snuggled into Grandma's cozy lap. + "Tell us a story," begged Mary. + "Oh," said the old lady, laying aside her knitting and wrapping +her arms around the children. "What story should I tell you?" + "Tell us our favorite story," whispered little Jane eagerly. +"About the time you were a hooker in Chicago." +% + It was the next morning that the armies of Twodor marched east +laden with long lances, sharp swords, and death-dealing hangovers. The +thousands were led by Arrowroot, who sat limply in his sidesaddle, +nursing a whopper. Goodgulf, Gimlet, and the rest rode by him, praying +for their fate to be quick, painless, and if possible, someone else's. + Many an hour the armies forged ahead, the war-merinos bleating +under their heavy burdens and the soldiers bleating under their melting +icepacks. + -- "Bored of the Rings", The Harvard Lampoon +% +Jesus loves you, but everybody else thinks you're a dork. +% +Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin. + -- Michael O'Donohugh +% +May a deranged midget on a pogo stick take refuge in your sister's hoop skirt. +% +May a diseased yak take a liking to your sister. +% +My father was a creole, his father a Negro, and his father a monkey; my +family, it seems, begins where yours left off. + -- Alexandre Dumas, pere +% +Never take a resume seriously. Resumes only make money for the +people who write the resumes. No resume ever tells an employer how many +times a job applicant has had the clap. + Why, indeed, would anyone hire a person based on a resume written +by a professional liar? + If the applicant is a man, the employer must ask only one question: +did the applicant go to TCU? + If the applicant is a woman, the employer may simply ask: does she +have a tongue that can lick the paint off a dormitory wall? + -- Dan Jenkins, "Baja Oklahoma" +% +No one born with a mouth and a need is "innocent". + -- Greg Bear +% +Objectivity is to a newspaper what virtue is to a woman. + -- Joseph Pulitzer +% +OLD FELLA RED CLARET + Produce of Australia -- "The Big 69'er" + +An unusual "Rough-as-Guts" wine that has the Distinctive Bouquet of old +and ill-cared for animals. It is best drunk with the teeth clenched to +prevent ingestion of the seeds and skins. Connoisseurs will savour the +slight Tannin Taste of burnt shag feathers and soiled medical dressings. +Possessors of a cultivated Palate admire the initial assault on the taste +buds which comes from the careful and loving blending of circus hosings +with perished jock straps. The maturing in Midland Abattoir hogsheads +gives it a very Definite Nose. With the bouquet like an aborigine's armpit. +In the United States this wine is marketed as Crow Brand (9 out of 10 people +who drink it for the first time exclaim "VRAAAARRRRRK"). + +It won a Bronze at the "Kings Cross Homosexuals Convention" of 1973 + +Warning: Avoid contact with eyes and open cuts. + Keep away from open naked flames -- both old and new. +% +Once upon a time there was a boy, who tried very, very hard to be a Good +Little Boy. He grew up to try to be a Good Man. + But he never understood how he could be either. + Finally, one day, after years of chronic worry and months of +outright crisis, he admitted that he couldn't do either, because at some +level, he wasn't even male. + So she tried to be a Good Little Girl, and soon after, tried to +learn to be a Good Woman. + Unfortunately, she didn't look much like Barbie. More like Ken, +I suppose. + So, she lost some friends. But she loved herself, and that was +more important. Then she lost her career, but that wasn't so important, +because it was *his* career she lost. Her family tried to accept; all of +them stopped using the old name. One of them even tried the new one, a +few times. She couldn't get a job--"That's no woman!" seemed to bar her +even from jobs that didn't require interior plumbing. But it was all +right, because she had learned to stop trying to be a Good Anything At +All, and loving herself, *was* herself. + Then the heat went off, and the food ran out, the eviction notice +came and there wasn't anywhere left to borrow money from. So she filled +the tub, heating water in a kettle on the stove, and gently, lovingly, +cut her wrists. + +The moral of the story: The ugly duckling makes a dandy meal. Dig in. +% +A stunning blonde, but probably all bean dip above the eyebrows. +% +SEX-CHANGE NUN BECOMES TV WRESTLER!!! + details at 11! +% +Smoking a woman is like kissing a fish. +% +So... if you could choose any nose in the whole wide world, +which one would you pick? +% +Sorry 'bout that sweat, honey. That's just holy water. + -- Little Richard +% +Television is a whore. Any man who wants her full favors can have them +in five minutes with a pistol. + -- Hijacker, quoted in "Esquire" +% +The attractive and grief-stricken widow had been living in seclusion at the +home of her deceased husband's younger brother for several weeks. One evening, +when she could no longer control her emotions, she barged into her brother-in- +law's study and pleaded, "James, I want you to take off my dress." Shyly, +the brother-in-law did as she requested. "Now," she continued, "take off my +slip." He again complied. "And now," she said, with a slight blush, "remove +my panties and bra." Once more James obeyed her command. + Then, regaining her composure, she stared directly at the young man +and boldly announced, "I have only one more request, James. Don't ever let +me catch you wearing my things again." +% +The moving finger having writ... gestures. +% +The only difference between your girlfriend and a barracuda is the nailpolish. +% +The Stealth Condom -- they'll never see you coming. +% +Watch out for a cold wave this week. (Or maybe a warm WAC.) +% + When I was coming out, the single most common reaction was a question: +"Oh, well ... have you really thought about this?" delivered with solemn +concern. + I never did figure out a good reply; I finally settled on a +disbelieving stare, which usually provoked a change of topic. I always +*wanted* to say "Gee, no! I just woke up one morning and thought, 'Gosh, +it's been such fun being a boy, I guess I'll try being a girl for a +while!' Don't you think it's a neato idea?" But these were *friends* -- +clueless, it's true, but trying to comprehend in a moment what I'd +struggled to not comprehend for thirty years ... they didn't deserve that. + -- Anonymous transsexual woman +% +... why should you waste a single moment of *your* life seeming to be something +you don't want to be? Lord, that's so simple. If you hate your job, quit it. +If your friends are tedious, go out and find new friends. You are queer, you +lucky fool, and that makes you one of life's buccaneers, free from the clutter +of 2000 years of Judeo-Christian sermonizing. Stop feeling sorry for yourself +and start raising your sails. You haven't a moment to lose. + -- Edmund Carlevale +% +You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't +pick your friend's nose. +% +Your boy/girl friend is *so* ugly that... + + -- when you look up ugly in the dictionary, their picture's there. + -- it looks like their face caught fire and someone put it out + with an ice pick. + -- Nabisco used their face to model for animal cookies. + -- when they yelled "Rape", the guy screamed "No way!" + -- they were the birth control poster child. + -- when they were born, the doctor slapped their mother. + -- as a child, their parents tied a pork chop around her neck to + get the puppy to play with them. + -- they have to sneak up on a glass of water, just to get a drink! +% +Diary of a Young Girl LITE(tm) + -- by Anne Frank + + A young girl hides in an attic but is discovered. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/misogyny b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/misogyny new file mode 100644 index 0000000..97a7511 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/misogyny @@ -0,0 +1,297 @@ +A highly intelligent man should take a primitive woman. Imagine if on top +of everything else, I had a woman who interfered with my work. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +A little bit of rape is good for a man's soul. + -- Norman Mailer +% +A perfectly honest woman, a woman who never flatters, who never manages, +who never cajoles, who never conceals, who never uses her eyes, who never +speculates on the effect which she produces, who never is conscious of +unspoken admiration, what a monster, I say, would such a female be! + -- Thackeray +% +A proper wife should be as obedient as a slave... The female is a female +by virtue of a certain lack of qualities -- a natural defectiveness. + -- Aristotle +% +A society in which women are taught anything but the management of a family, +the care of men, and the creation of the future generation is a society +which is on its way out. + -- L. Ron Hubbard +% +A woman employs sincerity only when every other form of deception has failed. + -- Scott +% +A woman must be a cute, cuddly, naive little thing--tender, sweet, and stupid. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +A woman occasionally is quite a serviceable substitute for masturbation. +It takes an abundance of imagination, to be sure. + -- Karl Kraus, "Die Fackel" +% +A woman takes off her claim to respect along with her garments. + -- Herodotus +% +A woman who is guided by the head and not by the heart is a social +pestilence: she has all the defects of the passionate and affectionate +woman, with none of her compensations; she is without pity, without love, +without virtue, without sex. + -- Balzac +% +A woman who is unfaithful deserves to be shot. + -- Pancho Villa +% +Among all savage beasts, none is found so harmful as woman. + -- St. John Chrysostom, 304-407. +% +And do you not think that each of you women is an Eve? The judgement of God +upon your sex endures today; and with it invariably endures your position of +criminal at the bar of justice. + -- Tertullian, second-century Christian writer +% + Are Women Human? + +In the year 584, in Lyon, France, 43 Catholic bishops and 20 men +representing other bishops, after a lengthy debate, took a vote. The +results were 32 yes, 31 no. Women were declared human by one vote. +% + Are you a Young Urban Professional Woman? If so, you know how +Yuppie women are; cold, ruthless bitches with no time for love, and only +an occasional weekend for sex. Your one "hot date" with Joe Fastrack, +rising corporate star, ended in disaster. Yesterday you heard him telling +a friend over lunch, "The woman must masturbate with popsicles!" Well, +all is not lost! SofSqueeze can change your nickname to Electrolux in just +15 minutes a day! + SofSqueeze is a pressure sensitive device (divided into appropriate +sections) that plugs into the serial port of most home computers. Through +the magic of biofeedback, SofSqueeze teaches you control over your vaginal +muscles. With our exciting, easy-to-follow software you'll master the +"Cincinnati Squeeze", the "Irresistable", the "California Crusher", and, +of course, the perennial favorite, "Milking Time Down on the Farm". Or, +using our exclusive Interactive Mode, invent your own! + SofSqueeze is made of sturdy ABS plastic, and is completely +immersible for easy cleaning. SofSqueeze's flesh-toned exterior is finely +textured for a realistic effect. Requires 4K RAM, a DB25 serial port and +limited graphics capability. Comes fully assembled, with 4 AA batteries. +% +Contemporary American feminism's simplistic psychology is illustrated by +the new cliche of the date-rape furor: "`No' always means `no'." Will +we ever graduate from the Girl Scouts? "No" has always been, and always +will be, part of the dangerous alluring courtship ritual of sex and +seduction, observable even in the animal kingdom. + -- Camille Paglia, NY Times, Dec. 14 1990, Op Ed. +% +Dames lie about anything -- just for practice. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +Do you want to know what's ahead for you, in your happiness at home, +your business success? Here's a telling test: Look in the mirror. Is +your skin smooth and lovely, your hair gleaming, your make-up glamorous? +Are you slender enough for your height? Do you stand erect, confident? +Yes? Then you are on your way to success as a woman. + -- Ladies' Home Journal, 1947 advertisement +% +Eighteen goddess-like daughters are not equal to one son with a hump. + -- Chinese Proverb +% +Everyone has the right, without exception, to equal pay for equal work. +Except for women. +% +Everyone in the office is welcome to join the group going to the Columbus +Theater tonight. Meet in the lobby at 8:30. The films are "Blue Jennifer" +and "Hot Coed Cheerleaders". +% +Feminists say 60 percent of the country's wealth is in the hands of women. +They're letting men hold the other 40 percent because their handbags are full. + -- Earl Wilson +% +Finally, a reporter got a chance to interview Tarzan. + +Reporter: Tarzan? Is that your first or last name? +Tarzan: Tarzan first name. +Reporter: Then, what's your whole name? +Tarzan: Tarzan of the Apes. +Reporter: And who is the woman with you? +Tarzan: That Jane. +Reporter: And what's Jane's whole name? +Tarzan: Cunt. +% +Have you ever stopped to think what it would be like to have a woman President? +"I can't deal with the Russians today. Not now. I've got my period." + -- Steven Moore +% +Here's to women. Would that we could fall into her arms without falling +into her hands. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% + I paid a visit to my local precinct in Greenwich Village and +asked a sergeant to show me some rape statistics. He politely obliged. +That month there had been thirty-five rape complaints, an advance of ten +over the same month for the previous year. The precinct had made two +arrests. + "Not a very impressive record," I offered. + "Don't worry about it," the sergeant assured me. "You know what +these complaints represent?" + "What do they represent?" I asked. + "Prostitutes who didn't get their money," he said firmly, +closing the book. + -- Susan Brownmiller, "Against Our Will" +% +If a shameless woman expects to be defiled and then dies of her fierce +love because you do not consent, will chastity also be homicide? + -- Saint Augustine +% +In childhood a woman must be subject to her father; in youth to her +husband; when her husband is dead, to her sons. A woman must never +be free of subjugation. + -- The Hindu Code of Manu +% +In the highest society, as well as in the lowest, woman is merely an +instrument of pleasure. + -- Tolstoy +% +It is only the man whose intellect is clouded by his sexual impulse that +could give the name of the fair sex to that undersized, narrow-shouldered, +broad-hipped, and short-legged race. + -- Schopenhauer +% +It seems to me that nearly every woman I know wants a man who knows how +to love with authority. Women are simple souls who like simple things, +and one of the simplest is one of the simplest to give. ... Our family +airedale will come clear across the yard for one pat on the head. The +average wife is like that. + -- Episcopal Bishop James Pike +% +Many a woman hasn't realized that she was raped until the check bounced. +% +Men are superior to women. + -- The Koran +% +No is no negative in a woman's mouth. + -- Sidney +% +One hundred women are not worth a single testicle. + -- Confucius +% +Scratch the average female and you'll find a purring bundle... at the +ready to love and honor, bake a torte and still produce quintuplets. + -- Edgar Berman +% +Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. + -- Grover Cleveland, 1905 +% +She applies her lipstick in spite of its contents: "greasy rouge, +containing crushed and dried insect corpses for coloring, beeswax for +stiffness, and olive oil to help it flow - the latter having the +unfortunate tendency to go rancid several hours after use. + +In 1924 the New York Board of Health considered banning lipstick, not +because it was hazardous to the wearers but because of "the worry that it +might poison the men who kissed the women who wore it." + -- David Bodanis, "The Secret House" +% +Six days after the Creation, Adam was still alone in the Garden of +Eden, and getting pretty desperate. "God!" he cried, "rescue me from +loneliness and despair! Send some company for Your sake!" + +God replied "OK, I have just the thing. Keep you warm and relaxed all +the days of your life. Never complains. Looks up to you in every way. +It'll cost you though". + +"Sounds ideal" said Adam. "The society of the beasts of the field and +the birds of the air palls after a while. What's the price?" + +"An arm and a leg", said God. + +Adam thought about it for a bit and finally sighed. "So, what can I get +for a rib?" +% +Some women should be beaten regularly, like gongs. + -- Noel Coward +% +Sure, and of course I would vote for a woman for president! +Quite naturally, we wouldn't have to pay her so much. +% +That Xanthippe's husband should have become so great a philosopher is +remarkable. Amid all the scolding, to be able to think! But he could not +write: that was impossible. Socrates has not left us a single book. + -- Heine +% +The Bible says that woman was the last thing God made. Evidently He made +her on Saturday night. She reveals his fatigue. + -- Dumas +% +The great question that has never been answered and which I have not +yet been able to answer despite my thirty years of research into the +feminine soul is: WHAT DOES A WOMAN WANT? + -- Sigmund Freud + + [*Which* woman? This sort of *stupid* question should, I suppose, be + expected from the man who invented the mind-bogglingly unbelievable + concept of 'penis envy' to explain the behavior of half of mankind.] +% +The man-hating woman, like the cold woman, is largely imaginary. She +is simply a woman who has done her best to snare a man and has failed. + -- Norton +% +The more I learn about women, the more I love my dog. +% +The only alliance I would make with the Women's Liberation Movement is in bed. + -- A. Hoffman +% +The Pope is working on a crossword puzzle one Sunday afternoon. He stops +for a moment, scratches his forehead, then asks a Cardinal, "Can you think +of a four-letter word for `woman' that ends in `u-n-t'?" + "Aunt," replies the Cardinal. + "Say, thanks," says the Pope. "You got an eraser?" +% +The Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write to +join in checking this mad, wicked folly of "Woman's Rights", with all its +attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every +sense of womanly feeling and propriety. Lady ____ ought to get a good +whipping. It is a subject which makes the Queen so furious that she cannot +contain herself. God created men and women different -- then let them +remain each in their own position. + -- Letter to Sir Theodore Martin, 29 May 1870, from Queen Victoria +% +Were there no women, men might live like gods. + -- Thomas Dekker +% +When I have one foot in the grave I will tell the truth about women. I +shall tell it, jump into my coffin, pull the lid over me, and say, "Do +what you like now." + -- Tolstoy +% +When I was in college, there were a lot of four-letter words you couldn't +say in front of girls. Now you can say them. But you can't say "girls". +% +With all the talent around, it's sort of amazing that a woman could be +up here with us. + -- Ralph Kiner, on introducing an award winner +% +With her body, woman is more sincere than man; but with her mind she lies. +And when she lies, she does not believe herself. + -- Tolstoy +% +With women, I've got a long bamboo pole with a leather loop on the end of +it. I slip the loop around their necks so they can't get away or come too +close. Like catching snakes. + -- Marlon Brando +% +Woman is generally so bad that the difference between a good and a bad +woman scarcely exists. + -- Tolstoy +% +Women -- can't live with 'em, can't leave 'em by the curb when you're done. +% +Women are nothing but machines for producing children. + -- Napoleon +% +Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. +In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the +original earth clinging to the roots. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Women should be obscene and not heard. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/politics b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/politics new file mode 100644 index 0000000..58c1753 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/politics @@ -0,0 +1,2018 @@ +A bureaucracy is like a septic tank -- all the really big shits float +to the top. +% +A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon. +Avoid him. He's a Commie. +% +A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for +the first time. + -- Alfred E. Wiggam +% +A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who has never +learned to walk. + -- Franklin D. Roosevelt +% +A decade after Vietnam, we still cannot understand why "their" +Salvadorans fight better than "our" Salvadorans. It is not a matter of +their training or their equipment. It has to do with the quality of the +society we are asking them to risk death defending. The metaphor of the +domino obscures this reality, and the cost our self-imposed blindness +is high. San Salvador is closer to Saigon than to Munich. + -- William LeoGrande, "New York Times", 3/9/83 +% +A friendly message from your Internal Revenue Service: tax time is +coming again soon. Bend over. +% +A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel. + -- Robert Frost +% +A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake at the moment. + -- Willis Player +% +A liberal is someone too poor to be a capitalist, and too rich to be a +communist. +% +A new taste had been acquired and a new appetite began to grow. The time +had long since arrived to crush the technical intelligentsia, which had +come to regard itself as too irreplaceable and had not gotten used to +catching instructions on the wing. In other words, we never did trust +the engineers - and from the very first years of the Revolution we saw to +it that those lackeys and servants of former capitalist bosses were kept +in line by healthy suspicion and surveillance by the workers. + -- Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago" +% +A New Yorker was driving through Berkeley when he saw a big crowd gathered +by the side of the street. Curiousity got the better of him and he leaned +out of his window to ask an onlooker what was going on. The fellow explained +that a protestor against the U.S. position in South America had doused +himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. "That's terrible," gasped +the man. "But why is everyone still standing around?" + "Well, they're taking up a collection for his wife and kids," the +onlooker explained. "Would you be willing to help?" + "Well, sure," replied the New Yorker. "I suppose I could spare a +gallon or two." +% +A Nixon [is preferable to] a Dean Rusk -- who will be passionately +wrong with a high sense of consistency. + -- J. K. Galbraith +% +A non-vegetarian anti-abortionist is a contradiction in terms. + -- Phyllis Schlafly +% +A person who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called +a liberal. +% +A Polish worker walks into a bank to deposit his paycheck. He has heard +about Poland's economic problems, and he asks what would happen to his +money if the bank collapsed. "All of our deposits are guaranteed by the +finance ministry, sir," the teller replies. + "But what if the finance ministry goes broke?" the worker asks. + "Then the government will intercede to protect the working class," +the teller says. + "But what if the government goes broke?" the worker asks. + "Our socialist comrades in the Soviet Union naturally will come +to our assistance," the teller responds with growing irritation. + "And if the Soviet Union goes broke?" the worker asks. + "Idiot!" the teller snorts. "Isn't that worth losing one lousy +paycheck?" + -- Making the rounds in Warsaw, 1984 +% +A reactionary is a man whose political opinions always manage to keep +up with yesterday. +% +A rich man told me recently that a liberal is a man who tells other +people what to do with their money. + -- Imamu Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) +% +A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. + -- Joseph Stalin +% +... [after the announcement of Vanguard] ... Secretary of Defense Charles +Wilson (the same "Engine Charlie" who once told the Senate, "[F]or years +I've thought that what was good for our country was good for General Motors, +and vice versa," probably an accurate analysis) was asked whether the +Russians might beat the Americans into orbit. "I wouldn't care if they +did," he responded. (It was later claimed that Wilson favored the +development of the automatic transmission so that he could drive with +one foot in his mouth.) + -- Smithsonian's Air&Space Magazine, "The Day the Rocket Died" +% +After the ground war began, captured Iraqi soldiers said any of them caught +by superiors wearing a white T-shirt would be executed because of the ease +with which the shirts could be used as surrender flags. Some Iraqi soldiers +carried bleach with them to make their dark shirts white. + -- Chuck Shepherd, Funny Times, May 1991 +% +"Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the +Blacks, 'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact +that life's one big, scary, glorious, complex and ultimately +unfathomable crapshoot -- and the only reason THEY can't seem to keep +up is they're a bunch of misfits and losers." + -- A analysis of Neo-Nazis, from "The Badger" comic +% +Aide to Raygun: Sir, the poor are outside protesting your budget cuts. +Raygun himself: Tell them they'll have to help themselves. +Aide to Raygun: Sir, the Pentagon wants another $30 billion. +Raygun himself: Tell them to help themselves. +% +Al Gore resembled a Vulcan desperately in need of a blow job. + -- Bobcat Goldthwait +% +America ... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesman +with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing +anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" +% +America is a stronger nation for the ACLU's uncompromising effort. + -- President John F. Kennedy + +The simple rights, the civil liberties from generations of struggle must not +be just fine words for patriotic holidays, words we subvert on weekdays, but +living, honored rules of conduct amongst us...I'm glad the American Civil +Liberties Union gets indignant, and I hope this will always be so. + -- Senator Adlai E. Stevenson + +The ACLU has stood foursquare against the recurring tides of hysteria that +from time to time threaten freedoms everyhere... Indeed, it is difficult +to appreciate how far our freedoms might have eroded had it not been for the +Union's valiant representation in the courts of the constitutional rights +of people of all persuasions, no matter how unpopular or even despised +by the majority they were at the time. + -- former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren +% +American cars are made shoddily... Cars made overseas are far superior. + -- Sen. Barry Goldwater +% +An American tourist is visiting Russia, and he's talking with a Russian +about the fact that not many people in Russia own cars. + +American: "I can't believe you don't have cars here! How do you + get to work?" +Russian: "We take the bus, or the subway. We have public + transportation everywhere." +A: "Well, how do you go on vacations?" +R: "We take the train." +A: "Well, what if you want to go abroad?" +R: "We don't ever want go abroad." +A: "Well, what if you really HAVE to go abroad?" +R: "We take tanks." +% +An American, a Frenchman, and a Vietnamese refugee had a discussion about +the happiness of life. + "To me, happiness is returning home on a Monday evening, having a +wonderful dinner prepared by my wife, then slouching on the sofa watching +Monday Night Football," the American said. + "You Americans are not romantic at all", the French injected, "Sharing +a beautiful evening with my lover, walking along the Seine river, and having a +romantic dinner on top of the Eiffel tower. That is happiness of life." + "You call those things happiness", the Vietnamese laughed, "then you +two still don't understand life at all. Imagine this. You are sleeping +soundly at night in Saigon. Then suddenly you hear loud knocks on your front +door. You hear loud voices, 'Mr. Nguyen Van Binh, open the door!'. Quaking +with fear, you rush out and open the door. Right there, you see two secret +policemen ready to handcuff you. One of them says to you, 'Mr. Nguyen Van +Binh, you are under arrest for your anti-revolutionary activities. You are +being sent to the re-educational camp tonight!' Sweating profusely and +shaking uncontrollably, you reply to them, 'Comrades, Mr. Nguyen Van Binh +lives next door.' That moment is happiness in life, my friends. +% +An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile -- hoping that it will eat him last. + -- Sir Winston Churchill, 1954 +% + An elderly man stands in line for hours at a Warsaw meat store (meat +is severely rationed). When the butcher comes out at the end of the day and +announces that there is no meat left, the man flies into a rage. + "What is this?" he shouts. "I fought against the Nazis, I worked hard +all my life, I've been a loyal citizen, and now you tell me I can't even buy a +piece of meat? This rotten system stinks!" + Suddenly a thuggish man in a black leather coat sidles up and murmurs +"Take it easy, comrade. Remember what would have happened if you had made an +outburst like that only a few years ago" -- and he points an imaginary gun to +this head and pulls the trigger. + The old man goes home, and his wife says, "So they're out of meat +again?" + "It's worse than that," he replies. "They're out of bullets." + -- making the rounds in Warsaw, 1987 +% +And what accomplished villains these old engineers were! What diabolical +ways to sabotage they found! Nikolai Karlovich von Meck, of the People's +Comissariat of Railroads ... would hold forth for hours on end about the +economic problems involved in the construction of socialism, and he loved to +give advice. One such pernicious piece of advice was to increase the size +of freight trains and not worry about heavier than average loads. The GPU +exposed van Meck, and he was shot: his objective had been to wear out rails +and roadbeds, freight cars and locomotives, so as to leave the Republic +without railroads in case of foreign military intervention! When, not long +afterward, the new People's Commissar of Railroads ordered that average +loads should be increased, and even doubled and tripled them, the malicious +engineers who protested became known as limiters ... they were rightly +shot for their lack of faith in the possibilities of socialist transport. + -- Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago" +% +Announcing the NEW VAX 11/782!! + +Be the envy of other major Communist Governments! + +Defend yourself against the entire ICBM force of the imperialist USA with +just one of the processors, at the same time you're designing missile IC's, +cracking secret NATO codes and editing propaganda for your own people all +at the same time with the other! (Well, you really can't, but the Americans +think you can, and that's the point, right?) +% +Antique fairy tale: Little Red Riding Hood. +Modern fairy tale: Oswald, acting alone, shot Kennedy. +% +Any president should have the right to shoot at least two people a year +without explanation. + -- Herbert Hoover, discussing the press +% +Anybody has a right to evade taxes if he can get away with it. No citizen +has a moral obligation to assist in maintaining his government. + -- J.P. Morgan [Speaking, no doubt, on behalf of his highly- + paid tax lawyers] +% +Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, +recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one +particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people. + -- Eleanor Roosevelt +% +"Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by +vegetation, so let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emissions +standards from man-made sources." + -- Ronald Reagan, noted ecologist and former President +% +ARCHDUKE FERDINAND FOUND ALIVE -- FIRST WORLD WAR A MISTAKE +% +As for Carter being for registration but against the draft, isn't that +sort of being like for putting it in and not taking it out? Even if it +was possible not to follow through, you'd still be getting screwed. +% +As long as I am mayor of this city [Jersey City, New Jersey] the great +industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free speech +and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, "That +man is a Red, that man is a Communist". You never hear a real American +talk like that. + -- Frank Hague, 1896-1956 +% +At last, the first Soviet, artificially intelligent computer had been produced. +The engineers did not get it, nor the physicists. First things first: it went +to the institute of Marxism-Leninism. + +"IS IT POSSIBLE TO BUILD SOCIALISM IN SWITZERLAND?" typed in one of the + theologians. +"YES," replied the computer. "BUT IT WOULD BE SUCH A PITY TO DESTROY + SUCH A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY." +% +At twenty-six, Kate, though not promiscuous, had slept with most of the +decent men in public life. + -- Renata Adler +% +Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason. + -- Winston Churchill +% +"Avoid revolution or expect to get shot. Mother and I will grieve, but +we will gladly buy a dinner for the National Guardsman who shot you." + -- Dr. Paul Williamson, father of a Kent State student +% +Back in '80 or '81 the workers were rioting in Gdansk and there were fears +that the Soviets would invade Poland to put down the demonstrations. Foreign +correspondents were curious as to just what the Poles would do if they were +invaded. They asked, "What will you do if the East Germans invade from the +West and the Soviets invade from the East? Who will you fight first?" + To which the Poles replied, "Why, we will fight the Germans first. +Business before pleasure." +% +Because woman's work is never done and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or +repetitious and we're the first to get the sack and what we look like is +more important than what we do and if we get raped it's our fault and if we +get bashed we must have provoked it and if we raise our voices we're nagging +bitches and if we enjoy sex nymphos and if we don't we're frigid and if we +love women it's because we can't get a "real" man and if we ask our doctor +too many questions we're neurotic and/or pushy and if we expect community +care for children we're selfish and if we stand up for our rights we're +aggressive and "unfeminine" and if we don't we're typical weak females and +if we want to get married we're out to trap a man and if we don't we're +unnatural and because we still can't get an adequate safe contraceptive but +men can walk on the moon and if we can't cope or don't want a pregnancy we're +made to feel guilty about abortion and... for lots and lots of other reasons +we are part of the women's liberation movement. +% +Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart +enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it's important. + -- Eugene McCarthy +% +Being in the army is like being in the Boy Scouts, except that the +Boy Scouts have adult supervision. + -- Blake Clark +% +Being the #2 man in the Justice Department under Ed Meese is akin to +standing next to a lamp post infested with pigeons. + -- unamed Justice Department official +% +Black people have never rioted. A riot is what white people think blacks +are involved in when they burn stores. + -- Julius Lester +% +But among the children of the Great Society there were those whose +skins were black. And lo! Their portion was niggardly, and of the fatted +calf they were sucking hind teat... + Now it came to pass that a prophet rose up amongst them, and they +called him King. And he went unto Pharaoh and said, "Let my people go to +the front of the bus." + But Pharaoh answered: "In the fullness of time and with all +deliberate speed shall this thing come to pass. When ye shall prove +yourselves worthy, shall ye have your just portion -- yea, verily, like +unto a snowball in Hell." + -- "The Begatting of a President" +% +"California is proud to be the home of the freeway." + -- Ronald Reagan +% +Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle. + -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth +% +Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth Corner, +Vermont. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for +the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all. + -- John Maynard Keynes +% +Civilization and profits go hand in hand. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +Come home America. + -- George McGovern, 1972 +% +Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a muddle of +socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can make of capitalism. + -- Walter Lippmann +% +"Dear Mr. Seldes: I cannot remember the exact wording of the statement +to which you allude; but what I meant was that ... a man who calls +himself a 100% American and is proud of it, is generally 150% an idiot +politically. But the designations may be good business for war +veterans. Having bled for their country in 1861 and 1918, they have +bled it all they could consequently. And why not?" + -- George Seldes, "The Great Quotations" +% +Democracy can learn some things from Communism: for example, when a +Communist politician is through, he is through. +% +Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and +deserve to get it good and hard. + -- H.L. Mencken, "Little Book in C major", 1916 +% +Democrats buy most of the books that have been banned somewhere. +Republicans form censorship committees and read them as a group. + +Republicans consume three-fourths of the rutabaga produced in the USA. +The remainder is thrown out. + +Republicans usually wear hats and almost always clean their paint brushes. + +Republicans study the financial pages of the newspaper. +Democrats put them in the bottom of the bird cage. + +Most of the stuff alongside the road has been thrown out of car +windows by Democrats. + -- Paul Dickson, "The Official Rules" +% +Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing +between Nixon and the White House. + -- John F. Kennedy, in 1960 +% +Doing business with the government is like fucking sheep. It's easy, but +it's not very satisfying. +% +Don't buy a landslide. I don't want to have to pay for one more vote +than I have to. + -- Joseph P. Kennedy, on JFK's election strategy. +% +Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time. + -- Lt. Col. Ollie North +% +Don't get the idea that I'm one of those goddamn radicals. Don't get the +idea that I'm knocking the American system. + -- Al Capone +% +Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam. +% +Don't take a nickel, just hand them your business card. + -- Richard Daley, advising on the safe enjoyment of graft +% +Draft beer, not boys! +% +Draft beer, not people. +% +During the Reagan-Mondale debates: + +Q: "Do you feel that a person's age affects his ability to + perform as president?" +Reagan: "I refuse to make an issue out of my opponent's youth and inexperience." +% +Even God cannot change the past. + -- Joseph Stalin +% +Everlasting peace will come to the world when the last man has slain +the last but one. + -- Adolph Hitler +% +Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired +signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not +fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not +spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the +genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way +of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is +humanity hanging on a cross of iron. + -- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953 +% +"First World" nations are the ones where people drive Japanese cars; +"Second World" nations are where First World residents go on vacation; +and "Third World" nations are the ones where people still dive out of +trees to prove their manhood. + -- Dave Barry +% +"Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a +tail on me, go ahead. They'd be very bored." + -- Gary Hart, announcing his presidential candidacy, + commenting on rumors of womanizing. +% +For those of you how have been looking for evidence that a working +version of "Star Wars" can be built, consider the following proof +offered by Caspar Weinberger: + + "If such a system is so unattainable, why have the Soviets been + working desperately to get it for over 17 years?" + + -- USA Today, 24 June 1986 +% +Forgive your enemies, but don't forget their names. + -- John F. Kennedy +% +Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union. + -- Joseph Stalin +% +Gary Hart's biggest mistake was not getting Teddy Kennedy to drive +Donna Rice home. +% +George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherry tree, but he +also admitted doing it. Now, do you know why his father didn't punish him? +Because George still had the axe in his hand. +% +God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little... +The trade unions, under the European system, destroy liberty [...] I do +not mean to say that a dollar a day is enough to support a workingman... +not enough to support a man and five children if he insists on smoking +and drinking beer. But the man who cannot live on bread and water is +not fit to live! A family may live on good bread and water in the +morning, water and bread at midday, and good bread and water at night! + -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher +% +Going into politics is as fatal to a gentleman as going into a bordello +is fatal to a virgin. + -- H.L. Mencken, "A Carnival of Buncombe" +% +Goose pimples rose all over me, my hair stood on end, my eyes filled with +tears of love and gratitude for this greatest of all conquerers of human +misery and shame, and my breath came in little gasps. If I had not known +that the Leader would have scorned such adulation, I might have fallen to +my knees in unashamed worship, but instead I drew myself to attention, raised +my arm in the eternal salute of the ancient Roman Legions and repeated the +holy words, "Heil Hitler!" + -- George Lincoln Rockwell +% +Gorbachev woke up early one morning, and felt great. He walked over to his +window, threw back the curtains, and saw the sun coming up. He felt *so* +good, he crowed, "Good Morning Sun!", and was startled when a great booming +voice came back to him, "Good morning Comrade! Good morning to you and +the great Soviet Socialist Republic!". Of course, this surprised him, but +great politician that he is, he considers the political ramifications. +Gorbachev then woke up Reza and his closest aides, brought them into his +bedroom, and shouted out "Good morning, Comrade Sun!". Again a booming reply, +"Good morning, Comrade. Good morning to you and the rest of the Party!" +Everyone was quite excited about this, and Gorbachev sat down to his +day's work with a feeling of being destiny's favorite child. + Later, in the evening, he was preparing for the ballet. As he +dressed, he noticed that the sun was setting. Walking over to the window, +Gorbachev threw up the sash and again addressed the sun, "Good evening to +you, Comrade Sun!". Once more the great voice boomed out, "Fuck you, +asshole! I'm in the West now!" +% +GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY (#21): July 30, 1917 + +On this day, New York City hotel detectives burst in and caught then +Senator Warren G. Harding in bed with an underage girl. He bought +them off with a $20 bribe, and later remarked thankfully, "I thought +I wouldn't get out of that under $1000!" Always one to learn from +his mistakes, in later years President Harding carried on his affairs +in a tiny closet in the White House Cabinet Room while Secret Service +men stood lookout. +% + "Haig, in congressional hearings before his confirmatory, paradoxed +his audiencers by abnormaling his responds so that verbs were nouned, nouns +verbed, and adjectives adverbised. He techniqued a new way to vocabulary his +thoughts so as to informationally uncertain anybody listening about what he +had actually implicationed. + "If that is how General Haig wants to nervous breakdown the Russian +leadership, he may be shrewding his way to the biggest diplomatic invent +since Clausewitz. Unless, that is, he schizophrenes his allies first." + -- The Guardian +% +Have you ever really thought about there being a simple solution to +America's problems? Why, we could solve all of our raw materials +difficulties, foreign complications etc. over a long weekend. If we +got up early, early mind you, on Saturday, we could take over Mexico +by 10:00. Panama and most of South America would be a bit more difficult, +but I believe we could do it by 6 or 7 that evening. Turning our +attention northward, Canada would require most of Sunday morning. +General mopping up and execution of the civilian populations would take +up Sunday afternoon. I just don't understand why Washington hasn't +thought of this... +% +He wasn't much of an actor, he wasn't much of a Governor -- Hell, they +_H_A_D to make him President of the United States. It's the only job he's +qualified for! + -- Michael Cain +% +He's a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch. + -- FDR on Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza +% +Heard tell that the Iron Magnolia wanted to divorce ol' Jimmy. Seems he's +screwing everyone but her. +% +Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. + -- Milton Friedman +% +"Here's the holiday schedule for Monday's observation of Martin Luther +King Jr.'s birthday, when the following will be closed: + + * Governmental offices + * Post offices + * Libraries + * Schools + * Banks + * Parts of Palm Beach + +and the mind of Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina." + -- Dennis Miller, "Saturday Night Live" +% +"How do you like the new America? We've cut the fat out of the +government, and more recently the heart and brain (the backbone was gone +some time ago). All we seem to have left now is muscle. We'll be lucky +to escape with our skins!" +% +I acted to show my love for Jodie Foster. + -- John Hinckley +% +I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Congs. + -- Muhammad Ali +% +I also believe that academic freedom should protect the right of a +professor or student to advocate Marxism, socialism, communism, or any +other minority viewpoint -- no matter how distasteful to the majority. + -- Richard M. Nixon + +What are our schools for if not indoctrination against Communism? + -- Richard M. Nixon +% +I am not a crook. + -- Richard Nixon +% +I am not now and never have been a girl friend of Henry Kissinger. + -- Gloria Steinem +% +I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute +-- where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) +how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom +to vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or +political preference -- and where no man is denied public office merely +because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or +the people who might elect him. + -- John F. Kennedy +% +I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was + + ... an arctic wilderness. + -- Steve Martin +% +I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat. + -- Will Rogers +% +I call it the "Madman Theory". I want the North Vietnamese to believe that +I've reached the point where I might do *anything* to stop the war. We'll +just slip the word to them that "For God's sake, you know, Nixon is obsessed +about Communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry -- and he has his +hand on the nuclear button." + -- Richard Nixon +% +"I can remember when a good politician had to be 75 percent ability and 25 +percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could be true." + -- Harry Truman +% +I did not look behind me, 'till I got to St. Omer's & thence fled to America; +here I offer'd to become a Spy for the English Government which was scornfully +rejected; I then turned to Plunder & Libel the Yankees, for which I was fined +5000 Dollars & kicked out of the Country! I came back to England (after +absconding for Seven years) & set up the Crown & Mitre to establish my Loyalty! +-- accepted from the Doctor L400 to print & disperse a pamphlet against "the +Hellfire of Reform" ... but applied the Money to purchase an estate at Botley, +& left ye Doctor to pay the Paper & Printing! Being now Lord of the Manor, I +began by sowing the seeds of discontent through Hampshire; I oppressed the +Poor, sent the Aged to Hell, & damned the eyes of my Parish Apprentices before +they were open'd in the morning! ... and being now supported by a Band of +Reformers, I renewed my old favorite Toast of Damnation to the House of +Brunswick! & being exalted by the sale of 10,000 Political Registers every +week, I find myself the greatest Man in the World! except that Idol of all my +Adorations, his Royal and Imperial Majesty, NAPOLEONE! + -- William Cobbett, British journalist +% +I don't give a shit what happens. I want you all to stonewall it. Let them +plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up, or anything else if it'll save the plan. + -- Richard Nixon +% +I don't see what's wrong with giving Bobby a little experience before +he starts to practice law. + -- John F. Kennedy, upon appointing his brother + Attorney-General. +% +I don't think they are going to give a shit about the Republican +Committee trying to bug the Democratic Committee's headquarters. + -- Richard Nixon, 1972 +% +I don't understand what all the fuss was about in Los Angeles. It's not like +we looted Brooks Brothers when Oliver North got off. + -- P.J. O'Rourke +% +I go the way that Providence dictates. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +I had never been too political, but I knew how white people treated black +people and it was hard for me to come back to the bullshit white people +put a black person through in this country. To realize you don't have any +power to make things different is a bitch. + -- Miles Davis +% +"I have just read your lousy review buried in the back pages. You sound +like a frustrated old man who never made a success, an eight-ulcer man on a +four-ulcer job, and all four ulcers working. I have never met you, but if I +do you'll need a new nose and plenty of beefsteak and perhaps a supporter +below. Westbrook Pegler, a guttersnipe, is a gentleman compared to you. +You can take that as more of an insult than as a reflection on your ancestry." + -- President Harry S. Truman +% +I have nothing but utter contempt for the courts of this land. + -- George Wallace +% +I have often looked at women and committed adultery in my heart. + -- Jimmy Carter +% +I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought +it was hell. + -- Harry S. Truman +% +I never trust a man unless I've got his pecker in my pocket. + -- Lyndon Baines Johnson +% +I regret to say that we of the F.B.I. are powerless to act in cases of +oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate +commerce. + -- J. Edgar Hoover +% +I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether +it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether +he told the truth or not. When starting and waging war it is not right +that matters, but victory. + -- Adolph Hitler +% +I think any man in business would be foolish to fool around with his secretary. +If it's somebody else's secretary, fine. + -- Barry Goldwater + +I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass. + -- Barry Goldwater +% +I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass. + -- Senator Barry Goldwater, commenting on Jerry Falwell's + suggestion that all good Christians should be against + Sandra Day O'Connor's nomination to the Supreme Court +% +I was in accord with the system so long as it permitted me to function +effectively. + -- Albert Speer +% +I would have made a good pope. + -- Richard Nixon +% +I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have +gotten the hostages released. I thank God they were satisfied with the +missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme. + -- Oliver North +% +I would not like to be a political leader in Russia. They never know when +they're being taped. + -- Richard Nixon + +I love America. You always hurt the one you love. + -- David Frye impersonating Nixon +% +I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. + -- George McGovern +% +I'm never through with a girl until I've had her three ways. + -- J.F. Kennedy +% +I'm not a lovable man. + -- Richard Nixon. +% +I'm not sure I've even got the brains to be President. + -- Barry Goldwater, in 1964 +% +I'm sorry I missed. + -- Squeaky Fromme +% +I've got Hubert's pecker in my pocket. + -- Lyndon B. Johnson + +Don't see 'em this big out here, do they? + -- Lyndon B. Johnson, exposing himself to reporters in a + public toilet during a tour of the Far East +% +I've never been hurt by anything I didn't say. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +If a man is not a liberal at 25, he has no heart. +If he's not a conservative by 45, he has no brain. +% +If any demonstrator ever lays down in front of my car, it'll be the last +car he ever lays down in front of. + -- George Wallace +% +If Carter is the answer, it must have been a VERY silly question. +% +If clear thinking created sparks, we could safely store dynamite in +James Watt's office. + -- Wayne Shannon, KRON-TV +% +If I made peace with Russia today, I'd only attack her again tomorrow. I +just couldn't help myself. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +If it takes a bloodbath, lets get it over with. No more appeasement. + -- Ronald Reagan +% +If people say that here and there someone has been taken away and maltreated, +I can only reply: You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. + -- Hermann Goering +% +If Presidents don't do it to their wives, they do it to the country. + -- Mel Brooks +% +If Reagan is the answer, it must have been a VERY silly question. +% +If the Nazis had television with satellite technology, we'd all be +goose-stepping. Americans are just as suggestible. + -- Frank Zappa +% +If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is +doing the thinking. + -- Lyndon B. Johnson + +Jerry Ford is a nice guy, but he played too much football with his +helmet off. + -- Lyndon B. Johnson + +I do not believe that this generation of Americans is willing to resign +itself to going to bed each night by the light of a Communist moon. + -- Lyndon B. Johnson +% +"If we relied conclusively on scientific data for every one of our +findings, I'm afraid all of our work would be inconclusive." + -- Henry Hudson, of the Meese Pornography Commission, on + criticism of its conclusion that pornography causes sex + crimes. +% +If you cannot convince them, confuse them. + -- Harry S. Truman +% +If you have seen one city slum you have seen them all. + -- Spiro Agnew +% +If you really want to do something new, the good won't help you with it. +Let me have men about me that are arrant knaves. The wicked, who have +something on their conscience, are obliging, quick to hear threats, because +they know how it's done, and for booty. You can offer them things because +they will take them. Because they have no hesitations. You can hang them +if they get out of step. Let me have men about me that are utter villains +-- provided that I have the power, the absolute power, over life and death. + -- Hermann Goering +% +If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest +shopping center in the world? + -- Richard M. Nixon +% +If you treat people right they will treat you right -- 90% of the time. + -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt +% +If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all. + -- Ronald Reagan +% +Imagine me going around with a pot belly. It would mean political ruin. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +In 1953, Stalin dies. The politburo holds a special meeting to decide +what to do about the body. Nobody will let it be buried near their home. +Finally they decide: + "Aha! Call Israel! Offer them ten million rubles; they'll let us +bury Stalin in Israel! Off goes the message and the politburo waits... +Finally a telegram comes back: + "NO CHANCE STOP ONE RESURRECTION HERE ALREADY" +% +In 1989, the United States, displeased with the policies of the dictator of +Panama, invaded that country and placed in power a government more to its +liking. + +In 1990, Iraq, displeased with the policies of the dictator of Kuwait, +invaded that country and placed in power a government more to its liking. +% +In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death +by slow starvation. The old principle: Who does not work shall not eat, +has been replaced by a new one: Who does not obey shall not eat. + -- Leon Trotsky, 1937 +% +In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the +sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order. + -- Idi Amin Dada +% +In the future, there will be fewer but better Russians. + -- Joseph Stalin +% +In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be +thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +In what can only be described as a surprise move, God has officially +announced His candidacy for the U.S. presidency. During His press conference +today, the first in over 4000 years, He is quoted as saying, "I think I have +a chance for the White House if I can just get my campaign pulled together +in time. I'd like to get this country turned around; I mean REALLY turned +around! Let's put Florida up north for awhile, and let's get rid of all +those annoying mountains and rivers. I never could stand them!" + There apparently is still some controversy over the Almighty's +citizenship and other qualifications for the Presidency. God replied to +these charges by saying, "Come on, would the United States have anyone other +than a citizen bless their country?" +% +It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might +remember. + -- Eugene McCarthy +% +It seems appropriate to me that Mapplethorpe's perverse images should be +situated so close to Congress, which perpetuates a number of unnatural acts +upon the body politic every day, without benefit of artificial lubrication +or foreplay. + -- Pat Calafia's review of Camille Paglia's + "Sex, Art and American Culture" +% +It's easier to be a liberal a long way from home. + -- Don Price +% +It's our fault. We should have given him better parts. + -- Jack Warner, on hearing that Reagan had been + elected governor of California. + +[Warner is also reported to have said, when told of Reagan's candidacy +for governor, "No, Jimmy Stewart for Governor; Reagan for best friend."] +% +Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Joseph Biden and Michael Dukakis were +on a cruise down the Potomac when the ship struck a rock and began to sink. + "Gentlemen," Carter said, "as good Christians, we should let the +women and children aboard the lifeboats first." + "Fuck the women!" Kennedy shouted. + "Do we have time?" Hart asked. + "Do we have time?" Biden asked. + "Did everyone hear that?" Dukakis asked. +% +John Birch Society -- that pathetic manifestation of organized apoplexy. + -- Edward P. Morgan +% +Justice is incidental to law and order. + -- J. Edgar Hoover +% +Laissez Faire Economics is the theory that if each acts like a vulture, +all will end as doves. +% +Lansdale seized on the idea of using Nixon to build support for the +[Vietnamese] elections ... really honest elections, this time. "Oh, sure, +honest, yes, that's right," Nixon said, "so long as you win!" With that +he winked, drove his elbow into Lansdale's arm and slapped his own knee. + -- Richard Nixon, quoted in "Sideshow" by W. Shawcross +% +Law enforcement officers should use only the minimum force necessary in +dealing with disorders when they arise. + -- Richard M. Nixon +% +"Lemme show ya the odds, Sparky... In yer country, ya got 14 million black +people, and 3 million white people. Now, does the name `Custer' mean anything +to you?" + -- Robin Williams, portraying Lester Maddox talking to Prime + Minister Botha of South Africa. +% +... Let me tell you who the actual "front-runners" are. On one side, +you have George Bush, who is currently going through a sort of +fraternity hazing wherein he has to perform a series of humiliating +stunts to win the approval of the Republican Right. For example, they +had him make a speech oozing praise all over William Loeb, deceased +publisher of the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader and Slime Journalist. +Loeb had dumped viciously all over George in the 1980 New Hampshire +primary. But when the Right held a big tribute for Loeb, George came +back to the fold, like a man with a bungee cord wrapped around his neck. + -- Dave Barry, "The Twinkie and the Squid" +% +Let's talk about how to fill out your 1984 tax return. Here's an often +overlooked accounting technique that can save you thousands of dollars: For +several days before you put it in the mail, carry your tax return around +under your armpit. No IRS agent is going to want to spend hours poring over +a sweat-stained document. So even if you owe money, you can put in for an +enormous refund and the agent will probably give it to you, just to avoid an +audit. What does he care? It's not his money. + -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" +% +Liberals are the first to dump you if you con them or get into +trouble. Conservatives are better. They never run out on you. + -- Joseph "Crazy Joe" Gallo +% + "Listen to what I say, not what I mean. I mean ...." + -- Mayor Daley +% +Long ago I proposed that unsuccessful candidates for the Presidency +be quietly hanged, as a matter of public sanitation and decorum. +The sight of their grief must have a very evil effect upon the young. + -- H.L. Mencken, "A Carnival of Buncombe" +% +Mayor Vincent J. `Buddy' Cianci on the ACLU's suit to have a city +nativity scene removed: + "They're just jealous because they don't have three wise men +and a virgin in the whole organization." +% +Millions of sensible people are too high-minded to concede that politics is +almost always the choice of the lesser evil. "Tweedledum and Tweedledee," +they say. "I will not vote." Having abstained, they are presented with a +President who appoints the people who are going to rummage around in their +lives for the next four years. Consider all the people who sat home in a +stew in 1968 rather than vote for Hubert Humphrey. They showed Humphrey. +Those people who taught Hubert Humphrey a lesson will still be enjoying the +Nixon Supreme Court when Tricia and Julie begin to find silver threads among +the gold and the black. + -- Russel Baker, "Ford without Flummery" +% +More people died at Chappaquidick than at 3-mile island. +% +More people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than in nuclear power plants. +% +"Most legislators are so dumb that they couldn't pour piss out of a +boot if the instructions were printed on the heel." +% +Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be President, but they don't want +them to become politicians in the process. + -- John F. Kennedy +% +My advice to the women's clubs of America is to raise more hell and fewer +dahlias. + -- William Allen White +% +My rackets are run on strictly American lines, and they're going to +stay that way. + -- Al Capone +% +Nancy Reagan wants to divorce old Ron... seems he's making it hard for +everyone but her. +% +Naturally the common people don't want war... but after all it is the leaders +of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to +drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, +or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people +can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you +have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists +for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same +in every country. + -- Hermann Goering +% +New book out from Gary Hart; "Six Inches from the White House". +% +Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. + -- Henry Kissinger +% +No Marxist can deny that the interests of socialism are higher than the +interests of the right of nations to self-determination. + -- Lenin, 1918 +% +No television performance takes as much preparation as an off-the-cuff talk. + -- Richard Nixon +% +[Nuclear war] ... may not be desirable. + -- Edwin Meese III +% +Oh, my friend, it is not what they take away from you that counts -- +it's what you do with what you have left. + -- Hubert H. Humphrey +% +Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that +you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease." Disraeli replied, +"That all depends upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress." +% +One day an elderly Jewish Pole, living in Warsaw, finds an old lamp in his +attic. He starts to polish it and (poof!) a genie appears in cloud of smoke. + "Greetings, Mortal!" exclaims the genie, stretching and yawning, "For +releasing me I will grant you three wishes." + The old man thinks for a moment, then replies, "I want Genghis Khan +resurrected. I want him to re-unite the Mongol hordes, march to the Polish +border, decide he doesn't want to invade, and march back home." + "No sooner said than done!" thunders the genie. "Your second wish?" + "Hmmmm. I want Genghis Khan resurrected. I want him to re-unite the +Mongol hordes, march to the Polish border, decide he doesn't want to invade, +and march back home." + "But... well, all right! Your third wish?" + "I want Genghis Khan resurrected. I want him to re-unite his ---" + "OKOKOKOK! Right. Got it. Why do you want Genghis Khan to march +to Poland three times and never invade?" + The old man smiles. "He has to pass through Russia six times." +% +One day President Reagan, Chairman Andropov, the Pope, and a boy scout +were flying together in an airplane. Right out in the middle of nowhere +the plane developed engine trouble and started to go down. Unfortunately, +only three parachutes could be found for the four passengers! Andropov +grabbed one of the parachutes and declared "Comrades, as leader of the +socialist workers revolution, my life must be spared," and he jumped out +of the plane. Then Reagan exclaimed "As leader of the greatest nation on +earth, I must keep the world safe for democracy," and with that he too +jumped to safety. Now if you are following all this (or counting on your +fingers) you must see that there is only one parachute left for the two +remaining passengers. The Pope looked kindly upon the boy scout and said +"I have had a long and productive life, my son. You take the parachute +and leave me in God's hands." "That's very kind of you," the observant +scout replied, "but there is no need. Reagan just jumped out with my +knapsack." +% +"One Saturday afternoon, during the campaign to decide whether or not +there should be a Coastal Commission, I took a helicopter ride from Los +Angeles to San Diego. We passed several state beaches, some crowded and +some virtually empty. They had the same facilities, and in some cases +the crowded and the empty beach were within a quarter mile of each other. +Obviously many beach-goers prefer to be crowded together. Buying more +beaches that people won't go to because they prefer to be crowded +together on one beach is a ridiculous waste of our natural resources and +our taxes." + -- Ronald Reagan +% +"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -- kept us in +a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor -- with the cry of grave +national emergency... Always there has been some terrible evil to +gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the +exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem +never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real." + -- General Douglas MacArthur, 1957 +% +Our parents were of Midwestern stock and very strict. They didn't want us +to grow up to be spoiled and rich. If we left our tennis racquets in the +rain, we were punished. + -- Nancy Ellis (George Bush's sister), in the New Republic +% +Over 5,000 years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel, + "Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and load your camels, +and I will lead you to the promised land." + Not too long ago, Roosevelt said, "Lay down your shovels, sit on +your asses, light a Camel, this is the promised land." + Now Nixon is stealing your shovels, kicking your asses, raising +the price of Camels, and mortgaging the promised land. +% +Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to +realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. + -- Ronald Reagan +% +President Thieu says he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50% of the +vote. In a democracy, that's not called quitting. + -- The Washington Post +% +[Prime Minister Joseph] Chamberlain loves the working man -- he loves +to see him work. + -- Winston Churchill +% +"Queensboro president Donald Mannis, charged with receiving bribes in +exchange for city contracts, resigned on Tuesday. Mannis feels he must +devote more time to impending litigation, some of which might emanate +from a recent statement he made comparing New York Mayor Ed Koch to +Nazi Martin Bormann. A spokesman from the Bormann estate said they are +weighing the odds of a slander suit. Mayor Koch could naturally be +reached for comment, but we chose not to listen." + -- Dennis Miller, "Saturday Night Live" +% +Reagan can't ___act either. +% +REPORTER: Senator, are you for or against the MX missile system? + +SENATOR: Bob, the MX missile system reminds me of an old saying that the +country folk in my state like to say. It goes like this: "You can carry a +pig for six miles, but if you set it down it might run away." I have no idea +why the country folk say this. Maybe there's some kind of chemical +pollutant in their drinking water. That is why I pledge to do all that I +can to protect the environment of this great nation of ours, and put prayer +back in the schools, where it belongs. What we need is jobs, not empty +promises. I realize I'm risking my political career be being so outspoken +on a sensitive issue such as the MX, but that's just the kind of +straight-talking honest person I am, and I can't help it. + -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics" +% +Republicans consume three-fourths of the rutabaga produced in this +country. The remainder is thrown out. +% +Republicans raise dahlias, Dalmatians and eyebrows. +Democrats raise Airedales, kids and taxes. + +Democrats eat the fish they catch. +Republicans hang them on the wall. + +Republican boys date Democratic girls. They plan to marry +Republican girls, but feel they're entitled to a little fun first. + +Democrats make up plans and then do something else. +Republicans follow the plans their grandfathers made. + +Republicans consume three-fourths of the rutabaga produced in the USA. +The remainder is thrown out. + +Republicans tend to keep their shades drawn, although there is seldom +any reason why they should. Democrats ought to, but don't. + +Republicans sleep in twin beds -- some even in separate rooms. +That is why there are more Democrats. + -- Paul Dickson, "The Official Rules" +% +Richard Nixon was the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life. +He lied to his wife, his family, his friends, his colleagues in the Congress, +lifetime members of his own political party, the American people, and +the world. + -- Senator Barry Goldwater +% + Robert Kennedy's 1964 Senatorial campaign planners told him that +their intention was to present him to the television viewers as a sincere, +generous person. "You going to use a double?" asked Kennedy. + + Thumbing through a promotional pamphlet prepared for his 1964 +Senatorial campaign, Robert Kennedy came across a photograph of himself +shaking hands with a well-known labor leader. + "There must be a better photo that this," said Kennedy to the +advertising men in charge of his campaign. + "What's wrong with this one?" asked one adman. + "That fellow's in jail," said Kennedy. + -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" +% +Ronald Reagan -- America's favorite placebo +% +Russia has abolished God, but so far God has been more tolerant. + -- John Cameron Swayze +% +SAGDEEV CALLED ON THE U.S. TO MAKE A RECIPROCAL GESTURE: + + In a recent speech in London, the irrepressible former head of the +Soviet Space Research Institute noted that the Soviet Government has offered +to convert its gigantic Krasnoyarsk radar in Siberia into an international +space research facility in response to U.S. complaints that the radar would +violate the ABM treaty. Sagdeev suggested that the U.S. reciprocate by +turning the unfinished U.S. embassy in Moscow into a nuclear crisis reduction +center. The communication system, he pointed out, is already in place. + + [The construction contract for the US Embassy in Moscow was--stupidly + --offered for bid to Russians (the Soviet embassy in Washington was + built by workers brought in from the USSR for the purpose). It should + have been no surprise that every support beam had surveillance + equipment embedded in it at the factory. The US *acted* surprised, + when this eventually came to light.] +% +Seems to me that both the Democrats and the Republicans should change their +symbols to a contraceptive device; it stands for inflation, inhibits +production, protects a bunch of pricks and gives everyone a false sense of +security while they're being screwed. +% +Sen. Danforth: "There is nothing on the face of the album which would + notify you if the record has pornographics material or + material glorifying violence?" +Tipper Gore: "No, there is nothing that would suggest that to me." +Frank Zappa: "I would say that a buzz saw blade between the guy's legs on + the album cover is good indication that it's not for little + Johnny." + + -- The Senate Commerce Committee hearing on rock + lyrics, from The Village Voice, 6 Oct 1985 +% +Senor Castro has been accused of communist sympathies, but this means very +little since all opponents of the regime are automatically called communists. +In fact he is further to the right than General Batista. + -- "Cuba's Rightist Rebel", The Economist, April 26, 1958 +% +She hates testicles, thus limiting the men she can admire to Democratic +candidates for president. + -- John Greenway, "The American Tradition", on feminist + Elizabeth Gould Davis +% +Sink or Swim with Teddy! +% +Sometimes, at the end of the day, when I'm smiling and shaking their hands, +I want to kick them. + -- Richard M. Nixon +% +Sooner or later, generals will own you. +% +Stalin was dying, and summoned Khruschev to his bedside. Wheezing his last +words with difficulty, Stalin tells Khruschev, "The reins of the country are +now in your hands. But before I go, I want to give you some advice." + "Yes, yes, what is it?" says Khruschev, impatiently. Reaching under +his pillow, Stalin produced two envelopes labeled #1 and #2. + "Take these letters," he tells Khruschev. "Keep them safely -- don't +open them. Only if the country is in turmoil and things aren't going well, +open the first one. That'll give you some advice on what to do. And, if +after that, if things start getting REALLY bad, open the second one." And +with a gasp Stalin breathed his last. + Well, within a few years Khruschev started having problems -- +unemployment increased, crops failed, people became restless. He decided it +was time to open the first letter. All it said was: "Blame everything on me!" +So Khruschev launched a massive deStalinization campaign, and blamed Stalin +for all the excesses and purges and ills of the present system. + But things continued on the downslide, and, finally, after much +deliberation, Khruschev opened the second letter. + All it said was: "Write two letters." +% +Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong. + -- Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf" +% +Support the right of unborn males to bear arms! + -- A public service announcement from Phyllis Schlafly, + the Catholic Church, and the National Rifle Association +% +Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest +men in national government too. + -- Richard M. Nixon +% +Sure, Reagan has promised to take senility tests. But what if he forgets? +% +"Taxes should hurt. I just mailed my own tax return last night and I +am prepared to say `ouch!' as loud as anyone." + -- Ronald Reagan +% +Teddy Kennedy: A Blonde in Every Pond! +% +Thank God I've always avoided persecuting my enemies. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +That segment of the community with which one has the greatest sympathy as +a liberal, inevitably turns out to be one of the most narrow-minded and +bigoted segments of the community. +% +The American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it Capitalism, +call it what you like, gives each and every one of us a great +opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it. + -- Al Capone +% +The arms business is founded on human folly, that is why its depths will +never be plumbed and why it will go on forever. All weapons are defensive +and all spare parts are non-lethal. The plainest print cannot be read +through a solid gold sovereign, or a ruble or a golden eagle. + -- Sam Cummings, American arms dealer +% +The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion. +Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed +and color, but also on ability. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +"The Army is a place where you get up early in the morning to be yelled +at by people with short haircuts and tiny brains." + -- Dave Barry +% +The broad mass of a nation... will more easily fall victim to a big lie +than to a small one. + -- Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" +% +The conservation movement is a breeding ground of Communists and other +subversives. We intend to clean them out, even if it means rounding up +every bird watcher in the country. + -- John Mitchell, Atty. General 1969-1972 +% +The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should therefore +be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be +propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war +and they are screened at once from scrutiny. ... In war, then, as in peace, +assert the freedom of speech and of the press. Cling to this as the bulwark +of all our rights and privileges. + -- William Ellery Channing +% +The dangerous Lego Bomb, which targets shag rugs and scatters pieces of +plastic that hurt like hell when you step on them is banned entirely.... +Hiring David Copperfield to pretend to saw the missiles in half will not +be permitted... In order to reduce risk of accidental war, both sides +agree to ban the popular but dangerous 'Simon Says' training drill at +nuclear launch sites... Under no circumstances will either side reveal +that it hammered out the treaty in one afternoon, but spent the last nine +years arguing the Monty Hall and the three doors problem. + -- Little known provisions of the START treaty by James Lileks +% +The difference between a misfortune and a calamity? If Gladstone fell into +the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, +it would be a calamity. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +The entire work force of the Communist countries is subjected to periodic +purges (called verifications in Newspeak). One of the most severe took +place in 1957 when Novotny, rattled by the Hungarian Revolution the year +before, tried hard to weed out "radishes" (red outside, white inside) from +all but insignificant positions. Any one of the following would often +result in the loss of one's job: Bourgeois or Jewish family background, +relatives abroad, contacts with former capitalists, having lived in a +Western country, insufficient knowledge of Communist literature, and others. + + A man is interviewed by a "Verification Committee." + "What kind of family do you come from?" + "A rich, Jewish family." + "And your wife?" + "A German aristocrat." + "Have you ever been to the West?" + "I spent most of my life in England." + "How did you make a living there?" + "A friend supported me." + "Where did you get the money from?" + "He owned a textile factory." + "Who was Lenin?" + "Never heard of him." + "What is your name?" + "Karl Marx." +% +The fact that Hitler was a political genius unmasks the nature of politics +in general as no other can. + -- Wilhelm Reich +% +The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a +socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave +their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy +capitalism and become lesbians. + -- Pat Robertson, Man of God and serious Republican + presidential aspirant, in a letter to supporters. +% +The government [is] extremely fond of amassing great quantities of statistics. +These are raised to the nth degree, the cube roots are extracted, and the +results are arranged into elaborate and impressive displays. What must be +kept ever in mind, however, is that in every case, the figures are first put +down by a village watchman, and he puts down anything he damn well pleases. + -- Sir Josiah Stamp +% +The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the +Christian Religion. + -- George Washington +% +The great nations have always acted like gangsters and the small nations +like prostitutes. + -- Stanley Kubrick +% +The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer. + -- Henry Kissinger +% +The language of politics is poetry, not prose. Jackson is poetry. +Cuomo is poetry. Dukakis is a word processor. + -- Richard M. Nixon, on Meet the Press, April, 1988 +% +The liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +The local minister noticed a little girl standing outside of his +door with a basket of kittens. + "Hello, little girl, what do you have there?" + "These are my Democratic kittens," she replied. +Amused, the pastor said nothing. Two weeks later he saw the same little +girl with (apparently) the same basket of kittens. + "My, I see you still have your Democratic kittens.", he said. + "No, you see, these are Republican kittens," she answered. + "Two weeks ago they were Democratic kittens," he replied, puzzled. + "Two weeks ago they had their eyes closed." +% +The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself. + -- Henry Kissinger +% +The marriage of Marxism and feminism has been like the marriage of +husband and wife depicted in English common law: Marxism and feminism +are one, and that one is marxism. + -- Heidi Hartmann, "The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism + and Feminism" +% +[The members of the Chamberlain government] are decided only to be undecided, +resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, all-powerful for impotency. + -- Winston Churchill +% +The Moscow Evening News advertised a contest for the best political joke. +First prize was ten years in prison; second prize, five years; third prize, +three years; and there were six honorable mentions of one year each. +% +The most recent attempt to revive the moribund campus left, a national +conference held at Rutgers University February 5-7, ended when the +participants decided that they were too racist to found a new national +organization. + The stated goal of the conference was the formation of a national +organization that would "give expression to a shared consciousness." The +orientation materials declared that this was "a historic moment" -- you +know, like Port Huron and the Sixties -- and the Rutgers host committee had +every reason to expect their goal would be accomplished. + But it was not to be. Given that this was a conference of *New* +New Leftists, reason had nothing to do with it. + A revealing article by Vania del Borgo and Maria Margaronis in "The +Nation", ["Beyond the Fragments," 3/26/88] says "The defining moment of the +weekend came when the conference was almost at its end. On Sunday morning, +a twenty-five-member students of color caucus confronted the assembled body +with its overwhelming whiteness..." Joined by the Gay & Bisexual Caucus, the +Students of Color Caucus declared that the founding of such an overwhelmingly +white organization would itself constitute a racist act. The four hundred or +so leftist activists were told that they had no right to ratify a constitution +or elect any officers. While recognizing "the need to examine the real +possibilities of a broad-based, racially diverse student movement" and paying +lip service to the need for "dialogue," they threatened to walk out if their +demands were not met. As *The Nation* article describes the scene: "To their +astonishment, their intervention was greeted with a standing ovation." Handed +an ultimatum which demanded that they disband, this would-be successor to the +radical student movements of the Sixties promptly voted itself out of +existence. As del Borgo and Margaronis put it, "After much chaotic discussion +and a confused voice vote, the convention suspended all its other work and +broke into regional groups to discuss 'outreach.'" + -- Libertarian Agenda, May 1988 +% +THE MX IS GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY. One important reason we have a Defense +Department is that when we give it money, it spends it, which creates +jobs, whereas if we left the money in the hands of civilians, we don't +know what they'd do with it. Probably put it in open trenches and set +it on fire. The MX will create an especially large number of jobs +because of the number of warheads it carries. It carries a total of 10 +warheads. This creates a great deal of employment, because you have +your Warhead Makers, your Warhead Lifters, your Persons Who Tap the +Warheads Gently with Rubber Mallets to Wedge Them All Snugly Into the +Nose Cone, your Persons Who Just Walk Around Playing Soothing Cassettes +by Recording Artists such as Perry Como So We Don't Have Any More +Episodes Where a Worker Who is Experiencing Some Strain Sticks a +Warhead in the Employee Cafeteria Microwave and Sets It On Roast, etc. +We are talking about a lot of jobs. + -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against + Political Fallout" +% +The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve +the state is essentially a Communist notion ... In a free society these +institutions must be wholly free -- which is to say that their function +is to serve as checks upon the state. + -- Alan Barth +% +The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in +bed with a dead girl or a live boy. + -- Edwin Edwards, Louisiana governor +% + "The policeman isn't there to create disorder. The policeman is +there to ________preserve disorder." + -- Mayor Daley +% +The problem with me is that I am fifty or one hundred years ahead of my +time. My speed is very fast. Some ministers have had to drop out of my +government because they could not keep up. + -- Idi Amin Dada +% +The problems with "Medflies" may have hurt Jerry Brown's chances to become a +Senator. After all, if they won't allow California fruit out of the state, +how is Brown going to get to Washington? +% +The reason we need the MX missile system is that the missiles we +currently have in the ground are the Minuteman model, which is very old. +The Defense Department can't even remember where half of them are. +Insects have built nests in them. People have built houses directly over +the silos. What this means, of course, is that if we ever needed them to +help obliterate all human life on the planet, they could be a real +embarrassment. I mean, maybe YOU'RE comfortable with the prospect of +missiles that are supposed to represent you barging over the North Pole +trailing shreds of polyester carpeting from some recreation room in South +Dakota, but your strategic defense planners are not. + -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against + Political Fallout" +% +The reasons that each of these countries has had to renege on its +financial committments were all somewhat different: Argentina because of +a war, Poland because of its vast misguided overinvestment in heavy +industry, Honduras because the coffee price went sour, Zaire because +nobody in the government there has a clue as to how to run a country. + -- Paul Erdman's Money Book +% +The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be +taken seriously. + -- Hubert Humphrey +% +The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom. + -- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas +% +The right to revolt has sources deep in our history. + -- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas +% +The rights you have are the rights given you by this Committee [the +House Un-American Activities Committee]. We will determine what rights +you have and what rights you have not got. + -- J. Parnell Thomas +% +The Russians have put a small ball up in the air. That does not raise my +apprehensions one iota. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower +% +"The State of California has no business subsidizing intellectual curiosity." + -- Ronald Reagan +% +The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who make them unsafe. + -- Mayor Frank Rizzo +% +The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling +their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the +other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision. Each tends to ascribe to +the other side a consistency, forsight and coherence that its own +experience belies. Of course, even two blind men can do enormous damage +to each other, not to speak of the room. + -- Henry Kissinger +% +The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job. + -- Ronald Reagan in 1973 + +Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. Had he run unopposed he +would have lost. + -- Mort Sahl + +Ronald Reagan is a triumph of the embalmer's art. + -- Gore Vidal + +Ronald Reagan's platform seems to be: Hey, I'm a big good-looking guy and +I need a lot of sleep. + -- Roy G. Blount, Jr. + +You've got to be careful quoting Ronald Reagan, because when you quote him +accurately it's called mudslinging. + -- Walter Mondale +% +The United States also has its native Fascists who say that they are +"100 percent American" ... + -- U. S. Army (1945) +% +The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular +employment of violence. + -- Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf" +% +The VFW represents many who died to give this country a second chance +to make it what it is supposed to be -- God's guest house on earth. + -- John Wayne +% +"The voters have spoken, the bastards ..." +% +The War on Drugs is just a small part of the War on the United States +Constitution. +% +The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that +would be clearly understood. + -- Alexander Haig +% +There are also a lot of nice buildings in Haiphong. What their +contributions are to the war effort I don't know, but the desire to +bomb a virgin building is terrific. + -- Commander Henry Urban Jr. +% +There are in this country two very large monopolies. The larger of the +two has the following record: The Vietnam War, Watergate, double-digit +inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the 8-cent +postcard. The second is responsible for such things as the transistor, +the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity stereo recording, +sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative feedback, magnetic tape, +magnetic "bubbles", electronic switching systems, microwave radio and TV +relay systems, information theory, the first electrical digital computer, +and the first communications satellite. Guess which one is going to tell the +other how to run the telephone business? I can hardly wait for the results. +% +There are revolutions that are sweeping the world and we in America have +been in a position of trying to stop them. With all the wealth of +America, with all of the military strength of America, those revolutions +are revolutions against a form of political and economic organization in +the countries of Asia and the Middle East that are oppressive. They are +revolutions against feudalism. [1952] + -- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas +% +There is a new anti-communist organization that advocates the use of +wooden toilet seats. + +It's called the Birch John Society. +% +There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor, Honesty, +Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and love of the +Fatherland. + -- Adolf Hitler +% +There was a man who, every day, would buy a newspaper on the way to work, +glance at the headline, and hand it back to the newsboy. Day after day the +man would go through this routine. Finally the newsboy could not stand it +and he asked the man, "Why do you always buy a paper and only look at the +front page before discarding it?" + The man replied, "I am only interested in the obituaries." + "But they are on page 21. You never even unfold the newspaper." + "Young man," he replied, "the son-of-a-bitch I'm looking for will +be on the front page." + -- Attributed to FDR. +% +There was a plane crash over mid-ocean, and only three survivors were left +in the life-raft: the Pope, the President, and Mayor Daley. Unfortunately, +it was a one-man life-raft, and quickly sinking, so they started debating +who should be allowed to stay. + +The Pope pointed out that he was the spiritual leader of millions all over +the world, the President explained that if he died then America would be +stuck with the Vice-President, and so forth. Then Mayor Daley said, "Look! +We're not solving anything like this! The only fair thing to do is to vote +on it." So they did, and Mayor Daley won by 97 votes. +% +There was a young man hitchiking along a road one day. A car stopped and the +driver opened the door and asked, "What political party are you with?" + He replied, "Why, I'm a Democrat." + And the driver slammed the door and rode off. The guy was pretty +discouraged when another car came along, and the driver asked the same +question. + The guy answered, "Uh, I'm a Democrat." + And again, the driver slammed the door and rode off. Now he was +downright confused when another car came along. The driver was an attractive +lady, and she asked the same question. + He answered: "I'm a Republican." + And she answered, "Well, then, hop on in." + They drove on for a few minutes when he began to notice that her +skirt was beginning to get hiked up on her thighs. Finally, he couldn't take +it any more, and said "Ma'am, stop the car and let me out. I've only been +a Republican for 15 minutes, and already I feel like screwing someone!" +% +"There was only six Democrats in all of Hinsdale County and you, you son of +a bitch, you ate five of them." + -- Colorado judge, sentencing Alfred E. Packer for + cannibalism in 1874. +% +These activities have their own rules and methods of concealment which +seek to mislead and obscure. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960 +% +They say it's the responsibility of the media to look at government -- +especially the president -- with a microscope. I don't argue with that, +but when they use a proctoscope, it's going too far. + -- Richard Nixon +% +This Czech walks into police station in 1968 during the Fraternal Assistance. +Czech: Hey, out there in the street, a Swiss soldier knocked me down and + took my Russian watch. +Desk Sergeant: Come again? +Czech: Right out there in the street, a Swiss soldier knocked me down and + took my Russian watch. +DS: You're confused. Why would there be a Swiss soldier here? And who + would want to own a Russian watch? It was a Russian soldier who + knocked you down and took your Swiss watch, right? +Czech: Well, maybe, but you said it, not me. +% +Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution +inevitable. + -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy +% +Three things have been difficult to tame: The oceans, fools, +and women. We may soon be able to tame the ocean. Fools and +women will take a little longer. + -- Spiro Agnew +% +Tip O'Neill is just like Congress; old, fat and out of control. + -- J. LeBoutillier +% +"To be responsive at this time, though I will simply say, and therefore this +is a repeat of what I said previously, that which I am unable to offer in +response is based on information available to make no such statement." +% +To defend the Saigon regime is not worth one more human life. + -- Senator Edmund Muskie +% +To jaw-jaw is better than to war-war. + -- W. Churchill, on Korean War negotiations +% +To the best of my recollection, Senator, I can't recall. +% +To Theodore Roosevelt: + You are like the Wind and I like the Lion. You form the Tempest. +The sand stings my eyes and the Ground is parched. I roar in defiance but +you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, +must remain in my place. While you, like the wind, will never know yours. + Mulay Hamid El Raisuli + Lord of the Riff + Sultan to the Berbers + Last of the Barbary Pirates +% +Tom Hayden is the kind of politician who gives opportunism a bad name. + -- Gore Vidal +% +Uncle Sam comes off as the perverted relative who'll offer you a +bit of candy, but if you won't bend over for him, you get a beating. +% +"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it's just the opposite." + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +Uppers are no longer stylish, methedrine is almost as rare as pure acid +or DMT. "Consciousness Expansion" went out with LBJ and it is worth +noting, historically, that downers came in with Nixon. + -- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson +% +Useful Farsi phrases for Americans traveling to Iran: + +AKBAR KHALI-KILI HAFTIR LOTFAN. + Thank you for showing me your marvelous gun. + +FEKR GABUL CARDAN DAVAT PAEH GUSH DIVAR. + I am delighted to accept your kind invitation to lie down + on the floor with my arms above my head and my legs apart. + +SHOMAEH FEKR TAMOMEH QEH GOFTEH BANDE. + I agree with everything you have ever said or thought in your life. +% +Useful Farsi phrases for Americans traveling to Iran: + +AUTO ARRAREGH DAVATEMAN MANO SEPAHEH-HAST. + It is exceptionally kind of you to allow me to + travel in the trunk of your car. + +FASHAL-EH TUPEHMAN NA DEGAT MANO +GOFTAM CHEESHAYEH MOHEMA RAJEBEH KESHVAREHMAN. + If you will do me the kindness of not harming my genital + appendages I will gladly reciprocate by betraying my + country in public. + +KHREL, JEPAHEH MANEH VA JAYEH AMRIKAHEY. + I will tell you the names and addresses of + many American spies traveling as reporters. +% +Useful Farsi phrases for Americans traveling to Iran: + +MAMNOUNAN GHORBAN IN DAFAYEH MEEMUNAM. + It is with greatest pleasure that I sign + this confession of capital crimes. + +MATERNIER GHERMEZ AHLIEH, GHORBAN. + The red blindfold would be lovely, excellency. + +TIKEH NUNEH BA OB KHRELEH BEZORG VA KHRUBE BOYAST INO BEGERAM. + The water-soaked bread crumbs are delicious, thank you. + I must have the recipe. + +ETEHFOR'AN, DEHRATEE, OTAGEH SHOMA MIKRASTAM KHE +DO HAFTAEH BA BODANEH SHEEREEL TEEGZ. + Truly, I would rather be a hostage to your greatly esteemed + self than spend a fortnight upon the person of Cheryl Tiegs. +% + Vice-President Hubert Humphrey's loquacity is legendary, and Barry +Goldwater notes that "Hubert has been clocked at 275 words a minute with gusts +up to 340." + + On the campaign trail during 1964, Republican nominee Barry Goldwater +stated, "The immediate task before us is to cut the Federal Government down +to size... we must take Lyndon's credit card away from him." + + A favorite 1964 campaign stunt of Barry Goldwater's was to poke a +finger through a pair of lensless blackrimmed glasses, saying, "These glasses +are just like [Lyndon Johnson's] programs. They look good but they don't +work." + -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" +% +Vote early and vote often. + -- Al Capone's slogan for Big Bill Thompson's anti-reform + campaign for Mayor of Chicago, 1926. Big Bill won. +% +Vote for ME -- I'm well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived and TAX-DEFERRED! +% +Waldheimer's disease is what you have when you can't remember you were a Nazi. +% +Washington [D.C.] is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm. + -- John F. Kennedy +% +Washington, D.C. Wasting your money since 1810. +% +We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to +socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by itself. The bad +thing is that socialism, being a victim of its ... Did I say socialism? + -- Fidel Castro +% +We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower +% +We are the unwilling... led by the unqualified... to do the unnecessary... +for the ungrateful... + -- GI in Vietnam, 1970 +% +We are upping our standards ... so up yours. + -- Pat Paulsen for President +% +We cannot put the face of a person on a stamp unless said person is deceased. +My suggestion, therefore, is that you drop dead. + -- James E. Day, Postmaster General +% +We could do that, but it would be wrong, that's for sure. + -- Richard Nixon +% +We could nuke Baghdad into glass, wipe it with Windex, tie fatback on our +feet and go skating. + -- Fred Reed, Air Force Times columnist. +% +We don't have to protect the environment -- the Second Coming is at hand. + -- James Watt, noted ecologist +% +We have gone on piling weapon upon weapon, missile upon missile, new +levels of destructiveness upon old ones. We have done this helplessly, +almost involuntarily: like the victims of some sort of hypnotism, like +men in a dream, like lemmings heading for the sea, like the children of +Hamelin marching blindly along behind their Pied Piper. And the result +is that today we have achieved, we and the Russians together, in the +creation of these devices and their means of delivery, levels of +redundancy of such grotesque dimensions as to defy rational understanding. + -- George Kennan, May 19, 1981 +% +We have no scorched earth policy. We have a policy of scorched Communists. + -- General Efrain Rios Montt, President of Guatemala, 1982 +% +We must finish once and for all with the neutrality of chess. We must condemn +once and for all the formula 'chess for the sake of chess,' like the formula +'art for art's sake.' We must organize shock-brigades of chess-players, and +begin the immediate realization of a Five-Year Plan for chess. + -- Nikolai V. Krylenko, People's Commissar for Justice + (of RFSFR, later of USSR), speaking at a 1932 Congress + of Chess Players, as quoted in Boris Souvarine's + "Stalin," published London, 1939 +% +We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy's side of +the front is always propaganda and what is said on our side of the front +is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace. + -- Walter Lippmann +% +"We should declare war on North Vietnam. We could pave the whole +country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas." + -- Ronald Reagan +% +We should keep the Panama Canal. After all, we stole it fair and square. + -- S.I. Hayakawa +% +WE'RE GOING TO THROW THE MX AWAY AFTER WE BUILD IT. The MX is really +[Don't tell anybody!] just a "bargaining chip" in the nuclear-arms- +reduction talks with the Russians. See, we have a problem with the +Russians. They look at our leaders and they see, for example, George +Bush, who is really a fine and brave man but who happens to have this +unfortunate physical characteristic whereby when he talks he sounds as +though he just inhaled a helium party balloon. If he ever becomes +President, the Russians will deliberately create nuclear crises just so +they can gather around the Hot Line with refreshments and listen to +George talk. + -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against + Political Fallout" +% +Well, here it is, 1983, so it won't be long before you start reading a lot +of boring stories about people like Vance Hartke. Hartke is a governor or +mayor or something from one of the flatter states, and the reason you'll be +reading about him is that he's one of the 50 top contenders for the 1984 +Democratic presidential nomination. These men will spend the next 18 months +going around the country engaging in the most degrading activities +imaginable, such as wearing idiot hats and appearing on "Meet the Press." +"Meet the Press" is one of those Sunday morning public interest shows that +the public is not the least bit interested in. It features a panel of +reporters who ask questions of a guest politician, who wins an Amana home +freezer if he can get through the entire show without answering a single +question ... + -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics" +% +Well, I would -- if they realized that we -- again if -- if we led them +back to that stalemate only because our retaliatory power, our seconds, +or strike at them after our first strike, would be so destructive they +they couldn't afford it, that would hold them off. + -- President Ronald Reagan, on the MX missile +% +What did Mickey Mouse get for Christmas? + +A Dan Quayle watch. +% +What is the difficulty with writing a PDP-8 program to emulate Jerry Ford? + +Figuring out what to do with the other 3K. +% +What is truth? We must adopt a pragmatic definition: it is what is believed +to be the truth. A lie that is put across therefore becomes the truth and +may, therefore, be justified. The difficulty is to keep up lying... it is +simpler to tell the truth and if a sufficient emergency arises, to tell one, +big thumping lie that will then be believed. + -- Ministry of Information, memo on the maintenance of + British civilian morale, 1939 +% +What luck for the rulers that men do not think. + -- Adolph Hitler +% +"When are you BUTTHEADS gonna learn that you can't oppose Gestapo tactics +*with* Gestapo tactics?" + -- Reuben Flagg +% +When democracy granted democratic methods to us in times of opposition, this +was bound to happen in a democratic system. However, we National Socialists +never asserted that we represented a democratic point of view, but we have +declared openly that we used the democratic methods only to gain power and +that, after assuming the power, we would deny to our adversaries without any +consideration the means which were granted to us in times of our opposition. + -- Josef Goebbels +% +When I grow up, I want to be an honest lawyer so things like that can't happen. + -- Richard Nixon as a boy (on the Teapot Dome scandal) +% +When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +When the President does it, that means it is not illegal. + -- Richard Nixon +% + When, in 1964, New Hampshire Republican Senator Norris Cotton announced +his support of Bary Goldwater in his state's primary election, he was +questioned as to whether this indicated a change of his hitherto "liberal" +political views. + "Well," explained Cotton, "it's like the New Hampshire farmer. He was +driving along in his car one day with his wife beside him when his wife said, +'Why don't we sit closer together? Before we were married, we always sat +closer together.' The old farmer replied, 'I ain't moved.'" + "I ain't moved," added Cotton. "I found the trend of Government has +moved farther to the left." + -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" +% +While passing a vacant lot late one night, a jogger was stopped by a man who +held a gun to his head. + "Who are you for," the gunman snarled, "Bush or Dukakis?" + The runner thought for a moment, shifting nervously from foot to foot, +as the muzzle pressed harder into his temple. + "Bush or Dukakis?" the mugger insisted. + Finally, the jogger shrugged his shoulders, closed his eyes and bowed +his head. "Go ahead and shoot." +% +"White House carpenters have reworked the master bedroom, remodeling it +so that Ronnie can sleep with his head in the hall. That way, by the +time he wakes up, somebody will have already shined his hair." +% +Who can take the demands of the SDS seriously? + -- Nathan Pusey +% +Within a month [in 1969] I had met the first of a small but not uninfluential +community of people who violently opposed SALT for a simple reason: It might +keep America from developing a first-strike capability against the Soviet +Union. I'll never forget being lectured by an Air Force colonel about how +we should have "nuked" the Soviets in late 1940s before they got The Bomb. +I was told that if SALT would go away, we'd soon have the capability to nuke +them again -- and this time we'd use it. + -- Roger Molander, former nuclear strategist for the + White House's National Security Council, Washington + Post, 21 March, 1982 +% +"Yes, that was Richard Nixon. He used to be President. When he left +the White House, the Secret Service would count the silverware." + -- Woody Allen, "Sleeper" +% +"You and I as individuals can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but +only for a limited period of time. Why should we think that collectively, +as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?" + -- Ronald Reagan +% +You buy a judge by weight, like iron in a junk yard. A justice of the +peace or a magistrate can be had for a five-dollar bill. In the +municipal courts, he will cost you ten. In the circuit or superior +courts, he wants fifteen. The state appellate courts or the state +supreme court is on a par with the Federal courts. By the time a judge +reaches such courts, he is middle-aged, thick around the middle, fat +between the ears. He's heavy. You can't buy a Federal judge for less +than a twenty-dollar bill. + -- Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik +% +You can build a throne out of bayonets, but you can't sit on it for very long. + -- Boris Yeltsin +% +You can't depend on the man who made the mess to clean it up. + -- Richard Nixon, 1952 +% +You can't underestimate the power of fear. + -- Tricia Nixon +% +You couldn't even prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonable doubt. + -- Ed Meese, on the Hinckley verdict +% +You guys have been practicing discrimination for years. Now it's our turn. + -- Thurgood Marshall, quoted by Justice Douglas +% +You know very well that whether you are on page one or page thirty depends +on whether [the press] fear you. It is just as simple as that. + -- Richard Nixon +% +You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation +as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases +which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. + -- Charles A. Beard +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/privates b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/privates new file mode 100644 index 0000000..362d1a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/privates @@ -0,0 +1,1012 @@ +A certain bartender decided to try to get a few new customers into his bar +by starting a gimmick involving a horse. His claim was that if anyone could +get the horse to laugh, he would give them drinks on the house. The idea +worked well and business improved until one night a young man walked in and +whispered in the horse's ear. The horse immediately burst into hysterical +laughter and the man won the contest. The next night the same thing +happened: the man whispered in the horse's ear and the horse burst out +laughing. The next night, the bartender decided to change the rules. Now, +a person had to get the horse to cry in order to win the drinks on the +house. Later on that night, the same guy came in and said "Can I take the +horse into the bathroom for a minute? I promise I'll make him cry." The +bartender agreed and sure enough, when the man came out leading the horse, +the horse was crying his eyes out. The bartender could take it no more and +said, "How did you make him laugh the other two nights?" + "I told him that my dick was bigger than his", replied the man. + "How did you make him cry tonight?" + "I proved it." +% +A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is not +mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty +trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators. + -- Dave Barry +% +A couple took their young son for his first visit to the circus, and by +chance their seats were next to the elephant pen. When his father left +to buy popcorn, the boy piped up, + "Mom, what's that long thing on the elephant?" + "That's the elephant's trunk, dear," she replied. + "No, not that." + "Oh, that's the elephant's tail." + "No, Mom. Down underneath." + His mother blushed and said, "Oh, that's nothing." + Pretty soon the father returned, and the mother went off to get +a soda. As soon as she had left the boy repeated his question. + "That's the elephant's trunk, son." + "Dad, I know what an elephant's trunk is. The thing at the +other end." + "Oh, that's the elephant's tail." + "No. Down there." + The father took a good look and explained, "That's the elephant's +penis." + "Dad, how come when I asked Mom, she said it was nothing?" + The man took a deep breath and replied, "Son, I've *spoiled* +that woman." +% +A cowboy, his horse and his dog were captured by hostile Indians. +This wasn't really a problem for the animals as the Indians can always use +them, but the cowboy is informed that he will be burned at the stake the +following sunrise. That evening, the Indian chief tells the cowboy that +he can one last wish, within reason, of course, before meeting his fate +the following morning. The cowboy replies that all he really wants is to +see his faithful dog, Rex, one last time. When the dog is brought by the +Indians, the cowboy hugs his companion and whispers something into his ear. +At once the dog runs off over the hill. Amazingly enough, a few hours later, +he returns, accompanied by some two dozen prostitutes from a nearby town. +Needless to say, the braves are delighted and as a reward offer the cowboy +his dog to keep him company through the rest of the night. When the dog is +brought forth the cowboy again runs his hand over Rex's head and then bends +down to whisper into his ear: "This may be my last chance, Rex, so get it +right this time -- go into town and get the posse!" +% +A figure with curves always offers a lot of interesting angles. +% + A great American Olympic wrestler was receiving last-minute advice +from his coach about the upcoming match with the Soviet Champion. + "This Russian guy is really good, very strong and quick. But I think +you can take him. Remember, though, like I've told you before, don't let +him get you in the Pretzel hold. With his strength you'd never get out." + The American leaps onto the mat, and within moments the two behemoths +are going crazy, struggling to get each other pinned. The American slowly +gains ground and appears that he might actually win on points alone, when, in +the blink of an eye, the Russian reverses him and whips him into the fatal +Pretzel hold. + The coach, off by the side, shakes his head in dismay, and sits down +on the bench with his head between his hands. All of a sudden, there's a +scream and the two wrestlers fly apart, the American regaining control and +pinning the Russian. After the match, in the dressing room, the coach +finally gets the winner alone. "Great job! But how the hell did you get out +of the Pretzel Hold? I thought it was over for sure!" + "Well, I did too. I was in the hold, about to be pinned, when I saw +this huge pair of testicles hanging right in front of my eyes. I figured +what the hell, so I stretched forward and bit them as hard as I could. Coach, +you just don't know your own strength 'til you've bitten your own balls!" +% + A group of soldiers being prepared for a practice landing on a tropical +island were warned of the one danger the island held, a poisonous snake that +could be readily identified by its alternating orange and black bands. They +were instructed, should they find one of these snakes, to grab the tail end of +the snake with one hand and slide the other hand up the body of the snake to +the snake's head. Then, forcefully, bend the thumb above the snake's head +downward to break the snake's spine. All went well for the landing, the +charge up the beach, and the move into the jungle. At one foxhole site, two +men were starting to dig and wondering what had happened to their partner. +Suddenly he staggered out of the underbrush, uniform in shreds, covered with +blood. He collapsed to the ground. His buddies were so shocked they could +only blurt out, "What happened?" + "I ran from the beachhead to the edge of the jungle, and, as I hit the +ground, I saw an orange and black striped snake right in front of me. I +grabbed its tail end with my left hand. I placed my right hand above my left +hand. I held firmly with my left hand and slid my right hand up the body of +the snake. When I reached the head of the snake I flicked my right thumb down +to break the snake's spine... did you ever goose a tiger?" +% +A man is talking to his wife when he mentions that there's a "Big Dick" +contest at one of the bars in town and the prize for the winner is $1000. + "Oh, honey," she exclaims, "I don't want you taking that thing +out in public!" + "But baby," he says, "$1000 is a lot of money." + "I don't care!" she says, stamping her foot. "I don't want you +showing that thing to everybody." + And the subject isn't mentioned again, until the following evening +when he hands her $1000. + "Did you enter the contest, even after I told you I didn't want +you to?" she asks. + "Please forgive me, turtle dove," he says. "I thought we could use +the money." + "You mean you took that thing out for everybody to see?" she says, +tears welling up in her eyes. + "Only enough to win, honey, only enough to win." +% + A man walks into a bar with a Leprechaun on his shoulder. He walks +up to the bar and sits down, ordering a beer for himself and one for the +little Leprechaun. + After a few beers, the Leprechaun jumps down off the guy's shoulder, +struts down the bar and comes to a stop in front of a rather large construction +worker. Looking the guy right in the eye, he gives him a rather large, damp, +Bronx cheer. And trots back to sit on his buddy's shoulder. The worker is +pretty upset, but decides to shine on this rather offensive breach of manners. + After another beer and a half though, the Leprechaun hops down and +walks over to his previous victim and goes "PPPPHHHHHHHBBBBTTTTTT" again. +Well, that's too much, and the victim knocks the Leprechaun off the bar and, +after walking over to stand very close to the Leprechaun's escort, tells him +in a rather overloud voice, that if it happens again, he's going to "cut off +his little dick!" + Replies the escort, "Leprechauns don't have dicks." + "Yeah? Well, then," asks the big man, how does he take a piss?" + "PPPPHHHHHHHBBBBTTTTTT!!!!" +% +A man walks into the doctor's office and the doctor says to him, "I've got +some good news and some bad news." + "Tell me the good news first" the patient replies. + "The good news is that your penis is going to be about two inches +longer and about an inch wider," the doctor says. + "That's great!" says his patient. "What's the bad news?" + "Malignant." +% +A man went to a doctor to have his penis enlarged. Well, this +particular procedure involved splicing a baby elephant's trunk onto the +man's penis. Overjoyed, the man went out with his best girl to a very +fancy restaurant. After cocktails, the man's penis crept out of his pants, +felt around the table, grabbed a hard roll and quickly disappeared under +the tablecloth. The girl was startled and exclaimed, "What was that?" + Suddenly the penis came back, took another hard roll and just as +quickly disappeared. The girl was silent for a moment, then finally said, +"I don't believe I saw what I think I just saw... can you do that again?" + With a bit of an uncomfortable smile the man replied, "Honey, I'd +like to, but I don't think my ass can take another hard roll!" +% +A man with no arms walked into a bar and asked for a beer. The bartender +shoved the foaming glass in front of him. + "Look," said the customer, "I have no arms -- would you please hold +the glass for me? + "Sure," said the bartender. + "If," said the customer, "you'll reach in my right hand coat pocket, +you'll find the money for the beer." + The bartender got the money and rang up the bill. + "You've been very kind," said the customer. "Just one thing more. +Where is the men's room?" + "Up the street to the light," said the bartender, "turn left, walk +two blocks, and there's a gas station on the corner." +% +A man's father is very, very old, and the son can't afford very good treatment +for him, so he's in a rather shabby, run-down nursing home. One day the son +wins a lottery -- and the first thing he does is install his father in the best +old age home that money can buy. + On the first day the old man is sitting watching TV, and he starts +to lean a little bit to one side. Right away a nurse runs over and gently +straightens the old man. A little later he's eating dinner, and when he +finishes, he begins to tip a little bit to one side. Another nurse runs +over and gently pushes him upright again. + The son visits his father later that evening and asks him how he's +being treated. + "It's a wonderful place, son," replies the father. "I really like +it here, gourmet food, color TV's in every room, the service is unbelievable, +there's just one little problem." + "What's that, Dad?" + "They won't let you fart." +% +A mouse was sniffing around in a meadow, when an eagle swooped down, +swallowed him whole, and rose up in the air again. The mouse worked +his way through until his head was sticking out of the bird's asshole. + "Say, good buddy," he squeaked, "how high up are we, anyway?" + "Oh, about two thousand feet," answered the eagle. + The mouse's eyes bugged out. "Hey, you wouldn't shit me, would you?" +% +A proctologist is a doctor who puts in a hard day at the orifice. +% +A son takes his Italian immigrant father to his first baseball game. It +happens that it's Old Timer's Day at Yankee stadium and all the baseball +greats are there. The son escorts his father to box seats right on the +third base line and seats him with beer and a Yankees cap. + The first batter up is Mickey Mantle. On the second pitch he +swings that bat and CRACK! The ball ricochets off the wall for a double. +The crowd goes crazy and the father stands up and yells, "Runna Mickey! +Runna Mickey!" + The next batter up is Joe DiMaggio. The pitcher, pitching him +carefully, works him to a 3-2 count and just misses the outside corner. + "Ball four!" yells the umpire and Joe tosses his bat aside and begins +to walk to first base. + The father yells out, "Runna Joe! Runna Joe!" + "No, no, Pop," corrects his son. "He got four balls. He walks." + And the old man clenches his fist and says solemnly, "Walka proud +Joe. Walka proud." +% +A stately-looking matron was walking through the Bronx Zoo, studying the +animals. When she passed the porcupine enclosure she beckoned to a nearby +attendant. + "Young man," she began, "do North American porcupines have sharper +pricks than those raised in Africa?" + The attendant hesitated for a moment. "Well, ma'am," he answered, +"the African porcupine's quills are sharper... but I think their pricks are +about the same." +% +A traveling circus was performing in a small town, around the turn of the +century, when many of the circus animals were still considered to be very +rare and exotic. One night one of the elephants escaped. It was hungry +and found a garden in a little old lady's backyard. The woman, who had +never before seen an elephant, was hysterical and called the police. + +Little Old Lady: "There's a *huge* monster in my garden! +Police: "Calm down, ma'am, everything will be all right. Now exactly what + does it look like?" +LOL: "It's a dark color and it's tremendous! It's pulling up my + vegetables with its tail!" +Police: "With its tail? Then what's it doing?" +LOL: "You wouldn't believe me if I told you!" +% + A white man was traveling with Indian (American) out West. The +Indian stops, puts his ear to the ground, and says, "Buffalo come." + The white man looks around in all directions, sees nothing for +miles and asks the Indian how the hell he knows that. + Replies the Indian, "Ear wet." + -- Lily Tomlin, "The Search for Signs of Intelligent + Life in the Universe" +% +A woman had a followup visit with her doctor after his prescribing fairly high +dosages of testosterone (a male hormone) for her. She was a little worried +about some of the side effects she was experiencing. + "Doctor Keyes, the hormones you've been giving me have helped a lot +with my menopausal symptoms, but I'm really afraid that you're giving me too +much. I've started growing hair in places that I've never grown hair before!" + The doctor reassured her. "A little hair growth is a perfectly normal +side effect of testosterone. Just where has this hair appeared?" + "On my balls." +% +A young boy is told by his puritanical father than he should never have +sex with a woman, because a woman has teeth in her vagina and will bite +off his penis. + The years go by, and the boy finally marries. After a rather +uninspiring honeymoon his wife finally confronts him and demands that he +tell her why he won't make love to her. + "Well, honey," he replies. "You have... teeth... down there." + "What!?" she replies unbelievingly. "No I don't! Honest, darling, +come here and look for yourself." + The man rather hesitantly examines her very thoroughly. + "There!" his wife says triumphantly. "Now do you believe me?" + "Yes," replied her husband. "And your gums are in *terrible* +condition." +% +A young lady friend of mine just swallowed a razor blade... +She performed a tonsillectomy, an appendectomy, a hysterectomy, +three circumcisions, and cut off the finger of a casual friend. +% +Adopting the metric system would have certain psychological advantages -- +such as being able to claim 18 centimeters instead of seven inches. +% +All jobs should be open to everybody, unless they actually require a +penis or a vagina. + -- Florynce Kennedy + +There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis +or a vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone. + -- Gloria Steinem +% +An old maid wanted to travel by bus to the pet cemetery with the +remains of her cat. As she boarded the bus, she whispered to the +driver, "I have a dead pussy." + +The driver pointed to the woman in the seat behind him and said, "Sit +with my wife. You two have a lot in common." +% +And now, the Bing Crosby show, brought to you by the makers of Ex-Lax. +... a brief pause, and then Bing! +% +Anything more than three shakes is for fun. +% +Build a better mousetrap, the saying goes -- and with the brassiere, Yankee +Ingenuity did exactly that. But their true stroke of genius was the new bait. +The old fashioned mousetrap was loaded with cheese; nobody cares much about +cheese, except mice. But when American know-how reloaded the brassiere with +tits, every heterosexual male in the country was hopelessly trapped. + -- Alan Sherman, "The Rape of the A*P*E*" +% +Captain Hook died of jock itch. +% +"Carefully study these two enlarged photographs on display, Mr. Rafferty," +the attorney for a politician suing a newspaper for libel instructed his +client on the witness stand, "and indicate which is your ass and which is +a hole in the ground." +% +Desperate about the state of her social life, a young woman resorted +to the Personal Ads in the back of her local paper. In the ad she made it +quite clear that what she was advertising for was an expert lover; she already +had plenty of sensitive friends and meaningful relationships and what she +now wanted was to get laid, to put it bluntly. Phone calls started coming +in, with each caller testifying to his sexual prowess, but none quite struck +the young woman's fancy. Until one night her doorbell rang. Opening the door +she found a man with no arms or legs, who informed her that he was there in +response to her advertisement. "I'm terribly sorry," she stammered, "but my +ad was quite explicit. I'm really looking for something of a sexual expert, +and you... uh... don't have all the..." + +"Listen," the man interrupted her, "I rang the doorbell, didn't I?" +% +Diet Mountain Dew has the same pH and density of urine. + -- Newsweek, 31 July, 1989 +% +Due to a mixup in urology, orange juice will not be served this morning. +% +Eat prune yogurt for that "get up and go" feeling. +% + Ever thought of putting a ferret down your pants? Yes, ferrets, +those weasel-like animals originally trained to hunt rats and possessing +needle sharp claws and razor sharp teeth. The English do it for sport. + Ferret Legging involves the tying of a competitors's trousers at +the ankles and then dropping into the trousers a couple of vicious ferrets. +No jockstraps or underwear allowed -- nothing but the bodies' own. The +ferrets must be young and in good condition. Neither the ferret or the +contestant may be drugged or drunk -- cold eyed sober only. The trousers +should be loose fitting, to allow the ferret to scramble from one leg to +the other, and are traditionally white, so that the blood shows better. + Normal contestants are able to keep them down for up to 40 seconds. +The champion ferret legger, Reg Mellor, of Yorkshire, holds the world record +of 5 hours and 26 minutes. Mr. Mellor's claims that being the champion is +not so much heroism but, "You just got to be able to have your tool bitten +and not care." +% +Fat dirty farts came spluttering out of your backside. You had an arse full +of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you, big fat fellows, +long windy ones, quick little merry cracks... + -- James Joyce +% +Four men had been playing golf together for twenty years. After their usual +Saturday game one week, one of the men joined the other three for a post-game +shower for the first time. His friends were surprised - "For twenty years", +one of them says, "you haven't showered after our game, you've just waited for +us in the clubhouse. Why the sudden change?" + "Well", replies their friend, "I was born with a fairly unusual +medical condition. I had both a penis and a vagina. Last month I finally +decided to have the vagina removed." + The other three men look at him in disbelief and disgust. "You +mean," snaps one of them, "you could have played from the women's tee all +these years?" +% +From the outset, the blind date was a fiasco and it was intensified by the +fact that the fellow was too insensitive and ego-ridden to realize it. The +moment of truth came in the supper club as he clutched the girl's thigh and +whispered, + "Baby, how's about our cutting out to my pad so I can slip you nine +inches?" +There was a moment of silence, and then the girl said, + "You know, I really don't think you could get it up three times +in a row!" +% +Good day for water sports. Take a bath with a friend. +% +Grownups are reluctant to take science fiction seriously, and with good +reason: sci-fi is a hormonal activity, not a literary one. Its traditional +concerns are all pubescent. Secondary sexual characteristics are everywhere, +disguised. Aliens have tentacles. Telepathy allows you to have sex without +any nasty inconvenience of touching. Womblike spaceships provide balanced +meals. No one ever has to grow old -- body parts are replaceable, like +Job's daughters, and if you're lucky you can become a robot. As for the +adult world, it's simply not there; political systems tend to be naively +authoritarian (there are more lords in science fiction than on public +television) and are often ruled by young boys on quests. The most popular +sci-fi book in years, Frank Herbert's Dune, sold millions of copies by +combining all these themes: it ends with its adolescent hero conquering the +universe while straddling a giant worm. + -- Arnold Klein +% +Half the posts to this group are about masturbation and the other half +are about penis size. And what I want to know is, if all you're doing +is jerking off, why do you care how big it is? + -- From alt.sex +% +Halt!! Who goes there, friend or enema? +% +Harry came into work on Monday feeling absolutely fine, and so was astonished +when his secretary urged him to lie down on the sofa; even more so when his +boss took one look at him and ordered him to take the day, if not the week, +off. Even his poker buddies wouldn't have anything to do with him, insisting +that he go straight to bed. Finally, tired of resisting everyone's advice, +he went to see his doctor, who took one look at him and rushed over with +a stretcher. + "But doctor," he protested, "I feel fine." +Well, this was a puzzler, conceded the doctor, who proceeded to refer to the +enormous reference tomes behind his desk, muttering to himself. + "Looks good, feels good... No, you look like hell. Looks good, +feels terrible... Nah, you feel fine, right?" +Thumbing furiously through another volume, he said, + "Looks terrible, feels terrible... Nope, that won't do it either." +Finally, "Looks terrible, feels terrific... Aha!! You're a vagina!" +% +He carried me over the stream, striding through the current, his strong, +muscular, thighs scarcely hesitating as he sure-footedly forded the water. +But what was that bulge, small, oblong, solid, that might have been, say, +a pocket camera? + -- An Exciting Journey +% +He who farts in church must sit in his own pew. +% +Her figure described a set of parabolas that could cause cardiac arrest +in a yak. + -- Woody Allen +% +HOW TO REMOVE STAINS -- #28 + Semen stains can be removed from computer terminals with + Fantastik or the like. Use Windex on the glass however, and + be sure to turn the power off if you have to clean between + the keys. +% +I can't believe that out of 100,000 sperm, you were the quickest. + -- Steven Pearl +% +I choked Linda Lovelace. +% +I continued wetting my bed for a long time, not just out of contrariness, +but to have the pleasure of feeling my warm urine running down my legs +and wallowing in its odor. + -- Salvador Dali +% + I don't want to say that she had big tits, but one day I asked her +just how big they was, and she said, "7 and 7/8". + I said, "7 and 7/8?! What did you measure 'em with?" + And she replied, "A Stetson." +% +I know what you're up to, you white-feathered fiend! +Go release your bowels on some lesser personage! + -- W.C. Fields, upon seeing a bird overhead +% +"I need a camel that can go without water for at least three weeks," +the American said to an Algerian camel merchant. "Is it possible?" + "All things are possible," replied the merchant. He proceeded to +take a camel out of his barn and lead him to a tank of water. After the +camel had drunk its fill and was about to lift its head out of the tank, +the merchant picked up two nearby bricks, one in each hand, stepped behind +the camel, and smacked his testicles with the bricks. + The camel let out a gigantic "Whhoooosh!" and sucked up what seemed +like twenty more gallons of water. + The American stared incredulously at the camel merchant. "My God, +man!" he exclaimed, "doesn't that hurt?!" + The merchant shrugged. "Only if you get your thumbs in between the +bricks." +% +I tell ya, I knew my morning wasn't going right. When I put on my shirt +the button fell off, when I picked up my briefcase, the handle fell off, +I tell ya, I was afraid to go to the bathroom. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I walked on toward Ploughwright, thinking about feces. What a lot we had +found out about the prehistoric past from the study of fossilized dung of +long-vanished animals. A miraculous thing, really; a recovery from the +past from what was carelessly rejected. And in the Middle Ages, how +concerned people who lived close to the world of nature were with the +feces of animals. And what a variety of names they had for them: the +Crotels of a Hare, the Friants of a Boar, the Spraints of an Otter, the +Werderobe of a Badger, the Waggying of a Fox, the Fumets of a Deer. +Surely there might be some words for the material so near to the heart of +Ozy Froats [an academic studying feces] than shit? What about the +Problems of a President, the Backward Passes of a Footballer, the +Deferrals of a Dean, the Odd Volumes of a Librarian, the Footnotes of a +Ph.D., the Low Grades of a Freshman, the Anxieties of an Untenured Professor? + -- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels" +% +I was a cock-teaser at Rooster Rama. +I used to enrage the bantams before the big bouts. + -- Firesign Theatre +% +I was toilet-trained at gunpoint. + -- Billy Braver +% +I will not be briefed or debriefed, my underwear is my own. +% +I'm not laughing behind your back; everything funny is in front! + -- Rodney Dangerfield's wife +% +In France they piss on Main Street. (In pissoirs, Mama, not cheap display). + -- Joni Mitchell +% +In outer space, nobody can hear you fart. +% +It is recounted that at King's College in the Strand around the time of the +war, the Chief of Services would inevitably begin the year's rounds by +teaching "a singularly important principle of medicine." He asked a nurse +to fetch him a sample of urine. He then talked at length about Diabetes +mellitus. "Diabetes," he said, "is a greek name; but the Romans noticed that +the bees like the urine of diabetics, so they added the word mellitus which +means sweet as honey. Well, as you know, you may find sugar in the urine +of a diabetic ..." + By now the nurse had returned with a sample of urine which the +registrar promptly held up like a trophy. We stared at that straw-colored +fluid as if we had never seen such a thing before. The registrar then +startled us. He dipped a finger boldly into the urine, then licked his +finger with the tip of his tongue. As if tasting wine, he opened and closed +his lips rapidly. Could he perhaps detect a faint taste of sugar? The sample +was passed on to us for an opinion. We all dipped a finger into the fluid, +all of us foolishly licked that finger. + "Now," said the Registrar grinning, "You have learnt the first +principle of diagnosis. I mean the power of observation." We were baffled. +We stood near the sluice room outside the ward, and in the distance, some +anonymous patient was explosively coughing. "You see," the registrar said +continuing triumphantly, "I dipped my MIDDLE finger into the urine, but +licked my INDEX finger -- not like all you chaps. +% +It takes leather balls to play rugby. + (Blood makes the grass grow!) +% +It was at the eighth annual mouse convention and mice from near and far had +gathered for the ball. A pretty little female mouse waltzed by the stag +line and one of the males whistled a low, dirty whistle to himself. +Turning to another mouse he said, "Look at the legs on that bitch, aren't +they beautiful?" + "Just fair," was the answer. + "You're crazy," said the first mouse and then turning to another, +asked his opinion. + "They're nice," said the third mouse, "but nothing to get excited +about." + "Some mice have no appreciation," exclaimed the first mouse. "Now +you," he said to a fourth mouse, "what did you think?" + "To tell you the truth," was the reply, "I'm no authority on legs; +I'm a tit mouse myself." +% +Joan, the rather well-proportioned secretary, spent almost all of +her vacation sunbathing on the roof of her hotel. She wore a bathing suit +the frist day, but on the second, she decided that no one could see her +way up there, and she slipped out of it for an overall tan. She'd hardly +begun when she heard someone running up the stairs; she was lying on her +stomach, so she just pulled a towel over her rear. + "Excuse me, miss," said the flustered little assistant manager of +the hotel, out of breath from running up the stairs. "The Hilton doesn't +mind your sunbathing on the roof, but we would very much appreciate your +wearing a bathing suit as you did yesterday." + "What difference does it make," Joan asked rather calmly. "No one +can see me up here, and besides, I'm covered with a towel." + "Not exactly," said the embarrassed little man. "You're lying on +the dining room skylight." +% +Konrad Lorenz, the great animal behaviorist, was scrupulous about cultivating +fruitful confusion. Lorenz lived among his research subjects: dozens of +species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes. He did not quantify, control, +or consciously experiment. He got to know each creature individually, then +threw them together, watching for the unexpected, the unusual, or the bizarre +in the chaos that followed. For example, his interest in one of ethology's +most important concepts, that of intention movements (motions with meaning, +such as the head bobbing in birds that serves as an alarm signal before +flight), derived from an inadvertent experiment. He had trained a free-flying +raven to eat raw meat from his hand and had been feeding the bird for several +hours one day. He would reach into his pants pocket and take out a piece of +meat, and the raven would swoop down to grab it in its bill. By and by, Lorenz +went to relieve himself near a hedge. When the raven saw him put his hand +into his pants and pull out another morsel of meat, it swooped down, hungrily +grasping the new mouthful in its bill. Lorenz howled in pain. But the event +left a deep impression on him -- about how faithfully animals respond to +intention movements, that is. + -- The Sciences, May/June, 1988, N.Y. Academy of Science. +% +Ladies, here's a hint: If you're playing against a friend who has big +boobs, bring her to the net and make her hit backhand volleys. That's +the hardest shot for the well endowed. "I've got to hit over them or +under them, but I can't hit through," Annie Jones used to always moan +to me. Not having much in my bra, I found it hard to sympathize with her. + -- Billie Jean King +% +Lady to Golf Pro: "I was stung by bees on your golf course!" +Pro: "Ummm, well, where?" +Lady: "Between the 1st and 2nd holes." +Pro: "That's going to real tough to treat." +% +... like, what do they mean when they say 'feminine protection'? What's that? +A chartreuse flamethrower? + -- Opus +% +Man in stall: + Hey, buddy? Is there any toilet paper out there? +Man at sink: + No, I don't see any. Just a second... Nope, none in + any of the other stalls either. +A minute passes. +Man in stall: + Say, buddy? +Man at sink: + Yeah? +Man in stall: + You got change for a ten? +% +Man who dance in crowded ballroom dance cheek to cheek with woman behind him. +% +Man who keep money in jockstrap has financial matters all balled up. +% +Many a bachelor feels the need to insert his masculinity. +% +May Allah blow sand in your Preparation H. +% +May the fairy god-camel leave a lump on your pillow! +% +Maybe if the guy who developed Twinkies hadn't had such a low +opinion of himself they would have been an inch or two longer! +% +"Mind you, not as bad as the night Archie Pettigrew ate some sheep's testicles +for a bet... God, that bloody sheep kicked him!" + -- Ripping Yarns +% + Mr. Hersh came home to find his wife sitting naked in front of the +mirror, admiring her breasts. + "And what do you think you're doing?" he asked. + "I went to the doctor today and he said I have the breasts of a +twenty-five-year-old." + "Oh yeah? And what did he have to say about your forty-year-old ass?" + "Nothing," she replied. "Your name didn't come up at all." +% +Mr. Rection, Mr. Hugh G. Rection, please pick up a white courtesy telephone! +% +My mother didn't breast-feed me. She said she liked me as a friend. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +My wife has breast cancer. She told me to start dating. + -- Howard Stern +% +Naked children are so perfectly pure and lovely. I confess I do not admire +naked boys. They always seem to me to need clothes -- whereas one hardly +sees why the lovely forms of girls should ever be covered up. + -- Lewis Carroll +% +Naked couple in bed, woman says to man: + "When I said I had a foot fetish, I was referring to cocks." +% +Oh, ya doesn't have ta call me 'Johnson'! Well, you can call me 'Ray', or +you can call me 'Jay', or you can call me 'R.J.', or you can call me 'Ray +J.', or you can call me 'R.J.J.', or you can call me 'Ray J. Johnson', or +you can call me 'R.J. Johnson', but ya DOESN'T have to call me 'Johnson'... +% +Once in a medieval times...there was a King who was getting sort of +bored after dinner one night. He decided to hold a contest of who at the +court had the mightiest "weapon". The first knight stood up and proclaimed +that he had the mightiest weapon... he pulled down his pants and tied a 5 +pound weight around it. The weapon doth rose. The crowds cheered... the +women swooned... the children waved multi-colored banners... and the band +played appropriate music. + Another knight stood up and claimed that he had the mightiest weapon. +He dropped his pants and tied a 10 pound weight to himself. The weapon doth +rose. The crowds cheered... the women swooned... the children waved +multi-colored banners... and the band played appropriate music. + After several more knights tried to prove their superiority... the +King finally spoke out. "I have the mightiest weapon of them all!" He dropped +his pants and tied, not a 10 pound, not a 20 pound, not ever a thirty pound, +but a 40 pound weight, plus a coffe pot, to himself. The weapon doth rose. +The crowds cheered... the women swooned... the children waved multi-colored +banners... and the band played "God Save the Queen." +% +Once you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. +% +One day a mouse was driving along the road in his Mercedes when he heard an +anguished roaring noise coming from the side of the road. Stopping the car, +he got out and discovered a lion stuck in a deep ditch and roaring for help. +Reassuring the lion, the mouse tied a rope around the axle of the Mercedes, +threw the other end down to the lion, and pulled the beast out of the ditch. +The lion thanked the mouse profusely and they went their separate ways. + Two months later the lion was out for a stroll in the country when +he heard a panicked squeaking coming from the side of the road. Investigating +the noise, what should he come across but the mouse stuck in the same hole. +"Oh, please help me, Mr. Lion," squeaked the terrified mouse. "I saved you +with my car once, remember?" + "Course I'll help you, little fellow," roared the lion. "I'll just +lower my dick down to you, you hold on to it, and we'll have you out of there +in a jiffy." Sure enough, a few minutes later the mouse was high and dry on +the roadside, trying to convey his eternal gratitude to the lion. + "Don't give it another thought," said the lion kindly. "It just goes +to show that if you've got a big dick, you don't need a Mercedes." +% +One day, in a bar, a young man walks in with a little dwarf about one foot +tall on his shoulder and orders a beer. The bartender serves the man a beer; +to his astonishment, the little guy walks down the man's arm, takes a swallow +of the brew and spits it in his face. After a few minutes the customer +orders another beer and the exact same thing happens. Well, by this time, +the bartender is getting pretty upset; he figures that the man should take +care of the dwarf. So he asks the guy, "Why are you letting that guy drink +all your beer and spit it in my face?" + "Well, sir, when I was on a contract in Saudi Arabia I met this genie +and he granted me three wishes. I asked for a million dollars, the most +beautiful woman in the world, and a twelve-inch prick. +% +One who does not know a burro from a burrow does not know his ass from a +hole in the ground! +% +Opinions are like assholes -- everyone's got one, but nobody wants to look +at the other guy's. + -- Hal Hickman +% + PLAYGIRL, Inc. + Philadelphia, Pa. 19369 + +Dear Sir: + Your name has been submitted to us with your photo. I regret to +inform you that we will be unable to use your body in our centerfold. On +a scale of one to ten, your body was rated a minus two by a panel of women +ranging in age from 60 to 75 years. We tried to assemble a panel in the +age bracket of 25 to 35 years, but we could not get them to stop laughing +long enough to reach a decision. Should the taste of the American woman +ever change so drastically that bodies such as yours would be appropriate +in our magazine, you will be notified by this office. Please, don't call +us. + Sympathetically, + Amanda L. Smith + +p.s. We also want to commend you for your unusual pose. Were you + wounded in the war, or do you ride your bike a lot? +% +Prior to this year's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame cermony, [Cash] went to +the bathroom. "I was standing at the urinal, and Keith Richards walked +in... He said, 'Look at this, I'm pissing with Johnny Cash. We need a +picture of this.' I said, 'No, Keith, we *don't* need a picture of this.'" + -- Rolling Stone interview with Johnny Cash. +% +Raquel Welch: 36-24-36 +Bo Derek: 35-24-36 +Ann-Margaret: 37-25-36 +Bette Middler: 37-25-36 +Marilyn Monroe: 37-24-37 +Jane Russell: 39-27-38 +Jayne Mansfield: 40-23-37 +Sophia Loren: 37-25-36 +% +Rugby is a game played by men with peculiarly shaped balls. +% +Seems like this duck waddles into a pharmacy, waddles up to the prescription +counter and rings the bell. The pharmacist walks up and asks, "Can I help +you?". + The duck replies, "Yes, I'd like a box of condoms, please." + "Certainly", says the pharmacist, "will that be cash or would +you like me to put it on your bill?" + Snarls the duck, "Just what kind of duck do you think I am?" +% +Seems this fellow was suffering from terrific headaches, and went to his +doctor about it. The physician made a number of tests, and informed the man +that the only thing for his headaches was castration. After a few more +months, the headaches became so intense that the man agreed to the operation. +Naturally enough, the ruination of his sex life depressed him tremendously, +and he decided to purchase a new wardrobe to make himself feel better. +He enters a men's clothing store and a salesman wanders over, looks him +up and down, and says, "Well, let's start with shirts... 15 neck, 34 sleeve." + The guy is amazed. "How'd you know?" + "Well, I've been here nearly 30 years, and I can tell sizes within +a quarter inch on every piece of clothing." The salesman's claim is borne +out. Slacks, 34 waist, 32 inseam; jacket: 42 long. And so on and so forth. +When the man has been completely outfitted he decides that he'd better buy +some new underwear. + The salesman looks at him and says, "Okay, that'll be a 34." + "No, that's wrong," says the man. "I've always worn a 32." The +salesman insists, pointing out his accuracy so far. The man argues, agreeing +that while he's been right so far, he has always worn a 32 in shorts. + Finally in exasperation, the salesman says, "Listen, I tell you, +you *have* to wear a 34. Otherwise, you'll get these *awful* headaches." +% +Short man who dance with tall woman gets bust in mouth. +% + Shortly after arriving at their honeymoon destination, the +still-nervous groom became worried about the state of his bride's innocence. +Deciding on a direct confrontation, he quickly undressed, pointed at his +exposed manhood and asked his mate, "Do you know what this is?" + Without hesitation, she blushingly answered, "That's a wee-wee." + Delighted at the idea of instructing his naive wife in the ways of +love, the husband whispered, "From now on, dearest, this will be called a +prick." + "Oh, come now," the girl chided. "I've seen lots of pricks and I +assure you, that's a wee-wee." +% +Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper. +% +Size counts. +% +Sniff sniff... Hey! Who farted? +% +Snow White: + "Gee guys, I've always dreamed of getting ten inches... + but not an inch-and-a-half at a time! +% +... So this is a very confusing situation, and what makes it even +worse is, our standards keep changing. Take Playboy magazine. Back in the +1950s, when I started reading it strictly for the articles, Playboy was +considered just about the raciest thing around, even though all it ever +showed was women's breasts. Granted, any given one of these breasts would +have provided adequate shelter for a family of four, but the overall effect +was no more explicit than many publications we think nothing of today, such +as Sports Illustrated's Annual Nipples Poking Through Swimsuits Issue. + -- Dave Barry, "Pornography" +% +Sometimes guys'll say to you, "Have a good one." I say, "I already have +a good one. Now I'm looking for a longer one." + -- George Carlin +% +Success is like a fart -- only your own smells nice. + -- James P. Hogan +% +The difference between this school and a cactus plant is that the +cactus has the pricks on the outside. +% + The new patron was amazed by the cleanliness of the restaurant. A +waiter approached the table. "Good afternoon, sir. What may I serve you?" + "I'll have the steak dinner," the man answered. + As the waiter headed for the kitchen, the diner noticed that he +wore a spotless white apron and clean white gloves. Soon the waiter +returned, bearing a casserole dish on a cart which he uncovered to reveal +two tempting filet mignons. From a covered pocket in his apron he produced +a small pair of shining silver tongs and with them he transferred the meat +from the steaming casserole to the diner's plate. "We never touch anything +with our hands," he explained. + The waiter continued serving. "Confidentially," he said, "we even +have a special set of rules about visiting the lavatory. Do you see this +little piece of string attached to my apron?" + "Yes," the diner replied. "I noticed that all the aprons had one." + The waiter put a large browned potato on the plate with his tongs. +"Well," he began, "if I should have to go to the bathroom, that string +comes in very handily. I simply unzip my pants and take it out with that +piece of string. That way everything stays sanitary." + "But how do you put it back?" + "Well, I don't know about the other guys," the waiter confided, "but +I use the tongs." +% +The only way for writers to meet is to share a quick pee over a common lamppost. + -- Cyril Connolly, "Journal and Memoir" +% +The real trouble with women is that they have *all* the pussy. +% +The word "spine" is, of course, an anagram of "penis". This is true in +almost fifty percent of the languages of the Galaxy, and many people +have attempted to explain why. Usually these explanations get bogged +down in silly puns about "standing erect". + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% + The young male race horse came from a long line of winners, and did +wonderfully in time trials. However, in actual races he proved a little too +romantic, and could never quite bring himself to pass a mare. + So one day the trainer went to him and told him he'd have to be +castrated. The young horse, knowing that it was either this or the glue +factory, took it philosophically. After all, having the operation was +almost a certain guarantee of a long and illustrious racing career. + After a short recovery period, the horse was again run in time +trials, and found to do as well as ever. But the first time he actually +ran in a race, he only went about ten paces, before getting a dejected look +on his face, turning around, and ambling back to the starting gates. + "What's the matter?" asked the trainer, "you were doing great!" + "Yeah, well how would you feel" replied the horse, "if five thousand +people took one look at you and shouted `they're off!'?" +% +The young man-about-town enjoyed luxury but didn't always have the means +to buy it, and so he huffily walked out of the Miami Beach hotel when he +found out the charges for room, meals and golf privileges were $300 a day. +He registered across the street at an equally elegant hotel, where the +rates were only $70. The following morning he went down to the hotel's +golf course and asked Scotty, the pro, to sell him a couple of golf balls. +"Sure," said Scotty. "That'll be $25 apiece." + "What?" screamed the bachelor. "In the hotel across the street +they only charge $1 a ball!" + "Naturally," replied the pro. "Over there they get you by the +rooms." +% +There was once a salesman who had an outstanding record for selling tooth- +brushes. His boss, wondering at his unlikely success, sent a man out to +follow the salesman on rounds to see what pitch he gave that brought such +good results. It was soon found that this particular salesman went to the +corner of a busy street and opened up his briefcase, and on one side was the +assortment of toothbrushes, and on the other side various chips and garnishes +and a bowl of brownish stuff. He would grab a likely customer and give them +the following pitch. + "Good morning, ma'am, this is a commercial promotion for --- brand +of chip dip. Would you care to give it a try?" + At that point the person would try it, then spit it out and scream +in utter disgust, "This tastes like shit!" + The salesman would smile and say, "It is. You want to buy a +toothbrush?" +% +There's a vas deferens between men and women. +% + This 600-pound guy decides he can't go on living this way, so he seeks +the help of a clinic and proceeds to go on a drastic diet. It works: four +months later he's down to 160 pounds and feeling great, except for one problem. +He's covered with great folds of flesh where the fat used to be. He calls +up the clinic, and the doctor tells him not to worry. "There's a special +surgical procedure to correct this condition," the doctor assures him. "Just +come on over to the clinic." + "But doctor," the man pleads, "you don't understand. I'm too +embarrassed to be seen in public like this." + "Don't give it another thought," says the doctor. "Simply pull up +all the folds as high as they'll go, pile the flesh on top of your head, put +on a top hat, and come on over." + The guy follows the instructions and provokes no comments until he +reaches the clinic and is standing in front of the admitting nurse's desk, +dying of self-consciousness. "The doctor will be right with you," says the +nurse. "Say, what's that hole in the middle of your forehead?" + "My navel," blurts out the guy, "how d'ya like my tie?" +% +This fellow rushed into a crowded tavern on Saturday night. Men and women +stood three-deep at the bar. Our man, who felt nature calling strongly, +looked about him but couldn't see anything that resembled a john. He saw a +stairway and bounded up the steps to the second floor in his increasingly +desperate search. Just as his bowels threatened to erupt, he spotted a +one-foot by one-foot hole in the floor. Now, at the end of his control, he +decided to take advantage of the hole. He dropped his pants, hunched over it, +and did his thing. Thoroughly relieved and relaxed, he sauntered down the +steps to find, to his suprise, that the crowded bar was now empty. + "Hey!" he yelled to the seemingly empty room, "Where is everyone?" + From behind the bar a voice responded, "Hey! Where were you when +the shit hit the fan?" +% +This guy, see, was walkin' down the street sportin' two -- not one, but two +-- black eyes; a coupla real shiners. He chanced upon his buddy walkin' th' +other way... they stopped to talk... "Hey guy," sez his buddy, "where'd'ja +git them good lookin' shiners? Musta been a helluva fight." + "Well, actually, I got them in church," sez he. + "Nowwaitaminnit," sez the friend, "nobody gits black eyes in church!" + "I swear I did," sez he, "and here's how it happened. We all got up +to sing a hymn, you see, and the fat lady in front of me got her dress all +stuck up in the crack of her butt, so bein' as how I'm a real gennulman an' +all, well, I leaned forward and pulled it out for her. And you know what? +She just turned around, hauled off and slugged me one!" + "Well," his buddy replies, after he can talk again, "that shore 'nuff +explains one of 'em. Howdja git th' other one?" + "Well," sez he, "like I said, I'm a gennulman, even when somebody does +me wrong, so when I saw she didn't like it like that, I stuck it back in." +% +This hot and dusty cowboy rode in from the mesa, filthy and exhausted. He +obviously had had nothing but his horse for company for a couple of weeks +and was looking forward to a couple of cold beers in the saloon. Swinging +off his horse and hitching it to the rail, the cowboy gave his horse an +affectionate slap on the neck. Then he astonished an old cowhand lounging +on the porch by moving around to the horse's hindquarters, lifting up its +tail and planting a demure kiss on its asshole. + "What'd you do that for?" asked the cowhand, completely repulsed. + "Chapped lips," said the cowboy, heading for the saloon doors. + "Wait a minute," said the old guy. "Whaddaya mean, chapped lips?" + "Keeps ya from lickin' 'em," explained the cowboy. +% +Tonight's piss is tommorrow's Tang. + -- An American astronaut +% +Two Peace Corps doctors who had just returned to a stateside hospital +were in front of the main desk in the midst of a heated argument that +went along these lines: + (1st doctor) "No, no, no! It's 'waaaahmmmb'" + (2nd doctor) "No you're wrong! It's 'woooooommmb'" +and this continued for quite sometime. + Finally a nurse stepped in and said: "The correct pronunciation is +'womb'" and trotted off. + (1st doctor) "That shows you what she knows." + (2nd doctor) "Yeah. I bet she's never even SEEN a hippopotamus, +let alone heard one fart underwater." +% +USENET is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- +massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and +a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least +expect it. + -- Gene Spafford +% +Well, God gave me a bust. What am I supposed to do with it? + -- Martha Mitchell +% +What a man enjoys most about a woman's clothes are his fantasies of how +she would look without them. + -- Brendan Francis +% +While away at a convention, an executive happened to meet a young woman who +was pretty, chic, and intelligent. When he persuaded her to disrobe in his +hotel room, he found out she had a superb body as well. Unfortunately, as +will happen, the executive sadly found himself unable to perform. + On his first night home, the executive padded naked from the shower +into the bedroom to find his wife swathed in a rumpled bathrobe, her hair +curled, her face creamed, munching candy loudly as she pored through a movie +magazine. And then, without warning, he felt the onset of a magnificent +erection. + Looking down at his throbbing member, he snarled, "Why you ungrateful, +mixed-up, son-of-a-bitch! Now I know why they call you a prick!" +% +Why not, for example, offer a brand-new Mustang convertible to every girl +who consents to having her Fallopian tubes tied in a Gordian knot? ... It +would have the additional benefit of eliminating from the gene pool those +stupid enough to consent to such a deal. + -- Edward Abbey +% +Working hard around here is like pissing on yourself in a dark suit; +you get a warm feeling but nobody notices. +% +Would you rather have a 5-inch hard or an 8-inch floppy? +% +Ya know, Quaker Oats make you feel good twice! +% +You are witty, charming, handsome and above average in length. +% +You know what burns my ass? A flame about three feet high. +% +You should be a hemorrhoid, you're such a pain in the ass. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/racism b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/racism new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d7b8e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/racism @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the +entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family. + -- Saul Alinsky +% +They don't suffer. They can't even speak English. + -- George F. Baer, answering a reporter's + question about the suffering of starving miners. +% +We are giving instruction to FBI agents in the various Chinese +dialects ... to handle present and likely future contingencies. + -- J. Edgar Hoover +% +The whole white race is a monster who is always hungry, and what he +eats is land. Chiksika, (Shawnee) +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/religion b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/religion new file mode 100644 index 0000000..38de188 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/religion @@ -0,0 +1,1376 @@ +A casual stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove +anything. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +A Catholic and a Methodist were carpooling to work one morning, when a brick +fell out of the sky, which startled the driver and caused him to swerve off +the road and into a telephone pole, totaling the car. + The two stumbled out of the wreckage, both feeling quite fortunate +to be alive. The Catholic crossed himself. Then the Protestant crossed +himself in an accentuated manner. + "Hey," said the Catholic, "I why did you cross yourself, you're not +Catholic!" + "Just checking," replied his friend, crossing himself again, +"spectacles, testicles, wallet, pen." +% +A Christian is a man who feels repentance on Sunday for what he did on +Saturday and is going to do on Monday. + -- Thomas Ybarra +% +A clever prophet makes sure of the event first. +% +A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than +he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men +favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter +facts of life in bandages of self-illusion. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +A key to the understanding of all religions is that a God's idea of a +good time is a game of Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs. +% + A man dies and is getting his tour of heaven. His guide is pointing +out the various features and landmarks when the man asks, "What's that cliff?" + "Oh, you don't want to look down there. That's hell!" + The man creeps up to the edge and looks over. He sees lush, green +valleys, verdant farmland and trees everywhere. "This doesn't look so bad," +he says. + Puzzled, the guide comes over and looks down. "Damn!" he snaps, +"Those Mormons have been irrigating again!" +% +A man fell off a mountain and, as he fell, saw a branch and grabbed for it. +By superhuman effort he was able to get a precarious grip on it. As he +was hanging there for dear life, he looked up and cried out, + "Is anybody there?" +A deep majestic voice answered, + "Yes my son, I am here. What do you need?" + "Help me!!" cried the man. + "I will help you", said the voice, "Just let go of the branch and +you'll be safe. All you have to do is trust." +The man thought for a moment and cried out: + "Anybody ELSE up there?" +% +A man without a God is like a fish without a bicycle. +% +"A Mormon is a man that has the bad taste and the religion to do what a +good many other people are restrained from doing by conscientious +scruples and the police." + -- Mr. Dooley +% +A myth is a religion in which no-one any longer believes. + -- James Feibleman, "Understanding Philosophy" +% +A Puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone, somewhere, is +having fun. +% +A rabbi and a priest are sitting together on a train, and the rabbi leans +over and asks, "So, how high can you advance in your organization?" + The priest replies, "Well, if I am lucky, I guess I could become a +Bishop." + "Well, could you get any higher than that?" + "I suppose that if my works are seen in a very good light that I +might be made an Archbishop." + "Is there any way that you might go higher than that?" + "If all the Saints should smile, I guess I could be made a Cardinal." + "Could you be anything higher than a Cardinal?" + Hesitating a little bit, the priest said, "I supose that I could +be elected Pope, but only if it's God's will." + "And could you be anything higher than that, is there any way to go +up from being the Pope?" + "What?! I should be the Messiah himself?!" + The rabbi leaned back and smiled. "One of our boys made it." +% +"Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western +religion, Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of +Western science." + -- Gary Zukav, "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" +% +All Gods were immortal. + -- Stanislaw J. Lem, "Unkempt Thoughts" +% +All religions issue Bibles against Satan, and say the most injurious things +against him, but we never hear his side. + -- Mark Twain +% +All the waters of the earth are in the armpit of the Great Frog. + -- R. Crumb +% +Already the spirit of our schooling is permeated with the feeling that every +subject, every topic, every fact, every professed truth must be submitted +to a certain publicity and impartiality. All proffered samples of learning +must go to the same assay-room and be subjected to common tests. It is the +essence of all dogmatic faiths to hold that any such "show-down" is +sacrilegious and perverse. The characteristic of religion, from their point +of view, is that it is intellectually secret, not public; peculiarly revealed, +not generally known; authoritatively declared, not communicated and tested +in ordinary ways...It is pertinent to point out that, as long as religion +is conceived as it is now by the great majority of professed religionists, +there is something self-contradictory in speaking of education in religion +in the same sense in which we speak of education in topics where the method +of free inquiry has made its way. The "religious" would be the last to be +willing that either the history of the content of religion should be taught +in this spirit; while those to whom the scientific standpoint is not merely +a technical device, but is the embodiment of the integrity of mind, must +protest against its being taught in any other spirit. + -- John Dewey, "Democracy in the Schools", 1908 +% +An atheist is a man with no invisible means of support. +% +"And Bezel saideth unto Sham: `Sham,' he saideth, `Thou shalt goest +unto the town of Begorrah, and there thou shalt fetcheth unto thine +bosom 35 talents, and also shalt thou fetcheth a like number of cubits, +provideth that they are nice and fresh.'" + -- Dave Barry, "Getting Religion" +% +...And have you ever noticed that you never see the Father, the Son, and +the Holy Ghost partying together at the same time? Oh, sure, everybody +talks like they aren't the same person, but I wonder... +% + And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?" + They replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground +of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood +revealed." + And Jesus replied, "What?" +% +...and no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers. No matter how assured +we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful +inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions. This is true in religion +as it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except fanatics and the +naive. As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in our own time, we +might be advised to leave them to heaven. They will not, unfortunately, do +us the same courtesy. They attack us and each other, and whatever their +protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody record of history makes clear +that they are easily disposed to restore to the sword. My own belief in +God, then, is just that -- a matter of belief, not knowledge. My respect +for Jesus Christ arises from the fact that He seems to have been the most +virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth. But even well-educated Christians are +frustated in their thirst for certainty about the beloved figure of Jesus +because of the undeniable ambiguity of the scriptural record. Such ambiguity +is not apparent to children or fanatics, but every recognized Bible scholar +is perfectly aware of it. Some Christians, alas, resort to formal lying to +obscure such reality. + -- Steve Allen +% + And on the third day, Christ arose, pushed aside the rock that had +served as the tomb door, and walked again on the earth. + And as he departed, a passer-by pointed at the door Jesus had left +open. "What's the matter with you?" he said. "Born in a barn?" +% +Ankh if you love Isis. +% +Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent. + -- Lazarus Long +% +As I argued in "Beloved Son", a book about my son Brian and the subject of +religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction in the +methods of rational thought will be to make sudden mindless conversions -- +to anything -- less likely. Brian now realizes this and has, after eleven +years, left the sect he was associated with. The problem is that once the +untrained mind has made a formal commitment to a religious philosophy -- +and it does not matter whether that philosophy is generally reasonable and +high-minded or utterly bizarre and irrational -- the powers of reason are +suprisingly ineffective in changing the believer's mind. + -- Steve Allen +% +As the Catholic church becomes more and more tolerant, some day they will +have to consider the possibility of a gay pope. Possibly the largest +issue will be having to decide whether he is "absolutely divine" or "just +simply marvelous." +% +As the recent sightings of bumper stickers reading "IN CASE OF RAPTURE, THIS +VEHICLE WILL BE UNMANNED" have created a great deal of confusion, Fortune +offers the following excerpts from the 1989 printing of the State of Maryland +Driver's Handbook: + If you notice a glorious light in the sky, a sound as of an infinite +choir of unearthly voices, and a host of winged beings descending from the +heavens, do not panic. If you are on the freeway, move to the shoulder as +soon as it is safe to do so, activate your hazard blinkers, and wait for the +end of the world. If you are Saved, it is especially important that you do +this BEFORE you are carried to your Eternal Reward, in order that your vehicle +not become a hazard to others. Remember, Rapture is the number one cause of +automobile accidents during major spiritual upheavals. You may experience a +feeling of discorporation ("being pulled from one's body") while driving. To +ensure the safety of your passengers and other drivers, move to the shoulder +as soon as you notice any of the following symptoms: + -- An overwhelming sense of peace and happiness. + -- Visions of the faces of deceased family members. + -- A glorious figure in white, beckoning from the end of a tunnel of +white mist (do not confuse this with traffic control or maintainance officers, +who wear dark blue and safety orange.) + Once the feeling has passed, inspect your surroundings. If still in +your car, you have probably suffered a stroke and should have someone drive +you to a hospital at once. If you find yourself in the Kingdom of God, consult +the local officials for information on local traffic rules and regulations. +% +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 +% +Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, +If God won't have you, the devil must. +% +Atheism is a non-prophet organization. +% +Better the prince of some inferior court, +Than second, or less, in beatific light. + -- Lucifer, Joost van den Vondel's "Lucifer" +% +Beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The +danger already exists that the mathematicians have made covenant with +the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of hell. + -- St. Augustine +% +Brother Jim's recent appearance on the William and Mary campus this past +week was cut short by an ingenious device designed by two computer science +students. A three-foot bar of extruded aluminum was precisely machined, +with a hole milled down the center of precisely the dimensions of one of +the small Gideon bibles. The end capped off, a CO2 canister was connected +to provide up to 2,000 PSIG. Prelimary estimates during field testing +revealed a muzzle velocity of approximarly 120-150 MPH for bibles exiting +the tube. Sufficient ammunition was obtained during a previous visit to +campus by another religious organization, and the system was first used on +Brother Jim, who suffered a broken rib and numerous small bruises, in +addition to the usual humiliation. +% +Campus crusade for Cthulhu -- it found me. +% +Catholicism has changed tremendously in the recent years. Now when +Communion is served there is also a salad bar. + -- Bill Marr +% +Christ died for our sins, so let's not disappoint Him. +% +Christianity and Judaism aren't all that different, really. Growing up in +a Christian family, the feeling of guilt for Man's sins comes from God. +In a Jewish family, it comes from your parents. +% +Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found +difficult and not tried. + -- G. K. Chesterton +% +Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +"Creation science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple +and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and +because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be +more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our +entire intellectualy heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing +honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment +to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any +general understanding of science as an enterprise? + -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Skeptical Inquirer" +% +Crucifixes are sexy because there's a naked man on them. + -- Madonna +% +Cthulhu Cthucks! +% +Cthulhu for President! + (If you're tired of choosing the lesser of two evils.) +% +Cthulhu Saves -- in case He's hungry later. +% +David was just a shepherd who liked to get his rocks off in leather. +% +Dear Ann Landers: + My husband watches the TV preachers every Sunday. He claims +one minister said there are 350 different sins. My husband wants to +know if you can get the list. He thinks he is missing something. + -- E.J. Mayfield +% +Dianetics is a milestone for man comparable to his discovery of +fire and superior to his invention of the wheel and the arch. + -- L. Ron Hubbard +% +Did you ever wonder what you'd say to God if He sneezed? +% +Didja hear about the dyslexic devil worshipper who sold his soul to Santa? +% +... difference of opinion is advantagious in religion. The several sects +perform the office of a common censor morum over each other. Is uniformity +attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the +introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; +yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. + -- Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on Virginia" +% +Driving through a Swiss city one day, Alfred Hitchcock suddenly +pointed out of the car window and said, "That is the most frightening +sight I have ever seen." His companion was surprised to see nothing +more alarming than a priest in conversation with a little boy, his hand +on the child's shoulder. "Run, little boy," cried Hitchcock, leaning +out of the car. "Run for your life!" +% +During almost fifteen centuries the legal establishment of Christianity has +been upon trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, +pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity,; +in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution. + -- James Madison +% +Enemy -- SP (Suppressive Person) Order. Fair Game. May be deprived of +property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline +of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed. + -- L. Ron Hubbard, "Fair Game Doctrine" +% +Ere the cock crows thrice one of you will betray me. + -- Early Jewish Resistance Leader +% +Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company." + -- Mark Twain +% +Go to the Scriptures... the joyful promises it contains will be a balsam to +all your troubles. + -- Andrew Jackson + +The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the +teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith +in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country. + -- Calvin Coolidge + +Lastly, our ancestors established their system of government on morality and +religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted +on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be +secure which is not supported by moral habits. + -- Daniel Webster +% +God did not create the world in seven days; he screwed around for six +days and then pulled an all-nighter. +% +God is a polytheist. +% +God is an atheist. +% +GOD is applied POWER + which is applied GOVERNMENT + which is applied POLITICS + which is applied ADVERTISING + which is applied SOCIOLOGY + which is applied PSYCHOLOGY + which is applied BIOLOGY + which is applied CHEMISTRY + which is applied PHYSICS + which is applied MATH + which is applied PHILOSOPHY + which is applied BULLSHIT +% +"God is as real as I am," the old man said. My faith was restored, for +I knew that Santa would never lie. +% +"God is big, so don't fuck with him." +% +God is not dead -- he's been busted. +% +God is not dead! He's alive and autographing bibles at Cody's. +% +God is not dead. He is alive and well and working on a much less +ambitious project. +% +God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent -- it says so right here +on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these +divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No +checks, please. Cash and in small bills. + -- Lazarus Long +% +God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place. +% +God isn't dead, He's just trying to avoid the draft. +% +God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh. +% +God must love assholes -- She made so many of them. +% +God said it, I believe it and that's all there is to it. +% +God votes Republican. +% + God wanted to have a holiday, so He asked St. Peter for suggestions on +where to go. + "Why not go to Jupiter?" asked St. Peter. + "No, too much gravity, too much stomping around," said God. + "Well, how about Mercury?" + "No, it's too hot there." + "Okay," said St. Peter, "What about Earth?" + "No," sighed God, "They're such horrible gossips. When I was +there 2000 years ago, I had an affair with a Jewish woman, and they're +still talking about it." +% +God wants us to know that if we see a bumper sticker saying "Honk if you love +Jesus" it is a bad idea to honk to express an opinion about Jesus because it +will annoy the turkey who put the bumper sticker on as well as everyone else +in the vicinity. However, it is just fine to honk to annoy the turkey simply +for being a turkey, for God told Man to be fruitful and multiply, and to rule +over the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, and that includes the +turkeys who buy such bumper stickers. Of course, God understands that innocent +bystanders will also be annoyed, but He has wisely created traffic cops to +impose some constraint on how much we may annoy the turkeys within city limits, +for God's wisdom comprehends full well that thou shalt not make an omelette +without breaking eggs. God only wishes they were turkey eggs, so such moral +dilemmas shall be fewer in number in the future, when the generations a-coming +(hallelujah) won't have so many turkeys to deal with. But God knows full well +that such things take time, and the turkeys are showing more resilience than +expected, and may be with us for a long time yet. +% +He has been known by many names; the Prince of Lies, the Director, Lucifer, +Belial, and once, at a party, some obnoxious drunk kept calling him "Dude". + -- Stig's Inferno +% +Heaven and earth were created all together in the same instant, on October +23rd, 4004 B.C. at nine o'clock in the morning. + -- Dr. John Lightfoot, + Vice-chancellor of Cambridge University +% +History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion -- +i.e., none to speak of. + -- Lazarus Long +% +However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There +is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. +There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, +or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any +powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used +sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are +not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force +government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree +with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they +threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and +tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen +that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and +"D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to +claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more +angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group +who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll +call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step +of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans +in the name of "conservatism." + -- Senator Barry Goldwater, Congressional Record +% +I am an atheist, thank God! +% +I call Christianity the one great curse, the one enormous and innermost +perversion, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are +too venomous, too underhand, too underground and too petty -- I call it +the one immortal blemish of mankind. + -- Fredrich Nietzsche +% +I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman +Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, +nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. + -- Thomas Paine +% +I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with +sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use. + -- Galileo Galilei +% +I don't care what star you're following, get that camel off my front lawn! + -- Heard in Bethlehem +% +I figure that if God actually does exist, He's big enough to understand an +honest difference of opinion. + - Isaac Asimov +% + "I think he said 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.'" + "Nonsense, he was obviously referring to all manufacturers of dairy +products." + -- The Life of Brian +% +"I'd like to start a new religion. One that doesn't use a dead young +man as its logo." + -- Bill Cain, "Stand Up Tragedy" +% +I'm a creationist; I refuse to believe that I could have evolved from man. +% +I'm an evolutionist; I refuse to believe that I could have been created by man. +% +If atheism is to be used to express the state of mind in which God is +identified with the unknowable, and theology is pronounced to be a +collection of meaningless words about unintelligible chimeras, then I +have no doubt, and I think few people doubt, that atheists are as +plentiful as blackberries. + -- Leslie Stephen +% +If Christianity was morality, Socrates would be the Saviour. + -- William Blake +% +If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. + -- Voltaire, "Epitres, XCVI" +% +"If God had wanted us to use the metric system, Jesus would have had 10 +apostles." +% +If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows. + -- Yiddish saying +% +If Jesus Christ came to this town, people would say, great guy; terrible +carpenter. + -- Gene Kirkwood, on Hollywood +% +If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They +would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it. + -- Thomas Carlyle +% +If one inquires why the American tradition is so strong against any connection +of State and Church, why it dreads even the rudiments of religious teaching +in state-maintained schools, the immediate and superficial answer is not +far to seek. ... The cause lay largely in the diversity and vitality of the +various denominations, each fairly sure that, with a fair field and no favor, +it could make its own way; and each animated by a jealous fear that, if any +connection of State and Church were permitted, some rival denomination would +get an unfair advantage. + -- John Dewey, "Democracy in the Schools", 1908 +% +If the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust, +this would be a better world. + -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days" +% +If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, +I would have recommended something simpler. + -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile, + Commenting on the Almagest, by Ptolemy. +% +If you can believe ten impossible things before breakfast, then you +should join + + THE CHURCH OF COUNTERFACTUAL BELIEF + +The Church of Counterfactual Belief has been set up to cater to all who +don't allow demonstrable truth to get in the way of their beliefs. In +addition to creation science and the flatness of the earth, the +following beliefs have been certified by Pope Duane as Church dogma: + + -- That there is a hole in the Earth at the North Pole from which + UFOs come. + -- That pi equals precisely 3.000. + -- That sex can be enjoyed only by blacks and homosexuals. + -- That Billy Joe Wilson (Hoopla, Miss.) has successfully squared + the circle. + -- That Harry Truman is still president, and doing a fine job. + -- That pi equals precisely 22/7. + +Several other important counterfactual beliefs are presently being +studied, including Reaganomics, A.I., and that the moon landings were +done in a Hollywood special effects studio. These will be the subject +of a forthcoming Papal Bull ... +% +If you don't count some of Jehovah's injunctions, there are no humorists +in the Bible. + -- Mordecai Richler +% +If you liked the Earth you'll love Heaven. +% +Imagine there's no heaven... it's easy if you try. + -- John Lennon, "Imagine" +% +"In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with +reality at any point." + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +In regards to Oral Roberts' claim that God told him that he would die unless +he received $20 million by March, God's lawyers have stated that their client +has not spoken with Roberts for several years. Off the record, God has stated +that "If I had wanted to ice the little toad, I would have done it a long time +ago." + -- Dennis Miller, SNL News +% + In the begining, God created the Earth and he said, "Let there be mud." + And there was mud. + And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud +can see what we have done." + And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was +man. Mud-as-man alone could speak. + "What is the purpose of all this?" man asked politely. + "Everything must have a purpose?" asked God. + "Certainly," said man. + "Then I leave it to you to think of one for all of this," said God. + And He went away. + -- Kurt Vonnegut, Between Time and Timbuktu" +% +"Is it just me, or does anyone else read `bible humpers' every time +someone writes `bible thumpers?' + -- Joel M. Snyder, jms@mis.arizona.edu +% +It is convenient that there be gods, and, as it is convenient, let us +believe there are. + -- Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) +% + It is either through the influence of narcotic potions, of which all +primitive peoples and races speak in hymns, or through the powerful approach +of spring, penetrating with joy all of nature, that those Dionysian stirrings +arise, which in their intensification lead the individual to forget himself +completely. ... Not only does the bond between man and man come to be forged +once again by the magic of the Dionysian rite, but alienated, hostile, or +subjugated nature again celebrates her reconciliation with her prodigal son, +man. + -- Fred Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy +% +"It says he made us all to be just like him. So if we're dumb, then +god is dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side." + -- Frank Zappa +% +It seems that a rabbi, a priest and a minister decided to go fishing one +sunny afternoon. All three climbed into the boat and headed for the middle +of the lake. After several hours of relaxation, the minister decided that +"nature was calling", and climbed out of the boat and walked ashore. In +a few moments, he walked back out to the boat and climbed back in. + The rabbi was absolutely astonished, but decided not to mention +the apparent miracle. + A few minutes later, the priest also decided to go ashore for a +moment, and climbed out of the boat, walked to shore, and a few minutes +later came back. + By now the rabbi was in great distress and had begun to doubt his +beliefs and wonder if there might be some validity to the Christian +teachings. But he immediately reaffirmed the fact that his faith WAS JUST +AS STRONG as either the priest's or the minister's and decided that anything +they could do, with God's help, he could do as well. + The rabbi then announced that he needed relief and would walk to +shore. He climbed out of the boat and went straight to the bottom of the +lake. While the rabbi was thrashing about in the water, the priest turned to +the minister and said, "So... do you think we ought to tell him where the +rocks are?" +% +It seems that there was this Christian about to be thrown to the lions. He +was shoved into the middle of the arena and the lion was released. Being +a good Christian, as the lion approached he knelt and prayed, asking God for +forgiveness for his (few) sins, and begging that the lion might be dissuaded +from eating him for its breakfast. Much to his dismay, the lion didn't stop +but kept coming, getting faster and faster, now almost running, so the +Christian took off too. There they were, running around and around the arena, +the lion getting closer and the Christian praying harder and harder between +gasps for breath. The lions breath was now hot upon his heels and he could +even feel droplets of the lions saliva splashing on his bare feet. So he +pulled out all the stops, promising God that if the lion will only spare him, +he will devote the rest of his life to spreading the Christian faith, +forsaking all temptation and possessions. Suddenly he no longer felt the +lions breath, no longer heard the great beast's snarls close behind him. +Slowing to a stop, he turned around and saw the lion on its knees, eyes rolled +upward, paws held together. The lion appeared to be muttering something so +the Christian approached until he could make out what the lion was saying. + +"Dear Lord, for what I am about to receive..." +% +... it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs about the +existence of God in any recognizable sense continuous with the great +systems of the past, religious doctrines constitute a speculative +hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability. + -- Sidney Hook +% +Jehovah is an alien and still threatens this planet! +% +Jesus died for your sins. Make it worth his time. +% +Jesus has just stopped the crowd from stoning Mary Magdalene to death +and is berating the self-pious with the famous speech, "Let the one +among you who is without sin cast the first stone..." + Right about then, a rock comes winging through the air and hits +Jesus upside the head. He whirls around and shouts "Alright, Mom, c'mon! +I'm trying to make a point, here!" +% +Jesus Never Fails + +(He's never taken the Massachusetts Bar Exam, either.) +% +Jesus Saves! + +(And Esposito scores on the rebound!) +% +Jesus Saves, +Moses Invests, +But only Buddha pays Dividends. +% +Jesus Saves, +Moses Invests, +But only Buddha pays Dividends. +% +"Jesus saves...but Gretzky gets the rebound!" + -- Daniel Hinojosa +% +Jesus was killed by a Moral Majority. +% +John Paul II is famous for his touring, and his quaint habit of pressing +his lips to foreign soil on his arrival. This sparked some wit to remark: + "The Pope has it backwards: he kisses the ground, and walks on +the women!" +% +LET Jesus be YOUR anchor! + +So when Satan rocks your boat, THROW Jesus overboard! +% +Little Herbie had been blind since birth. One day at bedtime, his mother +told him that the next day was a very special one. If he prayed extra +hard, he'd be able to see when he woke up the next morning. The next +morning she came into Herbie's room and asked him if he'd prayed hard +the night before. + "Yes, Mommie," was his reply, "all night long!" + "Well, then," she said, "open your eyes and you'll know that +your prayers have been answered." +Little Herbie opened his eyes, only to cry out, + "Mother! Mother! I still can't see!" + "I know, dear," said his mother, "April Fool." +% +Man proposes, God disposes. + -- Thomas `a Kempis +% +Many a long dispute between divines may thus be abridged: It is so. It +is not so. It is so. It is not so. + -- Benjamin Franklin, "Poor Richard's Almanack" +% +Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God +is a cruel and capricious tyrant. + -- Edward Gibbon +% +Militant agnostic: I don't know, and you don't either. +% +My daddy's brains was so scrambled he thought he was Jesus. They put him +in a nut house for 5 years and when he got out, he didn't think he was +Jesus, he thought he was *God*! ... Which made me Jesus. + -- T. Bywater +% +Newsflash: + Apparently the rapture did occur last Tuesday as was originally +predicted. All true believers were transported to heaven while the rest +of us were left behind to await the Anti-Christ and the end of the world. + Widespread reports that the rapture had not occurred stemmed from +expectations that the effect would be more widespread than it turned out +to be. The definition of "true believer" was apparently more restrictive +than expected, however, and the only qualifiers were a family of five, +living in Stenton, North Dakota. +% +"Not only is God dead, but just try to find a plumber on weekends." + -- Woody Allen +% +Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind- +bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers +have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence +of God. The argument follows: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, +"for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, +"the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved +by chance, thus proving that you exist, therefore by your own arguements, +you don't. QED." "Oh, dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and +promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. + -- D. Adams +% +Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each +of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice. + +In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called +it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka" and went to +synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each +other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy Hanukka!" or (to +the atheists) "Look out for the wall!" + -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" +% +Once I belonged to a group that really had THE WORD. I fought like hell +for them. But another group came along and exposed the word of my group +as shallow and degenerate. They had a better word. So I quit the first +group and lost all the friends I had made and I joined up with this new +group. I fought like hell for them. But another group came around. They +exposed the word of my group as false and materialistic. Their word was +very much better. So I quit the second group and lost all the friends I +had made. And I joined up with this new group. I fought like hell for them. +Till this one guy came along and proved that there wasn't any word at all. +That I should go off as an individual and grow! So I quit the last group +and lost all the friends I had made. And now I sit home alone all day and +all I do is grow. It would be nice to join up with some others who feel +the way I do. + -- J. Feiffer +% +One man's theology is another man's belly laugh. +% +One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible +from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at +least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts +are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but +when He's good, nobody can touch Him. + -- John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan 1983 +% +One thing I have no worry about is whether God exists. But it has +occurred to me that God has Alzheimer's and has forgotten we exist. + -- Jane Wagner, "The Search for Signs of Intelligent + Life in the Universe" +% +One, with God, is always a majority, but many a martyr has been burned at +the stake while the votes were being counted. + -- Thomas B. Reed +% +Pain is just God's way of hurting you. +% +Paster Crosstalk: What items are specifically mentioned by GOD as being + unclean? Now did you know... preying birds... praying mantises... + All birds of prey, all carrion eaters, fish eaters -- no good, can't + eat those. Nothing that does not have both fins and scales. Most + CREEPING things... +Alvarado: How 'bout caterpillars? +P: A caterpillar doesn't have a backbone. Nothing without a backbone + can get in. +A: How do you know? You char a caterpillar, it gets real stiff! +P: Well, I don't think that the Lord meant us to eat CHARRED + CATERPILLARS! +[...] +P: The hog, the squirrel... little squirrels. Who would want to eat + a LITTLE SQUIRREL? +A: If you're starving. If you're starving in the park one day. +P: You'd probably just CHAR 'em to get 'em stiff, wouldn't ya? +A: No, you SINGE 'em. You SINGE 'em and eat 'em. *I* read about the + Donner Pass, I know what man does when he's hungry. +P: Squirrels eating squirrels -- my GOD, that's sick! +A: That's sick, SURE. But a MAN eating a squirrel -- that's (heh, heh) + par for the course, Charlie. + -- Firesign Theatre +% +Pope Goestheveezl was the shortest reigning pope in the history of the +Church, reigning for two hours and six minutes on 1 April 1866. The +white smoke had hardly faded into the blue of the Vatican skies before it +dawned on the assembled multitudes in St. Peter's Square that his name +had hilarious possibilities. The crowds fell about, helpless with +laughter, singing + Half a pound of tuppenny rice + Half a pound of treacle + That's the way the chimney smokes + Pope Goestheveezl +The square was finally cleared by armed carabineri with tears of laughter +streaming down their faces. The event set a record for hilarious civic +functions, smashing the previous record set when Baron Hans Neizant +B"ompzidaize was elected Landburgher of K"oln in 1653. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. + -- Stephen Coonts, "The Minotaur" +% +Prisons are built with stones of Law, brothels with bricks of Religion. + -- Blake +% +Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin. + -- Anatole France +% +Religion is a crutch, but that's okay... humanity is a cripple. +% +Religion is fine, Churchianity sucks. +% +Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. + -- Napoleon +% +Religions revolve madly around sexual questions. +% +Seems like these four rabbis had a series of theological arguments, and three +were always in accord against the fourth. One day, the odd rabbi out, with +the usual "3 to 1, majority rules" statement that signified that he had lost +again, decided to appeal to a higher authority. "Oh, God!" he cried. "I +know in my heart that I am right and they are wrong! Please show me a sign, +so they too will know that I understand Your laws." + It was a beautiful, sunny day. As soon as the rabbi finished his +plaint, a storm cloud moved across the sky above the four. It rumbled once +and dissolved. "A sign from God! See, I'm right, I knew it!" But the other +three disagreed, pointing out that stormclouds form on hot days. + So he asked again: "Oh, God, I need a bigger sign to show that I am +right and they are wrong. So please, God, a bigger sign." + This time four stormclouds appeared, rushed toward each other to form +one big cloud, and a bolt of lightning knocked down a tree ten feet away from +the rabbis. The cloud dispersed at once. "I told you I was right!" insisted +the loner, but the others insisted that nothing had happened that could not +be explained by natural causes. + The insisting rabbi is all ready to ask for a *very big* sign when +just as he says "Oh God..." the sky turns pitch black, the earth shakes, and +a deep, booming voice intones, "HEEEEEEEE'S RIIIIIIIGHT!" + The sky returns to normal. The one rabbi puts his hands on his hips +and snarls, "Well?" "Okay, okayyyy," replied another, "so now it's 3 to 2!" +% +Seems like this farmer purchased an old, run-down, abandoned farm with plans +to turn it into a thriving enterprise. The fields are grown over with weeds, +the farmhouse is falling apart, and the fences are collapsing all around. +During his first day of work, the town preacher stops by to bless the man's +work, praying, "May you and God work together to make this the farm of your +dreams!" + A few months later, the preacher stops by again to call on the farmer. +Lo and behold, it's like a completely different place -- the farm house is +completely rebuilt and in excellent condition, there is plenty of cattle and +other livestock happily munching on feed in well-fenced pens, and the fields +are filled with crops planted in neat rows. "Amazing!" the preacher says. +"Look what God and you have accomplished together!" + "Yes, reverend," replies the farmer, "but remember what the farm was +like when God was working it alone!" +% +She say, Miss Colie, You better hush. God might hear you. Let 'im hear me, +I say. If he ever listened to poor colored women the world would be a +different place, I can tell you. + -- Alice Walker, "The Color Purple" +% +Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer. + [If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.] + -- Voltaire +% +Sixtus V, Pope from 1585 to 1590 authorized a printing of the Vulgate +Bible. Taking no chances, the pope issued a papal bull automatically +excommunicating any printer who might make an alteration in the text. +This he ordered printed at the beginning of the Bible. He personally +examined every sheet as it came off the press. Yet the published +Vulgate Bible contained so many errors that corrected scraps had to be +printed and pasted over them in every copy. The result provoked wry +comments on the rather patchy papal infallibility, and Pope Sixtus had +no recourse but to order the return and destruction of every copy. +% +Smile, Cthulhu Loathes You. +% +So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of +intelligence. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +So, if there's no God, who changes the water? + -- New Yorker cartoon of two goldfish in a bowl +% +So, what's with this guy Gideon, anyway? And why can't he ever remember +his Bible? +% +So... how come the Corinthians never wrote back? +% +Some people seem to think that "damn" is God's last name. +% +Some things have to be believed to be seen. +% +Such evil deeds could religion prompt. + -- Titus Lucretius Carus +% +Sure banking is Biblical! + +How about when Onan received a substantial penalty for early withdrawal? +Or when Pharaoh's daughter went into the bulrushes and came out with a +little prophet? And it was Moses who led the Children of Israel to the +Banks of the Jordan! +% +Taoism: Shit Happens. +Confucianism: Confucious say, "Shit Happens". +Buddhism: If shit happens, it isn't really shit. +Hinduism: This shit has happened before. +Protestantism: Shit happens, but it happens to someone else. +Catholicism: Shit happens, but you deserved it. +Judaism: Why does shit always happen to US? +% +Termiter's argument that God is His own grandmother generated a surprising +amount of controversy among Church leaders, who on the one hand considered +the argument unsupported by scripture but on the other hand were unwilling +to risk offending God's grandmother. + -- Len Cool, "American Pie" +% +Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D. He was a pagan, +and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city until about +his 35th year, when he became a Christian. [...] To him is ascribed the +sublime confession: Credo quia absurdum est (I believe because it is absurd). +This does not altogether accord with historical fact, for he merely said: + "And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because it + is absurd. And buried he rose again, which is certain because it + is impossible." +Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, he saw through the poverty of +philosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it. + -- C.G. Jung, "Psychological Types" + [Tertullian was one of the founders of the Catholic Church. Ed.] +% +"That's no answer," Job said, "And for someone who's supposed to be +omnipotent, let me tell you 'tabernacle' has only one l." + -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" +% +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 +% +The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; +the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of a +military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and +private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; +and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes +who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. + -- Edward Gibbons, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" +% +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 +% + The devout Jew was beside himself because his son had been dating +a shiksa, so he went to visit his rabbi. The rabbi listened solemnly to +his problem, took his hand, and said, "Pray to God." + So the Jew went to the synagogue, bowed his head, and prayed, "God, +please help me. My son, my favorite son, he's going to marry a shiksa, he +sees nothing but goyim..." + "Your son," boomed down this voice from the heavens, "you think +you got problems. What about my son?" +% +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 +% +"The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly +teaches me to suspect that my own is also." + +"I would not interfere with any one's religion, either to strengthen it +or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one's religion can affect his +hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. +But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life -- hence it is a +valuable posession to him." + +"I do not see how eternal punishment hereafter could accomplish any good +end, therefore I am not able to believe in it. To chasten a man in order +to perfect him might be reasonable enough; to annihilate him when he shall +have proved himself incapable of reaching perfection mught be reasonable +enough; but to roast him forever for the mere satisfaction of seeing him +roast would not be reasonable -- even the atrocious God imagined by the Jews +would tire of the spectacle eventually." + -- Mark Twain +% +The ecumenical movement has reached a milestone with the agreement on the +text of the first Jewish-Catholic prayer -- one that begins "Oy vay, Maria". +% +... The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost would never throw the Devil +out of Heaven as long as they still need him as a fourth for bridge. + -- Letter in NEW LIBERTARIAN NOTES #19 +% +The first and almost the only Book deserving of universal attention is +the Bible. + -- John Quincy Adams + +All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated through this Book; +but for the Book we could not know right from wrong. All the things desirable +to man are contained in it. + -- Abraham Lincoln + +... the Bible ... is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of +life, the nature of God and spirtual nature and need of men. It is the only +guide of life which really leads the spirit in the way of peace and salvation. + -- Woodrow Wilson +% +The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty +prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant +with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell. + -- St. Augustine +% +The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. +That is why they invented hell. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +The Israelites were all waiting anxiously at the foot of the mountain, +knowing that Moses had had a tough day negotiating with God over the +Commandments. Finally a tired Moses came into sight. + "I've got some good news and some bad news, folks," he said. "The +good news is that I got Him down to ten. The bad news is that adultery's +still in." +% +The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. +Indian Giver be the name of the Lord. +% +The Messiah will come. There will be a resurrection of the dead -- all +the things that Jews believed in before they got so damn sophisticated. + -- Rabbi Meir Kahane +% +The Most Unsuccessful Version Of The Bible + The most exciting version of the Bible was printed in 1631 by Robert +Barker and Martin Lucas, the King's printers at London. It contained +several mistakes, but one was inspired -- the word "not" was omitted from +the Seventh Commandment and enjoined its readers, on the highest authority, +to commit adultery. + Fearing the popularity with which this might be received in remote +country districts, King Charles I called all 1,000 copies back in and fined +the printers L3,000. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The nearer to the church, the further from God. + -- John Heywood +% +The new priest was so nervous about performing his first mass that he could +hardly speak. He asked his Monsignor how he could relax. The Monsignor +replied that it might help relax him to add just a bit of vodka to the water +pitcher. The next Sunday, after following the Monsignor's advice, the priest +returned to the rectory to find a note from that worthy. + + (1) Next time sip rather than gulp. + (2) There are ten commandments, not 12. + (3) There are 12 disciples, not 10. + (4) We do not refer to the cross as the "Big T". + (5) The recommended grace before meals is not, + "Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub, Yaaaay, God!" + (6) Do not refer to our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and his + Apostles as "J.C. and the Boys". + (7) David slew Goliath, he did not kick the shit out of him. + (8) The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost are never referred + to as, "Big Daddy, Junior, and the Spook". + (9) It is always the Virgin Mary, never The Mary with the Cherry. + (10) Last, but not least, next Wednesday there will be a + Taffy-Pulling Contest at St.Peter's, not a Peter-Pulling + Contest at St. Taffy's. +% +The only excuse for God is that he doesn't exist. + -- Stendhal +% +The only thing that stops God from sending a second Flood is that +the first one was useless. + -- Nicolas Chamfort +% +The priest at Sunday mass noticed that Michael took a ten-dollar bill and two +one-dollar bills from the collection plate, instead of putting something in. +He thought to himself, I'd better watch out for Michael. The next week he +noticed the same thing. So he waited outside church when mass was over, and +as Michael came out, he accosted his and said, + "Michael, tell me -- why did you take out a ten-dollar bill and two +singles two weeks in a row, instead of putting money into the collection?" + Michael replied, "Father, I'm embarrassed, but I did it because I +wanted to go downtown for a blow job." + The priest looked suprised but said to Michael, "Listen, don't do +that anymore. I'll be watching you from now on." + When he got back to the rectory, the priest was still perplexed. +Finally he decided to call Mother Agatha at the convent. He said, "Mother, +you've been such a great friend of mine, I have a question I need to ask you. +What is a blow job?" + Mother Agatha replied, "Oh, twelve dollars, same as downtown." +% +The reason Roman Catholics are allowed to use the rhythm method of birth +control is that it doesn't work. +% +The somewhat old and crusty vicar was taking a well-earned retirement from +his rather old and crusty parish. As is usual in these cases, a locum was +sent to cover the transition period. This particular man was young and +active, and had the strange notion that church should also be active and +exciting. As a consequence he was more than a little dissapointed with the +dull and tradition-bound church. He decided to do something about it. + For his first Sunday, he didn't wear the traditional robes and +vestments, but lead the service wearing a nice 2-piece suit. The congregation +was horrified! He changed the order of the service. The congregation was +horrified! Then came the children's lesson. + For this he came out of the pulpit, and sat on the communion table. +The congregation was mortified! He sat there swinging his legs against +the table as the children gathered around him. + He asked the children, "What's small, brown, furry and eats nuts?" + There was total silence. + He asked again, "What's small, brown, furry and eats nuts?" + Total silence. + Eventually, one timid youngster put up his hand and said, "Please, +sir, I know the answer is Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me." +% +The Unitarians are really just a bunch of atheists who really like going to +church. +% +The Utah version of this joke goes: + One of the Council of the Twelve runs breathlessly into the Presidents' +office one day. The President looks up and says "Brother, what is so important +that you ran all the way here, losing your breath?" + The Council member finally regains his breath, and says "The Savior is +in the lobby!!" + The President immediate starts for the door, crying "It has come! The +prophecies are fullfilled! We are all about to be uplifted!" + The Council member says "Wait! You didn't let me finish! She's... +black, and SHE IS PISSED!" +% +The wages of sin are high -- unless you know someone who does it for nothing. +% +The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence +from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum. + -- Havelock Ellis +% +Theology is an attempt to explain a subject by men who do not understand +it. The intent is not to tell the truth but to satisfy the questioner. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the existence +of a "hottest part" implies a temperature difference, and any marginally +competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat engine and make +some other part of hell comfortably cool. This is obviously impossible. + -- Richard Davisson +% +"There is a God, but He drinks" + -- Blore +% +There is a limit to the admiration we may hold for a man who spends +his waking hours poking the contents of chickens with a stick. + -- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume" +% +There is no ox so dumb as the orthodox. + -- George Francis Gillette +% +This story concerns a man who, after putting his son to bed each night, would +stand by his boy's door and listen to his son saying his prayers. One night, +the boy ended his prayers with, "God specially bless Granddad, who won't be +with us much longer." The man thought this was rather curious, but passed it +off as childish whimsy. The next day, however, he received a call from his +mother, informing him that his father had passed away early that morning. +During the next few weeks, he listened particularly closely to his son's +prayers, but noticed nothing unusual. Then, one night, the boy ended his +prayers with, "God specially bless Grandmom, who won't be with us much longer." +Although the shock of the original incident had worn off during the intervening +weeks, he nontheless phoned his mother to inquire as to her health. He went to +bed reassured, only to be awakened in the night by his sister calling with the +news that their mother had died suddenly in the night. The father had a series +of psychological tests done; nothing unusual was uncovered. About a month +later, the boy ended his prayers with, "God specially bless Daddy, who won't +be with us much longer." The man was panic-stricken, certain that he was +going to die during the night. He resolved to stay awake all night; if awake +and alert he should be able to prevent any tragedy. Morning came. Breathing +a huge sigh of relief, he went to get the paper off the porch. There, lying +dead on the doorstep, was the milkman. +% +To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects +but your own; to be moral, all pretenses but your own. + -- Lionel Strachey +% +To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. + -- Sri Aurobindo +% +TO THOSE OF YOU WHO DESIRE IT, I GRANT YOU MADRAK'S BLESSING: + + Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care +what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you +may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. + Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else be required +to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the +destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted +or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your +receving said benefit. + I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between +yourself and that which may have an interest in the matter of your receving +as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may +in some way be influenced by this ceremony. + Amen. + -- Roger Zelazny, "Creatures of Light and Darkness" +% +"To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition." + -- Woody Allen +% +Unitarians pray "To whom it may concern". +% +Vatican upholds ban on contraceptives: "To heir is humane," claims the Pope. +% +We ... make the modern error of dignifying the Individual. We do everything +we can to butter him up. We give him a name, assure him that he has certain +inalienable rights, educate him, let him pass on his name to his brats and +when he dies we give him a special hole in the ground ... But after all, he's +only a seed, a bloom and a withering stalk among pressing billions. Your +Individual is a pretty disgusting, vain, lewd little bastard ... By God, +he has only one right guaranteed him in Nature, and that is the right to die +and stink to Heaven. + -- Ross Lockridge, quoted in "Short Lives" by Katinka Matson +% +We may not be able to persuade Hindus that Jesus and not Vishnu should govern +their spiritual horizon, nor Moslems that Lord Buddha is at the center of +their spiritual universe, nor Hebrews that Mohammed is a major prohpet, nor +Christians that Shinto best expresses their spiritual concerns, to say +nothing of the fact that we may not be able to get Christians to agree among +themselves about their relationship to God. But all will agree on a +proposition that they possess profound spiritual resources. If, in addition, +we can get them to accept the further proposition that whatever form the Deity +may have in their own theology, the Deity is not only external, but internal +and acts through them, and they themselves give proof or disproof of the +Deity in what they do and think; if this further proposition can be accepted, +then we come that much closer to a truly religious situation on earth. + -- Norman Cousins, from his book "Human Options" +% +We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to +the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his +children smart. + -- H.L. Mencken, "Minority Report" +% +"Well, we've come full circle, Lord; I'd like to think there's some +higher meaning to all this. It would certainly reflect well on you." +% +Well, you see there was this neighborhood that had a priest, a minister, and +a rabbi who lived near each other. One summer afternoon the priest went out +and bought himself a new car, and the minister and rabbi, not to be outdone, +did the same. + The next day the priest went out and blessed his car. The minister +hired a crane and baptized his car in a swimming pool. The rabbi, after +thinking seriously for a bit, got a hacksaw and cut three inches off the end +of the tail pipe. +% + "What are you doing?" + "Examining the world's major religions. I'm looking for something +that's light on morals, has lots of holidays, and with a short initiation +period." +% +What good is having someone who can walk on water if you don't follow +in his footsteps? +% +What if there had been room at the inn? + -- Linda Festa on the origins of Christianity +% +What is good? Everything that heightens the feeling of power in man, the +will to power, power itself. What is bad? Everything that is born of +weakness. Not contentedness but more power; not peace but war; not virtue +but fitness. The weak and the failures shall perish: first principle of +our love of man. And they shall even be given every possible assistance. +What is more harmful than any vice? Active pity for all the failures and +all the weak: Christianity. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% + "What the hell are you getting so upset about? I thought you didn't +believe in God." + "I don't," she sobbed, bursting violently into tears, "but the God I +don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the +mean and stupid God you make Him out to be." + -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" +% +When Cthulhu calls, He calls collect! +% +When somebody protested at [Pope Alexander VI's] wholesale distribution of +pardons for the most heinous crimes -- one of which included the murder of +a daughter by the father -- he retorted easily, "It is not God's will that +a sinner should die, but that he should live -- and pay." + -- E.R. Chamberlin, "The Bad Popes" + +Judas sold Christ for 30 denari, this man [Pope Alexander VI] would sell +him for 29. + -- Ottaviano Ubaldini, chamberlain to Pope Alexander VI +% +Why attack God? He may be as miserable as we are. + -- Erik Satie +% +Why I am an atheist: + +1. Atheists do not believe in higher powers. +2. God is the highest power. +3. Therefore, God must be an atheist. +4. We should all strive to be like God. +5. We should all be atheists. +% +Why, when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate problem is +wrapped in the profoundest mystery, do honest men proclaim in pulpits that +unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and ignorant? Is it +not a spectacle to make the angels laugh? We are a company of ignorant +beings, feeling our way through mists and darkness, learning only be +incessantly repeated blunders, obtaining a glimmering of truth by falling +into every conceivable error, dimly discerning light enough for our daily +needs, but hopelessly differing whenever we attempt to describe the ultimate +origin or end of our paths; and yet, when one of us ventures to declare that +we don't know the map of the universe as well as the map of our infintesimal +parish, he is hooted, reviled, and perhaps told that he will be damned to all +eternity for his faithlessness. + -- Leslie Stephen, "An Agnostic's Apology", + Fortnightly Review, 1876 +% +Yeah, God is dead, he laughed himself to death. +% + "You little (such a one who, while wearing a copper nose ring, +stands in a footbath atop Mount Raruaruaha during a heavy thunderstorm and +shouts that Alohura, Goddess of Lightning, has the facial features of a +diseased uloruaha root)!" + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" +% +Your chances of getting hit by lightning go up if you stand under a tree, +shake your fist at the sky, and say, "Storms suck!" + -- Johnny Carson +% +Cold is God's way of teling us to burn more Catholics. + -- Lady Whiteadder, "Blackadder II" +% +"It don't matter, Sail, ... Could be worse. The fam'ly might be +donatin' the proceeds to the Cath'lic Church, or the Mormons or +somethin'. One cult's the same another." + -- Lula Pace Ripley, "Consuelo's Kiss" +% +"I don't know whether God exists or not, but it makes no difference to me." +"It's not like He's passing out free money or anything." + -- Townsperson in Estard, Dragon Warrior VII +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/riddles b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/riddles new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c994b96 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/riddles @@ -0,0 +1,1100 @@ +Did you know that some people your age have sex thirty-seven times in a week? +And die immediately after? +% +Did you know that Spiro Agnew is an anagram of "Grow a Penis"? +% +Did you know that there are 71.9 acres of nipple tissue in the U.S.? +% +FORTUNE TESTS THE GREAT MANAGERS: #3 + +You have prepared a proposal for your supervisor. The success of this +proposal will mean increasing your salary 20%. In the middle of your +proposal your supervisor leans over to look at your report and spits into +your coffee. You: + + (a) Tell him you take your coffee black. + (b) Ask him if he has any communicable diseases. + (c) Show him who's in command; promptly take a piss in his + "In" basket. + (d) Take a sip and comment how much better it tastes. +% +FORTUNE TESTS THE GREAT MANAGERS: #4 + +You are at a business lunch when you are suddenly overcome with an +uncontrollable desire to pick your nose. Since this is definitely a +no-no, you: + + (a) Pretend to wave to someone across the room and with one + fluid motion, bury your forefinger in your nostril right up + to the 4th joint. + (b) Get everyone drunk and organize a nose picking contest with a + prize to the one who makes his nose bleed first. + + (c) Drop your napkin on the floor and when you bend over to pick + it up, blow your nose on your sock. +% +FORTUNE TESTS THE GREAT MANAGERS: #5 + +You have just returned from a trip to Green Bay, Wisconsin in January and +tell your boss that nobody but ladies of the evening and football players +live there. He mentions that his wife is from Green Bay. You: + + (a) Pretend you are suffering from amnesia and don't + remember your name. + (b) Ask what position she played. + (c) Ask if she is still working the streets. + (d) Pull lacy underwear from your raincoat pocket and ask + if he recognizes the label. +% +FORTUNE TESTS THE GREAT MANAGERS: #6 + +You are having lunch with a prospective vendor talking about what could be +your best deal of the year. During the conversation a blonde walks into +the restaurant and she is so stunning you draw your companion's attention +to her and give a vivid description of what you would do if you had her alone +in your hotel. She walks over to your table and the vendor introduces her as +his daughter. Your next move is to: + + (a) Ask for her hand in marriage. + (b) Pass out and hope for sympathy. + (c) Forget the business; repeat the conversation to the + daughter and get her number. + (d) Turn red and slink off into the men's room. +% +FORTUNE TESTS THE GREAT MANAGERS: #9 + +You are making a sales presentation to a group of corporate executives +in the plushest office you've ever seen. The enchillada casserole and +egg salad sandwich you had for lunch react, creating severe pressure. +Your sphincter loses control and you break wind, causing the glass +bookcase doors to shatter and a secretary to pass out. You: + + (a) Offer to come back next week when the smell has gone away. + (b) Point to the Chief Executive and accuse him of the offense. + (c) Challenge anyone in the room to do better. +% +He: "Hey, Baby, I'd sure like to get in your pants!" +She: "No, thanks, I've already got one asshole in there now." +% +He: Am I... am I your first? +She: Well, honey, I could have sworn your face looked familiar... +% +He: So, what do you say to little fuck? +She: I say, "get lost, little fuck." +% +Hear about... + one penile desensitizer that's so effective that you + have to stroke the tube for five minutes to get the cap off? +% +Hear about... + the 97-year-old prostitute who got herself listed in the Yellow + Pages and now claims to be the oldest trick in the book? +% +Hear about... + the absent minded nurse who made the patient without disturbing + the bed? +% +Hear about... + the absent minded sculptor who put his model to bed and + started chiseling on his wife? +% +Hear about... + the absent-minded exhibitionist who was arrested for exposing + his whatchamacalit? +% +Hear about... + the ambitious secretary who walked into her boss's office and + demanded a salary on next week's advance? +% +Hear about... + the Ayatollah Khomeini Doll? + Wind it up and it takes Ken and Barbie hostage. +% +Hear about... + the basketball player who was so tall that his girlfriend had to + go up on him? +% +Hear about... + the butcher who dropped his cleaver and went home half-cocked? +% +Hear about... + the careless canary that did it for a lark? +% +Hear about... + the careless contortionist who accidentally swallowed his pride? +% +Hear about... + the cinema buff that's very excited by current trends in films? + The hero still gets the girl in the end, but he's never sure + which end it will be. +% +Hear about... + the compulsive gambler who drove to Las Vegas, pulled up to + a parking meter, put a dime in -- and lost his car? +% +Hear about... + the couple on the stalled elevator who got off between floors? +% +Hear about... + the cross-eyed shoe fetishist who was always getting off on the + wrong foot? +% +Hear about... + the doctor that prescribed sex for insommia? His patients didn't + get any more sleep, but they had more fun staying awake. +% +Hear about... + the drunken midget who walked into a home for girls and kissed + everybody in the joint? +% +Hear about... + the elderly gentleman who was stung on the privates by a bee and + asked the doctor to relieve the pain but leave the swelling? +% +Hear about... + the Eskimo girl who spent the night with her boyfriend and + next morning found she was six months pregnant? +% +Hear about... + the farmer who couldn't keep his hands off his wife so he fired them? +% +Hear about... + The fellow who chased his girlfriend up a tree and kissed + her between the limbs? +% +Hear about... + the fellow who got ten years for pumping Ethyl behind the station? +% +Hear about... + the fellow who maintains a special register of particularly + accommodating girls? He refers to it as his little blew book. +% +Hear about... + the fellow who was descended from a long line his mother heard? +% +Hear about... + the fellow who, upon being told by his shrewish wife that she + would dance on his grave, promptly provided for a burial at sea? +% +Hear about... + the female activist who went berserk during a demonstration and + attacked a karate-trained cop with a deadly weapon. She ended + up a chopped libber? +% +Hear about... + the fine, upstanding young woman who's wonderful laying down? +% +Hear about... + the freaky WAC who was court-martialed for contributing to the + delinquency of a major? +% +Hear about... + the French soldier who kissed his wife's cheeks before he went + to the front? +% +Hear about... + the freshman coed who decided not to sign up for a course in sex + education when she heard the final exam would be oral? +% +Hear about... + the frustrated musician who worked all week on an arrangement and + then his wife didn't leave town? +% +Hear about... + the fun-loving young lady who insists she won't even consider + marriage until she's gotten some experience under her belt? +% +Hear about... + the gay tattoo artist who had designs on several of the local + sailors? +% +Hear about... + the girl that wanted to impress her new boyfriend, + so she put on her low-cut dress to show him a thing or two? +% +Hear about... + the girl who called her boyfriend Amaretto, 'cause he was + such a sweet liquor? +% +Hear about... + the girl who was so undesirable that she even turned her vibrator off? +% +Hear about... + the girl with the big wardrobe who started with just a little slip? +% +Hear about... + the guru who refused Novacain while having a tooth pulled because + he wanted to transcend dental medication? +% +Hear about... + the guy who couldn't find his way to the orgy -- you might say he + lost his ball bearings? +% +Hear about... + the guy who had his vasectomy done by Sears? + Every time he gets a hard-on, the garage door goes up. +% +Hear about... + the guy who took a course in exotic lovemaking and announced that + he'd never be able to face his girl again? +% +Hear about... + the guy who was an incurable romantic until penicillin came along? +% +Hear about... + the guy who was so well endowed that he had a fiveskin? +% +Hear about... + the guy who wore a tux to his vasectomy, because he figured that + if he was going to be impotent he might as well look impotent. +% +Hear about... + the handsome bachelor Senator who hired a ravishing blonde as his + assistant and then made her the object of a long Congressional probe? +% +Hear about... + the high school drum major who dated two of the majorettes and + so enjoyed the breasts of both whirlers? +% +Hear about... + the hurricane that recently struck Fire Island -- Hurricane Bruce? +% +Hear about... + the inexperienced stenographer who discovered that she could lose + a lot more than letters behind the files? +% +Hear about... + the insurance salesman who says his greatest successes are + with young housewives who aren't adequately covered? +% +Hear about... + the little boy that found a fifty cent piece, so he went home + for some money? +% +Hear about... + the loner who gave up his solitary vice for Lent? Except on + Palm Sunday, of course. +% +Hear about... + the man who never worried about his marriage until he moved from New + York to California and discovered that he still had the same milkman? +% +Hear about... + the mother of 12 who was called upon to use her diaphragm so often + that she kept it tacked to the headboard of her bed? +% +Hear about... + the new breakfast cereal called "Swingers". They don't go snap, + crackle, or pop; they just lie there and go bang, bang, bang? +% +Hear about... + the new breakfast cereal called Queerios? You simply add milk + and they eat each other. +% +Hear about... + the new German microwave oven? + Seats 500. +% +Hear about... + the new instrument of credit especially designed for use in + Los Angeles single bars? It's called Bang Americard. +% +Hear about... + the new rule at the girls' school? + Lights out by ten, candles by eleven. +% +Hear about... + the new sorority girl doll? + You put a ring on her finger and her hips expand. +% +Hear about... + the new vitamin made from chicken blood? + It makes men cocky and women lay better. +% +Hear about... + the nurse they thought had drowned until they found her under the doc? +% +Hear about... + the nymphomaniac teenager popularly known as Little Often Annie? +% +Hear about... + the over-eager bride who came, walking down the aisle? +% +Hear about... + the perverted australian who left his wife and returned to Sydney? +% +Hear about... + the pessimistic historian whose latest book has chapter headings + that read "World War One","World War Two" and "Watch This Space"? +% +Hear about... + the plastic surgeon who hung himself? +% +Hear about... + the poor Greek fisherman who got his upper torso wedged into + a porthole and couldn't get out to save his ass? +% +Hear about... + the real smart girl who could play post-office all night + without getting any mail in her box? +% +Hear about... + the recent cigarette survey that disclosed that 99% of the + men who have tried Camels have gone back to women? +% +Hear about... + the San Franciscan who backed off the bus because he thought + someone would grab his seat? +% +Hear about... + the secretary that got fired because she had one too mini? +% +Hear about... + the sultan who had ten wives, nine of them had it soft. +% +Hear about... + the swinger who labelled his little black book "Future Shack"? +% +Hear about... + the tight end who got two years for possession and came out a + wide receiver? +% +Hear about... + the truck driver who pulled out to avoid a child and fell + off the sofa? +% +Hear about... + the ultimate in singles bars. It's a place where girls have + to show their I.U.D.'s to be admitted? +% +Hear about... + the wild office Christmas party in a completely automated + company -- the photocopier got drunk and tried to undo the + typewriter's ribbon? +% +Hear about... + the woman who says two martinis usually make her feel like a new man? +% +Hear about... + the young lady attacked in San Francisco? + By two men, one held her down while the other one did her hair. +% +Hear about... + the young thing who is fondly known to the men in the office as + Secretariat -- not just because she's a good secretary but because + she's a wonderful mount? +% +Hear that... + bookstores will soon be stocking a volume called "The Unsensuous + Census Taker"? It's about a guy who comes once every ten years. +% +Hear that... + the Masters and Johnson clinic may well be the only organization + in the world from which a man resigns when he becomes a member + in good standing? +% +Hear that... + the only thing worse than coming home with lipstick on your + collar is being caught with leg make-up on your ears? +% +Hear that... + the Pope's next pronouncement on birth control is to be titled + "Paul's Epistle to the Fallopians"? +% +Hear that... + there's an establishment near the White House that caters to kinky + tastes? There's a House whip in attendance, of course? +% +Hear that... + they cancelled Easter this year? + Found the body. +% +Hear that... + those new edible candy pants are about to be distributed in a male + version -- with nuts of course? +% +If being bi increases your chance of getting a date, does being poly +increase your chance of getting dumped? +% +If girls are all sugar and spice, why do they taste like anchovies? +% +If God hadn't intended man to eat pussy, would He have made it look like +a taco? +% +If guns are outlawed, how will we shoot the liberals? +% +If Helen Keller is alone in a forest and falls, does she make a sound? +% +If women ran the military complex, would the missiles be shaped differently? +% +If you were attacked by a homosexual, would you beat him off? +% +If you're really into astrology, tell me, what happens when Mercury is in +the Fish, and Jupiter enters the Virgin? +% +Q. How do you keep an Aggie busy at a terminal? +A. While he's not looking, switch it to "local". +% +Q. What do you call a TV set that fixes itself? +A. A Christian Science Monitor. +% +Q. What's the capital of Canada? +A. American. +% +Q. What's the difference between Los Angeles and yogurt? +A. Yogurt has a living, active culture. +% +Q: "How many Romulans does it take to screw in a light bulb?" +A: "Twelve; one to screw the light-bulb in, and eleven to self-destruct + the ship out of disgrace." + + [Warning: do not tell this joke to Romulans or else be ready for + a fight. They consider this it to be a disgrace, though it's + pretty good for a LBJ. Ed.] +% +Q: "What is the burning question on the mind of every dyslexic + existentialist?" +A: "Is there a dog?" +% +Q: An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his + very religious colleague: Do you believe in one God? +A: Yes, up to isomorphism! +% +Q: Do you know how to tell a Polack at a cockfight? +A: He's the only one with a duck. + +Q: Do you know how to tell an Aggie at a cockfight? +A: He's the only one who bets on the duck. + +Q: And do you know how to tell the Mafia is at the cockfight? +A: The duck wins! +% +Q: Do you know what the death rate around here is? +A: One per person. +% +Q: Have you ever been picked up by the fuzz? +A: No, but I bet it hurts like hell. +% +Q: Have you heard about the man who didn't pay for his exorcism? +A: He got re-possessed! +% +Q: Heard about the who couldn't spell? +A: He spent the night in a warehouse. +% +Q: How can a real man tell when his girl friend's having an orgasm? +A: Real men don't care. +% +Q: How can we get the Beatles to reunite for one more concert? +A: With three more bullets. +% +Q: How can you tell if a woman is ticklish? +A: Give her a couple of test tickles. +% +Q: How can you tell if an elephant is having an affair with your wife? +A: You have to wait 22 months. +% +Q: How can you tell if an elephant is sitting on your back in a hurricane? +A: You can hear his ears flapping in the wind. +% +Q: How can you tell the bride at a WASP wedding? +A: She's the one kissing the golden retriever. +% +Q: How can you tell when a Polish girl's been sucking cock? +A: She has a mouthful of feathers. +% +Q: How can you tell when a WASP is sexually aroused? +A: By the stiff upper lip. +% +Q: How can you tell when your girlfriend has had an orgasm? +A: Who cares? +% +Q: How did Hellen Keller burn the side of her face? +A: She answered the iron. + +Q: How did she burn the other side of her face? +A: They called back. +% +Q: How did the elephant get to the top of the oak tree? +A: He sat on a acorn and waited for spring. + +Q: But how did he get back down? +A: He crawled out on a leaf and waited for autumn. +% +Q: How did you get into artificial intelligence? +A: Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence. +% +Q: How do you catch a unique rabbit? +A: Unique up on it! + +Q: How do you catch a tame rabbit? +A: The tame way! +% +Q: How do you fit 1000 dead babies into a phone booth? +A: Cusinart. + +Q: How do you get them back out? +A: Doritos. +% +Q: How do you get a woman to stop having sex with you? +A: Propose. +% +Q: How do you hide an elephant in a cherry tree? +A: Paint his balls red and his toenails green. + +Q: Ever see an elephant in a cherry tree? +A: No -- so it must work pretty well! + +Q: How did Tarzan die? +A: Picking cherries!!! +% +Q: How do you keep a moron in suspense? +% +Q: How do you know when it's time to wash the dishes? +A: Look inside your pants; if you have a penis, it's not time. +% +Q: How do you know when you're in the section of Vermont? +A: The maple sap buckets are hanging on utility poles. +% +Q: How do you know your elephant had her period? +A: There's a nickel on your dresser and your mattress is missing. +% +Q: How do you make a dead baby float? +A: With 2 scoops of dead baby and some rootbeer. +% +Q: How do you make an elephant float? +A: You get two scoops of elephant and some rootbeer... +% +Q: How do you pick up a quarter off of Polk Street? +A: Kick it over to Van Ness. +% +Q: How do you play religious roulette? +A: You stand around in a circle and blaspheme and see who gets + struck by lightning first. +% +Q: How do you tell if an Elephant has been making love in your backyard? +A: If all your trashcan liners are missing ... +% +Q: How do you tell if you're making love to a nurse, a schoolteacher, + or an airline stewardess? +A: A nurse says: "This won't hurt a bit." + A schoolteacher says: "We're just going to have to do this over + and over again until we get it right." + An airline stewardess says: "Just place this over your mouth and + nose and breathe normally." + +... and bank tellers say "Substantial penalty for early withdrawal." +... and saleswomen say "Thank you, come again soon!" +... and WASP's say "Do you have that in a bigger size?" +... and piano teachers say "Keep those fingers arched! TEMPO! TEMPO!" +% +Q: How do you tell that your roommate's gay? +A: When his cock tastes like shit. +% +Q: How does a girl know she's sleeping with a Computer Scientist? +A: It isn't hard. +% +Q: How does a mink get babies? +A: The same way babes get minks. +% +Q: How does a single woman in New York get rid of cockroaches? +A: She asks them for a commitment. +% +Q: How does a WASP propose marriage? +A: "How would you like to be buried with my people?" +% +Q: How does the Polish Constitution differ from the American? +A: Under the Polish Constitution citizens are guaranteed freedom of + speech, but under the United States constitution they are + guaranteed freedom after speech. + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +Q: How many Aggies does it take to eat an armadillo? +A: Three, one to eat it, and two to watch for traffic. +% +Q: How many Californians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? +A: Five. One to screw in the lightbulb and four to share the + experience. (Actually, Californians don't screw in + lightbulbs, they screw in hot tubs.) + +Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Three. One to screw in the lightbulb and two to fend off all + those Californians trying to share the experience. +% +Q: How many Christians does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Three, but they're really only one. +% +Q: How many Democrats does it take to enjoy a good joke? +A: One more than you can find. +% +Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? +A: NONE! AND THAT'S NOT FUNNY!! + +Q: How many Radcliffe girls does it take to change a light bulb? +A: It's "Women"... AND IT'S NOT FUNNY!! +% +Q: How many heterosexual males does it take to screw in a light + bulb, in San Fransisco? +A: Both of them. +% +Q: How many lesbians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? +A: Ten. One to do it, and nine to talk about how gratifying it was + without a man. +% +Q: How many people from New Jersey does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Three. One to do it, one to watch, and the third to shoot the witness. +% +Q: How many pre-meds does it take to change a lightbulb? +A: Five: One to change the bulb and four to pull the ladder + out from under him. +% +Q: How many right-to-lifers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Two. One to screw it in and one to say that light started when the + screwing began. +% +Q: How much money do you give to a 900 foot Jesus? +A: As much as he wants. +% +Q: How was Thomas J. Watson buried? +A: 9 edge down. +% +Q: If Tarzan was Jewish, and Jane was a princess, what would Cheetah be? +A: A fur coat. +% +Q: What can you use used tampons for? +A: Tea bags for vampires. +% +Q: What did Jesus tell the Aggies? +A: Play dumb until the second coming. +% +Q: What did Snow white say when told she was pregnant? +A: "I'd like to thank all the little people who made this possible..." + +Presumably this all started that evening when she was feeling Happy... +% +Q: What did the little ghetto-dweller get for Christmas? +A: Your bicycle. +% +Q: What do a blonde and your computer have in common? +A: You don't know how much either of them mean to you until + they go down on you. + +Q: What's the advantage to being married to a blonde? +A: You can park in the handicapped zone. + +Q: Why did the blonde get so excited after she finished her jigsaw + puzzle in only 6 months? +A: Because on the box it said "From 2-4 years". +% +Q: What do a walrus and a tupperware container have in common? +A: They both like a tight seal. +% +Q: What do elephants use instead of tampons? +A: Sheep. Well, they used to, anyway. There have been so many cases + of Toxic Flock Syndrome recently that their ewes has been discouraged. + +Q: Why do elephants have trunks? +A: Sheep don't have strings. +% +Q: What do two WASPs say after making love? +A: Thank you very much. It'll never happen again. +% +Q: What do WASPs do instead of making love? +A: Rule the country. +% +Q: What do you call a brunette between two blondes? +A: An interpreter. + +Q: Why do blondes have square breasts? +A: They forgot to take the tissues out of the box. + +Q: What do you call ten blondes in a row? +A: A wind tunnel. +% +Q: What do you call a dog with no legs? +A: What does it matter? He can't come anyway. + + [I've got a dog with no legs -- I call him Cigarette. + Every night, I take him out for a drag. Ed.] +% +Q: What do you call a group of kids with low IQ's, drinking diet cola, + eating fruit, and singing? +A: The Moron Tab and Apple Choir. +% +Q: What do you call a million cats at the bottom of Lake Michigan? +A: A good start. +% +Q: What do you call a monk who has had a sex change operation? +A: A transsister. +% +Q: What do you call a truck load of vibrators? +A: Toys for twats. +% +Q: What do you call a woman who can suck a golf ball through 50 feet + of garden hose? +A1: Darling. +A2: Often! +% +Q: What do you call couples that use that rhythm method? +A: Parents. +% +Q: What do you call someone with herpes, AIDS, syphilis, and gonorrhea? +A: An incurable romantic. +% +Q: What do you do if an Irishman throws a pin at you? +A: Run like hell, he's got a grenade in his mouth!! +% +Q: What do you do with an elephant with three balls? +A: Walk him and pitch to the rhino. +% +Q: What do you get when cross a lawyer with a sorority girl?? +A: A woman that, when she goes down on you, gets blood. +% +Q: What do you get when you cross a computer and a JAP (Jewish + American Princess)? +A: A computer that won't go down. +% +Q: What's the difference between a JAP (Jewish American Princess) + and a baby elephant? +A: About 10 pounds. + +Q: How do you make them the same? +A: Force feed the elephant. +% +Q: What do you get when you cross a pit bull with a prostitute? +A: Your last blowjob. +% +Q: What do you get when you cross a rooster with a telephone pole? +A: A thirty foot cock that wants to reach out and touch someone! +% +Q: What do you get when you cross an onion with a donkey? +A: Well, most of the time you get an onion with big ears, but every + once in a while you get a piece of ass that will bring tears to + your eyes... +% +Q: What do you get when you cross James Dean with Ronald Reagan? +A: A rebel without a clue. +% +Q: What do you get when you stuff a flaming stick down a rabbit-hole? +A: Hot cross bunnies! +% +Q: What do you have if you have a moth ball in one hand and a + moth ball in the other hand? +A: One hell of a big moth! +% +Q: What does a blonde do first thing in the morning? +A: She goes home. + +Q: Why does blonde have fur on the hem of her dress? +A: To keep her neck warm. + +Q: How do you make a blonde laugh on Monday? +A: Tell her a joke on Friday. +% +Q: What goes + Click. "Did I get it?" + Click. "Did I get it?" + Click. "Did I get it?" + Click. "Did I get it?" +A: Stevie Wonder doing the Rubik's Cube. +% +Q: What goes green, red, green, red, pink, pink, pink? +A: A frog in a blender. + +Q: What do you get if you add 2 eggs to it?? +A: Frognogg. If you drink it, you croak. +% +Q: What goes red, white, red, white, pink, pink, pink? +A: Baby in a blender. + +Q: Why do you put a baby in a blender feet first? +A: So you can watch the expression on its little face. +% +Q: What goes: Sis! Boom! Baaaaah! +A: Exploding sheep. +% +Q: What is green and comes in Brownies? +A: Boy Scouts. +% +Q: What is Smoorplay? +A: What Smurfs do before they smuck! +% +Q: What is the difference between snow-men and snow-women? +A: Snowballs! +% +Q: What is the last thing a Kansas stripper takes off? +A: Her bowling shoes. +% +Q: What is the mating call of a blonde? +A: I think I'm drunk. + +Q: What's the call of a disappointed blonde? +A: I *said*, I *think* I'm drunk! + +Q: What is the mating call of the ugly blonde? +A: (Screaming) "I said: I'm drunk!" +% +Q: What is the sound of one cat napping? +A: Mu. +% +Q: What is the worst story Helen Keller ever read? +A: A cheese grater. +% +Q: What's a JAP's (Jewish American Princess) dream house? +A: Fourteen rooms in Scarsdale, no kitchen, no bedroom. +% +Q: What's black and white and red all over and can't go through + revolving doors? +A: A nun with a javelin through her head. +% +Q: What's black and white and red all over? +A: Half a nun. +% +Q: What's black and white and red all over? +A: Two nuns in a chainsaw fight. +% +Q: What's bruised, bleeding, and lies in a ditch? +A: Somebody who tells Aggie jokes. +% +Q: What's invisible and smells like carrots? +A: Bunny farts. +% +Q: What's Jewish foreplay? +A: Two hours of begging. +% +Q: What's meaner than a pit bull with AIDS? +A: The guy that gave it to him. +% +Q: What's more fearsome than a grizzly bear with AIDS? +A: The guy he got it from. +% +Q: What's red and covered with little dents? +A: Snow White's cherry. +% +Q: What's the Blonde's cheer? +A: I'm blonde, I'm blonde, I'm B - L - O - uhh ... ah ... oh well.. + I'm blonde, I'm blonde, yea yea yea... + +Q: What do you call it when a blonde dies their hair brunette? +A: Artificial intelligence. + +Q: How do you make a blonde's eyes light up? +A: Shine a flashlight in her ear. +% +Q: What's the difference between "Oooh" and "Aaah"? +A: About three inches. +% +Q: What's the difference between a cocker spaniel and a doberman + pinscher humping your leg? +A: You let the doberman finish. +% +Q: What's the difference between a dog and a fox? +A: About four drinks. +% +Q: What's the difference between a Fairy Tale, and a War Story? +A: Nothing, except Fairy Tales start off with "Once upon a time". + War Stories start off with "No shit, this really happened". + + [I thought Fairy Tales started off, "Honey, I'm gonna be at the + office a little late, tonight... Ed.] +% +Q: What's the difference between a hold-up and a stick-up? +A: Age. +% +Q: What's the difference between a man and a toilet? +A: A toilet doesn't follow you around for a week after you flush it. +% +Q: What's the difference between a man and the weekend? +A: The weekend never comes too soon. +% +Q: What's the difference between a RHU cheerleader and a whale? +A: The moustache. +% +Q: What's the difference between a sorority girl and a fast car? +A: Not everyone's been in a fast car. +% +Q: What's the difference between an oral and a rectal thermometer? +A: The taste. +% +Q: What's the difference between Bell Labs and the Boy Scouts of America? +A: The Boy Scouts have adult supervision. +% +Q: What's the difference between erotic and kinky? +A: Erotic is when you use a feather. Kinky is when you use the + whole bird... +% +Q: What's the difference between George Washington, Richard Nixon + and Ronald Reagan? +A: One always told the truth, one always lied, and one can't tell the + difference. +% +Q: What's the difference between hard and dark? +A: It stays dark all night. +% +Q: What's the last thing that goes through a grasshopper's mind when + he hits your windshield? +A: His ass. + +Q. What's the second-to-last thing to go through a grasshopper's + mind when he hits your windshield? +A. Oh, SHIT!! +% +Q: What's the worst thing about being an atheist? +A: Noone to talk to when you're having an orgasm. +% +Q: What's white and crawls up your leg? +A: Uncle Ben's Perverted Rice. +% +Q: What's worse than getting raped by Jack the Ripper? +A: Getting fingered by Captain Hook! +% +Q: Where can you buy black lace crotchless panties for sheep? +A: Fredrick's of Ithaca, New York. +% +Q: Where does Catwoman go for a good time? +A: To the batpoles, Robin! +% +Q: Where does virgin wool come from? +A: Ugly sheep. +% +Q: Why are babies born with soft spots on their heads? +A: So you can pick 'em up five at a time. +% +Q: Why are Unix emulators like your right hand? +A: They're just pussy substitutes! +% +Q: Why can't Hellen Keller have children? +A: Because she's dead. +% +Q: Why did Captain Kirk piss on the bridge? +A: He wanted to boldly go where no man had gone before! +% +Q: Why did God invent booze? +A: So ugly men could get laid too. +% +Q: Why did Hellen Keller go all the way on her first date? +A: She'd never been taught to say no. +% +Q: Why did Ted Kennedy report the accident 8 hours after Mary + Jo Kopechne drowned? +A: Do you have any idea how hard it is to dress a woman underwater? +% +Q: Why did the blonde climb over the glass wall? +A: To see what was on the other side. + +Q: Why do blondes like tilt steering wheels? +A: More head room. + +Q: How does a blonde turn on the light after having sex? +A: She opens the car door. +% +Q: Why did the epileptic cross the road? +A: He couldn't help it. + +Q: What do you do if an epileptic has a seizure in the bathtub? +A: Throw in the dirty clothes and some laundry detergent. +% +Q: Why did the germ cross the microscope? +A: To get to the other slide. +% +Q: Why did the mathematician name his dog "Cauchy"? +A: Because he left a residue at every pole. +% +Q: Why do dogs lick their balls? +A: 'Cause they can! + +(Real answer: 'Cause they can't curl their little paws into fists...) +% +Q: Why do elephants wear springs on their feet? +A: So they can jump into trees and rape mice. + +Q: What is the most fearsome sound in the world to a mouse? +A: BOING!! BOING!! BOING!! +% +Q: Why do men die before their wives? +A: They want to. +% +Q: Why do men marry women? +A: You can't teach sheep to do housework. +% +Q: Why do mice have such small balls? +A: Very few of them know how to dance! +% +Q: Why do Scotsmen wear kilts? +A: Because a sheep can hear the sound of a zipper from fifty feet away. + -- Iain MacKintosh, Glasgow folksinger +% +Q: Why do women have vaginas? +A: So when they're drunk, you can carry them like a six-pack. +% +Q: Why do women love Pacman? +A: Only place you can get eaten three times for a quarter. +% +Q: Why does an elephant have 4 feet? +A: Because 8 inches isn't enough. +% +Q: Why does Helen Keller masturbate with one hand? +A: So she can moan with the other! +% +Q: Why don't blind people skydive? +A: It scares the dogs! + +Q: How can a blind skydiver tell when he is near the ground? +A: The leash goes slack. +% +Q: Why don't blondes eat pickles? +A: Because they get their head stuck in the jars. + +Q: Why do blondes wear underwear? +A: To keep their ankles warm. + +Q: How do you kill a blonde? +A: Put spikes in her shoulder pads. +% +Q: Why is Mrs. Carter always on top when she and Jimmy make love? +A: Because all Jimmy Carter can do is fuck up. +% +Q: Why is Sister Pat the way she is? +A: Because when she was 16, a group of boys tied her up and + gang-rejected her. +% +Q: Why should blondes not be given coffee breaks? +A: It takes too long to retrain them. + +Q: What's the mating call of the brunette? +A: All the blondes have gone home! + +Q: How do you tell if a blonde's been using the computer? +A: There's white-out on the screen. +% +Q: Why was Cinderella banished from the Magic Kingdom? +A: For sitting on Pinocchio's face and screaming, "Tell the truth! + Tell a lie! Tell the truth! Tell a lie!" +% +Q: What's the difference between VMS and PMS? + +A1: PMS is only a problem for some people. +A2: PMS is only a problem for part of the month. +A3: The drugstore has remedies for PMS. +A4: People with PMS get sympathy. +A5: People with PMS don't wish they were UNIX. +% +Q: What do you say to a Puerto Rican in a three-piece suit? +A: Will the defendant please rise? +% +What do hookers do on their nights off, type? + -- Elayn Boosler +% +What's on the floor of the old hen-house? +Doo-doo, doo-doo. + -- Foghorn Leghorn, to "Camptown Ladies" +% +Why does Dr. Pepper come in a bottle? + +Because his wife left him. But things are looking up for their reconciliation. +Seems that when she left, she took his word processor, and she's been renting +it out occasionally in Japan. That is, every now and then she gets a yen for +his Wang. +% +Why is it that there are so many more horses' asses than there are horses? + -- G. Gordon Liddy +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/sex b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/sex new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e1933d --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/sex @@ -0,0 +1,4600 @@ + (1) I'm Not Rudolph; That's Not My Nose + (2) The Nutcracker Swede + (3) Santa Goes Round-The-World + (4) Not-So-Tiny Tim + (5) Ninja Reindeer Killfest '88 + (6) Yes, Yes, Oh God Yes, Virginia + (7) Crisco Kringle + (8) Babes in Boyland + (9) Santa's Magic Lap +(10) Hot Buttered Elves + -- David Letterman's "Top Ten Christmas Movies in Times Square" +% +10 greatest lies of all time: + + (1) I love you. + (2) This won't hurt a bit. + (3) The Mercedes is paid for. + (4) The check is in the mail. + (5) I was just going to call you. + (6) I've always worn cowboy boots. + (7) I swear I won't come in your mouth. + (8) Of course I'll respect you in the morning. + (9) We have a really challenging assignment for you. + (10) I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you. +% +10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Man: + + (1) A beer NEVER leaves the toilet seat up. + (2) A beer lasts longer than seven seconds. + (3) A beer doesn't want to watch pro wrestling. + (4) A beer won't expect you to cook dinner when you're not hungry. + (5) A beer will never leave dirty socks on the floor. + (6) A beer doesn't mind when your mother visits. + (7) A beer does as many chores as a man, with a LOT less complaining. + (8) A beer won't leave you for a younger woman. + (9) A beer won't leave you for a younger man either. + (10) A beer won't tease you because you once liked Barry Manilow. +% +10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Man: + + (1) A beer will never invite friends home for dinner without calling. + (2) A beer won't think less of you if you can't name the Steelers' + quarterback. + (3) A beer won't even act amazed if you can. + (4) You don't have to let a beer win. + (5) Just because you have dinner with a beer doesn't mean you have to + sleep with it, too. + (6) A beer helps with the housework. + (7) A beer will never fumble with your bra. + (8) A beer will never take the newspaper apart before you've read it. + (9) A beer doesn't want you to raise its children. + (10) A beer wouldn't mind if you wanted it to wear a condom. +% +10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Man: + + (1) Having a beer can't make you pregnant. + (2) A beer doesn't wouldn't trade you in on a sports car. + (3) If a beer did have a sports car, it wouldn't love it more than you. + (4) A beer doesn't want to go out alone with the other beers. + (5) A beer wouldn't waste its money on Playbeer magazine. + (6) You don't have to worry about getting AIDS from a bisexual beer. + (7) A beer won't switch the TV channel. + (8) A beer doesn't snore. + (9) A beer doesn't care that you can't find your car's carbueretor. + (10) A beer doesn't think black leather bikinis are neat. +% +10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Woman: + + (1) A beer won't make you go to church. + (2) A beer is more likely to know how to spell "carburetor" than a + woman. + (3) A beer doesn't think baseball is stupid simply because the guys + spit. + (4) A beer doesn't give a [expletive deleted] if you keep a bunch of + other beers on the side. + (5) A beer will not call you a sexist pig if you say "doberman" + instead of "doberperson". + (6) A beer won't get a job as a DJ and play 5 straight hours of + lesbian folk music on yer fave radio station. + (7) A beer understands why The Three Stooges are funny. + (8) A beer won't raise a fuss about a little thing like leaving the + toilet seat up. + (9) A beer doesn't think that a "three-hundred-fifty cubic-inch V8" + is an enormous can of vegetable juice. + (10) A beer won't smoke in your car. +% +10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Woman: + + (1) Beer understands the difference between shooting down an + unidentified aircraft in a war zone and blowing a Korean airliner + out of the sky. + (2) A beer would never own a car with an automatic transmission. + (3) A beer never fishes for compliments. + (4) Beer tastes good. + (5) A beer can enjoy an evening of watching "Johnny-the-Wadd-Holmes' + Greatest Hits" as much as you do. + (6) An ice-cold beer will nonetheless let you have your way with it. + (7) A beer won't ask you to pick up some tampons when you go to the store. + (8) Beer never asks you to change the station. + (9) A beer won't fill up your 'Vette with 85-octane gas because it's + twenty cents less expensive. + (10) A beer won't make you eat experimental vegetarian meals that taste + like grass. +% +10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Woman: + + (1) You can enjoy a beer all month. + (2) Beer stains wash out. + (3) Beer doesn't go crazy once a month. + (4) Beer never makes you wait. + (5) A beer doesn't get jealous when you grab another beer. + (6) Beer doesn't have a lawyer "in the family". + (7) A beer won't get upset if you come home with beer on your breath. + (8) Beer doesn't demand equality. + (9) Beer labels come off without a fight. + (10) Beer doesn't mind being in the "wet spot" that IT left. +% +11 reasons a cucumber is better than a man: + + (1) Cucumbers can stay up all night, + and you won't have to sleep in the wet spot. + (2) Cucumbers don't play the guitar and try to find themselves. + (3) You won't find out later that your cucumber + ...is married + ...is on penicillin + ...likes you -- but loves your brother! + (4) A cucumber won't care what time of the month it is. + (5) A cucumber never wants to get it on when your nails are wet. + (6) Cucumbers don't say "Let's keep trying until we have a boy". + (7) Cucumbers won't tell you size doesn't count. + (8) A cucumber won't leave you for a cheerleader or an ex-nun. + (9) Cucumbers don't fall asleep on your chest or drool on the pillow. + (10) Cucumbers don't care if you make more money than they do. + (11) With a cucumber, the toilet seat is always the way you left it. +% +15 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Man: + + (1) A beer doesn't care that you don't balance your checkbook. + (2) Tall, dark, good-looking beers are common. + (3) A beer won't steal all the covers. + (4) A beer doesn't have friends who will drink all your beer. + (5) A beer wouldn't yell if you dented the car. + (6) A beer doesn't buy everything labelled "turbo". + (7) You don't have to laugh at a beer's jokes. + (8) A beer is not kinky unless you want it to be kinky. + (9) A beer always lets you read the Sunday comics first. + (10) A beer doesn't think poetry is queer. + (11) If the beer is finished before you are, you can have another beer. + (12) A beer won't talk about the women who had it before you. + (13) A beer's life does not revolve around the world series. + (14) A beer won't mind at all if you're not in the mood for beer. + (15) A beer will NEVER call you "Babe". Or "Sugar". +% +20 Reasons Why a Beer is Bettern than a Man: + + (1) A beer never leaves the toilet seat up. + (2) A beer doesn't want to watch pro wrestling. + (3) A beer does as many chores as a man, with a LOT less complaining. + (4) You don't have to worry about getting AIDS from a bisexual beer. + (5) A beer won't tease you because you once liked Barry Manilow. + (6) A beer doesn't want to go out alone with the other beers. + (7) A beer doesn't care that you can't find your car's carburator. + (8) A beer doesn't think black leather bikinis are neat. + (9) A beer won't steal the covers. + (10) A beer doesn't buy everything labelled "turbo". + (11) A beer doesn't think poetry is queer. + (12) A beer can't talk about the women who had it before you. + (13) A beer tastes good. + (14) A beer will never invite friends home for dinner without calling. + (15) A beer won't think less of you if you can't name the Steelers' + quarterback. + (16) You don't have to let a beer win. + (17) A beer always lets you read the Sunday comics first. + (18) A beer will never call you "Babe". Or "Sugar-hips". + (19) A beer doesn't care that you don't balance your checkbook. + (20) You don't have to laugh at a beer's jokes. +% +6802 hackers make great use of the SEX instruction. +% +69 + 69 = dinner for 4. +% +77. HO HUM -- The Redundant + +------- (7) This hexagram refers to a situation of extreme +--- --- (8) boredom. Your programs always bomb off. Your wife +------- (7) smells bad. Your children have hives. You are working +---O--- (6) on an accounting system, when you want to develop the +---X--- (9) GREAT AMERICAN COMPILER. You give up hot dates to +--- --- (8) nurse sick computers. What you need now is sex. + +Nine in the second place means: + The yellow bird approaches the malt shop. Misfortune. + +Six in the third place means: + In former times men built altars to honor the Internal Revenue + Service. Great Dragons! Are you in trouble! +% +8 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Woman: + + (1) You rarely (if ever) find beer labels on the shower curtain rod. + (2) A beer doesn't care when you come. + (3) Beer doesn't have a mother. + (4) Beer doesn't need much closet space. + (5) A beer won't accuse you of lying when you say you read Playboy + "just for the articles". + (6) Beer doesn't mind seeing Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson flicks. + (7) Beer doesn't always want to go to the 'powder room' with everyone + else's beer. + (8) When you're through with a beer, the thought of another beer + doesn't make you ill. +% +9 reasons a taco is better than a woman: + + (1) Tacos don't put frilly covers on the toilet seat so the lid won't + stay up. + (2) Tacos don't use your razor on their legs. + (3) Tacos don't say "That's okay, it doesn't have to be good for me." + (4) Tacos don't get upset if you eat another taco, "Just for fun." + (5) Tacos will never contest a divorce, demand a property settlement, + or seek custody of anything. + (6) Tacos won't ask you about your last lover, or speculate about your + next one. + (7) A taco will never make a scene because there are other tacos in the + refrigerator. + (8) It's easy to drop a taco. + (9) Tacos don't want to sleep on your chest. +% +A beachcomber of 25 had been shipwrecked on a desert island since the age of +six. One day, while in search of food, he stumbled across a beautifully +sensuous female lying on the beach nearly naked; she'd been washed ashore from +another shipwreck that morning. After they got over their initial surprise +at seeing each other, the girl wanted to know how long he had been alone on +this barren bit of land. + "Almost twenty years," he answered. + "Twenty years!" she exclaimed. "But how ever did you survive?" + "Oh, I fish, dig for clams, and gather berries and coconuts," he +replied. + "And what do you do for sex?" she asked. + "What's that?" He looked puzzled. + Whereupon the maiden pulled the innocent young man down onto the sand +beside her and proceeded to demonstrate. After they had finished, she asked +how he had enjoyed it. + "Great!" was the reply. "But look what it did to my clamdigger!" +% +A beautiful, voluptous woman goes to see a gynecologist. The doctor takes +one look at this woman and his professionalism is a thing of the past. Right +away he tells her to undress. After she has disrobed he begins to stroke her +thigh. As he does this he says to the woman, "Do you know what I'm doing?" + "Yes," she says, "you're checking for any abrasions or dermatological +abnormalities." + "Correct," says the doctor. He then begins to fondle her breasts. +"Do you know what I'm doing now?" he says. + "Yes," says the woman, "you're checking for any lumps or breast +cancer." + "That's right," replies the doctor. He then gradually proceeds to +having sexual intercourse with her. "Do you know," he pants, "what I'm doing +now?" + "Yes," she says. "You're getting herpes." +% +A big store buyer had been on the road for nearly two months. Each week he +would send his wife a telegram saying, + "Can't come home yet. Still buying." +His wife knew that these buying trips usually involved more than business. +She tolerated this particular jaunt for a while, but when the third month +rolled by and she'd still seen nothing of her husband but the weekly telegrams, +she wired him, + "Better come home. I'm selling what you're buying." +% +A bisexual is a man who likes girls as well as the next fellow. +% + A business executive is consumed by jealousy: he suspects his wife +of cheating on him. The suspicion grows and grows, and one morning as he +drives to work he can't take it any more. He thinks to himself, "she +probably just waited until I left so she could meet with her lover." + When he gets to his office, he calls home. The maid answers. He +says, "Hello. Is my wife there?" + "Yes, sir", the maid whispers. + "Is she with her lover?" + The maid pauses, and then says, "Yes, sir, she is, and I must say +that I feel terrible about how she treats you." + The man yells, "That no good **#*&!!. If you feel as badly as you +say you do, you must do this for me: go to my dresser and get my gun. Check +to make sure that it's loaded. Then go upstairs and shoot both that cheating +two-timing whore and her lover. Dispose of the gun, and then come back to +the phone and tell me that it's over. Don't worry -- I'll protect you." +The man hears footsteps, a drawer being opened, a click, more footsteps, +silence... and then two shots. More footsteps. Finally the maid comes back +to the phone and says "It's done." + The man asks, "What did you do with the gun?" + "I threw it behind the statue in the garden", the maid replies. + "Statue in the garden? Say, what number is this, anyway?" +% +A businessman was awe-struck by the beautiful redhead at the hotel bar. +Seeing his interest, she quietly informed him that she was a prostitute +and that her price was $500. He was taken aback by the price, but after +a few minutes of thought he took her up to his room. She spent a few +minutes in the bathroom and was shocked when she came out to see him +masturbating furiously on the bed. "What are you doing?", she asked. + "Baby, for $500, you're not going to get the easy one!" +% +A chiseler is a man who goes stag to a wife-swapping party. +% +A drunk was sitting at the end of the bar in a popular single's place, +watching a young, good-looking man working his way through the women. The +guy didn't appear to be having much luck, and he was only spending a few +moments with each woman. As he worked his way closer, while he couldn't +hear what the young man was saying, he realized that the women were somewhat +shocked at his approach. Finally, the man approaches a pretty brunette and +they hit it off immediately. After a bit of quiet conversation, she handed +the young man her hotel key and they started off for the elevators. As they +passed the drunk, he stopped the lucky one and asked him what his method was. + "Well," the man replied, "It's simple. You say 'Tickle your ass +with a feather?' If she sounds interested, you take it from there. If she +sounds angry, you smile and say 'Typically nasty weather.'" + The drunk says "Ohhhhh, got it, I got it!" and walks over to a woman +at the end of the bar to try out his new approach. Getting her attention, +he smiles and says "Fuck me!" + "What?!?!?" she screams. + "Raining like hell, isn't it?" +% +A farmer decides that his three sows should be bred, and contacts a +buddy down the road, who owns several boars. They agree on a stud fee, and +the farmer puts the sows in his pickup and takes them down the road to the +boars. He leaves them all day, and when he picks them up that night, asks +the man how he can tell if it "took" or not. The breeder replies that if, +the next morning, the sows were grazing on grass, they were pregnant, but if +they were rolling in the mud as usual, they probably weren't. + Comes the morn, the sows are rolling in the mud as usual, so the +farmer puts them in the truck and brings them back for a second full day of +frolic. This continues for a week, since each morning the sows are rolling +in the mud. + Around the sixth day, the farmer wakes up and tells his wife, "I +don't have the heart to look again. This is getting ridiculous. You check +today." With that, the wife peeks out the bedroom window and starts to laugh. + "What is it?" asks the farmer excitedly. "Are they grazing at last?" + "Nope." replies his wife. "Two of them are jumping up and down in +the back of your truck, and the other one is honking the horn!" +% +A fool is a man who worries about whether or not his lover has integrity. +A wise man, on the other hand, busies himself with deeper attributes. +% +A friend of mine received a note through the mail advising him, + +"If you don't stop making love to my wife, I'll kill you." + +The trouble is, the note wasn't signed. +% +A gambler was telling a friend about his first junket to Las Vegas and how +hard it was to get any sleep. + "I was awakened at one, two and four in the morning by a +drunken chorus girl banging on the door and screaming," he recalled. + "That's terrible," the friend said." How'd you ever get any sleep?" + "At five o'clock I unlocked the door and let her out." +% +A gorgeous young sophomore is having an affair with her English +professor. She goes home to visit her family for Christmas vacation +and when she gets back, she immediately invites him over for the +night. As soon as he walks through the door she hugs him and +asks, "Were you blue while I was away?" + "Blown, my dear," the professor corrects her, "blown." +% +A group of scientists discovered an apelike creature in the jungle, which +they hoped would prove to be the missing link. The proof of their theory, +however, required that a human mate with the animal so that they could see +what characteristics the offspring would assume. Needing volunteers, the +scientists placed an ad in the paper: "$5000 to mate with ape." + Almost immediately, they received response from a man who said he +would be willing to take part in the experiment, with three conditions. + "First," he said, "my wife must never know. Second, any children +must be baptized. And, third, I'd have to pay in installments." +% +A guy comes into a bar with a frog and sets it down next to the prettiest +girl there. + "This is a very special frog," he informs her. "His name is Charlie." + "What's so special about this frog?" she asks. +He's reluctant to tell her, but when pressed, explains that, + "This frog can eat pussy." +The girl slaps him, knocking him off his chair, and accuses him of telling her +a filthy lie. But no, he assures her, it's completely true. And after much +discussion, she agrees to come back to his apartment to see the frog in action. +She positions herself appropriately, the guy carefully takes out the frog, and +says, "Okay, Charlie, do your stuff!" The frog is immobile, despite his +owner's exhortations, and the girl starts to snicker. + "Okay, Charlie, do your stuff!" + "C'mon Charlie, do your stuff!" +By now, the girl is laughing openly. + "Okay, Charlie," says the guy, moving the frog out of the way, "I'm +only going to show you one more time." +% + A guy finishes his 9 to 5, but, instead of going straight home, stops +in at a local bar for a drink. He gets his beer, turns around to sit down, +and finds himself face to face with a ravishing blonde. The two strike up a +conversation, and really hit it off. After a couple drinks they leave the bar +go back to her pad, to peruse her etchings. Which doesn't take long -- by +seven they were happily engaged in intimate scratching. + 'Round about midnight the guy rolled over in bed and spotted the clock: +"Midnight! Already! I gotta get home! Honey, you have any baby powder?" +He jumps out of bed and starts pulling his pants on, trying to find his shoes. + "Baby powder?" she asks. But she comes back from the bathroom and +hands him the powder. He frantically shakes it all over his hands, kisses her +goodbye, and runs out the front door. + He gets home, and sure enough, there's his wife, waiting in the +doorway. + "Okay," she mutters, "let's have it." + "Well," he says sheepishly, looking down at his feet. "Okay. I went +to a bar after work and met a gorgeous blonde and we really hit it off. We +had a few drinks and went back to her place, and well, see..." + "Oh yeah?" she says, "let me see your hands... Don't you lie to me! +You've been bowling again!" +% +A hand in a bird is worth two on 'er bush. +% +A hand in the bush is worth two on the bird. +% +A hard man is good to find. +% +A hunter saved a native boy from a boa constrictor. In gratitude, the boy gave +the hunter a magic gorilla prick. The lad said the prick would do anything you +told it to do until you told it to do something else. When the hunter returned +home to England, he put the magic gorilla prick on the mantle along with some +of his other trophies. His wife thought it quaint and his story charming. But +soon, the hunter went a-safariing again. He was away for months. One evening, +the woman eyed the MGP carefully and whispered, "Gorilla Prick, fuck me." +Whereupon the thing jumped off the mantle and began to bang her with great +thoroughness and ferocity. For the first twenty minutes it was pure heaven, +but after the next few minutes it became fatiguing, and she said, "Stop it, +Gorilla Prick," but it didn't. After a bit more she was screaming "Stop! +Stop!" at the thing and trying to pull it out of her smoking hole. But nothing +worked. Finally, the butler bursts into the room, summoned by her screams. + "Saunders, help me please!" + "But what is it, Madame?" + "It's a Magic Gorilla Prick!" + "Gorilla prick, my ass!! ... AAAaaeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiii!!!!!!" +% +A husky foreigner, looking for sex, accepted a prostitute's terms. When +she undressed, he noticed that she had no pubic hair. The man shouted, +"What, no wool? In my country all women have wool down there." + The prostitute snapped back, "What do you want to do, knit or fuck?" +% +A lively case was in progress in the District Court at Lick Skillet. Judge +Flannery was presiding, and on the witness stand was Tush Bumpass. + "From where ah was standin'", drawled Tush, "Ah could see he'd +backed 'er up agin' thet there wall, and ef Ah ever sawed a screwin' match, +thet one wuz!" + "Mr. Bumpass," the Judge interrupted, "I'd prefer that you not use +the word 'screw' in the courtroom. Say 'intercourse' instead." + Tush looked puzzled. "Intercourse? Whut's thet, Judge?" + His Honor sighed. "It's a technicality of language that you're +probably not aware of. Never mind. Please continue." + "Well, like ah said, he had 'er shoved up agin' thet wall, an' he +was... uh... intercoursin' 'er, an' he give 'er the crossjostle, the Chicago +Stroke, an she let out with a holler thet..." + "One moment," interrupted the Bench. "What is this, ah, Chicago +Stroke, Mr. Bumpass?" + "Well, thet's a technicality of screwin', Judge, thet you're probably +not aware of!" +% +A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all. + -- Thomas Hardy +% +A man and a woman got married. Although it is the first time for the +husband, it is the woman's second marriage. As they go to bed on their +wedding night, the wife says to her husband: + + "Dear, there's something I must tell you. I'm a virgin." +Naturally, the husband is surprised. + "You've been married before!", he says, "How can you still be a +virgin?" + "Well, it's all quite simple," she retorted, "my husband was a +computer programmer." + "What's so odd about that?", he asked. "Why would you still be +a virgin after a marriage to a programmer?" + "Well", she said, "all he did was sit on the edge of the bed and +tell me how great it was going to be." +% +A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen +or twenty mistakes she's a tramp. + -- Joan Rivers +% +A man goes into a hospital for a routine appendectomy. When he wakes up +from the anesthesia, he sees a large group of doctors gathered anxiously +around his bed. + "What happened?" he asks worriedly. + "Well," says one of the doctors, "there was a small clerical error, +and you got mixed-up with another patient. Instead of an appendectomy, we +performed a sex-change operation. Your penis has been removed and a vagina +has been crafted into place." + "WHAT!!!" screams the man. "That's horrible! What am I going to +tell my wife? Can't you reverse it? This means I'm never going to experience +another erection!" + "Well, you will, you *will*," reassures the doctor, "but it will, of +course, have to be someone else's." +% +A man is as old as the woman he feels. + -- Groucho Marx +% +A man is driving down the road on his way to Salerno. By the roadside he +sees a man hitchhiking and stops to pick him up. As the man gets into his +car he suddenly pulls out a gun and makes the driver get out of the car. + "All right, buddy," says the man, "I want to you jerk off." + "What!?" says the man, disbelievingly. + "Go ahead, do it!" says the hitchhiker. + So the driver masturbates, and when he is through, says, "All right, +I did what you wanted, can I go now?" + "Nope," says the hijacker. "Do it again." + "Again?" the driver exclaims. "I just did it." + "Do it again." + It takes a little longer this time, but he manages to come again. +Panting, he turns to his tormenter and again asks if he can leave. + "Yes," the man replies, "but only after you've done it one more +time." + The guy is really scared now; he's starting to sweat. It takes him +twenty minutes, this time, but he finally comes a third time. + "Listen, buddy, can I please leave now?" + "Yeah," says the man, lowering his gun. "And this is my daughter; +I want you to drive her into Salerno." +% +A man is marooned on a desert island with a female sheep and a male Doberman +for companionship. The animals soon get it on sexually, and all goes well +until the man becomes unbearably horny and makes his move for the ewe, at +which point the dog interposes himself, snarling, fangs bared. Months later, +a raft drifts into sight. The sailor swims out, finds a beautiful girl on it, +takes her to shore and feeds and comforts her. + "You are so good to me," she responds gratefully. "I'd do absolutely +anything to show my gratitude." + "Would you?" smiles the sailor as he unfastens the length of rope +that holds up his ragged pants. "Well, then, here -- use this as a leash +and take that damn dog for a walk!" +% +A man is playing golf at a very exclusive country club when he hits a hole- +in-one. As he takes his ball from the cup, a genie appears. + "Since you've made a hole in one, you may have a single wish. What +is your heart's desire?" + "Great!", replies the man. I want a longer penis." + "Your wish is granted," says the genie, and promptly disappears. + As the golfer continues through the rest of the course he can +feel his penis slowly growing, to an extent that it's becoming uncomfortable. +By the time he completes the 18th hole it's extended down his pants leg to +his knee. Thinking to himself that this isn't quite what he had in mind, he +grabs a bucket of balls and heads back out onto the course. Three weeks later, +he manages another hole-in-one and the genie reappears. + "Since you've made a hole in one, you may have a single wish. What +is your heart's desire?" + "Yeah, I know all that," replies the man. "Listen, could you make +my legs longer?" +% +A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be +bothered with sex and all that sort of thing. + -- W. Somerset Maugham, "The Circle" +% + A man met a beautiful young woman in a bar. They got along well, +shared dinner, and had a marvelous evening. When he left her, he told her +that he had really enjoyed their time together, and hoped to see her again, +soon. Smiling yes, she gave him her phone number. + The next day, he called her up and asked her to go dancing. She +agreed. As they talked, he jokingly asked her what her favorite flower was. +Realizing his intentions, she told him that he shouldn't bring her flowers +-- if he wanted to bring her a gift, well, he should bring her a Swiss Army +knife! + Surprised, and not a little intrigued, he spent a large part of the +afternoon finding a particularly unusual one. Arriving at her apartment +he immediately presented her with the knife. She ooohed and ahhhed over it +for a minute, and then carefully placed it in a drawer, that the man couldn't +help but see was full of Swiss Army knives. + Surprised, he asked her why she had collected so many. + "Well, I'm young and attractive now", blushed the woman, "but that +won't always be true. And boy scouts will do anything for a Swiss Army knife!" +% +A man needs a mistress, just to break the monogamy. +% +A man never minds being in the doghouse as long as he can get his tail outside. +% +A man sat down next to another passenger on a train recently and couldn't +help overhearing his conversation out the window with a man standing on +the train platform. + "Thanks for putting me up while I was here, Sam," said the passenger. + "Glad to do it," said the other man. + "Thanks for the food and the drinks -- everything was wonderful." + "It was a pleasure," said the man. + "And thank your wife, Sam, she was great," said the passenger, +"she was a truly great lay." + The man was rather taken aback by this exchange and he later turned +to his fellow passenger and said: "Pardon me sir, but did I understand you +to say that your friend's wife was a great lay?" + "Well," said the other passenger, "I didn't REALLY enjoy it. But +Sam is a helluva nice guy." +% +A man was just settling down into his seat for a cross-country +flight when he noticed a beautiful woman sitting next to him, wearing a +large button with the letters "NAA" on it. + "What's that?" he asked, pointing to her button. + "Nymphomaniacs Association of America" she replied. + After a moments thought he said, "Well, if you wouldn't mind my +asking, but I've always wanted to know, who are the best, ummm, `endowed' +men?" + "Well, it's not what you think. Native Americans. They're better +hung than *anybody*." + "And is it true that the French are the best lovers?" + "No, Jewish men. Once you finally get them going they can last +all night. By the way, my name is Sue. What's yours?" + "Running Bear Sheldon." +% +A man was playing golf one day when a little frog hopped out the water at a +water hazard and croaked, "I am a magic frog, and since you are the 10,000th +person to play through here, I'm prepared to offer you one of two magic gifts: +First, for a whole year you can have the most fabulous sex life that anyone +ever had; beyond your wildest dreams. Or, second, for a whole year you can +be the best golfer the world has ever known. Which do you prefer?" The man +thought a bit and said that he'd take the golf. Well, the man holed his wood +shot from where he was, completed the course in an average of 2 per hole, and +went round in 22. Quickly he attracted the attention of the sports world, +and became the world's best-known golfer, setting course records wherever +he went. A year later he was playing the same course inhabited by the frog, +and at the water hazard the frog hopped out and said, "Well, the year is up, +and you now revert to the 18-handicap player you were before. But tell me, I +was a little surprised that you chose the golf -- I take it your sex life is +outstanding?" The man said, "Well, I have no complaints in that department +at all, which is why I chose the golf." "How many times did you engage in sex +last year?" inquired the frog. The man thought a little and said, "Oh, eight +or ten times, I guess." "Damn," said the frog, "that doesn't strike me as very +satisfactory." "Oh, I don't know," replied the man, "it doesn't seem so bad +for a Catholic priest from a little town in South Dakota." +% +A man was traveling cross-country one summer from New York to LA. +He arrived in Needles, CA late one night and pulled into an Exxon for some +gas. When he pulled up to the gas pumps, he noticed that all of the lights +were off. Suddenly, he heard a faint sound from outside. He wasn't sure +what he'd heard, so he rolled down his window and heard a faint cry, +"Help... help... help". He got out of his car, and sure enough there was +a guy stooped down in the corner, stark naked with his wrists tied to his +ankles. He walked up to the guy and said, "Hey, man, what happened to you?" + "These guys pulled me out of my car, took my money, my wallet, my +clothes, tied my wrists to my ankles, and then stole my car!!" + "Damn!", replied the first man as he unzipped his pants. "This just +hasn't been your day, has it?" +% +A man who likes to lie in bed can usually find a girl willing to listen to him. +% +A midget had a date with a very tall girl. It was a quiff-hanger. +% +A mother and her daughter came to the doctor's office. The mother +asked the doctor to examine her daughter. "She has been having some strange +symptoms and I'm worried about her," the mother said. + The doctor examined the daughter carefully. Then he announced, +"Madam, I believe your daughter is pregnant." + The mother gasped. "That's nonsense!" she said. "Why, my little +girl has never even been out with a man, let alone... let alone..." She +turns to the girl and said, "Tell the doctor, Susie!" + "Yes, Mumsy," said the girl. "Doctor, I have never so much as +kissed a man!" + The doctor looked from the mother to daughter, and back again. Then, +silently he stood up and walked to the window. He stared out. He continued +staring until the mother felt compelled to ask, "Doctor, is there something +wrong out there?" + "No, Madam," said the doctor. "It's just that the last time anything +like this happened, a star appeared in the East and I was looking to see if +another one was going to show up." +% +A new lumberjack had just finished his first month in the lonely wilds of +Alaska, where there were no women for miles. He finally couldn't take it +anymore and nervously asked the foreman what the other men did to relieve +the pressure. + "Try the hole in the barrel outside the shower," suggested the +foreman. "The other men swear by it." + The lumberjack dubiously tried it out and had the experience of +his life. "That barrel is fantastic! Warm! Wet! I'm going to use it +every day!" + "Every day but the third Wednesday of the month," one of the +other men replied. + "Why not then?" + "That's your day in the barrel." +% +A Norse god decides to assume human form, come down from Valhalla, and check +out the local action. He finds himself in the piano bar of Caesar's Boardwalk +Regency in Atlantic City, and sits down to sip an Acquavit or two. After a few +minutes, an extremely attractive young woman, having been taken with his form +and features, sends a drink down to him, then joins him. The chemistry between +them is immediate and total. They have the next drink in her room, and spend +the night repeatedly making passionate love. The woman has no idea of her +partner's true identity; all she knows is he's driving her mad. In the +morning, the Norse god jumps into the shower. Reflecting on the previous +night he decides that he wants to be honest with his new lover. Without even +bothering to wrap himself in a towel, he leaps from the shower into the room, +where the woman is still in bed, exhausted. He kneels beside the bed, looks +deep into her eyes and says, "Honey, I have something very important to tell +you -- I'm Thor!". + +The woman looks at him. "You're Thor?", she says. "My inthides feel +like grated cheeth!" +% +A nubile female virtually never experiences difficulty in finding willing +sexual partners, and in a natural habitat nubile females are probably always +married. The basic female "strategy" is to obtain the best possible husband, +to be fertilized by the fittest available male (always, of course, taking +risk into account), and to maximize the returns on sexual favors bestowed: +to be sexually aroused by the sight of males would promote random matings, +thus undermining all of these aims, and would also waste time and energy +that could be spent in economically significant activities and in nurturing +children. A female's reproductive success would be seriously compromised +by the propensity to be sexually aroused by the sight of males. + -- Donald Symons, "The Evolution of Human Sexuality", + attempting to explain the lack of female interest in + pornography. +% +A nymph hits you and steals your virginity. +% +A pair of suburban couples who had known each other for quite some time +talked it over and decided to do a little conjugal swapping. The trade +was made the following evening and the newly arranged couples retired to +their respective houses. After about an hour of bedroom bliss, one of +the wives propped herself up on an elbow, looked at her new partner and +said: "Well, I wonder how the boys are getting along?" +% +A pederastic necrophiliac is a gentleman who is true to the very end of +the end of a friend. +% +A performing octopus could play the piano, the zither and a piccolo, and his +trainer wanted him to add the bagpipe to his accomplishments. With this in +mind, a bagpipe was placed in the octopus's room, and the trainer awaited +results. Hours passed, but no bagpipe music was heard. Since the talented +octopus usually learned quickly, the trainer was disturbed. Opening the door +the next morning, he asked the octopus, + "Have you learned to play that thing yet?" + "Play it!" retorted the octopus. "I've been trying to lay it all +night!" +% +A policeman is walking his beat when he finds an inebriated man collapsed +against a building, weeping uncontrollably and holding his car keys in his +hands. He's moaning something about how "They took my car!" Seeing that +the man is well-dressed, the officer suspects that he may have a real case +of theft on his hands and attempts to question the man. + "What happened to your car?" + "My car, it was right on the end of my key, and those bastards +stole it! Please officer, get my Porsche back. My God, it was right on +the end of my key! Where is it? They stole it and it was right here; +right on my key!" + "OK, OK, stand up, we'll see what we can do. You'll have to come +down to the stat... Mister, your fly's unzipped and you're exposing +yourself!" + "Oh my God, they stole my girlfriend!" +% + A proper elderly English couple visiting Australia decided to hire a +car to take a look at the outback. "We know it's rough country, but it's safe +and decent, isn't it?" the husband inquired of the rental-agency manager. +Upon being assured that it was, the couple drove off. + Later that day, they returned, upset and angry. "You said it was +decent country," the Englishwoman upbraided the rental agent, "but we hadn't +driven too far when we saw a man in a field copulating with a kangaroo!" + "And not too long after that," complained her husband, "a one-legged +aborigine leaning against a tree by the side of the road grinningly waved +at us with one hand while he brazenly masturbated himself with the other!" + "Guv'nor," responded the Aussie, "yer wouldn't expect a poor bugger +like that, with only one leg, to catch a 'roo, would you?" +% +A real estate agent, looking over a farmer's house for possible sale, +commented to the farmer how sturdy the house looked. + The farmer replied, "Yep, built it with my bare hands... did it +the hard way. The steps to the front door, here, carved 'em out of +field stones... did it the hard way. That hardwood floor in the living +room, dovetailed the pieces myself... did it the hard way. The ceiling +beams, made 'em out of my own oak trees... did it the hard way." + Just then, the farmer's gorgeous daughter walked in. The farmer +looks over at the real estate agent who is trying not to stare too +obviously and smiles. "Yep... standing up in a canoe." +% + A secretary entered her boss's office with the announcement: "I have +some good news and some bad news." + He muttered, "It's quarterly report day, Sally -- just the good news." + She replied, "You're not sterile." +% +A shy young man, preparing himself for what he hoped would be the ultimate sex +act with a pretty young lady, went into a drugstore to inquire about sizes and +styles of condoms. The lusty proprietress, a buxom widow, saw an opportunity +for fun at the lad's expense. + "Come in the back and try some on for size," she said, taking his hand. +The widow unzipped the youth's fly and watched the small instrument grow in +her hand as she measured it. When the weapon had unfurled to a rosy seven and +a half inches, the young man, unable to contain himself, had an orgasm with a +tremendous discharge. After recovering, he asked the widow if she could now +give him the proper size. + "I'll do more than that," she said. "I'll give you free meals and a +half interest in the store." +% + A strange looking white man came to the Indian reservation looking +for a job. He asked to talk to the Chief of the tribe, so he might give his +qualifications. The Chief strode forward from the group surrounding the +white man and said: "You leave! No job!" + The man explained that this was no ordinary job he was seeking, but +that of tribe Medicine-Man. He would convince him if the Chief would allow +him to demonstrate his magic. "No magic!" said the disbelieving Chief. + "Oh, yeah?", said the stranger. "I'll prove it to you by making +your dog, here, talk!" + "Dog, no talk!" responded the Chief, but before he could finish, he +heard a voice coming out of the mouth of the dog saying, "The Chief treats me +good. He feeds me, and keeps me in teepee when it snows!" + "If you still have doubts as to my magic," continued the stranger, +"the next voice you'll hear will be that of your horse!" + "Horse, no talk!" argued the still-sceptical Chief, but again he +heard a voice that said: "I am the Chief's favorite horse. He takes me up to +the green pasture to eat and brushes my coat when I get dirty." + The stranger, still seeing some disbelieving faces, claimed for his +final trick he would make the Chief's sheep talk. + "NO!" cried the Chief, "SHEEP LIE!" +% +A stranger had just arrived in the mining town and was spending the evening at +the local saloon. After a few drinks, he mentioned to the bartender that he +hadn't seen a single woman in the entire town. + The bartender replied, "Nope. Ain't no women in this town!" + "No women? What do the men do for... er..." + "Oh, for sex? Did you see all those pigs in the street? That's the +answer, right there." + Shaking his head incredulously, the stranger settled back to his +drinking. Within a short time, however, the liquor had convinced him that he +wanted to try out a pig himself. He had watched several miners walk upstairs +to the trysting rooms with squealing piglets under their arms. Now, he was +game to make his move. He wandered out to the back of the saloon and chose +a nice fat, pink sow. As he walked to the stairs, the entire saloon went +quiet. In the embarassing hush, all eyes were upon him. + "What's the matter? I thought all you fellows did this!" + "Yeah, but that's Black Bart's girl," replied the barkeep. +% +A sweet young schoolteacher who had always been virtuous was invited to go +for a ride in the country with the gym instructor, whom she admired. Under +a tree on the bank of a quiet lake, she struggled with her conscience and +with the gym instructor and finally gave in to the latter. Sobbing +uncontrollably she asked her seducer, + "How can I ever face my students again, knowing I have sinned twice?" + "Twice?" asked the young man, confused. + "Why, yes," said the sweet teacher, wiping a tear from her eye. +"You're going to do it again, aren't you?" +% +A toast to the kisses you've snatched and vice-versa. +% +A vasectomy means never having to say you're sorry. +% +A virgin is chaste. +% +A virginal is a harpsichord that has never been plucked. +% +A virtuous abstinence from the joys of pederasty comes most easily to those +who have no taste for it. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +A widow is more sought after than an old maid of the same age. + -- Addison +% +A witty writer, K. Kraus in the Vienna "Fackel", has as it were, expressed +this truth paradoxically in the cynical saying: "Coitus is merely an +unsatisfactory substitute for onanism!" + -- Sigmund Freud, attempting to explain why + masturbation is "by no means harmless" +% +A woman is driving down the street, her ten-year-old daughter belted into +the passenger seat. The daughter asks "Mommy, how old are you?" + The mother says "That's a personal question. It's not nice to ask +people personal questions." + The daughter thinks a while, then asks "Mommy, how much do you weigh?" + The mother replies "That's a personal question too. I'm not going +to tell you." + Chastised, the daughter asks no more questions. The mother parks the +car. "I'm going to see Mrs. Tristan for a couple of minutes. You stay here in +the car and watch my purse." + After the mother leaves, the daughter removes her mother's driver's +license from the purse, studies it for a few minutes and replaces it. When +her mother returns they drive off. The little girl comments: + "Mommy, I know how old you are. You're 32." + "That's right! How did you know?" + "And you weigh 119 pounds." + "Did you look in my purse?" + "And I know why you and Daddy divorced." + "You *do*?" + "Yes," said the daughter. "Because you flunked sex!" +% +"A woman is like a dresser ... some man always goin' through her drawers." + -- Blind Lemon Pledge +% +A young couple jumped out of their car and dashed into the park. +They hurriedly found a secluded spot and began to make frenzied, passionate +love. Shortly thereafter, as they were driving away, the young man turned +to her and said, "If I had known you were a virgin, I'd have taken more time." + +She replied, "If I had known you had more time, I'd have taken off my +pantyhose." +% +A young man asked his father to lend him $50 for a blowjob, whereupon his +father solemnly replied, "When I was young we used to settle for a kiss." + +The son retorted, "OK, how about $50 for a long low kiss?" +% +A young woman was afflicted with three brothers who had a friendly competition +as to who was the best practical joker. When she announced her marriage, +like all good brothers, they immediately found out where the honeymoon would +be and repaired there to do their worst, er, best. The brother who was a +carpenter went first, and came back out in five minutes. The brother who +worked as a plumber went second and was out in about half an hour. Finally, +the brother employed as a dentist went inside and came out almost immediately. +A few days after the start of their sister's honeymoon the brothers each +received a telegram from their sister. It read: + + I liked the couch falling apart when we sat on it. I was amused + when the shower went cold five minutes after it started. But I'm + going to kill whoever put the novocaine into the KY jelly... +% +A.I. hackers do it with robots. +% +AC/DC is a rock band. + -- Bisexuality, 101 +% +Admittedly, there are a lot of things that are better than sex, +and a lot more that are worse; but there's nothing quite like it... +% +After a few steamy dances and a few more drinks, the pickup couple +are back at his place tearing their clothes off. Things are really +starting to heat up when he leaps out of bed and starts frantically +rummaging through a dresser drawer. + "What are you doing?" she asks. + "Just a second, honey, I'm trying to find my lucky rubber." +% +After an evening at the theatre and several nightcaps at an intimate little +bistro, the young man whispered to his date, "How do you feel about making +love to men?" + "That's MY business," she snapped. + "Ah," he said. "A professional." +% +After cocktails in the Oak Room, the graying millionaire took the blond, +attractive, wholesome, winning young woman up to his suite. They chatted +for a while, and then kissed on the couch. A little fondling, some feeling +and petting ... to which the young lady lent herself shyly ... and then they +were in the wide, cool bed, naked together. They chatted more, established +a communion, a rapport the older man considered remarkably gratifying. The +girl seemed sympatico, innocent, good. + "Yes, that was it," he thought, "essentially good. Why, she could +be my own daughter." He smiled into the young girl's deep blue eyes. + "Tell me," he asked, his hand on her breast, "What's a nice girl +like you doing in a hotel like this?" + "Oh, about $2000 a week, with tips." +% +After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK? +% +After Joan and Max had been married for 25 years, Max became disinterested +in sex, and his libido began to wan dramatically. In desperation, Joan +hauled him to a marriage couselor, who listened patiently to Joan's complaints +and Max's protestations. Max claimed that he was being nagged unmercifully +to fulfill Joan's needs, and that after awhile every marriage tended to +become less physical. Joan said that that wasn't true and that she had +needs and desires that he, as her husband, was expected to fulfill. Finally, +the counselor issued the verdict. "Max," he said, "Everybody has to give a +little for a marriage to work. From now on, no matter how you feel at the +time, you must give Joan her conjugal rights at least semi-annually. And, +remember, do it in a loving, considerate manner; after all, you and your +wife are a partnership of love." Joan was delighted, and floated out of the +counselor's offices. On the way downstairs, she nudged Max. + +"So, honey, tell me... how many times a week is semi-annually?" +% +After repeatedly warding off her date's amorous advances during the evening, +the pretty young thing decided to put her foot down: "See here," she shouted +indignantly. "This is positively the last time I'm going to tell you `no'." + +"Splendid!" exclaimed her date. "Now we can start making some progress." +% +After rushing into a drugstore, the nervous young man was obviously +embarrassed when a prim thirty-ish woman asked if she could serve him. + "N-no," he stammered, "I'd like to see the druggist." + "I'm the druggist", she replied cheerfully. + "Oh.. well, uh, it's nothing important," he said, and turned to leave. + "Young man," said the woman, "my sister and I have been running this +drugstore for nearly ten years. There is nothing you can tell us that will +embarrass us. + "Well, all right," he said. "I have this awful sexual hunger that +nothing will appease. No matter how many times I make love, I still want to +make love again and again. Is there anything you can give me for it?" + "Just a moment," said the woman, "I'll have to discuss this with my +sister." + A few minutes later, she returned. "The best we can do," she said, +"is room and board and a half-interest in the business." +% + After spending a forbidden night on the town, two young nuns were +trying to sneak through the fence surrounding their Convent. + "You know," giggled one as she held the wire apart for the other to +crawl through, "I feel like a Marine." + "So do I," the other nun sighed, "but where are we going to find one +at three in the morning?" +% +After we made love he took a piece of chalk and made an outline of my body. + -- Joan Rivers +% +Ah spring, when a fancy young man lightly turns his lover over. +% +Alaska, where Moosehead isn't a beer, it's a misdemeanor. + +Q: You know how to figure out if your lover's been "invovlved"? +A: Antler marks on their hips. +% +Alcohol is like love: the first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, +the third is routine. After that you just take the girl's clothes off. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +Alex came home from a business trip to Chicago and found no one home but his +daughter Rose, who was crying bitterly. + "What's the matter, darling?" asked Alex. + "Mommy almost died last night," sobbed Rose. + "That's nonsense," said the father. "Why do you say that?" + "Well," said Rose,"you always told us that when we die we'll see God; +so when I heard Mommy moaning last night I rushed to her bedroom and she was +screaming, "Oh God, here I come," and she would have but Uncle Jerry held her +down." +% +"Algorithms" is an anagram for "Hilt orgasm". Maybe this explains +the popularity of this field of study in computer science. +% +All a hacker needs is a tight PUSHJ, a loose pair of UUOs, and a warm +place to shift. +% +"All I need is a little room to lay my hat and a few friends." + -- Dorothy Parker to a real estate agent, + on looking for an apartment +% +All I really want in life is a piece and some quiet. +% +Always talk to your wife while you're making love... if there's a phone handy. +% +America cannot be sold a can of beer without being offered a piece of +pussy along with it. + -- Julius Lester +% +America's two greatest inventions are finger-fucking and carpet-bombing. + -- Lyndon B. Johnson +% +An 11 is a 10 who doesn't have headaches. +% +An acid is like a woman: a good one will eat through your pants. + -- Mel Gibson, Saturday Night Live +% +An Aggie was appointed ambassador to Japan. Two weeks before +officially reporting to the embassy, he went from geisha house to geisha +house. While making love to a geisha girl, he heard her repeat, "Yaki-san, +yaki-san." + Right away the Aggie thought to himself, "I've learned my first +Japanese word. It must be an expression of joy." + When he reported to the embassy, he received his first assignment, +which was to escort the prime minister of Japan around the golf course. +After having played a couple of holes, the prime minister teed-off and made +a hole-in-one. The prime minister jumped up and down shouting, "Bonsai! +Bonsai!" + Quickly, thinking that this was the perfect chance to show off the +new Japanese word that he'd learned, the Aggie exclaimed, "Yaki-san, +yaki-san!" + The prime minister turned to the Aggie in surprise and exclaimed, +"What do you mean, wrong hole?" +% +An egg has the shortest sex-life of all: if gets laid once; it gets +eaten once. It also has to come in a box with 11 others, and the only +person who will sit on its face is its mother. +% +An eighty-year-old woman is rocking away the afternoon on her +porch when she sees an old, tarnished lamp sitting near the steps. She +picks it up, rubs it gently, and lo and behold a genie appears! The genie +tells the woman the he will grant her any three wishes her heart desires. + After a bit of thought, she says, "I wish I were young and +beautiful!" And POOF! In a cloud of smoke she becomes a young, beautiful, +voluptuous woman. + After a little more thought, she says, "I would like to be rich +for the rest of my life." And POOF! When the smoke clears, there are +stacks and stacks of money lying on the porch. + The genie then says, "Now, madam, what is your final wish?" + "Well," says the woman, "I would like for you to transform my +faithful old cat, whom I have loved dearly for fifteen years, into a young +handsome prince!" + And with another billow of smoke the cat is changed into a tall, +handsome, young man, with dark hair, dressed in a dashing uniform. + As they gaze at each other in adoration, the prince leans over to +the woman and whispers into her ear, "Now, aren't you sorry you had me +fixed?" +% +And having stretched me out upon his bed with my head a little to one side, +he sat down next to me and raised my head upon his lap. He peered avidly at +me, his eyes seemed ready to devour the secretion oozing from my nose. "Oh, +the pretty little snotface," said he, beginning to pant, "How I'm going to +suck her." Therewith bending down over me, and taking my nose in his mouth, +not only did he devour all the mucus between my nose and mouth, but he even +lewdly darted the tip of his tongue into each of my nostrils, one after the +other, and with such cleverness he provoked two or three sneezes which +redoubled the flow he desired and was consuming so hungrily. But ask me for +no details bearing upon this fellow, Messieurs, nothing appeared, and whether +because he did nothing, or becaues he did it all in his drawers, there was +nothing to be seen, and amidst the multitude of his kisses and lecherous +lickings there was nothing outstanding which might have denoted an ecstasy, +and consequently it is my opinion that he did not discharge. All my clothes +were in place, even his hands stayed still, and I give you my word that this +old libertine's fantasy might be performed upon the world's most repectable +and least initiated girl without her being able to suppose there was anything +lewd in it at all. + -- Marquis de Sade +% +Another nun joke!!! + You see, three nuns were walking down the street, when suddenly +this flasher jumped out in front of them and opened his trench coat, +exposing his all to the sisters. Well, two of the nuns had strokes right +there, but the third nun wouldn't touch it. +% +Any girl who believes that the way to a man's heart is through +his stomach is obviously setting her standards too high. +% +APL hackers take all they want. +% +Apple owners do it with mice! +% +As long as your ass is pointed at the ground, don't fuck with me. +% +As my dear auntie used to say, "Love makes the world go 'round, but sex +makes the ride fun." +% +As part of an equal opportunity project, a memo was sent to all the offices +within External Affairs asking for "A list of all employees broken down by +sex." + +One of the memos was returned with the notation: "I'm sorry: we +know of nobody in this office who fits your criteria. We do, however, +have two alcoholics." +% +As she lay there dozing next beside me, a voice inside my head kept saying +"Relax... you're not the first doctor who's ever slept with one of his +patients," but another voice kept reminding me, "Howard, you're a veterinarian." +% +As the truck driver came flying over the top of a steep hill, he spotted two +figures in his path rolling around in the middle of the road. The driver blew +his horn and braked frantically, but the couple continued their lovemaking, +oblivious to his warnings. The truck finally slid to a halt barely three +inches from the pair. "Are you crazy?" the driver screamed at them. "You +could have been killed!" + +The man stood up and faced the driver. "Well, I was coming, she was coming +and you were coming," he panted, "and you were the only one with brakes." +% +As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they would interfere +with flight. [In fact, this was the big breakthrough for the Wright +Brothers. They were watching birds one day, trying to figure out how to get +their crude machine to fly, when suddenly it dawned on Wilbur. "Orville," +he said, "all we have to do is remove the sexual organs!" You should have +seen their original design.] As a result, birds are very, very difficult to +arouse sexually. You almost never see an aroused bird. So when they want +to reproduce, birds fly up and stand on telephone lines, where they monitor +telephone conversations with their feet. When they find a conversation in +which people are talking dirty, they grip the line very tightly until they +are both highly aroused, at which point the female gets pregnant. + -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every + Teen Should Know" +% +Asked by reporters about his upcoming marriage to a forty-two-year-old +woman, director Roman Polanski told reporters, "The way I look at it, +she's the equivalent of three fourteen-year-olds." + -- David Letterman +% +Ass, grass or gas... nobody rides for free! +% +Assassins do it from behind. +% +At her annual checkup, the attractive young woman is told by the doctor that +it's necessary to take her temperature rectally. She agrees and bends over +the examining table, but a few seconds later says indignantly, "Doctor, that's +NOT my rectum!" + "Madam," says the doctor, "that's not my thermometer!" + Just then, the woman's husband, hearing her voice, comes into the +room. "Just what the hell is going on here?" he demands. + "I'm taking your wife's temperature," the doctor cooly replies. + "Okay, doc, you know best," says the husband as he picks a scalpel +off the doctor's desk, "but when that thing comes out, it better have +numbers on it!" +% +Attracted by repeated newspaper advertisements, and realizing that +his waist had gone both East and West despite his daily racquetball, a young +executive appeared at a local health resort. Looking over the several weight +loss plans offered, he selected one guaranteed to reduce his weight by two +pounds per day. After a light breakfast, and a almost non-existent lunch, he +was escorted to a large room, where a young, attractive woman told him that +"if he caught her, he could have her". After an hour of hard running, he +finally gave up; and weighing himself, was comforted to realize that he had +lost just under three pounds. Returning the next week, he chose the plan that +was to reduce his weight by four pounds per session. After following the same +regimen, he was again escorted to a large room, but after two hours of running, +he caught the young woman. Weight loss, just over four pounds. Returning the +following week, he chose to lose eight pounds in a single day. He was shown +to the largest room he'd seen, by far, where he was confronted by a extremely +muscular, burly man, who looked him square in the eye, flung his towel into +a corner, and snarled, "You know the rules. Start running!" +% +Attractive bisexual young woman seeks same for high mellow times. +% +B4 I4Q, RU/18 QT 3.1415926535? +% +Bankers do it with interest (penalty for early withdrawal). +% +Barbra Walters was doing a documentary on the customs of American +Indians. After a tour of a reservation they were on, she was curious as to +the number of feathers in the headdresses. She asked a brave who had only +one feather in his headdress. His reply was, "Me have only one squaw, me +have only one feather." She asked another brave, feeling the first fellow +was only joking. This brave had four feathers in his headdress. He replied, +"Me have four feathers, because me sleep with four squaws." + Still not convinced the number of feathers indicated the number of +squaws involved, she decided to interview the Chief. Now the Chief had a +headdress full of feathers which, needless to say, amused Ms. Walters. +Ms. W: "Why do you have so many feathers in your headdress?" +Chief: "Me Chief, me fuck-em all, big, small, fat, tall, me fuck-em all." +Ms. W: "You ought to be hung!" +Chief: "You damned right, me hung. Big like buffalo, long like snake." +Ms. W: "You don't have to be so hostile!" +Chief: "Hoss-style, dog-style, wolf-style, any-style, me fuck-em all." +Ms. W: "Oh, dear!" +Chief: "No deer, me no fuck deer. Asshole too high and fuckers run + too fast." +% +BEAT ME, BITE ME, WHIP ME, FUCK ME!!! +% +Beat me, bite me, whip me, fuck me, make me write bad checks! +% +Before he went off to the wars, King Arthur locked his lovely wife, +Guinevere, into her chastity belt. Then he summoned his loyal friend and +subject Sir Lancelot. "Lancelot, noble knight," said Arthur, "within this +sturdy belt is imprisoned the virtue of my wife. The key to this chaste +treasure I will entrust to only one man in the world. To you." + Humbled before this great honor, Lancelot knelt, received his king's +blessing and took charge of the key. Arthur mounted his steed and rode off. +Not half a mile from his castle, he heard hoofbeats behind him and turned to +see Sir Lancelot riding hard to catch up with him. + "What is amiss, my friend?" asked the king. + "My lord," gasped Lancelot, "you have given me the wrong key!" +% +"Before we get married," said the young woman to her fiancee, "I want to +confess some affairs that I've had in the past." + "But you told me all about those a few weeks ago," her young man +replied. + "Yes, darling," she explained, "but that was a few weeks ago." +% +Bend over and take it like a man! +% +Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before. + -- Mae West +% +Bi now, gay later! +% +Bill and Jim were walking home from work. As they walked along, they +discussed their wives' spending habits. "I don't understand how women +can spend so much money," Bill exclaimed. "I mean, understand, she +don't drink, and she's got her own pussy!" +% +Bill had just returned from a week of honeymooning, and his best +friend asked him how it went. + "The first night we did it nine times," Bill said. "The second +night, eight times. The third night, seven times. The fourth night, six +times. The fifth night, five times. The sixth night, four times, and the +last night, nothing!" + "Nothing?" his pal asked. "How come?" + "Hey, you ever tried putting a marshmallow in a parking meter?" +% +Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night. + -- Woody Allen +% +Bookstores will soon be stocking a volume called "The Unsensuous +Census Taker". It's about a guy who comes once every ten years. +% +Brain on vacation, penis on autopilot. +% + "Breakfast sometime?" + "Sure." + "Shall I call you or just nudge you?" +% +"But if it's 80% glucose, then why does it taste salty?" + -- Anonymous med school student. +% +... But the reward of a successful collaboration is a thing that cannot +be produced by either of the parties working alone. It is akin to the +benefits of sex with a partner, as opposed to masturbation. The latter +is fun, but you show me anyone who has gotten a baby from playing with +him or herself, and I'll show you an ugly baby, with just a whole bunch +of knuckles. + -- Harlan Ellison +% +But we've only fondled the surface of that subject. + -- Virginia Masters, of Master & Johnson +% +Buy old masters. They fetch better prices than old mistresses. + -- Lord Beaverbrook +% +Call for Ms. Lingus, Ms. Connie Lingus... +% + "Can you hammer a 6-inch spike into a wooden plank with your penis?" + "Uh, not right now." + "Tsk. A girl has to have some standards." + -- "Real Genius" +% +Chaste makes waste. +% +Chastity is its own punishment. +% +Claude believed that only smart attractive people had the right to fuck, +and it sincerely hurt him when he discovered evidence to the contrary. + -- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume" +% +Close the door, let me give you what you've been waiting for!! +% +Coffee without caffeine. Beer without alcohol. Milk without fat. +What's next? Bridal suites with bunk beds? + -- Orben's Current Comedy +% +Coito ergo sum. +% +Coitus is punishment for the happiness of being together. Live as +ascetically as possible... that is the only possible way for me to +endure marriage. But she? + -- Franz Kafka +% +College is like a woman -- you work so hard to get in, and nine months later +you wish you'd never come. +% +Come up and see me sometime. Come Wednesday, that's amateur night. + -- Mae West +% +Commit the oldest sins the newest kind of ways. + -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV" +% +Communists do it without class. +% +Computer scientists are programmed to do it by macro insertion. +% +Condoms are like listening to a symphony with cotton in your ears. + + [Taking a shower in raincoat? Ed.] +% +Condoms are the feminists' revenge on men for diaphrams. + -- Robin Williams +% +Confucious say: + a smart man knows on which side his broad is better. +% +Confucious say: + boy who play with himself pulls boner. +% +Confucious say: + child conceived in back seat of car with automatic transmission + turn out to be shiftless bastard. +% +Confucious say: + eplileptic woman who give blow-job may bite big one. +% +Confucious say: + fool man climb tree to get cherries; wise man spread limbs. +% +Confucious say: + Kotex not best thing on earth, but next to best. +% +Confucious say: + man and mouse the same, both end up in pussy. +% +Confucious say: + man who arrives late to party will find himself beaten to the punch! +% +Confucious say: + man who beat off in car have hot rod. +% +Confucious say: + man who fights with wife all day, gets not peace at night. +% +Confucious say: + man who fishes in other man's well often catch crabs. +% +Confucious say: + man who go to bed with sex problem wake up with solution in hand. +% +Confucious say: + man who kicked in testicles get left holding bag. +% +Confucious say: + man who kiss girl's behind, get crack in face. +% +Confucious say: + man who lay girl on hill, not on level. +% +Confucious say: + man who lie under car, get tired -- man who stand behind car, + get exhausted. +% +Confucious say: + man who live in glass house should bathe in the basement. +% +Confucious say: + man who lose key to girlfriend's apartment get no new key. +% +Confucious say: + man who make love on ground have piece on Earth. +% +Confucious say: + man who make oral love to epileptic woman may get tongue-tied. +% +Confucious say: + man who marry girl with no bust has right to feel low down. +% +Confucious say: + man who pull out too fast leave rubber. +% +Confucious say: + man who screws near graveyard is fucking near dead. +% +Confucious say: + man who sleep in road wake up with run-down feeling. +% +Confucious say: + man who sleeps with old hen finds it's better than pullet. +% +Confucious say: + man who streak unsuited for work. +% +Confucious say: + man who suck nipples make clean breast of things. +% +Confucious say: + man with athletic finger make broad jump +% +Confucious say: + man with head up ass have shitty outlook on life. +% +Confucious say: + man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day. +% +Confucious say: + modern house without toilet uncanny. +% +Confucious say: + passionate kiss like spider web, lead to undoing of fly. +% +Confucious say: + seven days on honeymoon make one hole weak. +% +Confucious say: + squirrel who run up woman's leg not find nuts. +% +Confucious say: + woman should not marry basketball players -- they dribble before + they shoot. +% +Confucious say: + woman who bathe in vinegar have sour puss. +% +Confucious say: + woman who cooks carrots and pees in same pot very unsanitary. +% +Confucious say: + woman who fly upside down in airplane have big crack up. +% +Confucious say: + woman who goes to man's apartment for snack, may get tit bit. +% +Confucious say: + woman who put man in dog house find him in cat house. +% +Confucious say: + woman who ride bicycle peddle ass around town. +% +Confucious say: + woman who slide down bannister make monkey shine. +% +Confucious say: + woman who spring on inner-spring this spring, have off-spring + next spring. +% +Confucious say: + woman's irginity like balloon, one prick and all gone. +% +Conserve energy -- make love more slowly. +% +Consider the little mouse, how sagacious an animal it is which never +entrusts its life to one hole only. + -- Titus Maccius Plautus +% +Couples in motion have moments. +% +Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it's done, they've +seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves. + -- Brendan Behan +% +Cunnilingus is next to cleanliness. +% +Cunnilingus is next to godliness. +% +Dance is the vertical expression of a horizontal intention. +% +"Darling", said the young bride, "tell me what's bothering you. +We promised to share all our joys and sorrows, remember?" + "But this is different," protested her husband. + "Together, darling," she insisted, "we will bear the burden. +Now tell me what our problem is." + "Well," said the husband, "we've just become the father of a +bastard child." +% +"Darling," he breathed, "after making love I doubt if I'll +be able to get over you -- so would you mind answering the phone?" +% +"Darling," she whispered, "will you still love me after we are married?" + +He considered this for a moment and then replied, "I think so. I've +always been especially fond of married women." +% +Dear Abby: + I just met the most terrific girl and we get along fabulously. I +think she's the one for me. There's just one problem: I can't remember +from our first date if she told me she had TB or VD. What should I do? + --Confused + +Dear Confused: + If she coughs, fuck her. +% +Demonstrating once again the importance of the lowly comma, this +telegram was sent from a wife to her husband: + "NOT GETTING ANY, BETTER COME HOME AT ONCE." +% +Desperate because her husband hadn't made love to her in months, a lonely +housewife finally mustered her courage and went to their doctor for advice. +The doctor was very sympathetic and wrote out a prescription for pills that +were guaranteed to rekindle the husband's ardor in a big way. "They'll make +him horny as hell," the doctor confided, "but they're very potent, so just +put one in whatever he's drinking." + Upon arriving home, the woman left the pills on the kitchen counter +and dashed off to the supermarket. It didn't take long before the cat jumped +up, knocked them over onto the floor, and ate a couple, as did the family +dog. And when the husband got home with a headache, he took a few thinking +they were aspirin. + When the housewife returned, she was horrified to see the dog humping +the cat and the cat jumping all over the dog, but even stranger was the sight +of her husband with his penis inside the pencil sharpener on the counter. +"What in heaven's name are you doing, John?" she cried. + "See that mosquito?" he replied. +% +Dial 911. Make a cop come. +% +Did Detroit invent the back seat to destroy the morals of America? + -- Ed Sanders +% +Did you ever notice that everyone in favour of birth control has already +been born? + -- Benny Hill +% +Distributed Systems people do it loosely coupled. +% +DIVE!!! DIVE!!! DIVE!!! +UP PERISCOPE!!! + +(Ooops, sorry, wrong fantasy.) +% +Do I like getting drunk? Depends on who's doing the drinking. + -- Amy Gorin +% +Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery? +% +Do not stoop to tie your laces in your neighbor's melon patch. +% +Do something big -- fuck a giant. +% +"Do you cheat on your wife?" asked the psychiatrist. + +"Who else?" answered the patient. +% + "Do you smoke after sex?" + "Why, do you know, I've never looked!" +% +Doctors take two aspirin and do it in the morning. +% +Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and +when it is bad, it is better than nothing. + -- Dick Brandon +% + Does anyone know how to get chocolate syrup and honey out of a +white electric blanket? I'm afraid to wash it in the machine. + +Thanks, Kathy. (front desk, x17) + +p.s. Also, anyone ever used Noxema on friction burns? Or is Vaseline better? +% +Doin' it in the dark, down in Rock Creek Park. +% +Don't knock masturbation, it's sex with someone I love. + -- Woody Allen +% +Don't let your mouth write no check that your tail can't cash. + -- Bo Diddley +% +Don't look now -- your office mate is a pederast!!! +% +Don't look now, but your mother is having sex with a horse. +% +Drinking when we are not thirsty and making love at all seasons, madam: +that is all there is to distinguish us from the other animals. + -- Pierre de Beaumarchais, "Le Marriage de Figaro" +% +Dry fucking: that's man on top of woman, the action is the same as fucking, +but you're dressed. It's great for the girl... you're hitting and rubbing +exactly the area that you ought to be... I still like that. + -- Grace Slick +% +During a session with a marriage counselor, the wife snapped at her +husband: "That's not true, I do enjoy sex!" Then, turning to the counselor, +she added: "But this fiend expects it three or four times a year!" +% +Ed, a traveling salesman, had his car break down in the middle of a +blizzard. He trudged to a nearby farmhouse where the farmer told him that, +while they were short of beds, he could sleep with his daughter. She proved +to be eighteen and beautiful. So they went to bed, and shortly, Ed made a +pass at the daughter. "Stop that!" she said. "I'll call my father." + He desisted. But half an hour later he made another attempt. "Uh, +stop ... that," she said. "I'll call my father." + But she moved closer to him, so he made a third try. This time, no +protest, no threat. Just as Ed, satisfied, was about to drowse off, she +tugged at his pajama sleeve. "Could we do that again?" she asked. + Ed obliged, and this time fell asleep only to be awakened by the +tug at his sleeve. "Again?" + And again Ed obliged. But when his sleep was once more interrupted +by the tugging at his pajama sleeve, Ed indignantly pulled it away from her +and mumbled, "Stop that! Or I'll call your father." +% +EE's do it without shorts. +% +Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance. +% +Evangelists do it with Him watching. +% +Ever notice that the women who are against abortion are the ones you +wouldn't want to fuck in the first place? + -- George Carlin +% +Every dog has its day, but the nights belong to the pussycats. +% +Every harlot was a virgin once. + -- William Blake +% +Everyone in the smart nightclub was amazed by the old gentleman, +obviously pushing 70, tossing off manhattans and cavorting around the dance +floor like a 20-year old. Finally curiousity got the best of the cigarette +girl. "I beg your pardon, sir," she said, "but I'm amazed to see a gentleman +of your age living it up like a youngster. Tell me, are all of your faculties +unimpaired?" + The old fellow looked up at the girl sadly and shook his head. "Not +all, I'm afraid." he said. "Just last evening I went nightclubbing with a +girlfriend -- we drank and danced all night and finally rolled into her place +about two A.M. We went to bed immediately, and I was asleep almost as soon +as my head hit the pillow. I woke around three-thirty and nudged my girl." + "Why, George," she said in suprise, "we did that fifteen minutes ago." + "So you see," the old boy said sadly, "my memory is beginning to +fail me." +% +Except for 75% of the women, everyone in the whole world wants to have sex. + -- Ellyn Mustard +% + Farmer Johnson was drunk again. + "You know, Anna," he said to his long-suffering wife, "if you could +only lay eggs we could get rid of all those damn chickens." + Anna said nothing. Farmer Johnson tried again. "You know, Anna, if +only you could give milk we could get rid of that expensive herd of cows." + Anna looked at him coolly. "You know, Jack," she said, "if only you +could get it up once in a while we could get rid of your brother Bob." +% +Father: Son, it's time we talked about sex. +Son: Sure, Dad, what do you want to know? +% +Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity. +% + "First, I'm going to buy you a few drinks and get you a little tight," +said the guy aggressively. + "Oh, no, you're not," said the girl. + "Then I'll take you to dinner at the most exclusive restaurant in +town." + "Oh, no, you won't." + "Then I'll take you to my apartment and mix up a pitcher of daiquiris." + "Oh, no, you won't." + "Then I'm going to make violent, mad, passionate love to you." + "Oh, no, you're not." + "And I'm not going to take any precautions either!" said the guy. + "Oh, yes, you are!!" said the girl. +% +Floppy now, hard later. +% +For a gay time, call 555-9483. Ask for Brucie. +% +For a good time, call 555-9484. Ask for Cathy. +% +For a good time, call 555-9485. Ask for Michael. +% +For children, a woman. +For pleasure, a boy. +For sheer ecstasy, a melon. +% +For flavor, instant sex will never supercede the stuff you have to peel +and cook. + -- Quentin Crisp +% +For her first week's salary the gorgeous new secretary was given an +exquisite nightgown of imported lace. The next week her salary was raised! +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #15 + +Sex: + Women prefer 30-40 minutes of foreplay. Men prefer 30-40 seconds of +foreplay. Men consider driving back to her place as part of the foreplay. + +Maturity: + Women mature much faster than men. Most 17-year-old females can +function as adults. Most 17-year-old males are still trading baseball cards +and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school +romances rarely work out. + +Handwriting: + To their credit, men do not decorate their penmanship. They just +chicken-scratch. Women use scented, colored stationary and they dot their +"i's" with circles and hearts. Women use ridiculously large loops in their +"p's" and "g's". It is a royal pain to read a note from a woman. Even +when she's dumping you, she'll put a smiley face at the end of the note. +% +FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #18 + +Sexual frequency: + The average man would prefer having sex every evening, or every +morning, or maybe both if he's under 25. The average woman would like to +have sex non-stop all weekend, once a month. + +Shopping: + It's no coincidence that L.L. Bean, Sears, and Roebuck were all men. +Men don't like to shop. If a man can't foist the job off on some woman, he +will grit his teeth and plan the outing as he would a jungle expedition. +He wants a map of the store showing where he has to go to get item X in +color Y in the correct size, which he doesn't know. Even then it takes him +half an hour to get there from the entrance. When he's finally accomplished +his mission, he'll discover that he forgot his checkbook. Women shop to +relax. +% +Fortune personals: + SDW/M, 35, offers French lessons for ladies. + If you desire fluency in the French tongue, + this cunning linguist can lick your problem. + Fortune -- P.O. Box 478 +% +Fortune Personals: + SWBiM, 29. Gr/Fr/Mild English. Have + own moose, hoop. Sincere inquiries + only. Discreet. Fortune P.O. Box 1910. +% +Fortune presents: + USEFUL PHRASES IN ESPERANTO, #3. + +Kie estas la plej proksima masa^gejo? Where's the nearest massage parlor? +Vi dolorigas min. You're hurting me. +Mi deziras viziti usonan kuraciston. I want to see an American doctor. +Mi deziras a^ceti kontraugraveda^jojn. I would like to buy some + contraceptives. +^Cu tiu estis ankau bona por ci? Was it good for you too? +% +Fortune presents: + USEFUL PHRASES IN ESPERANTO, #4. +Mia ^svebo^sipo estas plena je angiloj. My hovercraft is full of eels. +Neniu anticipas la hispanan No one expects the Spanish + Inkvizicion. Inquisition. +La solvo estas kvardekdu. The answer is forty-two. +Adiau, kaj dankoj por ^ciom da fi^so. So long, and thanks for all the fish. +^Cu estas krajono en via po^so, au ^cu Is that a pencil in your pocket, + vi feli^cas pri vidi min? or are you happy to see me? +% +Fortune understands that the vote on a bill to legalize bisexuality +could go either way. +% +Fortune's Guide to Movies: +G: No girl. +PG: The hero gets the girl. +R: The bad guy gets the girl, then the good guy gets the girl. +X: The hero still gets the girl in the end, but he's never sure + which end it will be. +XXX: Everybody gets the girl. +% + FROM THE DESK OF + Snow White + +Dear Snow White: + + Thanks for last night. + + Sleepy, Doc, Grumpy, Sneezy, Happy, Dopey, Bashful +% +Gardeners do it in raised beds. +% + "Gee, Mudhead, everyone at More Science High has an extracurricular +activity except you." + "Well, gee, doesn't Louise count?" + "Only to ten, Mudhead." + + -- Firesign Theater +% +Gentlemen prefer blondes, but who says blondes prefer gentlemen? + -- Mae West +% +Geometry teaches us to bisex angels. +% +George, after tying on a whopper the night before, woke up in the morning to +find a pathetically unattractive woman sleeping blissfully beside him. He +leaped out of bed, dressed quickly, and furtively placed $100 on top of the +bureau. He then started to tiptoe out of the room. But, as he passed the +foot of the bed, he felt a tug at his trouser leg. Glancing down, he saw +another female even homelier than the one he'd left in bed. She gazed up +at him soulfully, and asked, "Nothing for the bridesmaid?" +% +Girls are like pianos. When they're not upright, they're grand! +% +Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don't are ladies. This is, +however, a rather archaic use of the word. Should one of you boys happen +upon a girl who doesn't put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you +have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" +% +Girls would never stay out late if guys didn't make them. +% +Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you. + -- Mae West +% +Go out with girls Dutch treat -- pay for dinner, drinks, and the movie, +and the rest of the evening is on her. +% +God built a compelling sex drive into every creature, no matter +what style of fucking it practiced. He made sex irresistibly pleasurable, +wildly joyous, free from fears. He made it innocent merriment. + Needless to say, fucking was an immediate smash hit. Everyone +agreed, from aardvarks to zebras. All the jolly animals -- lions and +lambs, rhinoceroses and gazelles, skylarks and lobsters, even insects, +though most of them fuck only once in a lifetime -- fucked along +innocently and merrily for hundreds of millions of years. Maybe they +were dumb animals, but they knew a good thing when they had one. + -- Alan Sherman, "The Rape of the A*P*E*" +% +Hackers do it bottom-up. +% +Hackers do it with all sorts of characters. +% +Hackers do it with bugs. +% +Hackers do it with fewer instructions. +% +Hackers have kernel knowledge. +% +Hackers know all the right MOVs. +% +Hang gliders go down very slowly. +% + Harry constantly irritated his friends with his eternal optimism. +No matter how bad the situation, he would always say, "Well, it could have +been worse." + To cure him of his annoying habit, his friends decided to invent a +situation so completely black, so dreadful, that even Harry could find no +hope in it. Approaching him at the club bar one day, one of them said, +"Harry! Did you hear what happened to George? He came home last night, +found his wife in bed with another man, shot them both, and then turned +the gun on himself!" + "Terrible," said Harry. "But it could have been worse." + "How in hell," demanded his dumfounded friend, "could it possibly +have been worse?" + "Well," said Harry, "if it had happened the night before, I'd be +dead right now." +% + Harry was delighted when he found a young woman who accepted his +proposal of marriage as he was pretty sensitive about his artificial leg +and afraid that no one would have him. In fact, he couldn't bring himself +to tell his fiancee about his leg when he slipped the ring on her finger, +nor when she bought the dress, nor when they picked the time and place. +All he kept saying was, "Darling, I've got a big surprise for you," at which +she blushed and smiled bewitchingly. + The wedding came and went, and the young couple were at last alone +in their honeymoon suite. "Now don't forget, Harry, you promised me a big +surprise," smiled the bride. + Unable to say a word, Harry turned out the lights, unstrapped his +leg, slipped into bed, and placed his wife's hand on the stump. + "Hmmmmm," she said softly, "that IS a surprise. But pass me the +Vaseline and I'll see what I can do!" +% +Have you ever tried to tickle yourself? Everybody has some wacko aunt or +uncle that can just point at you and have you rolling with laughter. But +if you shove your fist in your underarm for a week and a half you won't +laugh. Somehow your underarm just knows that it's *your* fist. Thank God +other parts of our bodies are dumber. +% +Having discovered the possibility that other creatures could be used +for sexual intercourse, early man was likely to have made many such +attempts... though it is doubtful that he was so sexually carnivorous +as the Christian and Jewish Adam, who, rabbinical interpreters of the +Old Testament tell us, had intercourse with every creature before God +finally hit upon the idea of woman and created Eve. + -- R.E. Masters +% +Having lost his potency years before, the octogenarian was desperate to +satisfy his new 18-year-old wife. He visited a gypsy woman with magical +powers. + After the man downed a foul-tasting potion, the gypsy said, "There. +Now the words beep-beep will give you an enormous erection. Repeating +the phrase will make it disappear. But remember," she cautioned, "it will +work only three times. Make use of them wisely." + As the old man left, he decided to test her prediction. "Beep-beep," +he said, and sure enough, he got the biggest erection of his life. +"Beep-beep", he repeated. It went away. + He sped through traffic on his way home. "Beep-beep," honked a taxi. +The old man gasped as he instantly got hard. + "Beep-beep," honked a truck. His erection wilted. + Pulling into his driveway at last, the frantic man rushed inside +and found his nubile wife lying on the bed reading a novel. + "Have I got a surprise for you," he said, tearing off his clothes. +"Beep-beep!" + "Hold on a second," his wife said, eyeing his magnificent erection. +"What's all this beep-beep shit?" +% +He does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural. + -- William Shakespeare, "Twelfth-Night" +% +He had heard that a certain whorehouse had a reputation for the bizarre. +So he drove to the place and, once inside, asked the Madam if she had anything +unusual for him to try. "Things are pretty slow today," she said, "but I +do have one number you might enjoy." She went on to describe a New Jersey +hen that had been trained to do blow jobs. + "We've got her here, but only for the day." + The visitor could hardly believe it, but he paid the fee and went +into a room with a hen. After a frustrating hour of trying to force his +cock into the hen's mouth, he figured out that he was dealing with nothing +but a plain old chicken. He left. Thinking about it later, he decided +that he had had so much fun trying that he returned the few days later and +asked the Madam, "Do you have anything new today?" + "Come this way," she said, and led him to a dark room where a group +of men were looking through a one-way mirror. He saw that they were watching +a girl making it with a large doberman pinscher. + "Wow!" he said to the man standing next to him. "This is really +great!" + The man replied, "Man, it ain't nothin'! You shoulda been here +a week ago and seen the guy with the chicken!" +% +He used to kiss her on her lips, but it's all over now. +% +He was not only a great swordsman, but also a cunning linguist. +% +He was so ugly hookers used to tell him, "Not on the first date." +% +He who findeth sensuous pleasures in the bodies of lush, hot, +pink damsels is not righteous, but he can have a lot more fun. +% +He's gallantry personified, in fact, his brochures ought to +read satisfaction guaranteed, or your virginity returned intact. +% +He's learned about 50% of the rules of sex and conversation; +he knows how to stick it in, but not how to stick it out. +% +He: "If I made love to you, would you yell?" +She: "What do you want me to yell?" + -- Benny Hill +% +He: Do you like Kipling? +She: Oh, you naughty boy, I don't know! I've never kippled! +% +Heisenberg may have done it. +% +Hello, children!! + This is Uncle Dennis welcoming you to your very own fortune. + Today we are going to hear a story, so sit right here on my lap + and we can all start. Comfortable? Ah, yes, ah... Ah? Ah!! + + One day, Rikki, the magic Pixie, went to visit Daisy Bumble in her + tumbledown cottage. He found her in the bedroom. Roughly he + grabbed her heaving ******* pulling her down on the bed and + hurriedly ripping off her thin *******. + + Old Nick, the Sea Captain was a rough tough jolly sort of fellow. + He loved the life of the sea and he loved to hang out down by the + pier where the men dressed as ladies ****** **** ******* ******* + of ***** ****** **** the ****** with a melon. + + Rumpletweezer ran the Dinky Tinky shop in the foot of the Magic + oak tree by the wobbly dum-dum tree in the shade of the enchanted + glen down in Dingly Dell. Here he sold contraceptives, ******** + and various appliances *** ******** *** ***** naked fun and ***** + the ******** ******* *** into six or seven pairs. +% +Help! I'm a lesbian trapped in a gay man's body! + -- Bisexuality, 101 +% +Her kisses left something to be desired: the rest of her. +% +Hey baby! + +How 'bout a brutal face fuck? +% +HEY KIDS! ANN LANDERS SAYS: + Remember, oral sex CAN cause pregnancy, unless you use an +oral contraceptive. See your family planning clinic today! +% +HEY, KIDS! ANN LANDERS SAYS: + Masturbation isn't as simple as it looks. Do it right! +Send 50 cents for my illustrated booklet "Masturbation techniques +for the teenager". Be sure to specify the male or female edition. +% +HOT TUB TIPS FOR WOMEN + Vol. I -- Etiquette + +1. It's not lady-like to straddle a water jet, moan in ecstasy, and then + scream at the top of your lungs, "Oh, yes, YES, BABY!" +2. Washing your partner's back is sexy. Washing your panty hose is not. +3. Nude bathing with strangers can be a pleasant experience; don't spoil + it for everyone with a thoughtless remark, such as "My God, I've + seen bigger wangs on hamsters!" +4. It's O.K. to pass a joint while tubbing. Don't pass anything else. +5. Don't think you're fooling anybody by passing off your vibrator as a + toy submarine. +% +How come if you're horny it's lust, but if she's horny it's affection? +% +How soon can you have sexual relations after your wife delivers? +Well, depends on if she's in a ward or a private room. +% +Hunters make the best lovers; they go deeper into the bush, shoot more often +and *always* eat what they shoot. +% +I believe in sex and death -- two experiences that come once in a lifetime. + -- Woody Allen +% + "I believe you have the wrong number," said the old gentleman into +the phone. "You'll have to call the weather bureau for that information." + "Who was that?" his young wife asked. + "Some guy wanting to know if the coast was clear." +% +I bet you have fun chasing the soap around the bathtub. + -- Princess Diana, to a one-armed war veteran during + a visit to a London veterans hospital +% +I bet you think you're pretty cool driving around without auto insurance. +You're probably saying to yourself, "I'm beating the system." But what's +going to happen when you get pulled over and lose your license because +you're not insured. What girl's going to ride shotgun on a ten-speed on +a Saturday Night? Yeah, you're going to be beating more than the system... + -- auto insurance ad, heard on KNAC, Long Beach. +% +I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the +afternoon. I cannot understand the love affair. + -- Gore Vidal +% +I don't discriminate on the basis of sex. + -- Bisexuality, 101 + + [An equal opportunity lover? Ed.] +% +"I don't object to sex before marriage, but two minutes before?!?" +% +"I don't really mind her being unfaithful," sighed the man to his +marriage counselor, "but I just can't sleep three in a bed." +% +I don't remember ever having had the itch, and yet scratching is one of +nature's sweet pleasures, and so handy. +% +"I finally found out what my ranch foreman husband really meant," sobbed +the recent bride, "when he told me he'd love me 'til the cows came home." +% +I had a virgin once. I had to go to Guatemala for her. She was blind +in one eye, and she had a stuffed alligator that said, "Welcome to Miami +Beach." + -- The Stunt Man +% +"I have credit with this madam who runs a string of super callgirls," +the executive reminisced at his club bar, "but when I got the bill for +the great head session one of them pleasured me with, I must say that +it was enough to make a blown man cry." +% +I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us +take our fill of love until the morning. + -- Proverbs 7:17-18 +% +I heard there was a lot of sex on television these days, +but when I tried it I kept falling off. +% +I only date queers. + -- Bisexuality, 101 + + [I'm not queer, but my boyfriend is! Ed.] +% +"I own my own body, but I share" +% +I really had to act; 'cause I didn't have any lines. + -- Marilyn Chambers +% +I think I'll snatch a kiss and flee. + -- Shakespeare +% + "I think my wife may be getting somewhat overweight. + "Oh, how can you tell?" + "Well, last night when she sat on my face, I couldn't hear the stereo." +% +I think pop music has done more for oral intercourse than anything else +that has ever happened, and vice versa. + -- Frank Zappa +% +"I think sex is better than logic, but I can't prove it." +% +I thought Jackie O. was something you did in the bathroom. + -- Strange de Jim +% +I want a girl that can swallow my pride. + -- Frank Zappa, "Jewish Princess" +% +I want the same things all men do, Rice Krispies and some sucking. + -- Dudley Moore +% +I was on vacation in Greece last summer, and was being driven round an island +by a Greek cab-driver. He was a friendly man, and as we drove, he told me +about various historic and scenic places he had been involved with. + "See the entrance to that church over there? I built that with my +two sons. But do they call me `Dimitri the church builder'? Do they hell!" + As we passed a dam, he said, "See that dam? Four of us built that +dam by ourselves! But do they call me `Dimitri the dam builder?' Hell, no!" + As we passed a beautiful cottage, Dimitri started up again -- "See +that house? I built that for my wife with my own two hands! But do they +call me `Dimitri the home builder'? No! But just one little sheep!" +% +I went to a wild party last night. I tell ya, it was so wild, we played +a new version of Russian roulette. We passed around six girls and one +of them had V.D. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I wonder what the leash and collar set does for excitement? + -- Tramp, "Lady and the Tramp" +% +I wouldn't fuck her with your prick. +% +I'd like to meet the man who invented sex and see what he's working on now. +% +I'd walk a mile for a Camel, two for a hump. +% +"I'll tell ya, Jeb," Wilbur said to his friend, "the tractor business ain't +doin' too well. I ain't sold one all month. + "You think you've got problems?" Jeb replied. "The other day, I went +out to milk Daisy, when she swatted me in the face with her tail, like she +always does. So I took some twine and tied it to the rafters. When I sat +down again, she kicked me like she always does. So I tied her leg to the +side of the stall. When I started to sit down again, I could see her taking +aim with her other leg, so I tied it to the other side of the stall. And I'll +tell you what," he continued with a sigh, "if you can convince my wife I was +gonna *milk* that cow, I'll buy a tractor from you!" +% +I'm a bisexual; I get it maybe twice a year. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +I'm a gay man trapped in a lesbian's body! + -- The Queer Gospels of Madonna the Sloppily Conceived +% +I'm against group sex because I wouldn't know where to put my elbows. + -- Martin Cruz Smith +% +I'm for bringing back the birch, but only for consenting adults. + -- Gore Vidal +% +I'm for peace -- I've yet to see a man wake up in the morning and say +"I've just had a good war." + -- Mae West +% +I'm going to Iowa for an award. Then I'm appearing at Carnegie Hall, +it's sold out. Then I'm sailing to France to be honored by the French +government -- I'd give it all up for one erection. + -- Groucho Marx +% + "I'm looking for adventure, excitement, beautiful women," cried the +young man to his father as he prepared to leave home. "Don't try to +stop me. I'm on my way." + "Who's trying to stop you?" shouted the father. "Take me along!" +% +"I'm not against women. Not often enough, anyway." + -- NPR +% +I'm unbuttoning your shirt, unzipping your jeans.... + +Oh, I can feel your fingers on the keys, baby, + I'm getting WARM.... + +I am getting there, oh yes,. Oh, my. OH YES... OHHHH! + ...!!!rrrrrgh!!!!! + +Honey, that was *really* terrific, but, next time, +couldn't you please input a little SLOWER? +% +I've been told that it's far more sensous to have a woman leave something +on rather than being totally nude. Myself, I've always felt that the lights +were more than enough. +% +I've tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes +me claustrophobic, and the others either give me a stiff neck or lockjaw. + -- Tallulah Bankhead +% +If all these sweet young things were laid end-to-end, I wouldn't be a +bit surprised. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +"If anyone wants to trade a couple of centrally located, well-cushioned +showgirls for an eroded slope 90 minutes from Broadway, I'll be on this +corner tomorrow at 11 with my tongue hanging out." + -- S. J. Perelman +% +If being bi increases your chance of getting a date, does being poly +increase your chance of getting dumped? +% +If ever you want to touch the hand and the heart of God Almighty, you can +do it through the body of someone you love. Anytime. Anywhere. Without +no middleman. + -- Theodore Sturgeon, "Godbody" +% +If God had meant for us to have group sex, he'd have given us more organs. + -- Malcolm Bradbury +% +If God had wanted people to give blow jobs, he wouldn't have given them teeth. +% +If it flies, floats or fucks, rent it, don't buy it. + -- Tommy Earl Bruner +% +If it weren't for pickpockets, I'd have no sex life at all. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +If only is was as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly as it is to +masturbate. + -- Diogenes the Cynic +% +If sex is a pain in the ass, you may be doing it wrong. +% +If sex is such a natural phenomenon, how come there are so many books on how to? + -- Bette Midler +% +If they can't take a joke, then fuck 'em. + +If they can, then fuck 'em. +% +If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out. + +If thy dick offends thee, whack it off. +% +If you could get an erection, you would have no need for Emacs. +% +If you meet somebody who tells you that he loves you more than anybody +in the whole wide world, don't trust him. It means he experiments. +% +If you think sex is a pain in the ass, try a different position. +% +If you're Catholic you've only got two choices: periodic abstinence and +complete continence. + +You know ... + +rhythm and blues. +% +If you're gonna sleep with someone whose moral code may be written +in Fortran for all you know, at least make sure there's an existing +friendship of some sort to fall back on if things don't work out +like one or the other of you planned. +% +If your sexual fantasies were truly of interest to others, they would no +longer be fantasies. + -- Fran Lebowitz +% +In the stands here I see a young couple who must be in love -- they're +kissing on every pitch. He's kissing her on the strikes, and she's +kissing him on the balls. + -- Harry Caray, a Chicago sportscaster +% +Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right. + -- Woody Allen, "All You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex" +% +Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just glad to see me? + -- Mae West +% +It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and +it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight +into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. + -- Voltaire +% +It is better to be on penicillin, than never to have loved at all. +% +It is better to have a positive Wasserman than never to have loved at all. +% +It is considered normal to consecrate virginity in the general and lust +for its destruction in the particular. +% +It is far better to sleep with an old hen than pullet. +% +It is impossible to obtain a conviction for sodomy from an English jury. +Half of them don't believe that it can physically be done, and the other +half are doing it. + -- Winston Churchill + [Right. Tell it to Oscar.] +% +It is not true that life is one damn thing after another -- it is one +damn thing over and over. + -- Edna St. Vincent Millay +% +It is not wise to make love more than once in the morning. +You never know who you'll meet later in the day. +% +It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that +virginity could be a virtue. + -- Voltaire +% +It is very difficult to look at the possibility of lesbian sheep because +if you are a female sheep, what you do to solicit sex is to stand still. +Maybe there is a female sheep out there really wanting another female, +but there's just no way for us to know it. + -- Anne Perkins, in her study of sexuality in sheep. +% +It must be admitted that we English have sex on the brain, which is a +very unfortunate place to have it. + -- Malcolm Muggeridge +% +It was her wedding night, and the sweet young thing was in a romantic haze. +"Oh, darling," she sighed, "We're married at last. It's all like a wonderful +dream!" + Her husband didn't answer. A few moments passed. She sighed again +and said, "I'm afraid I'll awake in a moment and find it isn't true." + Still no response from her spouse. Another pause and another +sensuous sigh, then, softly, "I just can't believe that I'm really your +wife." + "Damn it," growled her mate, "as soon as I get this shoelace untied, +you will!" +% +It was his third marriage and her fourth. He was quite surprised when on +their honeymoon she pleaded, "Please be gentle, I'm still a virgin." + "Darling, what do you mean you're still a virgin? You've been +married three times." + "Yes, but they all worked for DEC. The first was a salesman, +and all he ever did was promise how good it would be. The second was one +of their software hacks, he told me to take care of it myself. And the +third was a field service representative, and he kept promising that it +would be up in 15 minutes. +% +It was this guy's first day in the penitentiary; he was in a cell with a +huge burley inmate, and he was pretty nervous. At lights-out, the inmate +jumped out of his bunk, and, turning to our hero, said, "We're going to +have sex! You want to be the Mommy or the Daddy?" + A very terrified hero managed to squeak out, "Uh, well, uh, I guess +I'll be the Daddy." + "OK," smiled his roommate, "get down here and suck your Momma's dick!" +% +It's a question of Napleon brandy versus Ripple. +I am mellow and amber and I go down real smooth. + -- Rita Moreno, commenting in Newsweek on the sex appeal + of older women versus younger women +% +"It's always the same," the girl sighed to her roommate after returning +in the wee, small hours. "Afterward, I feel so compromised, so cheap, so +soiled... so absolutely wonderful from head to toe!" +% +It's been so long since I made love I can't even remember who gets tied up. + -- Joan Rivers +% +It's easy to make a friend. What's hard is to make a stranger. +% +It's hard to keep a good girl down -- but lots of fun trying. +% +It's not pretty being easy. +% +It's not the ups and downs of love, it's the ins and outs. +% +It's the sighs that count. +% +Kamikazes do it once. +% +Kissing, petting, and even intercourse are all right as long as they are +sincere. I have never given a kiss in my life that wasn't sincere. As +for intercourse, I'd say three times a day was about right. + -- Margaret Sangor +% +Large cats can be dangerous, but a little pussy never hurt anyone. +% +Lawyers do it to everyone. +% +Let a Field Service Engineer put it in. +% +Lick-a-dee-clit! +% +Like I said, love wouldn't be so blind if the braille weren't so damned great! + -- Armistead Maupin +% +Lisp hackers + ... do it in CARS. + ... do it with tail recursion. + ... first do it in the front, then do it in the back. + ... have DEFUN while doing it. + ... have to be bound to do it. + ... have Moby dicks. +% +Lisp hackers have to be bound (to-do 'it) ... +% +Lisp programmers do it deeper and deeper and deeper. +% +Little known facts: the dirtiest words used on television during the +1950's were uttered by June Cleaver. + "Gee, Ward, weren't you a little hard on the Beaver last night?" +% + Little Red Riding Hood was walking through the woods on her way to +visit her grandmother when a wolf jumped out from behind a tree. + "Aha!" the wolf said, "Now I've got you, and I'm going to eat you." + "Eat, eat, eat," said Little Red Riding Hood angrily, "Damn it, +doesn't anybody fuck anymore?" +% +Love ain't nothin' but sex misspelled. +% +Love comes in spurts. + --Devo, "Please Please" +% +Love does not make the world go around, just up and down a bit. +% +Love is blind but desire doesn't give a good goddam. + -- James Thurber +% +Love is eating her even when she's not having her period. +% +Love is just for now ... herpes lasts forever. +% +Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin -- it's the triumphant +twang of a bedspring. + -- S.J. Perelman +% +Love is the answer; but while you are waiting for the answer, sex +raises some pretty good questions. + -- Woody Allen +% +Love is the desire to prostitute oneself. There is, indeed, no exalted +pleasure that cannot be related to prostitution. + -- Charles Baudelaire +% +Love is two minutes and fifty-two seconds of squishy sounds. + -- Johnny Rotten +% +Ma Bell runs a baudy house. +% +Make war not sex. (It's safer.) +% +Many nice things suck. +% +Marriage has driven more than one man to sex. + -- Peter De Vries +% +Marriage is like a bank account. You put it in, you take it out, you +lose interest. + -- Professor Irwin Corey +% +Masturbation is the thinking man's television. + -- Christopher Hampton +% +Masturbation! The amazing availability of it! + -- James Joyce +% +Math is to physics like masturbation is to sex. +% +Mathematicians + ... do it in groups. + ... do it in theory. + ... take it to the limit. +% +Mathematicians do it in theory. +% +Mathematicians do it with a small, imaginary part. +% +Mathematicians often resort to something called Hilbert space, which is +described as being n-dimensional. Like modern sex, any number can play. + -- James Blish, "Beep/The Quincunx of Time" +% +Mathematicians take it to the limit. +% +Mathematicians take it to the limit. +% +Meanwhile back at the oasis, the Ay-rabs wuz busy a-eatin' their dates! +% +Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Granny was a-beating off the Indians, but +they jus' kept on a-comin'. Back at the outhouse, things were a-pilin' up. +And, as the U.S. Fourth Calvary mounted the hill, Tonto, cleverly disguised +as a doorknob, came off in the Lone Ranger's hand. +% +Meetings are an addictive, highly self indulgent activity that corporations +and other large organizations habitually engage in only becuase they cannot +actually masturbate. + -- Dave Barry +% +Mickey Mouse has a long talk one day with a psychiatrist, after which +the psychiatrist interviews Minnie Mouse. A few days later Mickey meets +with the psychiatrist, and the following conversation ensues: + +Sigmund : I talked with Minnie after talking with you. +Mickey : Oh? +Sigmund : I couldn't find anything wrong with her -- she isn't insane. +Mickey : Idiot! I didn't say she was insane -- I said she was + fuckin' Goofy. +% +Morris left for a two-day business trip to Chicago. He was only a few +blocks from his house, when he realized that he had left the airplane +tickets on his bureau top. He returned and quietly entered the house. +His wife, in her skimpiest negligee, was standing at the sink washing +the breakfast dishes. She looked so inviting that he tiptoed up behind +her, reached out, and squeezed her breast. + "Leave only one quart of milk," she said. "Morris won't be here +for breakfast tomorrow." +% +Most fish live underwater, which is a terrible place to have sex because +virtually anywhere you lie down there will be stinging crabs and large +quantities of little fish staring at you with buggy little eyes. So +generally when two fish want to have sex, they swim around and around for +hours, looking for someplace to go, until finally the female gets really +tired and has a terrible headache, and she just dumps her eggs right on the +sand and swims away. Then the male, driven by some timeless, noble instinct +for survival, eats the eggs. So the truth is that fish don't reproduce at +all, but there are so many of them that it doesn't make any difference. + -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every + Teen Should Know" +% +Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity +to be otherwise. + -- Maya Angelou, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" +% +Most women look for a man who is tall, dark and hung some. +% +Moustache rides, 50 cents. +% +Mrs. Johnson had a very beautiful and intelligent parrot. He had just one +problem: He liked to fuck Mr. Hawkins' chickens. Mrs. Johnson scolded him +time and time again, but he would just laugh at her. Finally, she told him +that if he did it again, she would cut off all of the feathers on the top of +his head. Well, he resisted the urge for a week, but one day, he just +couldn't resist going next door. Besides, he figured she was bluffing. + Well, Mr. Hawkins came over, ranting and raving about how the parrot +had been fucking his chickens again. Mrs. Johnson didn't say a word, just +took out her scissors and cut off all of the parrot's head feathers. + That night, Mrs. Johnson had a big party at her house. Before it +started, she took the parrot and put him on top of the piano by the front +door. "Since you disobeyed me today, you have to stay here on the piano +tonight. Now, don't you dare move." + Well, the parrot was pretty pissed off about having his head bare, +and he wasn't too happy about having to spend the whole evening on the piano. +Still, as he usually did, when the butler would announce the guests as they +arrived, he would say hello to them. Just then, two bald-headed men came to +the door. + Before the butler could say anything, the parrot yelled, "Okay, you +chicken-fuckers, up here on the piano with me!" +% +Musing on her present and past professions as "dominant/sadomasichism +fantasy fulfiller" and dental hygienist, Sybil said, "I couldn't really +understand why I wanted to be a dental hygienist, but years later, after +being in the SM world a long time, I figured it out: I'm in uniform, +they're not. I'm standing up, they're lying down. I'm doing painful +things to them for their own good. This is so ME." + -- The Daily Cal, September 29, 1992 In an article titled: + "Kinky sex remains alive and whipping despite threat + of AIDS, book reveals" +% +My girlfriend's favorite erotic position is bending over my credit cards. +% + "My husband commits an inconceivable act of perversion with a +barnyard animal, and it's not central to my case?!" + "Not in California." +% +My idea of a wild party is where you throw the girls' panties at the wall +and they stick. + -- Johnny Bob +% + "My mother," said the sweet young steno, "says there are some things +a girl should not do before twenty." + "Your mother is right," said the executive, "I don't like a large +audience, either." +% +My mother-in-law broke up my marriage. One day my wife came home early from +work and found us in bed together. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +My mothers are wholly ignorant of the almost universal prevalence of secret +vice, or self-abuse, among the young. Why hesitate to say firmly and without +quibble that personal abuse lies at the root of much of the feebleness, +paleness, nervousness, and good-for-nothingness of the entire community? + -- Dr. J.H. Kellogg, "The Ladies Guide", Modern Medicine + Publishing Company, 1895. Dr. Kellogg helped invent + corn flakes and peanut butter. In addition to denouncing + masturbation, he believed that smoking caused cancer and + that certain ailments could be cured by rolling a + cannonball on the stomach. +% +My reaction to porno films is as follows: After the first ten minutes, I +want to go home and screw. After the first twenty minutes, I never want +to screw again as long as I live. + -- Erica Jong +% +My schoolmates would make love to anything that moved, but I never saw any +reason to limit myself. + -- Emo Philips +% +My sex life hasn't been so good; either fist or famine. +% +My wife and I only smoke after sex. I've had the same pack since 1967. +She's up to three packs a day. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +National Sex Week -- don't let your meat loaf. +% +Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows. Watch who you sleep with. +% +Never ask your lover if he'd dive in front of an oncoming train for +you. He doesn't know. Never ask your lover if she'd dive in front of an +oncoming band of Hell's Angels for you. She doesn't know. Never ask how many +cigarettes your lover has smoked today. Cancer is a personal committment. + Never ask to see pictures of your lover's former lovers -- especially +the ones who dived in front of trains. If you look like one of them, you are +repeating history's mistakes. If you don't, you'll wonder what he or she saw +in the others. + While we are on the subject of pictures: You may admire the picture +of your lover cavorting naked in a tidal pool on Maui. Don't ask who took +it. The answer is obvious. A Japanese tourist took the picture. + Never ask if your lover has had therapy. Only people who have had +therapy ask if people have had therapy. + Don't ask about plaster casts of male sex organs marked JIMI, JIM, etc. +Assume that she bought them at a flea market. + -- James Peterson and Kate Nolan +% +Never try to keep up with the Joneses; they might be newlyweds. +% +NEW ADDITION TO THE LIBRARY: + +"Sally", the department's new inflatable doll, is available on +a short-term removal basis only -- please sign her out and return her +promptly to avoid extended waits. (We are still awaiting shipment of +our "Big John" doll.) +% +Newlywed groom: + Honey, I have something to confess to you. I'm a golfer. + You'll never see me on Tuesday nights, Thursday nights, + and weekends. I'm sorry. +Newlywed bride: + I have something even worse to confess, dear. I'm a hooker. +Groom: + Oh, honey, that's no problem! Just keep your head low and follow + through... +% +Nice computers don't go down. +% +Nine out of ten men who preferred Camels have switched back to women. +% +No matter how celebrated the beauty of a woman, I would never spend a night +with her. The only celebrity with whom I would share a night is Max Planck. +But he is dead. So I live like a monk, aside from a little self gratification +in the afternoons. + -- Salvador Dali +% +Not everyone has a one-track mind. + -- From a Bisexuality 101 talk +% +Nothing is better than Sex. +Masturbation is better than nothing. +Therefore, Masturbation is better than Sex. +% +Nurse Jones is a regular on the newsgroup [alt.sex.bondage], and +occasionally has problems with folks harrassing her. She came up +with this in response to one... + + Fortunately, my ego isn't as fragile as that woodpecker's wing. + When fratboy called me a dyke I told him that actually I was + bisexual, but that he shouldn't feel threatened because he didn't + meet either of my standards. But if it makes you feel more + comfortable, I said, my husband tied me to the bedposts this + morning and screwed the daylights out of me. + + "Just think," said + + Nurse Jones, + "... that was four + hours ago and + my sperm count + is probably *still* + higher than yours." +% +Nybble me... Byte me... Unsigned long int me... +% +Of course, I speak of nothing else but that classic of understated yet wildly +exciting eroticism, "The Windflower," by Laura London. Ms. London is the +author of such other philosophical block-busters as "Bad Baron's Daughter," +"A Heart Too Proud," "Moonlight Mist," and most thigh-warming of all, "Gypsy +Heiress". Well, glasses-steaming scenes are to be found on every page, to +an extent which overwhelms Your Humble Narrator, and so, in order to save +himself extreme embarrassment, he brings you... the blurb: + + "Every lady of breeding knows: no one has a good time on a pirate +ship. No one, that is, but the pirates. Yet there she was, Merry Wilding +-- kidnapped in error, taken from a ship bound from New York to England, +spirited away in a barrel and swept aboard the infamous "Black Joke"... +There she was, trembling with pleasure in the arms of her achingly handsome, +sensationally sensual, golden-haired captor -- Devon." +% +Of course, most people eventually give up bowling for sex. +The balls are lighter and you don't have to change your shoes. +% +Oh John, let's not park here. +Oh John, let's not park. +Oh John, let's not. +Oh John, let's. +Oh John. +Oh. +% +Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to conceive. + -- Don Herold +% +Oh, baby, put two fingers here and one finger there and call me bitch. +% +Once upon a girl there was a time... +% +Once upon a time there was a farmer who had borrowed a bull to service his +two cows. He put all three animals on a meadow and sent little Johnny to +observe and report any success. A short time later, little Johnny came +running towards the house shouting: "Daddy, Daddy, the bull just fucked the +white cow!" + The father took little Johnny aside and said: "Look, kid, it's +alright if you use that kind of language around me, but the reverend is +going to be visiting soon. So next time, please use another word; just +say that the bull "surprised" the cow." + Johnny agreed and went back to observe any progress. A little +while later, while the preacher was talking to the farmer, little Johnny +came a-running again, shouting: "Daddy, Daddy!" + The father, trying to avoid embarrassing the preacher, said: "I +know, the bull surprised the brown cow." + Little Johnny replied: "He sure did, he fucked the white one again!" +% +Once upon a time there was a farmer who owned a large number of chickens and +made money by selling chickens to a local distributing company. The farmer +wanted to increase his business, and so went to market to buy another rooster. +"This rooster," assured the vendor, "is my best. He's virile and energetic +and will take care of all your chickens!" The farmer, delighted at this, +bought the rooster and returned to his farm. He set the rooster loose among +his hen houses and, sure enough, the rooster enthusiastically went to work. +It wasn't too long, however, before the rooster finished off all the hens and +began on the few geese and ducks that were on the farm. "If you keep up this +rate," warned the farmer, "you'll screw yourself to death!" The rooster, +however, scoffed at the farmer and continued at an increased speed. The next +morning, the farmer was doing his chores when he noticed several buzzards in +the sky circling over something. He headed out behind the barn, and sure +enough there was the rooster, flat on his back, with eyes closed. The farmer +shook his fist at the motionless body and cursed, shouting "I knew it! I told +you so! I knew you'd screw yourself to death!" The rooster turned his head +toward the farmer, opened one eye, and winked. "Shhh!" he said, pointing to +the birds above. "I think they're coming down." +% +Once upon a time there was a little girl named Little Red Riding Hood. One +fine morning she decided to visit her Grandmother, so she put a freshly baked +cake and a .357 magnum into her basket and set off through the forest. When +she got there, what should she find but a big black wolf in the bed, who +jumped up, grabbed her and snarled, "I'm going to fuck you until the sun goes +down." + So Little Red Riding Hood whipped out the .357 and said, "Oh, no, +you're not! You're going to eat me just like the story says!" +% +Once upon a time there was a sperm named Stanley. He'd do pushups and +somersaults and limber up all the time, while the other sperm just lay around +on their fat asses not doing a thing. One day, one of them became curious +enough to ask Stanley why he exercised all day. Stanley said, + "Look, only one sperm gets a woman pregnant and when the right +time comes, I am going to be that one." +A few days later, the all felt themselves getting hotter and hotter, and they +knew that it was getting to be their time to go. They were released abruptly +and, sure enough, there was Stanley swimming far ahead of all the others. +All of a sudden, Stanley stopped, turned around, and began to swim back with +all his might. + "Go back! Go back!" he screamed. "It's a blow job!" +% +Once upon a time there were three coeds -- a big coed, a medium-sized coed, +and a little, tiny coed. One night they came home from a dance, and the big +coed said, "Someone's been sleeping in my bed!" + The medium-sized coed looked in her room and said, "Someone's been +sleeping in my bed!" + And the little, tiny coed said, "Well, nighty-night, girls!" +% +Once you come out as a Pagan bisexual married leatherdyke, the rest of life +is that much easier. +% +One by one the vice-presidents of a large corporation were called into the +boss's office. Then the junior executives were individually summoned. +Finally the office boy was brought in. + "I want the truth, Charles," the boss bellowed. "Have you been +playing around with my secretary?" + "N-no, sir," the office boy stammered. "I-I'd never do anything +like that, sir." + "All right, all right," sighed the boss, "then you fire her." +% +One day a city dweller decided to take a ride in the country. He hopped +into his sportscar, wandered along the highway for a while and then exited +to some very rural dirt roads in the middle of farm country. After awhile, +he came across a farmer who clearly working his fields. The funny thing was, +the farmer didn't seem to be wearing any pants. The man got out of his car +and approached the farmer. + "Hey, buddy," he asked, "how come you're not wearing any clothes?" + Replied the farmer, "Well, boy, th' other day I was out a-workin' +in the fields, an' I plum fergot t' wear mah shirt. Got back to th' house +that night, and mah neck was stiffer than a oak-wood board. This here's +mah wife's idea." +% + One day a mother and daughter are walking around a farming community +and they see a stallion mounting a mare. The daughter takes in the scene and +turns to her mother. "Mommy, what are those two horses doing?" + Her mother hastily answered, "The horse on top hurt its hoof, and the +one on the bottom is carrying him back to the stable." + The daughter shook her head and sadly replied, "Isn't that just the +way it goes? Try to help someone and you get fucked." +% +One day Adam, while wandering around the Garden of Eden, noticed that all +the animals seemed to come in pairs, male and female. He also noted that +they seemed to enjoy being together a lot. So, he went to his special +place and reported to God what he'd noticed. + God, understanding his need, said, "Adam, the time has come for me +to provide you with a mate. Go lie down and when you have fallen asleep, I +will create your mate." + So Adam wandered off, found a nice patch of soft grass and fell +asleep. Some time later he awoke, possibly due to a bit of pain in his +ribs, possibly because of the gorgeous woman leaning over him. Remembering +the animals he'd seen having such fun, he immediately reached for her. +Pretty soon Adam's back at his special place. + "God?" + "Yes, Adam, what now?" + "God, what's a headache?" +% +One day Father O'Malley was walking through the park when he came upon an +enchanting scene. A beautiful little girl with long blond hair, deep blue +eyes, and a dainty white dress was reading under a tree with her adorable +little dog. + What a lovely picture, thought the Father to himself. Walking over, +he asked, "Child, what is your name?" + "Blossom," she replied. + "What a fitting name," exclaimed Father O'Malley. "And how did your +parents come to choose such a pretty name?" + "Well, one day when I was still in my mommy's tummy she was lying +under this very tree when a blossom fell and landed on her stomach. She +thought it was a message from God and decided that I would be a girl and my +name would be Blossom," explained the little girl sweetly. + How charming, thought the priest. He started to say good-bye and +walk away, then turned back. "And the name of your little dog?" he +inquired. + "Porky," was the child's reply. + Again he asked her how the unusual name had been chosen. + "Because he likes to fuck pigs." +% +"One day I got on the usual bus, and when I stepped in, I saw the most +gorgeous blond chinese girl... I sat beside her... I said 'Hi,' and she +said 'Hi,' and then I said 'Nice day, isn't it,' and she said 'Yeah, I +guess'... I said 'What do you mean "you guess"?'... she said 'I saw my +analyst today and he says I have a problem.'... so I asked 'What's the +problem?'... she replied 'I can't tell you, I don't even know you.'... +I said 'Well sometimes it's good to tell your problems to a perfect +stranger on a bus.' So she said, 'Well, my analyst said I'm a nymphomaniac +and I only like Jewish cowboys... by the way, my name is Diane.' I said, +'Hello, Diane, my name is Bucky Goldstein.'" + -- Steven Wright +% +One hundred and one uses for canned peaches. +One hundred and two if you plan to eat them. +% +One man's nightmare is another man's wet dream. +% +One morning after an evening of particularly heavy drinking, a man awoke +and upon rolling over in bed saw one of the ugliest women he had ever +seen. As he was about to get out of bed, he looked on the floor and saw +another woman even less appealing than the first. Seeing his look of +wide-eyed amazement, the woman on the floor snapped, "Don't look at me +like that, I was only the bridesmaid." +% +One night when his charge was pretty high, Micro-Farad decided to +seek out a cute little coil to let him discharge. He picked up Milli-Amp +and took her for a ride on his Megacycle. They rode across the Wheatstone +bridge, around the sine waves, and stopped in the magnetic field by the +flowing current. Micro-Farad, attracted by Milli-Amp's charactaristic curves, +soon had her fully charged and excited, her resistance to a minimum. He laid +her on the ground potential, raised her frequency, and lowered her reluctance. +He pulled out his high voltage probe and inserted it into her socket, +connecting them in parallel and began short circuiting her resistance shunt. +Fully excited, Milli-Amp mumbled: "OHM-OHM-OHM." + With his tube operating at a maximum and her field vibrating with +his current flow, it caused her shunt to overheat, and Micro-Farad was rapidly +discharged and drained of every electron. They Fluxed all night trying +various connections and sockets until his magnet had a soft core and lost +all of its field strength. + Afterwards, Milli-Amp tried self-induction and damaged her +solenoids. With his battery fully discharged, Micro-Farad was unable to +excite his field, so they spent the night reversing polarity and blowing +each others fuses. + -- Eddie Currents, "The Sex Life of an Electron" +% +One of my favorite Zoo jokes has to do with a woman who, while +visiting the zoo, desided to have a little fun with the Gorilla. She walks +up to his cage, reaches in, and begins to fondle the beast. Needless to +say, the animal becomes quite excited, and as he tries to reciprocate in +kind, the woman steps back and gives him a raspberry...! + The gorilla becomes enraged. He rips the bars from his cage, grabs +the woman, drags her back into the cage, and ravishes her. While doing so, +he inflicts a great deal of harm upon her person. + Later, at the hospital, a neighbor of the woman visits and exclaims, +"Oh, you poor dear...! Are you hurt?" + "Hurt!", "Hurt!?" the injured lady sobs, "He doesn't phone. He +never writes..." +% +One of the airlines recently introduced a special half-fare rate for wives +accompanying their husbands on business trips. Anticipating some valuable +testimonials, the publicity department of the airline sent out letters to +all the wives of businessmen who used the special rates, asking how they +enjoyed their trip. Responses are still pouring in asking, + "What trip?" +% +One of the most expensive things in life is a girl who is free for the evening. +% +One of the regular foursome was sick, so a new member named George filled in. +He was good and pleasant company so they asked him to join them again the +following Sunday. + "9:30 okay?" + "Fine," George said, "but I may be a few minutes late." +The following Sunday George showed up right on time. Not only that, he played +left-handed and beat them. They agreed to meet the following Sunday morning. +George was eager to come, but again, mentioned that he might be a few minutes +late. The next Sunday there was George, punctual to the dot. This time he +played right-handed and beat them again. + "You on for next Sunday, George?" one of the foursome asked. + "Sure," George replied, "but I might be a few..." + Another golfer jumped in. "Wait a minute... You always say you might +be late, but you're always right on time, and you always win, left-handed +*or* right-handed." + "Well," George replied, rather sheepishly, "that's true, but see, I'm +superstitious. If my wife is sleeping on her right, when I wake up, I play +right handed. If she's sleeping on her left side, I play left handed." + "What if she's lying on her back?" + George said, "That's when I'm late." +% + One PAYDAY, MR. GOODBAR wanted a BIT O' HONEY. So he took his Miss +HERSHEY behind the POWERHOUSE on the corner of 5th AVENUE and CLARK where he +there began to feel her MOUNDS. And that was an ALMOND JOY which definately +made his TOOSIE ROLL. + He let out a SNICKER as he slipped his BUTTERFINGER up her KIT KAT +which of course caused the MILKY WAY. She screamed "OH, HENRY!" as she +squeezed his PETER, PAUL and ZAGNUTS and said "you're better then the 3 +MUSKETEERS." + -- John Volby (Dr. Dirty), "The Candy Bar Poem" +% +One should be cherry of virgins. +% +One spring evening, after a hard rain, grandpa and grandson were +sitting out on the porch, talking. Grandpa spied a worm crawling up out +of its hole and said to his grandson, "Sonny, if you can get that there +worm back down its hole, I'll give you five dollars." + "Sure!", says sonny, and runs in the house. Out he runs an +instant later with a can of hairspray, grabs the worm, and sprays it with +the hairspray as it dangles earthward. He then slips the stiff worm back +into its hole and turns to his grandpa with a huge smile on his face. + "Well, I'll be. That was pretty smart there, boy.", he says. +"Here's your fiver.", he adds as he fishes out a bill. By then it's almost +dark, and they say their goodnights and part. + The next day sonny's playing out on the porch, and grandpa comes +out of the house and gives him a five. "But you gave me my five yesterday, +grandpa.", he remarks. + "Yep, I know. This is from your Grandma." +% +Ooooooh, nooooooo, not tonight!! +% +Ooops. Gotta run. My dog wants sex. Later. +% +Operators mount anything! +% +Oral sex is like being attacked by a giant snail. + -- Germaine Greer +% +Other people don't give you orgasms; you have them, and they help you +cash them in. +% +Ouch! That felt good! + -- Karen Gordon +% + "Our school, madame, postulates, first of all, that since the +science of mathematics is an abstract science, it is best inculcated by +some concrete example." + Said the Queen, "But that sounds rather complicated." + "It occasionally leads to complications," Jurgen admitted, "through +a choice of the wrong example. But the axiom is no less true." + "Come, then, and sit next to me on this couch if you can find it in +the dark; and do you explain to me what you mean." + "Why, madame, by a concrete example I mean one that is perceptible +to any of the senses -- as to sight or hearing, or touch --" + "Oh, oh!" said the Queen, "now I perceive what you mean by a concrete +example. And grasping this, I can understand that complications must of +course arise from a choice of the wrong example." + -- James Branch Cabell, "Jurgen" +% +Painters do it with even strokes. +% +Passion is that funny feeling that drives a man to bite a woman's neck +because she has beautiful legs. +% +Pee-wee Recommends: + +When Pee-wee Herman was arrested that evening in Sarasota, Florida, +the bill at the XXX South Trail Cinema featured: + + + Nurse Nancy, starring Sandra Scream + + Turn Up the Heat, starring Savannah + + Tiger Shark, starring Raven +% +People who live in glass houses should ball in the basement. +% +Perhaps at fourteen every boy should be in love with some ideal woman to put +on a pedestal and worship. As he grows up, of course, he will put her on +a pedestal the better to view her legs. + -- Barry Norman, in "The Listener" +% +Persistence, like perspiration, is 99 percent of the fine art of love. +% +Philosophy is to the real world as masturbation is to sex. + -- Karl Marx +% +Physicists do it with charm. +% +Picking up a man in a bar is like a snowstorm, you never know when +he's coming, how many inches you'll get or how long'll he'll stay. +% +Politicians do it to everyone. +% +Postulate #1: Nothing is better than sex. +Postulate #2: Masturbation is better than nothing. +Conclusion: Masturbation is better than sex. +% +Pouring out his troubles to his best friend over a couple of triple martinis, +Brad had to confess that things weren't going too well at home. "My wife and +I just don't hit it off at night," he was saying to Bart. "I hate to admit +it, but I'm afraid I just don't know how to make her happy." + "Hell, boy," said Bart, "there's really nothing to it. Let me +give you some advice. At bedtime, switch on a new Sinatra platter, turn +all the lights low and spray some perfume around the room. Next, tell +your wife to get into her sheerest nightie; then make sure you raise the +bottom window." + "Then what do I do?" asked Brad. + "Just whistle." + "Whistle?" + "That's right. I'll be waiting outside the window. When I hear +you whistle, I'll come right up and finish the job." +% +Pregnancy -- the worst sexually transmitted disease of them all. +% +Pregnancy begins with a single sell. +% +Printers do it without wrinkling the sheets. +% +Probably the question asked most often is: Do one-celled animals have +orgasms? The answer is yes, they have orgasms almost constantly, which is +why they don't mind living in pools of warm slime. + -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every + Teen Should Know" +% +Procrastinators do it tomorrow. +% +Programmers do it bit by bit. +% +Programmers do it until it goes down. +% +Programmers get overlaid. +% +Prostitution is the only business where you can go into the hole and +still come out ahead. +% +Psychiatry is quite similar to prostitution, only less honest. They both +promise to make people feel better, but the prostitute doesn't make +pretensions that the feelings will last once the client walks out the door. +% +Ralph: Lisa, you have no tits and a awful tight pussy. +Lisa: Ralph... get off my back!! +% +Rating women on the Budweiser scale; the number of Clydesdales it would take +to pull you off her. +% +Reach out and fuck someone. +% +Remember when you were a kid and the boys didn't like the girls? Only +sissies liked girls? What I'm trying to tell you is that nothing's +changed. You think boys grow out of not liking girls, but we don't grow +out of it. We just grow horny. That's the problem. We mix up liking +pussy for liking girls. Believe me, one couldn't have less to do with +the other. + -- Jules Feiffer +% +Remember, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over. + -- Frank Zappa +% +Remember, when preparing a dish for bedtime, champagne is the best tenderizer. +% +Returning from the men's room, a bar customer was sadly, shaking his head. + "What's the matter, buddy?", inquired the bartender. + "Well," replied the customer, "while I was in the men's room, I saw +someone had scribbled `Wendy gives really fabulous head; absolutely the best +blow job in the world!' on the wall." + "Ahh, hell," said the bartender. "Don't give it a second thought, +we get jerks in here like anywhere else." + "I know," snarled the headshaker. "One of them scratched out the +phone number!" +% +Revenge is sleeping with your enemy's wife. Sweet revenge is the realization +that she's a lousy lay. +% +Rogue players do it with all sorts of different animals. +% +Roses on your piano isn't nearly as good as tulips on your organ. +% +Runners do it alone. +% +Santa Claus comes down the chimney and the nubile sixteen-year-old +has been waiting for him. Santa sees her, and in typically unflappable +Santa-style says, "And what do you want for Christmas, little girl?" + The girl, and she's not so little, tells him. Well, Santa is +definitely flapped by this, but he manages to come out with, "Ho ho ho, +gotta go, gotta get the children their toys, you know." + The girl, not to be daunted, takes off her robe. "Aw, please stay +Santa," she begs. + He replies, "Ho ho ho, gotta go, gotta get the children their toys, +you know." + She then takes off her pajama top, her firm pouting breasts pointing +at Santa like an accusation. "Aw, please stay Santa," she pleads. + "Ho ho ho, gotta go, gotta get the children their toys, you know." + Finally, she takes off her pajama bottoms, revealing to Santa her +warm mound of delight. "Aw, please stay, Santa," she begs. + Being only mortal, Santa finally gives in, sighing, "Hey hey hey, +gotta stay, can't get up the chimney with my dick this way." +% +Satyrs have more faun. +% +Save a forest - eat a beaver! +% +Save a mouse, eat a pussy! +% +"Scott, baby," the sexually aggressive girl murmured as she guided her +date's finger to her clitoris, "This bud's for you." +% +Seems like there were these two dogs in a vet's waiting room, each eyeing +the other suspiciously. One of them turns to the other. + "What are you here for?" he asks. + "Well," replies the other, "I was feeling really bad the other day, +and Master's six year old son started bothering me. I tried to ignore it, +but I was feeling so rotten that I bit his hand." + "Yeah, I now what you mean. So, what are you here for?" + "Erm ... well ... Master reckons that I'm too vicious, so I'm going +to be ... you know ... I'm going to have the *operation*." + "Oh. Well, I'm sorry," sympathised the first dog. + Time passed. The about-to-be-neutered dog coughed politely. + "So," he asked, "What are you in here for?" + "Oh, nothing really," the other replied, embarrassed. + "Go on, I told you, it *can't* be as bad!" + "OK. Well, it's like this. The bitch next door was in heat, and so +I was feeling, you know, a bit randy. Then Mistress came into the kitchen +wearing a short skirt and no underwear, and she bent over. I just couldn't +resist it!" admitted the dog. + "Oh! So you're here for the operation too!" + "No," came the reply, "I'm here to have my nails clipped!" +% +Seems like this guy is hitting up on a woman in a bar. After assiduously +pursuing her for several minutes, she leans forward and tells him that he's +a nice guy and all that, but, well, that she's a lesbian. Confused, he asks +her what that means. + "Well," she replies, "you see that woman at the corner table?" + "Yeah..." + "I'd like to walk over to her, and unbottom her blouse." + "Yeah..." + "And then I'd like to kiss her and suck on her nipples... and +then I'd like to take off her skirt... and run my hand over her thighs..." + "Right! Right!" interrupts the guy. "I think I'm a lesbian too!" +% +Seems there was this traveling salesman who wandered into a brothel and +asked the madam for a woman who would give him the absolutely worst blow-job +imaginable. Not horny, just homesick. +% +Seems this guy notices a young nun sitting on the bus; through her heavy veil +he just spots a glimmer of her face. Gorgeous! She moves, and her vestments +cannot hide the fact she has a truly phenomenal body. The guy gets more and +more excited until he finally approaches the nun and tells "Sister, please +believe me, I don't normally do this sort of thing, but I think I love you. +Could we maybe talk?" + The nun almost runs off the bus. As the young man's stop comes up, +the bus driver asks the guy if he was the person bothering the nun. The man +starts apologizing, but the bus driver interrupts him. "No, don't apologize, +I was checking her out myself. Listen, you see where she got on? She goes +there every day, to a little park. Why don't you meet here there?" + Sure enough, the man goes to the park the next day and there's the nun +in a secluded grove of trees. He approaches her, and she seems, although shy, +much more willing to talk. After an hour of cautious talk, he asks her if +she'd be willing to make love with him. She blushes, smiles, blushes again +and says "yes". But that she doesn't dare risk getting pregnant, so it would +have to be the "back door". + As they start to make love, the young man is overcome with guilt; +panting, he says, "Sister, I have to tell you, I'm the guy who was annoying +you on the bus yesterday. + Replies the nun, "Well, that's okay. I'm not really a nun. I'm +actually the bus driver." +% +Seems this guy showed up at a party, and all of his friends jumped for +Joy. But she sidestepped, and they missed. +% +Self-abuse is the most certain road to the grave. + -- Dr. George M. Calhoun, 1855 +% +Sex and drugs and UNIX. +% +Sex and mathematics have one thing in common. You can do each while thinking +about the other. +% +Sex appeal is 50% what you've got and 50% what people think you've got. + -- Sophia Loren +% +Sex discriminates against the shy and ugly. +% +Sex hasn't been the same since women started enjoying it. + -- Lewis Grizzard +% +Sex is a biological function; kissing is a committment. +% +Sex is a natural bodily process, like a stroke. +% +Sex is about as important as a cheese sandwich. But a cheese sandwich, +if you ain't got one to put in your belly, is extremely important. + -- Ian Dury +% +Sex is an emotion in motion. + -- Mae West +% +"Sex is as honest a product benefit for fragrance [perfume] as taste is +for diet Coke." + -- Malcolm DacDougall +% +Sex is better than grass, if you have the right pusher. +% +Sex is dirty, but only if you do it right. +% +Sex is good, but not as good as fresh sweet corn. + -- Garrison Keillor +% +Sex is just one damp thing after another. +% +Sex is like a bridge game -- If you have a good hand no partner is needed. +% +Sex is like pizza -- when it's good, it's great; and when it's bad, +it's still darn tasty! +% +Sex is low in calories, and *oooh* that aftertaste! +% +Sex is nobody's business but the three people involved. +% +Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer. + -- Swami X +% +Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation ... the other eight +are unimportant. + -- Henry Miller +% +Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated. + -- M.C. Reed +% +Sex is the poor man's opera. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +Sex is what women have and men want. +% +Sex without class consciousness cannot give satisfaction, even if it is +repeated until infinity. + -- Aldo Brandirali (Secretary of the Italian Marxist-Leninist + Party), in a manual of the party's official sex guidelines, + 1973. +% +Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, +it's one of the best. + -- Woody Allen +% +Sex; it's always best when one partner is at least a little bit desperate. +% +Sexual enlightenment is justified insofar as girls cannot learn too soon +how children do not come into the world. + -- Karl Kraus +% +She asked me if I loved her still. "Yes," I replied. "I've never had +you any other way." +% +She called her parakeet Onan, because he spilled his seed. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +She was a farmer's daughter but she couldn't keep her calves together. +% +She was only a mortician's daughter but anyone cadaver. +% +She was only: + a coal digger's daughter, but she'll always be mine. + a statistician's daughter, but she knew all the standard deviations. + a wrestler's daughter, but you should have seen her box. + a moonshiner's daughter, but I love her still. + a chimney sweep's daughter, but she sure knew how to haul ash. + a fireman's daughter, but her face was a cause for alarm. + a banker's daughter, but she opened her drawers for cash. +% +She was wearing a very tight skirt, and when she tried to board the Fifth +Avenue bus she found she couldn't lift her leg. She reached back and +unzipped her zipper. It didn't seem to do any good, so she reached back +and unzipped it again. Suddenly the man behind her lifted her up and put +her on the top step. + "How dare you?" she demanded. + "Well, lady," he said, "by the time you unzipped my fly for the +second time I thought we'd become good friends." +% +She's fine, upstanding, and wonderful laying down. +% +She's looking for: He's looking for: Foreplay: +1957 Someone who'll go Her: Finding a place to put +Mr. Nice Guy all the way her gum + Him: Wondering which word would + best describe her breasts + to the guys + +1967 Someone who's got The first ten minutes +Mr. Natural rolling papers and of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" + will go all the way + +1977 Someone who'll go Testing the batteries +Mr. Goodbar all the way in leg + warmers and a leather + face mask + +1987 Someone who's never Examination of the genitalia +Mr. Clean gone all the way in under the magnifying glass + San Francisco that Grandma used for needle- + point before she passed away + -- Michael Corcoran, "National Lampoon", October 1987 +% +She's the kind of woman you could fall madly in bed with. +% +"Sir", said the beggar, "can you spare fifty dollars for a cup of coffee?" + +"Fifty dollars for a cup of coffee, one should be sufficient!", +answered the gentleman, rather shortly. + +"I know", replied the beggar, "but coffee always makes me horny." +% +Sixteen'll get you twenty. +% +So this elderly couple were sitting in their tiny cold water flat on the +lower East Side when the husband said, "Doris, we're in bad shape. Inflation +has eaten up our Social Security check. The next one isn't due for a week +and we've got no money left for food." + "Could I do anything to help?" she asked. + "Yes," he said. "I hate to see you do this but it's the only way. +You're going to have to go out and hustle." + "Me?" she asked. "At the age of sixty-five?" + "It's the only way," he said. +Resigned to the situation, she went out into the warm night. She came +staggering in early the next morning. + "How did you do?" asked the husband. + "Here," she said, "I've got four dollars and ten cents." + "Four dollars and ten cents," he said . "Who gave you the ten cents?" + "Everybody," she said. +% +So, how's your love life? Still holding your own? +% +So, your daughter was voted "Most Likely to Conceive", and you're still +drinking ordinary scotch? +% +Sodomy is a pain in the ass. +% +Some of the greatest love affairs I've known have involved one actor, +unassisted. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +Some women achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust into them. +% +Some women are like musical glasses. To keep them in tune they must be wet. + -- Samuel Coleridge +% +Statisticians do it with 95% confidence. +% +Statisticians probably do it. +% +Sticks and stones may break my bones but whips and chains excite me!!! +% +Sure eating yogurt will improve your sex life. People know that if +you'll eat that stuff, you'll eat anything. +% +Systems people do it with a small, but clean, interface. +% +Teaching undergraduates is like herding sheep. And, like the old Basque +sheepherder explained, whenever the livestock starts looking good to you, +it's time to spend a night in town. +% +Teen-age prostitution: the problem is mounting! +% +Test makers do it: + A: sometimes + B: always + C: never + D: none of the above. +% +That girl could suck the chrome off a bumper. +% +That reminds me of a friend of mine who went north to work on the Alaskan +pipeline. Before he went up there, he was just a skinny little runt. When +he got back, he was a husky fucker. +% + "That wife of mine is a liar," said the angry husband to a +sympathetic pal seated next to him in a bar. + "How do you know?" the friend asked. + "She didn't come home last night, and when I asked her where +she'd been she said she'd spent the night with her sister Shirley." + "So?" + "So, she's a liar. I spent the night with her sister Shirley." +% +That's the most fun I've had without laughing. + -- Woody Allen, on sex +% +The abbess of a nunnery was instructing a group of novices on the house rules +of her particular order. The indoctrination period, which went on for hours, +began with "No washing of undies in the founts," and ended with "Lights out at +nine. Candles out at ten." +% +The best way to cut off a cat's tail is to repossess his Jaguar. +% +The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments +to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. +It's just that they need more supervision. +% +The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that +sex for money usually costs a lot less. + -- Brendan Francis +% +The blind daters had really hit it off and at the end of the evening, as +they were beginning to undress each other in his apartment, the fellow said, + "Before we go any further, Charmaine, tell me -- do you have +any special fetishes that I should take into account in bed?" + "As a matter of fact," smiled the girl, "I do happen to have a foot +fetish -- but I suppose I'd settle for maybe seven or eight inches." +% +The bottom-up approach always gets me buggered. + -- Sidney J. Hurtubise +% +The butcher, the baker, the candlestick make her, why can't I? +% +The country girl who became a city madam has obviously gone from rags to rigids. +% +The difference between a sorority girl and a bowling ball is that you can +only get three fingers in a bowling ball. +% +The difference between her and the Titanic is that only 1100 men went down +on the Titanic. +% +The difference between like and love is the same as the difference between +a spit and a swallow. +% +The difference between women and girls is as much as twenty years, +in some states. +% +The doctor had just finished giving the young man a thorough physical +examination. "The best thing for you to do," the M.D. said, "is give up +drinking, give up smoking, get to bed early and stay away from women." + +"Doc, I don't deserve the best," pleaded his patient. "What's second best?" +% +The first time we slept together she drove a recreational vehicle into +the bedroom. + -- Richard Lewis +% +The five-alarm fire had been raging out of control for hours, pouring thick, +black smoke over the street. At last the blaze was under control and the +fire chief began accounting for his men. Two were missing, so he ordered +a search. Captain Kelly finally rounded a fire truck parked in an alley +and found, to his shock, one fireman with his trousers down leaning over a +garbage can and another fireman screwing him in the ass. + "What's the meaning of this!", the captain roared. + "Jones here had passed out from smoke inhalation," the fireman on +top panted. + "You're supposed to give mouth to mouth resuscitation for that!" +the captain yelled. + "I know. That's what started this," the fireman replied. +% +The fucking ain't worth the fighting. +% +The girls that go to see a man's etchings may not know art ... + +but they know what they like! +% +The good doctor had been an inspiration to the jungle natives. He had cured +their sick and taught them the religious and moral values of his own England. +He was loved and respected by every native in the village, but on this +particular afternoon the chief was obviously troubled as he entered the +doctor's hut. "You live among my people long time now," said the chief. +"You tell us not right for a man and girl to be close together before +marriage and we believe what you say. This morning white child born to +woman in village. You only white man in jungle. What I tell my people?" + The doctor smiled and led the chief to a window. "My son," he said, +"I'll won't attempt to give you a full scientific explanation for the +phenomenon known as an albino. But look at the flock of sheep upon that +hill. Every one is snow white except one. The white baby born to the +woman in your village means nothing more or less than that one black sheep +in the white flock. It is simply one of nature's mysterious accidents." + The black chief became embarrassed and looked at his feet. "OK, doc," +he said. "You no tell -- I no tell." +% +The good news is that the horse is dead, but your mother's pregnant. +% +The good thing about masturbation is that you don't have to dress up for it. + -- Truman Capote +% +The hacker as a mate/lover and the signs of trouble: + +-- The morning after note reads: + Whiting, Barbara: + I enjoyed last night. We really interfaced. You looked so cute + I wanted to byte your ear. +-- He believes Steve Wozniak offered the Apple to Adam. +-- The people he tries to emulate are five years his junior. +-- The last straw: + Once again, your date has lost all track of time debugging a new + program and shows up an hour late. + + You Don't...: + Make nasty asides regarding his 5-1/4 inch floppy. + You Do...: + Remind him that "going down" doesn't necessarily + indicate a malfunction. +% +The harder they come, the more important it is to have an extra-firm mattress. +% +The honest female orgasm is three to fifteen rhythmic contractions of the +outer third of the vagina at .8 second intervals, which is approximately +the beat of Surfing Safari" by the Beach Boys. Unless these contractions +occur, you can regard her groaning, moaning, clawing, kicking, begging for +mercy, and shouting filthy religious epithets as bargain-basement histrionics. + -- John Hughes, National Lampoon +% +The honeymoon is over when a quickie before dinner refers to a short drink. +% + The hungover couple dawdled over a midafternoon breakfast, after a +particularly wild all-night party held in their fashionable apartment. + "Dearest, this is rather embarrassing," said the husband, "but +was it you I made love to in the library last night?" + His wife looked at him reflectively and then asked, "About what time?" +% +The husband was disturbed by his wife's indifferent attitude towards him +and the marriage counselor suggested he try being more aggressive in his +lovemaking. + "Act more like a romantic lover and less like a bored spouse," he +was advised. "When you go home, make love to her as soon as you meet -- +even if it's right inside the front door." + At the next consultation, the adviser was pleased to hear that the +husband had followed his instructions. "And how did she react this time?" +the consultant asked. + "Well, to tell you the truth," the husband replied, "she was still +sort of indifferent. But one thing I've got to admit: her bridge club went +absolutely wild!" +% +The husband wired home that he had been able to wind up his business trip a +day early and would be home on Thursday. When he walked into his apartment, +however, he found his wife in bed with another man. Furious, he picked up his +bag and stormed out. He met his mother-in-law on the street, told her what +had happened and announced that he was filing for divorce in the morning. + "Give my daughter a chance to explain before you take any action," +the older woman pleaded. Reluctantly, he agreed. + An hour later his mother-in-law phoned the husband at his club. +"I knew my daughter would have an explanation," she said, a note of triumph +in her voice. "She didn't receive your telegram!" +% +The Italian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, "I Can't Get No +Contraception", has been withdrawn after the Pope advised them to pull it out +at the last minute. + -- Not the Nine O'Clock News +% +The king arranged a regal marriage for his daughter -- a bond that would unite +two great kingdoms. Yet, because the young couple seemed so formal to each +other, he posted a spy outside the royal wedding chamber and demanded a full +account of the wedding night's progress. + "It's hard to tell," said the spy the next morning. "When the prince +entered the chamber, I heard the princess say, quite formally, 'I offer you my +honor.' Then the prince said, with equal courtliness, 'I honor your offer.' +And that's the way it went all night long -- honor, offer, honor, offer. +% +The largest gay community in the U.S. (as a percentage of total population) +is not in San Francisco, but in Iowa Falls, Minnesota (pop. 763), a small +town in which virtually everyone is gay. In 1976, a group of about 100 +gays fleeing persecution in the South settled in the town, and soon won a +majority on the town council. Ordinances prohibiting heterosexual acts +soon followed. "After all," said mayor Harry Whalen, "If the Supreme Court +has refused to strike down laws prohibiting homosexual acts, then our +anti-straight laws are equally valid." Rigorous enforcement of those laws +has resulted in a community that is now almost 100% gay. Said one long-time +resident: "I've lived here 35 years and didn't want to leave, but I didn't +want to give up sex either. Then my neighbor Ed came over one night, and +said how about I do it with him, and my wife Millie could do it with his +wife. Well, I found it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was gonna be. +Fact is, I rather like it." +% +The little boy pointed to two dogs in the park and asked his father what +they were doing. "They're making puppies, son," replied the father. + That night, the boy wandered into his parents' room while they were +making love. Asked what they were doing, the father replied, "Making you +a baby brother." + "Gee, Dad," the boy pleaded, "turn her over -- I'd rather have a +puppy." +% + The little old lady rushed into the taxidermist and unwrapped a package +containing two recently deceased monkeys. Her instructions to the proprietor +were delivered in a welter of tears. + "Favorite pets... (blubber,sob)... caught cold... (moan)... Don't +see how I'll live without them... (weep,sob)... want to have them stuffed... +(blubber,blubber)!" + "Of course, madam," said the proprietor in an understanding voice, +"and would you care to have them mounted?" + "Oh, no," she sobbed, "shaking hands. They were just close friends." +% +The man and woman make love, attain climax, fall separate. Then she +whispers, "I'll tell you who I was thinking of if you tell me who you +were thinking of." Like most sex jokes the origins of the pleasant +exchange are obscure. But whatever the source, it seldom fails to evoke +a certain awful recognition. + -- Gore Vidal, "New York Review of Books" +% +The man who said "A bird in the hand's worth two in the bush" has been +putting his bird in the *WRONG* bushes. +% +The most pressing issue facing women today is finding a contraceptive +jelly that smells like a fresh fruit salad. +% +The most romantic thing any woman ever said to me in bed was "Are you sure +you're not a cop?" + -- Larry Brown +% +The most unfair thing about STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) is +that the guys who bought vasectomies have to wear condoms anyway. +% +The most unsatisfactory men are those who pride themselves on their +virility and regard sex as if it were some form of athletics at which you +win cups. It is a woman's spirit and mood which a man has to stimulate in +order to make sex interesting. The real lover is the man who can thrill +you by just touching your head or smiling into your eyes -- or just by +staring into space. + -- Marilyn Monroe +% +The nervous young bride became irritated by her husband's lusty advances on +their wedding night and reprimanded him severly. + "I demand proper manners in bed," she declared, "just as I do at +the dinner table." + Amused by his wife's formality, the groom smoothed his rumpled hair +and climbed quietly between the sheets. "Is that better?" he asked, with a +hint of a smile. + "Yes," replied the girl, "much better." + "Very good, darling," the husband whispered. "Now would you +be so kind as to please pass the pussy?" +% + The old mailman is making his last rounds; he retires at the end of +the week. As he approaches the Jones' house, Mrs. Jones greets him warmly at +the door. "Please come in! We're very grateful for your years of service to +us and our neighborhood. I've prepared something special for you." + In walks the mailman, to a graciously appointed dining room, where +Mrs. Jones has prepared a sumptuous lunch. After dumping his letter satchel +on the couch, he and Mrs. Jones have a charming meal. As the mailman finished +his last glass of wine, thanking his hostess profusely, she stops him from +leaving and disappears upstairs. She returns in a moment, in a daring +negligee, and takes the astonished postman to the bedroom, where the elaborate +farewell is consummated between the sheets. + As he's putting his pants on, Mrs. Jones reaches into her nightstand, +pulls out a dollar bill, and hands it to him. Reacting to his astonished +look, she says, "Well, I told my husband that you were retiring and that +we should do something for you. He said 'Fuck him. Give him a dollar!'" +She pauses and smiles proudly. "The lunch was MY idea." +% +The only difference between your current lover and a doorknob is that a +doorknob warms up when you hold it. +% +The only people who make love all the time are liars. + -- Louis Jordan +% +The only psychologically damaging thing about masturbation is that there's +nobody else to blame later for persuading you to do it. +% +The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty +and to someone else if she is plain. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The operator's left hand quivered as she gingerly unlatched the catch to +the diskette reader. Uncontrollably, she reached down, guiding the +sharply pointed diskette into the deep, dark slot. The floppy diskette +nearly folded under the repeated thrusts of her hand, until finally she +could control it no longer, her right hand instinctively taking an option +zero. And then it all came at once, thousands upon thousands of data +bits flowing from diskette to disk in a torrent of torrid transfer, as +the helpless legs of the 32 strained to remain on the floor. +% + The other day my girlfriend and I were going to a party and on the +way there, we got a flat tire. We got out of the car and I pumped, she +jacked I pumped, she jacked, I pumped, she jacked and then we changed the +tire. Eventually we arrived at the party and when we walked in, everyone was +jumping for joy. What a sight seeing her hanging nude from the chandelier! +Well the party was OK, I guess, we just sat around drinking sherry and eating +candy. Everybody else started feeling merry. Those have got to be the three +wildest girls I know. +% +The other night I was having sex, but the girl hung up on me. +% + The outraged husband discovered his wife in bed with another man. + "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded. "Who is this fellow?" + "That seems like a fair question," said the wife, rolling over. +"What IS your name?" +% +The owner of a large furniture store in the mid-west arrived in France +on a buying trip. As he was checking into a hotel he struck up an +acquaintance with a beautiful young lady. However, she only spoke +French and he only spoke English, so each couldn't understand a word +the other spoke. He took out a pencil and a notebook and drew a +picture of a taxi. She smiled, nodded her head and they went for a +ride in the park. Later, he drew a picture of a table in a restaurant +with a question mark and she nodded, so they went to dinner. After +dinner he sketched two dancers and she was delighted. They went to +several nightclubs, drank champagne, danced and had a glorious +evening. It had gotten quite late when she motioned for the pencil and +drew a picture of a four-poster bed. He was dumbfounded, and has never +be able to understand how she knew he was in the furniture business. +% +The passionate young thing was having a difficult time getting across what +she wanted from her rather dense boyfriend. Finally she asked, + "Would you like to see where I was operated on for appendicitis?" + "Gosh, no!" he replied. "I hate hospitals." +% +The penis mightier than the sword. +% +The pleasure is momentary, +The position ridiculous, +The expense damnable. + -- Chesterfield, on sex +% +The pleasure is transitory, the cost prohibitive, and the position ridiculous. + -- Disraeli, on sex +% +The plural of spouse is spice. + -- R.A. Heinlein +% +The police were investigating the mysterious death of a prominent +businessman who had jumped from a window of his 11th story office. His +voluptuous private secretary could offer no explanation for the action +but said that her boss had been acting peculiarly ever since she started +working for him a month ago. + "After my very first week on the job," she said, "I received a +twenty-dollar raise. At the end of the second week he called me into his +private office, gave me a lovely black nightie, five pairs of nylon +stockings and said, 'These are for a beautiful, efficient secretary.' At +the end of the third week he gave me a gorgeous mink stole. Then, this +afternoon, he called me into his private office again, presented me with +this fabulous diamond bracelet and asked me if I would consider making +love to him and what it would cost. I told him I would, and because he +had been so nice to me, he could have it for five dollars, although I was +charging all the other boys in the office ten dollars. That's when he +jumped out the window." +% +The problem with being best man at a wedding is that you never get a chance +to prove it. +% +The quality of a blow-job is determined by the length of sheet you have to +pull out of your ass. +% +The real problem with fucking a sheep is that you have to walk around +in front every time you want to kiss her. +% +The reason big companies have lots and lots of meetings is because +they can't masturbate. +% +The reason people sweat is so they won't catch fire when making love. + -- Don Rose +% +The reason that sex is so popular is that it's centrally located. +% +The requirements of romantic love are difficult to satisfy in the trunk +of a Dodge Dart. + -- Lisa Alther +% +The REVERSE function works on the opposite SEXPR. +% +The romantic young man sat on the park bench with a first date. He was +certain his charming words and manner would win her as they had many others. + "Some moon out tonight,"he cooed. + "There certainly is," she agreed. + "Some really bright stars in the sky." + She nodded. + "Some dew on the grass." + "Some do," she said indignantly, "but I'm not that sort." +% +The sergeant walked into the shower and caught me giving myself a dishonorable +discharge. Without missing a beat, I said... + "It's my dick and I can wash it as fast as I want!" +% +The sex act is the funniest thing on the face of this earth. + -- Diana Rigg +% +The sex was nice, but confusing. The whole situation kept going di-polar +on Sta-Hi. One instant Misty would seem like a lovely warm girl who'd +survived a terrible injury, like a lost puppy to be stroked, a lonely +woman to be husbanded. But then he'd start thinking of the wires behind +her eyes, and he'd be screwing a machine, an inanimate object, a public +toilet. Just like with any other woman for him, really. + -- Rudy Rucker, "Software" +% +The shy young man had been married for three months when he reported to his +doctor that his marriage was still in name only. The doctor, after hearing +the sad tale, told him that waiting until bedtime to make advances was causing +psychological pressure and advised him to take advantage of the next time he +felt in the mood. A week later, the doctor happened to meet the man again, +and noticed a new spring in his step. "My advice worked, I take it?" he +inquired. + The young man grinned. "Perfectly. The other night, we were having +supper, and as I reached for the salt -- so did she! Our hands touched... It +was as if an electric current ran through us. I leaped to my feet, swept the +dishes from the table and then and there consummated our marriage! There's +just one problem, however. We can't go back to The Four Seasons again..." +% +The struggling for knowledge has a pleasure in it like that of wrestling +with a fine woman. + -- Lord Halifax +% +The Supreme Court does it with all deliberate speed. +% +The thing that takes up the least amount of time and causes the most +amount of trouble is sex. + [Obviously written by a man--if it's causing so much trouble, + *take* *more* *time*!] +% +The three faithful things in life are money, a dog and an old woman. +% +The three most important parts of a stove: lifter, leg, and poker. +% +The three sexual positions during preganancy. + +During the first four months: Missionary style +During the second four months: Doggie style +And during the last month: Coyote style + +Coyote style? + You sit by the hole and howl. +% +The trouble with incest is that it gets you involved with relatives. + -- George S. Kaufman +% +The two couples were enjoying their vacation together at a resort hotel. They +were in the middle of a game of Scrabble in the lobby when a thunderstorm cut +off the hotel's electricity, leaving little to do but retire to their rooms. +Bill was a rather devout man, so before getting into bed with his companion, +he said his prayers. As he got under the covers, the lightning suddenly +flashed through the window and he discovered that he was in the wrong room. +He instantly jumped up and started to dash for the hallway. "It's too late, +called the girl from the bed, "my guy doesn't pray." +% +The two men feigned friendship but secretly hated each other's guts and took +great pleasure in giving one another the needle on any and all occasions. +This particular evening they met, quite by accident, at a popular bar. +The conversation started innocently enough; then one, with sudden inspiration, +ran his hand over the other's bald head and exclaimed, + "By God, Fred, that feels just like my wife's ass!" +The other ran his own hand over his head and nonchalantly retorted, + "Well, I'll be damned, Jim, so it does, so it does!" +% +The two things that you should never lend out are your car or your woman. +Someone's bound to throw a rod in either one. +% +The very proper spinster didn't go out very often, but she had some important +shopping to do that morning and so decided to have her lunch in what appeared +to be a nice quiet respectable restaurant. With the noontime crowd, many +customers shared their tables with strangers; the spinster selected a seat +next to an attractive, young office girl. The girl finished her sandwich and +coffee, then settled back and lit up a cigarette. The older woman controlled +herself for a few moments and then snapped, + "I'd rather commit adultery than smoke in public." + "So would I," said the girl, "but I only have half an hour for lunch." +% + The way my jeweler explained it, it's like insurance. + Six months' pay isn't much to keep my wife from sleeping around. + +A diamond -- pure, sparkling, natural, flawless, forever. The way marriage +should be but never quite is. People grow and change and sometimes want to +take their clothes off with strangers. So when you invest in a fine piece +of diamond jewelry, you're not only making an investment, you're making a +statement. You're telling the woman you love that you've just spent a lot +of your hard-earned money on her. Now she owes you the kind of loyalty that +only precious jewelry can buy. Isn't she worth it? + + The Honeymoon's Over: from $ 5000 + The Seven Year Itch: from $10000 + No More Lunchtime Quickies: from $15000 + Divorce Would Be More Expensive: from $42000 + + A diamond is for leverage. BeDears +% +The way to a man's heart is through his wife's belly, and don't you forget it. + -- Edward Albee, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" +% +The woman hurried home from her doctor's appointment, devastated by the +medical report she had just received. When her husband came in from work, +she told him, "Darling, the doctor said I have only twelve more hours to +live. So I've decided I want to go to bed and make passionate love to you +throughout the night. How does that sound, dearest?" + "Hey, that's fine for ___you," replied the husband. "You don't have +to get up in the morning!" +% +The young girl was having a heart-to-heart talk with her mother on her +first visit home since starting college. + "Mom, I have to tell you," the girl confessed. "I lost my virginity +last weekend." + "I'm not suprised," said her mother. "It was bound to happen sooner +or later. I just hope it was a romantic and pleasurable experience." + "Well, yes and no," the pretty student remarked. "The first eight +guys felt great, but after them my pussy got real sore." +% + The young man took a blind date to the amusement park. They went +for a ride on the Ferris wheel. The ride completed, she seemed rather bored. +"What would you like to do next?" he asked. + "I wanna get weighed," she said. So he took her over to the weight +guesser. Next they rode the roller coaster. After that he bought her some +popcorn and cotton candy, then he asked what else she would like to do. + "I wanna get weighed," she said, bluntly. + I really latched onto a square one tonight, thought the boy, and +using the excuse that he had developed a headache, he took the girl home. +The girl's mother was surprised to see her home so early, and asked, "What's +wrong, dear, didn't you have a nice time tonight?" + "Wousy," said the girl. +% +The young stud walked into a bordello. After he took his clothes off, the +woman was puzzled to see him put a clothespin on his nose, stuff cotton in +his ears, and put a prophylactic on his penis. + "Hey," she asked, "what the hell are you doing?" + "Well, ma'am", replied the stud, "there are two things I just can't +stand. A screaming woman and the smell of burning rubber." +% +Then there was the girl who was engaged to a gymnast -- 'til he broke it off. +% +Then there was the guy that got badly messed up fighting for his girl's honor. +It seems she wanted to keep it. +% +Then there was the middle-aged businessman who took his spouse to Paris. +After traipsing with her from one mansion du couture to another, be begged +for a day off to rest and got it. With the wife gone shopping again, he +went to the Ritz Bar and picked up a luscious parisienne. They got on +well until the question of money came up. She wanted a hundred American +dollars; he offered fifty. They couldn't get together on the price; so +they didn't get together. That evening he escorted his wife to one of the +nicer restaurants on the Rue de Rivoli, and there he spotted his gorgeous +babe of the afternoon seated at a table near the door. + "See, monsieur?" she said as they passed her. "Look what you got +for your lousy fifty bucks." +% +There are a couple of things about her I greatly admire. +% +There are many ways to say "I love you", but fucking is the fastest. +% +There are so many people wanting a piece of my ass that some of them +are having to take turns. + -- T.K. +% +There are two couples that want to convert to Catholicism. They go +and see a priest and he tells them that the first requirement is to abstain +from sex for thirty days. + Thirty days later, the couples come back to see the priest. He asks +the first couple if they passed the test. + "Father, we didn't so much as TOUCH one another during the last month. + "Congratulations," the priest replies, "you are now qualified to enter +the Church." Then, the priests asked the second couple how they did. + "Well, Father," the husband says, "everything was going just fine +until the 27th day. My wife bent over the freezer to get something out, and +I just happened to notice that she didn't have any panties on. I couldn't +stand it any more, so I walked over to her, dropped my pants, and slipped it +to her right there." + "That's DISGUSTING!", the priest bellows. "I can never let you into +the Church after something like that." + "I understand Father," the man replies sadly, "they won't let us +into Safeway anymore either." +% +There are two trees in the forest. They are very proud trees. One day +they notice a sapling half-way between them. + One tree proclaims, "That is a son of beech!" + "No, that is a son of a birch!" insists the other. + "A son of a BEECH!" + "A son of a BIRCH!" + "Son of a beech!" + "Son of a birch!" + +The fighting attracts a woodpecker who informs them that he can tell what +kind of tree the sapling is by its taste. First he tastes the beech and +the birch. Then he tastes the sapling. "Well now, is that a son of a +beech or a son of a birch?" asks the beech. + "You're both wrong!" says the bird. "That's the best piece of ash +I've had my pecker in for a long time!" +% +There is a definite parallel between shots of tequila and a woman's breasts. +One is not enough and three are too many. +% +There is nothing as overrated as a bad lay, or as underrated as a great shit. +% +There is nothing wrong with screwing everyone in sight. Boring your friends +about it is the sin. + -- Mama Liz +% +There isn't room enough in this dress for both of us! +% +There was once a newly-married couple. Now these two lovers were, well, +rather uptight about using expressions such as "having sex", "getting it on", +or "boffing the brains out". So, they decided to use the euphemism, "doing +the laundry" whenever the topic of sex came up. + One evening, hubby said, "Well, honey, feel like doing some laundry +tonite?", and she consented. The next evening, hubby again asked, "Sweetie, +feel like doing some laundry tonite?" Well, wifey wasn't really in the mood, +but complied. On the third night, when hubby approached her, asking her to +participate in doing still MORE laundry, she replied, "Oh, Hon, I'm really not +in the mood for doing any laundry tonite." + Well, hubby, being a bit disappointed, locked himself in the bathroom +and engaged in a spot of self-abuse instead. Upon returning to the living +room, wifey said, "Well, Poopsie, I've changed my mind -- how about doing +some laundry?" To which he replied, "Oh, no, that's okay, I just did a small +load!" +% +There was something about her I liked, but I couldn't put my finger on it. +% +There will be sex after death, we just won't be able to feel it. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +There's a handsome boy who tells me how I've changed his past. He buys me +a brandy... Could it be he's really just after my ass? + -- Pete Townshend, "How Many Friends" +% +There's many a slurp t'wixt the tip and the zip. +% +There's nothing better than good sex. But bad sex? A peanut butter +and jelly sandwich is better than bad sex. + -- Billy Joel +% +There's nothing wrong with America that a good erection wouldn't cure. + -- David Mairowitz +% +These two project managers were walking through a residential area +one day, when they saw a dog (also male) sitting on a lawn, licking its +cock. (Why do dogs do that? Because they can). Anyway, the first manager +nudged the second and said, "Hey, look at that! That really looks like fun +-- I wish I could do that!" + Whereupon the second manager replied, "Well, I don't know... I tried +it once, and the damn dog bit me!" +% +They watched the sun slowly sink behind the hills, and the fiery glow on +the lake fade into darkness. He eyed her shadowy figure, accentuated by +the moonlight, as the tension from within began to fuel his animalistic +desires. She followed him, ever so quietly, as they sought a secluded +corner in the barn. Alone! At last. His hands roamed about her soft +back, around to her thighs, and finally caressed her budding nipples. +Oh, how smooth and succulent she was! "Was it so wrong?", he asked +himself. No, he thought, for his father had done it, as did his own +father, ad infinitum. The boiling, uncontrollable rage within him became +unbearable. She signalled her eagerness, spreading her legs, as he +grasped her nipples again. Stroking, again and again, longer each time. +It began coming; again, again, again, again. His mind raced with fear +"Will it stop?". Exhausted, he lay down beside her. "Dear God, what have +I done?". Suddenly, his father burst in. His eyes burned as he stared +for what seemed an eternity. Finally, his father spoke. + "Son, you ain't supposed to milk the damn cow till mornin'!" +% +This guy was screwing his neighbors wife when a car pulls into the drive. +"My husband!" she screams. He panics and jumps out the window. He finds +himself on the street, naked, under cloudy skies. There is no place to hide +except in a crowd of joggers. As he runs along, a woman looks over and says, + "Do you always jog in the nude?" + "Yes ma'am!" he replies. + "Does it always result in that kind of sexual excitement?" she asks. + "Yes ma'am!" he replies. + "Do you always wear a condom?" + "Only when it rains, lady. Only when it rains." +% +This is a test of the emergency cunnilingus system. If this had been an +actual emergency, you would have known it! +% +This system goes down more often than a two-dollar whore. +% +This time it's for love; next time it's $100.00. +% +Thou shalt not omit adultery. +% +Three gay guys were discussing what they thought their favorite sport would +be. The first decides on football, 'cause of all those gorgeous guys bending +over in their tight pants. + "Definitely wrestling," sighs the second guy. "Those skimpy little +costumes, and think of the holds." + "Definitely baseball," says the third guy. "Why? Well, I'd be +pitching with the bases loaded, the batter would hit a savage one-hopper +right to me, I'd catch it, and I'd just stand there while the other guys +rounded the bases. Meanwhile, the crowd would be going crazy, screaming, +`Throw the ball, you cocksucker!' and that's what I like -- recognition!" +% +Three minutes of serious sex and I need eight hours of sleep and +a bowl of Wheaties. + -- Richard Pryor +% +Three women always hang their laundry out in the backyard. When it rains, +however, the laundry always gets wet. All the laundry, that is, except +for Laurie's. Laurie never seems to have her laundry out when it rains. + So, one day, they are all out in the backyard putting their clothes +on the line when one of the women says to Laurie, "Laurie, how come when it +never rains when you have your laundry out?" + "Well," replies Laurie, "when I wake up in the morning, I check out +my husband Paul. If his penis is hanging over his right leg, I know it's +going to be a great day. If his penis is hanging over his left leg, I know +it might rain. I don't know why it works, but he's never been wrong!" + "Laurie, what if he has an erection?" asks the other woman. + "Honey, on a day like *that*, you don't do the *laundry." +% +Three young women were attending the same logic class given at one of the +better universities. During a lecture the professor stated that he was +going to test their ability at situation reasoning. + "Let us assume," said the prof, "that you are aboard a small craft +alone in the Pacific, and you spot a vessel approaching you with several +sex-starved sailors on board. What would you do in this situation to avoid +the problem?" + "I would attempt to turn my craft in the opposite direction and +flee," said the first girl. + "I would pass them, and hope that I could fend them off," responded +the second woman. + "Frankly," murmured the third woman, "I understand the situation, +but I fail to see the problem." +% +Through a major bureaucratic error, you are made county coroner. +You seriously consider the job because it gives you: + + 1: Lots of unclaimed wedding rings and watches. + 2: Lots of gold fillings and bridges. + 3: Free blood. + 4: A constantly changing array of new friends who aren't at + all stuffy about what happens to their genitalia. +% +To a Real Woman, every ejaculation is premature. +% +To be the kind of girl designed to be kissed between the thighs. +% +To win a woman in the first place one must please her, then undress her, and +then somehow get her clothes back on her. Finally, so she will allow you +to leave her, you've got to annoy her. + -- Jean Giraudoux, "Amphitryon 38" +% +Tri Delts; everyone else has. +% +Two buddies had been out drinking for hours when their money finally +ran out. "I have an idea," croaked Al. "Lesh go over to my housh and borrow +shum money from my wife." + The two of them reeled into Al's living room, snapped on the light, +and lo and behold, there was Al's wife making love on the sofa to another man. +This state of affairs considerably unnerved Al's friend but didn't seem to +affect the husband. + "Shay, dear, you have any money for your ever-lovin' hushban'?" he +asked. + "Yes, yes," she snapped. "Take my purse from the mantle, and for +Pete's sake, turn off those lights." + Outside they examined the purse, and Al proudly announced, "There's +enough here for a pint for you and a pint for me. Pretty good, eh, old buddy?" + "But, Al," protested his friend, somewhat sobered by the spectacle +he'd just witnessed, "what about that fellow back there with your wife?" + "The hell with him," replied Al. "Let him buy his own pint." +% +Two longtime friends sipped Scotch in a local bar and talked about +their troubles. "And on top of everything else," said the first, "my wife +has cut me down to just once a week." + "That's too bad," agreed his friend, "but it could be worse. I know +two guys she's cut off altogether. +% +Two men were standing around talking while nearby a large German Shepherd +lay licking his balls. One man says to the other, "Damn, I wish I could +do that." + The other man replies, "Well, it's okay by me, but I think you +ought to get to know him a little first." +% +Two men, both close to retirement, are working on the assembly line. One +boasts to the other, "Last night I made love to my wife *three* times!" + "Three times!", replies his friend. "How did you do it?" + "Well," says the first man, "I made love to my wife and set the +alarm clock for two hours later. When it went off we made love again. +Then, I reset it for the morning and we made love once more before I came +to work. I feel like a bull!" + His friend says, "Well, that *is* fantastic! I'm going to have +to give it a try." So, he goes home that night and makes love to his +wife. Figuring he doesn't need to set the alarm clock, he settles off +to sleep. Waking up a few hours later, he nudges his wife and they make love +again. Waking up in the morning he makes love to his wife for the third +time. Looking over at the clock he realizes that he's twenty minutes late +for work. He throws on his clothes and runs down to the subway. When +he gets to the factory his boss is standing there waiting. + "Frank", he says, "I've been working for you for 18 years, and I've +never been late before. You've got to forgive me twenty minutes this once!" + "Well," replies his boss, "okay, but it's not the twenty minutes +that had me worried. Where were you Tuesday, where were you Wednesday..." +% +Two midgets arrived at the convent door and asked to speak with the Mother +Superior. Led into her office, the first one asked respectfully "Excuse +me, your holiness, but are there any midget nuns in this convent?" + Receiving a reply to the negative, he asked whether any midget +nuns were to be found in any of the neighboring parish. Again the reply +was no. + The tiny man scratched his head and posed a final question. "Beggin' +your pardon, Mother Superior, but would you know of *any* midget nuns at +all, anywhere?" The nun shook her head. + At which the first midget turned to the second midget, put his hand +on his shoulder, and said, "You see, I told you you fucked a penguin!" +% +Two nuns, a mother superior and a new nun, are walking home one night from +church when they are attacked by two vicious rapists. The two men drag the +nuns off into the bushes and proceed to have their way with them. The mother +superior is very afraid, but she knows that God will protect her. To show her +strength and trust in God she yells out "Forgive him Father, for he knows not +what he does!" + +To which the young nun replies "Oooooh, mine does!!" +% +Two old men are walking down the boardwalk when one of them tells the other +that he has to leave, his wife is expecting him to come home and make love +with her. + The other man is astonished. "Make love to your wife? You're as old +as I am! Nearly eighty years old! What do you mean you have to go home and +make love to your wife?" + The first man smiles and says, "We have a *great* sex life. We make +love every day." + "You're kidding!" says his friend. "How do you do it?" + "Pumpernickel bread. That's the secret." And he dashes off home. + The other man starts to walk home. "Hmmm," he thinks to himself +pumpernickel bread. Well, it's worth a try." So he goes into a nearby +bakery. + Going up to the woman at the counter, he asks for their entire stock +of pumpernickel bread. The woman stares at him in astonishment. "You want +all the pumpernickel bread we have? Are you sure? Don't you know that it +will get hard?" + "How come," demands the man, "everybody knows about this but me?" +% +Two women are talking; one says to the other, "Say, weren't you dating that +cute French horn player? What ever happened to him?" + "Well," replies her friend, we're still seeing each other, but, +I must admit, we've had some problems." + "Problems? What's wrong?" + "You see," says the second woman, "every time he kisses me, he +wants to shove his fist up my ass." +% +Two women were walking down the street, when one nudges the other and says, +"There's my husband coming out of the florist's with a dozen roses, damn it. +That means I'll have to keep my legs up in the air for three days." + +Replies her friend, "Well, why don't you buy a vase?" +% + Two young men seated in a restaurant were watching a customer busily +disposing of a plate of oysters on the half shell. One of the young +men remarked to his friend, + "Did you ever hear that business about raw oysters being +good for a man's virility?" + "Yes, why?" the friend replied. + "Well, take it from me, that's a lot of foolishness. I ate a +dozen of them the other night, and only nine worked." +% +Unix programmers do it with pipes. +% +User friendly software searching for friendly Hardware to interface with. +Hardware may present itself in floppy format as software has capability to +upgrading same to full size firm. Size is not all that important; but byte +sized bandwith required -- header width is of more concern. Joystick should +be able to toggle in different speeds and for some duration. Software is +looking for system willing to perform intensive manipulation of keyboard as +well as preparing the mainframe and disk drives. Fingering of all files +permitted, and encouraged, before thrusting joystick into drive. Software +is programmed not to copy; there is no need for removing joystick before +completed execution of program. Program may be run several times per day... +especially if special features and options are utilized. +% +Vandalism On The Upswing! + Last night, windows were broken and graffiti was sprayed over the + front of the local sex shop, Le Sex Boutique, causing several hundred + dollars in damage. In a later anonymous phone call, the provisional + wing of the Salvation Army claimed responsibility. +% +Vegetarians for oral sex -- "The only meat that's fit to eat" +% +Vidi, vici, veni. +(I saw, I conquered, I came.) +% +We drove to the hotel and said goodbye. How hypocritical to go upstairs +with a man you don't want to fuck, leave the one you do sitting there alone, +and then, in a state of great excitement, fuck the one you don't want to +fuck while pretending he's the one you do. That's called fidelity. That's +called civilization and its discontents. + -- Erica Jong, "Fear of Flying" +% +We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands +for masturbation. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +We may eventually come to realize that chastity is no more a virtue +than malnutrition. + -- Alex Comfort +% +We've all heard about the woman who married a Field Service engineer but +divorced him after one day because he'd done nothing on their wedding night +but promise to have it up in 15 minutes. What few people realize is that the +poor man was in the bathroom all night, masturbating furiously, muttering +"I just don't understand, it passes all the diagnostics!" +% +"We've got things well in hand." + -- Master Byte Software, Los Gatos California. +% +We've just recieved the results of a survey conducted to ascertain the +various reasons men get out of bed in the middle of the night. According +to the report, 2% are motivated by a desire to visit the bathroom, and +3% have an urge to raid the refrigerator. The other 95% get up to go home. +% +Welcome to Fortune Blackmail!! + Ms. Kat****** Bl****an is the mistress of a well-known + banker in Houston, Texas. That's $5000, please, to stop + us from revealing both of your names, Mr. L*****, so that + your wife Doreen, and your lovely children Diane, Janice + and Tom need never know the name of your mistress. You + have two days to reach us at: + + Fortune Blackmail + Behind the hot water pipes, + Third stall from the end, + Greyhound Bus Terminal, Fayette MO. +% +Welcome to Fortune Blackmail!! + This is the first of a series of revelations which could + add up to a divorce, premature retirement and possible + criminal proceedings for a company vice-president in Langley Virginia. + So, Mr. S*****, $10,000 please to stop us from revealing: + 1: Whose shoulders you were sitting on. + 2: What you were doing. + 3: The names of the three people involved. + 4: The youth organization to which they belonged. + 5: The shop where you bought the equipment. +% +Well, didja wake up grouchy or did you let her sleep? +% +Well, see, I was out with this chick last night, and we were in bed, and +she groaned to me, "Give me nine inches, and make it hurt!" So, I fucked +her twice and slapped her. +% +Well, see, Joyce, there we were, trapped in the elevator. Now, I had +my tennis racquet and the goldfish; she was holding the Crisco. Surely +you can imagine how one thing naturally led to another! +% +Well, you almost got it right. The only problem is, you're doing it exactly +backwards! Just reverse the motions you described and your partner will +experience an incredibly intense orgasm. One trouble with this technique, +though, is that it works so well. Believe me, word will get around about +your newfound prowess and you'll be inundated by prospective sexual partners. +So try to be discreet. I prefer maple syrup to pineapple/apricot lotion, but +that's a matter of personal preference. Also, I'd advise against the syrup, +or using honey, if you're outside, because the insects it attracts tend to +distract the quail. You can substitute crazy glue (but obviously not thumb +tacks!) for the masking tape, but only if you don't want to use the piano for +awhile. +% +Were it not for imagination, sir, a man would be as happy in the arms +of a chambermaid as a duchess. + -- Dr. Johnson +% +What creatures of habit we are. This morning, without thinking, half asleep, +I put $100 on my pillow. That's not so bad, no one would worry about it, but +my wife, half asleep, without thinking, gave me $20 change. +% +What is a promiscuous person -- it's usually someone who is getting more +sex than you are. + -- Victor Lownes, quoted in "In and Out: Debrett 1980-81", + by N. Mackwood +% +What this department needs is a really good inflatable doll. +% +Whatever else can be said about sex, it cannot be called a dignified +performance. + -- Helen Lawrenson +% +Whatever happened to the good old days when sex was dirty and the air was clean? +% +Whatever you say about pornography, sex is here to stay. +% +When a girl admits she's had a checkered career, it's your move. +% +When better women are made, computer programmers will make them. +% +When Boy Scouts do it, it's intense. +% +When his company fell on hard times, the boss realized that he'd have to +lay off one of his two middle managers. As both Jack and Liz were equally +honest and dedicated to their jobs, he was unable to decide which one to +fire. To resolve his dilemma, the boss arbitrarily decided that the first +to leave his or her desk the next morning would be the one to get the ax. + The next morning found Liz at her desk, rubbing her temples. Asking +Jack for some aspirin, she headed for the water fountain and that's where +the boss caught up with her. "I've got some bad news for you, Liz," he said. +"I've got to lay you or Jack off." + "Jack off," she snapped. "I have a headache." +% +When I said "we", officer, I was referring to myself, the four young +ladies, and, of course, the goat. +% +When Snow White turns on with the dwarfs she probably winds up feeling Dopey. +% +When the naive young lady asked the clerk in Le Sex Shoppe to show her his +selection of vibrators, he brought out the two most popular ones. + "The basic white plastic one here is twenty dollars," the clerk said. +"The flesh-toned rubber models are thirty." + "I'm just not sure," the woman said, Then she noticed an eye-catching +item on the back shelf. "How much is that plaid one over there? + "Uh, well, that's a pretty special one," said the clerk. "I couldn't +sell you that one for less than a hundred." + "I'll take it." + Later that day, the store owner checked in to see how business was +going. "Great," the clerk told him. "This morning, I sold four white +vibrators and three flesh-toned ones. And, this afternoon, I got a hundred +bucks for my Thermos." +% +When the prick stands up, the brains get buried in the ground. + -- Old Jewish saying + +[How come there aren't ever any "New Jewish sayings?" Ed.] +% +When the surgeon came to see her on the morning after her operation, the +young woman asked her somewhat hesitantly how long it would be before she +could resume her sex life. "I really haven't thought about it," gulped +the stunned surgeon. "You're the first patient who's asked me that after +a tonsillectomy!" +% +When you see someone across the room and suddenly know for a fact +that he's the most wonderful man on earth, you've got instant lust on your +hands. Something about the way his tie is knotted is infinitely intriguing +to you, and the swell of his bicep causes inner turmoil. This is a happy +but fleeting state of affairs. Usually your feelings die about thirty +seconds after you get up the courage to ask him for the time, since almost +invariably he can't speak English, and if he can, he always says, "Why, +sure, little lady, it's eleven-thirty. Wanna get high? + +Don't bother thinking that instant lust will turn into the real thing. It may, +but then you may also wake up one morning to find you're the Queen of Rumania. + -- Cynthia Hemiel, "Sex Tips for Girls" +% +Whenever someone tells you to "take it like a man" it usually means up your ass. +% + "Where'd she get those crow's feet?" + "You really want to know?" + "Yeah." + "From squinting and screaming, 'Suck what!?'" +% +Which of the following doesn't belong? + a. meat + b. eggs + c. drum + d. blowjob. + +Answer: + d: A blowjob, because you can beat your meat, your eggs, + or your drum, but you just can't beat a blowjob. +% +While farmers generally allow one rooster for ten hens, ten men are +scarcely sufficient to service one woman. + -- Boccaccio +% + While hunting, a man saw a beautiful nude woman come running out of +the woods and disappear across the clearing. Just as she got out of sight, +three men dressed in white uniforms came running out of the same woods. +"Hey, you," yelled one of them, "did you see a woman come by here?" + "Yes," replied the hunter. "What's the trouble?" + "She's an inmate of the county asylum, and gets loose every now and +then. We're trying to catch her." + "I can understand that," said the hunter, "But why is one of you +carrying a bucket of sand?" + "That's his handicap," said the spokesman, "he caught her last time." +% +While not actually a sailor, I certainly enjoy getting blown ashore. +% +While vacationing last summer in the North Woods, a young fellow thought it +might be a good idea to write his girl. He had brought no stationery with +him, however; so he had to walk into town for some. Entering the one and +only general store, he discovered that the clerk was a young, full-blown farm +girl with languorous eyes. + "Do you keep stationery?" he asked. + "Well," she giggled, "I do until the last few seconds, and then I +just go wild." +% +While visiting our country, a lovely French maiden found herself +out of money just as her visa expired. Unable to pay her passage back to +France, she was in despair until an enterprising sailor made her a sporting +proposition. "My ship is sailing tonight," he said. "I'll smuggle you +aboard, hide you down in the hold and provide you with a mattress, blankets +and food. All it will cost you is a little love." + The girl consented, and late that night the sailor sneaked her on +board his vessel. Twice each day thereafter, the sailor smuggled a large +tray of food below decks, took his pleasure with the little French stowaway +and departed. The days turned into weeks, and the weeks might have turned +into months if the captain hadn't noticed the sailor carrying food below one +evening and followed him. After witnessing this unique bit of barter, he +waited until the sailor had departed and then confronted the girl, demanding +an explanation. She told him the whole story. + "Hmmm," mused the captian. "A clever arrangement, and I must say I +admire that young seaman's ingenuity. However, miss, I feel it is only fair +to tell you that this is the Staten Island Ferry." +% +Whoever named it "necking" was a poor judge of anatomy. + -- Groucho Marx +% + "Why did you spend so much time parked in that fellow's car last +night?" demanded the irate mother. "I could hear the giggling and squealing +for a good half hour." + "But, Mom," answered her daughter, "if a fellow takes you to the +movies you ought to at least kiss him good night." + "I thought you went to the Stork Club?" countered the mother. + "We did." +% +Why marry a virgin? If she wasn't good enough for the rest of them +then she isn't good enough for you. +% +Why, Good Morning! I'm the bluebird of fellatio! +% +With a bushel of apples, you can have a hell of a time with the doctor's wife. +% + With deep concern, if not alarm, Dick noted that his friend +Conrad was drunker than he'd ever seen him before. "What's the trouble, +buddy?", he asked, sliding onto the stool next to his friend. + "It's a woman, Dick," Conrad replied. + "I guessed that much. Tell me about it." + "I can't," Conrad said. But after a few more drinks his tongue +and resolution both seemed to weaken and, turning to his buddy, he said, +"Okay. It's your wife." + "My wife!!" + "Yeah." + "What about her?" + Conrad pondered the question heavily, and draped his arm around +his pal. "Well, buddy-boy," he said, "I'm afraid she's cheating on us." +% +Women think of being a man as a gift. It is a duty. Even making love can +be a duty. A man has always got to get it up, and love isn't always enough. + -- Norman Mailer +% +Women Unite! Make *___him* sleep in the wet spot tonight! +% +Working here is like a pregnancy. After nine months you wish you hadn't come. +% +Writers do it between periods. +% +"Yeah, I used to be into necrophelia, bestiality and sadism, but then I +realized I was just flogging a dead horse." +% +"Yes, sir, the bowling ball nipple rings in black. Will there +be anything else?" +% +You are a tower of strength in the office, but only so-so in bed. +% +You are loved by the multitudes. Have you been to the clinic lately? +% +You better believe that marijuana can cause castration. Just suppose +your girlfriend gets the munchies! +% +"You can beat my meat, but you can't lick my sauce!" + -- Boss' Ribs, Portland, Oregon +% +You can get used to living at a nudist camp. The first three days are the +hardest. + -- R. Dreiser +% +You come out of a woman and you spend the rest of your life trying to +get back inside. + -- Heathcote Williams +% +You might get caught holding the bag. Say she's your sister. +% +You pedophiliac sodomizer of ducklings!! +% + You see, this girl wakes up one morning, rolls over and sees an +elephant in the bed with her. Almost in shock, she says, "Did I pick you +up in the bar last night?" + "Uh-huh," the elephant replies. + "Did I bring you home?" + "Uh-huh." + "Did we, uh, fool around?" + "Uh-huh." + "Lord, I must have been tight!" + "Not any more." +% +Your first husband was the one you married while firmly believing that +there are more important things in life than great sex. +% +Yuck Foo. +% +Humor in the Court: +Q. How did you happen to go to Dr. Cherney? +A. Well, a gal down the road had had several of her children by Dr. Cherney, + and said he was really good. +% +Q: Why are Unix emulators like your right hand? +A: They're just pussy substitutes! +% +As seen on http://features.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=34216&cid=3701804 +discussing anti-virus software: + +> Also, Your list of things not to do to catch a virus reminds me like +> avoiding pregnancy via the 'pull out' method. Sure it might improve +> your chances, but it won't 'protect' you in any real sense. + +I think this is a bad analogy. His list reminds me of avoiding pregnancy +via the "if it looks like a vagina, don't put your penis in it" method, +which is significantly more effective. +% +Cryo-necro-bestial-sodomy? You can do that at the grocery store. + --Anonymous UCSD Physics Ph.D. candidate. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/songs-poems b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/songs-poems new file mode 100644 index 0000000..11f4c78 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/songs-poems @@ -0,0 +1,2271 @@ +A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, +B is for Basil, assaulted by bears. +C is for Clara who wasted away, +D is for Desmond, thrown out of the sleigh. +E is for Ernest who choked on a peach, +F is for Fanny, sucked dry by a leech. +G is for George, smothered under a rug, +H is for Hector, done in by a thug. +I is for Ida who drowned in the lake, +J is for James who took lye, by mistake. +K is for Kate who was struck with an axe, +L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks. +M is for Maud who was swept out to sea, +N is for Neville who died of ennui. +O is for Olive, run through with an awl, +P is for Prue, trampled flat in a brawl. +Q is for Quentin who sank in a mire, +R is for Rhoda, consumed by a fire. +S is for Susan who perished of fits, +T is for Titus who flew into bits. +U is for Una who slipped down a drain, +V is for Victor, squashed under a train. +W is for Winnie, embedded in ice, +X is for Xerxes, devoured by mice. +Y is for Yorick whose head was knocked in, +Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin. + -- Edward Gorey, "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" +% +A Scotsman clad in kilts left a bar one evening fair. +One could tell by how he walked, he'd drunk more than his share. +He staggered on until he could no longer keep his feet. +So he stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street. + +Later on two young and lovely girls just happened by. +One says to the other, with a twinkle in her eye. +"See yon sleeping Scotsman so young and handsome built?" +"I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath their kilts?" + +They stepped up to the Scotsman, so young and fancy free. +They lifted up his kilt above the waist so they could see. +And there behold for them the view beneath his Scottish skirt, +Was nothing more than God had graced him with upon his birth. + +They marveled for a moment, then one said, "Best be gone." +"Let's leave a present for our friend before we move along." +As a gift they left a blue ribbon tied into a bow, +Around the bonny star of the Scot's kilt lifting show. + +The Scot awoke to nature's call and stumbled to the trees. +Behind a bush he lifts his kilt and gawks at what he see's. +Then in a startled voice he says to what's before his eyes, +"Och, lad I dinna know whar' ya been, but I see ya won first prize." + -- Mike Cross, "The Scotsman" +% +All I want is a girl made of wood, +With fine-grained hair and carven knee. +She wouldn't drink and wouldn't smoke, +Oh, wooden tit be loverly? + -- Pinocchio +% +All the girls in France, do a hookie-kookie dance, +And you know the way they shake, is enough to fry a snake, +And the snake they fry, is enough to tell a lie, +And the lie they tell, is enough to go to +Hello, operator, give me number nine, +If you disconnect me, I'll kick you in the +Behind the 'frigerator, there was a piece of glass, +If you do not pick it up, I'll kick you in the +Ask me no more questions, tell me no more lies, +This is what Lulu told me, just before she died. +She had a little brother, she named him Tiny Tim, +She put him in the potty, to see if he could swim. +He swam down to the bottom, he swam up to the top, +Lulu got disgusted, and flushed him down the pot. + -- Princess +% +All things dull and ugly, Each little snake that poisons, +All creatures short and squat, Each little wasp that stings, +All things rude and nasty, He made their brutish venom, +The Lord God made the lot; He made their horrid wings. + +All things sick and cancerous, Each nasty little hornet, +All evil great and small, Each beastly little squid. +All things foul and dangerous, Who made the spikey urchin? +The Lord God made them all. Who made the sharks? He did. + +All things scabbed and ulcerous, +All pox both great and small. +Putrid, foul and gangrenous, +The Lord God made them all. + -- Monty Python's Flying Circus +% +An attachment a la Plato +for a bashful young potato +or a, not too French, french bean +must excite your languid spleen. +For, if you walk down Picadilly +with a poppy or lily +in your medieval hand, +every one will say, +as you walk your flowery way; +"If this young man is content, +with a vegetable love +which would certainly not content me. +Why, what a very pure young man +this pure young man must be!" + -- W.S. Gilbert, "Patience" + [The subject of the humour is, of course, Oscar Wilde] +% +And it's one, two, three, +What are we fighting for? +Don't ask me I don't give a damn! +Next stop is Vietnam! +And it's five, six, seven, +Open up the pearly gates. +Ain't no time to wonder why +Whoopie! We're all going to die. + -- Country Joe and the Fish +% +... And malt does more than Milton can +To justify God's ways to man. + -- A. E. Housman +% +And prively he caughte hire by the queynte, +And heeld hire harde by the haunche-bones. + --Geoffrey Chaucer, The Miller's Tale +% +And the northern lights commenced to glow. +And she said, with a tear in her eye, +"Watch out where the huskies go, +and don't you eat that yellow snow." + -- Frank Zappa, "The Story of Nanook and the Fur Trapper" +% +Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, +If God won't have you, the devil must. +% +Australia's a lovely land +It's full of bonza blokes, +Sheilas, beer and no-one's queer +Except in Pommie jokes. + +Australians are lovely chaps +They're God's own chosen race. +If they ever see a fairy Pom +They'll smash him in the face. + +Australians like dressing up +In skirts and having fun +And that's all we were doing +When the Vice Squad came along. + -- Monty Python's Flying Circus +% +Be prepared... that's the Boy Scout's solemn creed. +Be prepared... to be clean in word and deed. +Don't solicit for your sister, that's not nice, +Unless you get a good percentage of her price. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Behold the unborn fetus and + Weep salt tears crocodilian; +All life is sacred (save, of course, + An enemy civilian). +% +Beneath this stone a virgin lies, +For her life held no terrors. +A virgin born, a virgin died: +No hits, no runs, no errors. +% +Better the prince of some inferior court, +Than second, or less, in beatific light. + -- Lucifer, Joost van den Vondel's "Lucifer" +% +Birth, copulation and death. +That's all the facts when you come to brass tacks; +Birth, copulation and death. + -- T.S. Elliot, "Sweeney Agonistes" +% +Bridget O'Flaherty McHugh +Held venal traffic with a gnu. +Mistaking fore for aft one morn +Impaled herself upon its horn. + +Moral: Those who seek high ends should shun + our furred and feathered friends. +% +But they'll never mechanize me -- not me! +Said Charlotte, the Louisville harlot. + -- S.I. Hayakawa +% +Champagne don't make me lazy. +Cocaine don't drive me crazy. +Ain't nobody's business but my own. + -- Taj Mahal +% +Chipmunks roasting on an open fire +Jack Frost ripping up your nose +Yuletide carolers being thrown in the fire +And folks dressed up like buffaloes +Everybody knows a turkey slaughtered in the snow +Helps to make the season right +Tiny tots with their eyes all gouged out +Will find it hard to see tonight +They know that Santa's on his way +He's loaded lots of guns and bullets on his sleigh +And every mother's child is sure to spy +To see if reindeer really scream when they die +And so I'm offering this simple phrase +To kids from one to ninety two +Although it's been said many times, many ways +Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Fuck you!! +% +Chorus: + Grandma got run over by a reindeer, + Walking home from our house Christmas eve. + You can say there's no such thing as Santa, + But as for me and Grandpa, we believe! +She'd been drinking too much eggnog, +And we begged her not to go. +But she'd forgot her medication, When we found her Christmas morning, +And she staggered through the door At the scene of the attack. + out in the snow. She had hoofprints on her forehead, + And incriminating claus-marks on her +Now we're all so proud of Grandpa, back. +He's been taking this so well. +See him in there watching football. I've warned all my friends and +Drinking beer and playing cards neighbors, + with cousin Mel. Better watch out for yourselves! + They should never give a license, + To a man who drives a sleigh and + plays with elves! + -- Elmo and Patsy, "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" +% +Chorus: + I don't want to join the army, I don't want to go to war, + I'd rather sit around, pickin' dillies off the ground, + And livin' off the favors of a 'igh-born lady. + I don't want a bullet up me arse 'ole, + I don't want me pecker blown away, + I'd rather live in England, in jolly, sunny, England, + And fornicate me bloody life away!! + +Monday I touched her on the ankle, +Tuesday I touched her on the knee, +And Wednesday after Mass, I lifted up her dress, +And Thursday I saw you know what, +Friday I put me 'and upon it, +Saturday she gave me balls a tweak [tweak, tweak] +And Sunday after supper, I ran me fucker up 'er, +And now she pays me forty quid a week! +Oh, blimey... + +[chorus] +% +Christmas comes but once a year, +A time for love and laughter; +You can come much more than that, +But you have to clean up after. +% +Christopher Robin and I run along, +Under shell-bursts with our M-16s, +Blowing up Heffalumps, Wol, and Eeyore +For the pleasure of hearing their screams. + But we wandered much further today than we should, + And Christopher's hit in the back pretty good! + +So, help me if you can I've got to get +Back in the knack of cold-blooded killing! +You'd be surprised at the mayhem I bring: + Burning a village for kicks; + Flaying a native with sticks... +Back in the trenches with Christopher Robin and Pooh! + +Winnie the Pooh doesn't know what to do, +He's got napalm all over his clothes. +He came to me asking help and advice, +So I shot him before he got close. + But Christopher would try to help his poor bear, + And so both have burned up with a bright orange flare! + +Singin': Help me if you can I've got to get +Back in the hang of this whole murder thing. +You'd be surprised at the mayhem I bring: + Burning a village for kicks; + Flaying a native with sticks... +Back in the trenches with Christopher Robin ... +Warming my hands over Christopher Robin ... +Making s'mores over Pooh! + -- "Roughhouse at Pooh Corner," to the tune of "House at Pooh + Corner," by three warped students, College of Wooster, 1979 +% + CLONE OF MY OWN (to Home on the Range) + +Oh, give me a clone +Of my own flesh and bone + With the Y chromosome changed to X. +And when she is grown, +My very own clone, + We'll be of the opposite sex. +Chorus: + Clone, clone of my own, + With the Y chromosome changed to X. + And when we're alone, + Since her mind is my own, + She'll be thinking of nothing but sex. + -- Randall Garrett +% +Come along and sing a song and join our family. +B & D +S & M +Post to A.S.B.! +Rope and leather, cuffs and cats, and toys from JTT. +B & D +S & M +Post to A.S.B.! +A.S.B.! + (A.S.B.!) +A.S.B.! + (A.S.B.!) +Come on now, let's try another tie! + (Tie! Tie! Tie!) +All the kinky folks are here, and some on IRC. +B & D +S & M +Post on A.S.B.! + -- To the Mickey Mouse March +% +Copa-ulation: +(to the tune of Copacabana) + +Her name was Lola, she was a bimbo, with yellow streamers in her hair, +She wore see-through underwear, she'd go to discos, and do the go-go, +And while she tried to be star, Tony jacked off on the bar, +And when the dance was done, his hand was full of come, +His favorite drink is cream in coffee, +Won't you order one? + +At the Copa, Copa-ulation ... + +Her name was Lola, she was a show-girl, +But that was thirty years ago, when she still could slurp and blow, +Now she's a sado, but not for Tony, still in her chains and leather gown, +She ties Rico to the ground, and fucks that boy half-blind, +But Rico, he don't mind, there are whips and a lot of beatings, +But a real good time ... +% +Cover your stump before you hump. +Before you attack her, wrap your wacker. +Don't be silly... protect your Willie. +Wrap it in foil before checking her oil. +If you're not going to sack it, go home and wack it. + -- National Condom Week +% +Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true, +Daisy, Daisy, wouldn't you like to screw? +I really must beg your pardon, +But I've got a hell of a hard-on, +From beating my meat, against the seat, +Of a bicycle built for two. + -- "Daisy, Daisy", "The Dirty Song Book" +% +Dark and lonely on a summer night + Kill my landlord, + Kill my landlord. +The watchdog barkin' +Do he bite? + Kill my landlord, + Kill my landlord. +Slip in his window. +Break his neck. +Then his house I start to wreck +Got no reason, +What the heck? + Kill my landlord, + Kill my landlord. + C-I-L-L my landlord! + -- "Images" by Tyrone Green, SNL +% +Dave has an areoplane, +In which he likes to frisk. +Oh what a foolish boy, +His silly *. +% +Dear Lord, observe this bended knee +This visage meek and humble, +And hear this confidential plea +Voiced in reverent mumble: + Give me Shylock, give me Fagin + But O God spare me Ronald Reagan! + -- Ansel Adams +% +Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men, +For though the world stood up +And stopped the bastard, +The bitch that bore him is in heat again. + -- Bertolt Brecht +% +Drop kick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life, +End over end, not to the left or the right, +Straight through the middle of those righteous uprights! +Drop kick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life. + +Send down our brothers who've gone on before; +With their assistance, we'll rack up the score! +The help of the angels, I think, would be fine, +As long as you put them in the Steelers' front line! +% +Eisenhower was very nice, +Nixon was his only vice. + -- C. Degen +% +Fed some caviar to my girlfriend +She was a virgin tried and true +Now my girlfriend needs no urgin' +There ain't nothin' she won't do! + Caviar comes from a Virgin Sturgeon - + Virgin Sturgeon's a very fine fish. + Virgin Sturgeon needs no urgin' + That's why caviar is my dish! + +Fed some caviar to my Grandpa +He was a man of ninety-three +Shrieks and screams were heard from Grandma +He had chased her up a tree! + (chorus) +% +Filth and old age, I'm sure you will agree, +Are powerful wardens upon chastity. + -- Geoffrey Chaucer +% +First you get down on your knees, Get in line in that processional, +Fiddle with your rosaries, Step into that small confessional, +Bow your head with great respect, There the guy who's got religion'll +And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect! Tell you if your sins' original. +Do whatever steps you want if If it is, try playin' it safer, +You have cleared them with the Pontiff, Drink the wine and chew the wafer, +Ev'rybody say his own Two, four, six eight, +Kyrie eleison, Time to transubstantiate! +Doin' the Vatican Rag. + +So get down upon your knees, Make a cross on your abdomen, +Fiddle with your rosaries, When in Rome do like a Roman, +Bow your head with great respect, Ave Maria, +And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect! Gee, it's good to see ya, + Gettin' ecstatic an' sorta dramatic an' Doin' the Vatican Rag! + -- Tom Lehrer, "The Vatican Rag" +% +Five-foot nine, eyes that shine +He was born in Palestine +Has anybody seen my Lord? + +He's so cool, he's so fine +Eat his bread and drink his wine +Has anybody seen my Lord? + +He's so neat, he's so cool, +Walks across my swimming pool. +Has anybody... +% +For they starve the frightened little child +Till it weeps both night and day: +And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool, +And gibe the old and grey, +And some grow mad, and all grow bad, +And none a word may say. + +Each narrow cell in which we dwell +Is a foul and dark latrine, +And the fetid breath of living Death +Chokes up each grated screen, +And all, but Lust, is turned to dust +In Humanity's machine. + +And all men kill the thing they love, +By all let this be heard, +Some do it with a bitter look, +Some with a flattering word, +The coward does it with a kiss, +The brave man with a sword. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee +And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me. + -- Robert Frost +% +From the crystal swirling waters, +Of the Rio Amazon, +To the sacred halls of Bayonne, +Where we stand pajamas on. (It's the only thing that rhymes.) +From ev'ry hallowed venue, +Ev'ry forest, mount and vale, +Your butt is on the menu +And the check is in the mail. + -- The Piranha Club Anthem, to the tune of "De Camptown Races" +% +"Get a load of that chick!" "Dude -- you gotta ask her out." +"Weellll, I dunno..." "Look. The worst she can say, is 'No'!" +"Hey! You're right!" "I'm always right!" +"The worst she can say... is 'No'!" + +"Idunnoifyou'vebeennoticingmebutI'vebeennoticingyouandIwaswonderingif +you'd like to go out with me!" + +Oh my god you little Geek! +Get away before I freak! You ugly, stupid, zitfaced scum, +I'm a babe and you are not. You asked me out; you MUST be dumb. +You can't handle what I've got! Well you can beg until you're blue, +I'm too hot, too hot for you.. But you're not even fit to lick my shoe. + I'm too hot, too hot for you. +Ha ha ha! Don't make me laugh! +I want a whole man, not a half. I've got a bitchin' bod and a killer +You wet your pants, I'm so sure. face, +Too bad wimp-itis has no cure. I'm god's gift to the male race. +I'm too hot, too hot for you. I'm the queen of babes supreme, + But you'll only see me in you dreams. +"Well? What'd she say??" I'm too hot, too hot for you. +"Well, she didn't say no..." + -- Barry and the Bookbinders, "The Worst She Can Say is No" +% +Gibble gabble gabble gibble gurgle lubble gibble babble beeble triggle + Lean closer. +Libble gabble gabble ibble gurgle gubble tibble babble feeble riggle + Smile at her *knowingly*. +Gibble gabble sabble gibble surgle gubble gibble babble beeble giggle + Nod sympathetically. Show you're on *her* side. +Bibble gabble gabble babble gurgle gubble gibble tribble beeble figgle + Touch her hand lightly. Nobody understands but we two. +Fibble gabble fobble gibble gurgle bubble gibble tabble beeble giggle + Look sincere. + +"Why don't we have the next drink up at MY place?" + + God's gift to women strikes again. + -- J. Feiffer +% +Gimme that old bisexuality, +Gimme that old bisexuality, +Gimme that old bisexuality, +'Cause it's good enough for me! + +It was good for David Bowie, +It was good for David Bowie, +It was good for David Bowie, +And it's good enough for me! +% +Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen! +Here's a little number I tossed up in the Carribean recently... + +Isn't it awfully nice to have a Penis, +isn't it frightfully good to have a Dong. + +It's swell to have a Stiffy, +it's divine to have a Dick, +from the tinyest little Tadger, +to the world's greatest Prick. + +So, breeches for your Willy or John-Thomas, +Hooray! for your One Eyed Trouser's Snake. + +Your Piece of Pork, your Wife's best friend, +your Porky or your Cock, +you can wrap it up in ribbons, +you can stick it in your sock! + +But, don't take it out in public, +or they will stick you in the dock, +and you won't come back. + -- Monty Python, from "The Meaning of Life" +% +Hail to the sun god +He sure is a fun god +Ra! Ra! Ra! +% +Hark, Hark, the dogs do bark +The Duke is fond of kittens +He likes to take their insides out +And use them for his mittens + -- The Thirteen Clocks +% +He drank with curvy Mabel, +The pace was fast and furious, +He slid beneath the table, +Not drunk but merely curious. +% +He grabbed me by my slender neck, +I could not call or scream. +He dragged me to his tiny room, +Where we could not be seen. +He tore away my filmy wrap, +And gazed upon my form. +I so cold and frightened, +While he so strong and warm. +He pressed me to his thirsty lips, +I gave him every drop. +He drained me of my very self, +I could not make him stop! +And that is why you see me here, +An empty, broken bottle of beer... +% +(He opens a tolm and begins.) + + It says: "In the beginning was the Word." + Already I am stopped. It seems absurd. + The Word does not deserve the highest prize, + I must translate it otherwise. + If I am well inspired and not blind. + It says: "In the beginning was the Mind." + Ponder that first line, wait and see, + Lest you should write too hastily. + Is the Mind the all-creating source? + It ought to say: "In the beginning there was Force." + Yet something warns me as I grasp the pen, + That my translation must be changed again. + The spirit helps me. Now it is exact. + I write: "In the beginning was the Act." + -- Goethe's Faust +% +He tells you when you've got on too much lipstick, +And helps you with your girdle when your hips stick. + -- O. Nash, on the perfect husband +% +Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed in one self place, +for where we are is Hell, and where Hell is there must we ever be. + -- Christopher Marlowe, "Doctor Faustus" +% +Here I sit, my cheeks a flexin', +Just gave birth to another Texan. +% +Here lies my wife: her let her lie! +Now she's at rest, and so am I. + -- John Dryden, epitaph intended for his wife +% +Here's a toast to Screwy Dick, +The man who was born with a corkscrew prick. +He spent his life in a futile hunt, +To find a woman with a spiral cunt. +And when he did, he dropped stone dead, +'Cause the blasted thing had a left-hand thread! +% +Here's to the girl in little red shoes, +She drinks my liquor, she drinks my booze, +She has no cherry, but that's no sin, +She has the box the cherry came in. +% +Here's to the girl that's dressed in black, +She's dressed so neat there's nothing to lack +She feels so fine and kisses so sweet +She makes things stand that have no feet. +% +Here's to the girl that's sweet, +Here's to the girl that's true, +Here's to the girl in all our hearts... + +In other words, guys, what do you say we all go downtown for +the rest of the night? +% +Here's to the woman beautiful and divine +she flowers every month bears fruit every nine +she's the only creature 'tween heaven and hell +can get the juice from a nut without cracking the shell. +% +Hickory Dickory Dock, +Three mice ran up a clock! +The clock struck one, +Right in the balls! + +There was an old woman, +Who lived in a shoe, +Who had so many children, +Her uterus fell right out. +% +Higgledy Piggledy Coeducational +Yale University Extracurricular +Gave up misogyny Heterosexual +Opened its door. Fun is in store. +% +How 'bout them toad suckers, ain't they clods? +Sittin' there suckin' them green toady frogs! + +Suckin' them hop toads, suckin' them chunkers, +Suckin' them a leapy type, suckin' them flunkers. + +Look at them toad suckers, ain't they snappy? +Suckin' them bog frogs sure make's 'em happy! + +Them hugger mugger toad suckers, way down south, +Stickin' them sucky toads in they mouth! + +How to be a toad sucker, no way to duck it, +Get yourself a toad, rear back, and suck it! + -- Mason Williams, "Them Toad Suckers" +% +How could they think women a recreation? +Or the repetition of bodies of steady interest? +Only the ignorant or the busy could. That elm +of flesh must prove a luxury of primes; +be perilous and dear with rain of an alternate earth. +Which is not to damn the forested China of touching. +I am neither priestly nor tired, and the great knowledge +of breasts with their loud nipples congregates in me. +The sudden nakedness, the small ribs, the mouth. +Splendid. Splendid. Splendid. Like Rome. Like loins. +A glamour sufficient to our long marvelous dying. +I say sufficient and speak with earned privilege, +for my life has been eaten in that foliate city. +To ambergris. But not for recreation. +I would not have lost so much for recreation. + +Nor for love as the sweet pretend: the children's game +of deliberate ignorance of each to allow the dreaming. +Not for the impersonal belly nor the heart's drunkenness +have I come this far, stubborn, disasterous way. +But for relish of those archipelagoes of person. +To hold her in hand, closed as any sparrow, +and call and call forever till she turn from bird +to blowing woods. From woods to jungle. Persimmon. +To light. From light to princess. From princess to woman +in all her fresh particularity of difference. +Then oh, through the underwater time of night +indecent and still, to speak to her without habit. +This I have done with my life, and am content. +I wish I could tell you how it is in that dark, +standing in the huge singing and the alien world. + -- Jack Gilbert, "Don Giovanni on his way to Hell" +% + "I cannot read the fiery letters," said Frito Bugger in a +quavering voice. + "No," said GoodGulf, "but I can. The letters are Elvish, of +course, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which +I will not utter here. They are lines of a verse long known in +Elven-lore: + + "This Ring, no other, is made by the elves, + Who'd pawn their own mother to grab it themselves. + Ruler of creeper, mortal, and scallop, + This is a sleeper that packs quite a wallop. + The Power almighty rests in this Lone Ring. + The Power, alrighty, for doing your Own Thing. + If broken or busted, it cannot be remade. + If found, send to Sorhed (with postage prepaid)." + -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" +% +I had a dream last night... +I dreamt about 1976. +I dreamt about a country with incurable brain damage... +I even dreamt they gave it a heart transplant. +Then I woke up and I knew it was only a nightmare... +so I went back to sleep again. + -- Ralph Steadman, "Fear and Loathing '72" +% +I have a funny daddy +Who goes in and out with me +And everything that baby does +Daddy's sure to see, +And everything that baby says, +My daddy's sure to tell. +You _m_u_s_t have read my daddy's verse. +I hope he fries in Hell. + -- Ogden Nash +% +I hold your hand in mine, dear, I press it to my lips, +I take a healthy bite from your dainty fingertips, +My joy would be complete, dear, if you were only here, +But still I keep your hand as a precious souvenir. + +The night you died I cut it off, I really don't know why, +For now each time I kiss it I get bloodstains on my tie, +I'm sorry now I killed you, our love was something fine, +So until they come to get me I will hold your hand in mine. + -- Tom Lehrer, "I Hold Your Hand In Mine" +% +I know a Polack his name is Cliff, +Hey-la-de-la-de-la. +He sticks it in the freezer to get it stiff, +Hey-la-de-la-de-lo. + +I know a girl, her name is Serafina, +Hey-la-de-la-de-la. +She'll get down on all fours for a bowl of Purina, +Hey-la-de-la-de-lo. + +I know a girl, her name is Cuffy, +Hey-la-de-la-de-la. +She douches with Tide and makes her pubes fluffy, +Hey la-de-la-de-lo. + -- Doctor Dirty +% +I love to eat them Smurfies +Smurfies what I love to eat +Bite they ugly heads off, +Nibble on they bluish feet. +% +I think the Mormon prophet +Was a very funny man. +I wonder how his wives enjoyed +His Prophet Sharing Plan. +% +I wish I was a fascinating lady +With a past that was cheap and a future that was shady +I'd sleep all day and I'd work all night +I'd live in a house with a little red light +And once a month I'd take a small vacation +And leave all the men to their imagination +And once in a while I'd go all wild +And have myself an illegitimate child +I wish I were a fascinating lady +Instead I'm the minister's child +% +I'd like to give the world a hug +And tell it jokes and stuff +And pull its pants down to its knees +And chase it through the rough + +Then tie it up with bonds and straps +And search its purse for change +Then leave it out at Moose Grin Hall +With our cousin who's deranged ... + -- National Lampoon, to an old Coke commercial +% +I'm a lover not a dancer! +I'm a lover not a dancer! +Don't want to be on my feet, +When I can be on my back, +Don't want to be on the floor, +When I can be in the sack! +I'm a lover not a dancer! +I'm a lover not a dancer! +I'm just a little bit tired +If you know what I mean, +Don't want to be in a crowd +When I can be in a dream! +I'm a lover not a dancer! +Baby! +And, baby, let me prove it to you, +Baby, let me prove it to you! + -- Jim Steinman, "Dance in my Pants" +% +I'm glad that I'm an American, +I'm glad that I am free, +But I wish I were a little doggy, +And McGovern were a tree. +% +I'm not a pheasant plucker, +I'm a pheasant plucker's son. +I'm just a'plucking pheasants +'Til the pheasant plucker comes. + -- The Irish Rovers +% +I've been feeling kind of jealous, +Of all them well-hung fellas, +Like Michael, Rod, and Mick. It would have to be a big one, +Tell me, Doctor can you mend me? A giant, horny love gun, +I've a case of penis envy -- To let me be a jock. +If I only had a dick. Girls would never beg my pardon, + They would turn on to my hardon -- + If I only had a cock. +Oh, I can tell you now, +The number of times I'd score, +I could fuck girls like I would not be just a housewife, + I never have before, Living a little mouse-life +And then I'd cum (wee!) In days that drag out long. +And fuck some more! I would dance and I'd be merry + Life would be a ding-a-derry + If I only had a dong! + -- to "If I Only Had A Brain", The Wizard of Oz +% +I've finally found the perfect girl, +I couldn't ask for more, +She's deaf and dumb and over-sexed, +And owns a liquor store. +% +If I had a penis I'd wear it outside, +In cafes and car lots, with pomp and with pride. +If I had a penis I'd pamper it proper +I'd stay in the tub and use me as the stopper. +If I had a penis I'd take it to parties +Stretch it and stroke it and shove it at smarties. +I'd take it to pet shows and teach it to stay. +I'd stuff it in turkeys on Thanksgiving Day. + +I'd rival my buddies in sportscars and stick shifts. +I'd shower my spire with girlies and gifts. +I'd peek around corners; I'd aim at my toilet; +I'd poke it at foreigners and soap it and oil it. +If I had a penis I'd run to my mother; +Comb out the hair and compare it to brother. +I'd lance her, I'd knight her, my hands would indulge... +Pants would seem tighter and buckle and bulge. +[Chorus] + A penis to plunder, a penis to push + 'Cause one in the hand is worth one in the bush. + A penis to love me, a penis to share, + To pick up and play with when nobody's there. + -- Uncle Bonsai, "Penis Envy" +% +If you need anything just whistle. +You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? +Just put your lips together and blow. + -- Lauren Bacall, "To Have and Have Not" +% +If you'd like to cultivate insomnia, +Bed down with a pretty girl. +Amor vincit omnia. +% +Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable. +Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table. +David Hume could out-consume Schopenhauer and Hegel, +And Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as schloshed as Schlegel. +There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'bout the raising of the wrist. +Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed! + +John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, +On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill. +Plato, they say, could stick it away, half a crate of whiskey every day. +Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle, +Hobbes was fond of his dram, +And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart: "I drink, therefore I am". +Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed; +A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed! + -- Monty Python, "The Philosopher's Drinking Song" +% +In days of old, when knights were bold, + And rubbers weren't invented, +They tied their socks around their cocks + And babies were prevented. +% +In her first passion woman loves her lover, +In all the others all she loves is love. + -- George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Don Juan" +% +In the days of old, +When Knights were bold, + And women were too cautious; +Oh, those gallant days, +When women were women, + And men were really obnoxious. +% +In the morning, laughing, happy fish heads +In the evening, floating in the soup. + (chorus): + Fish heads, fish heads, roly-poly fish heads; + Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up. Yum! +You can ask them anything you want to. +They won't answer; they can't talk. + (chorus) +I took a fish head out to see a movie, +Didn't have to pay to get it in. + (chorus) +They can't play baseball; they don't wear sweaters; +They aren't good dancers; they can't play drums. + (chorus) +Roly-poly fish heads are NEVER seen drinking cappucino in +Italian restaurants with Oriental women. + (chorus) +Fishy! + (chorus) + -- Fish Heads +% +In youth, it was a way I had +To do my best to please, +And change, with every passing lad, +To suit his theories. + +But now I know the things I know, +And do the things I do; +And if you do not like me so, +To hell, my love, with you! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Indian Summer" +% +It was April the 41st, +Being a quadruple leap year. +I was driving in down-town Atlantis. +My Barracuda was in the shop, +So I was in a rented stingray + -- and it was over-heating. +So, I pulled into a Shell station. +They said I'd blown a seal. +I said "Fix the damned thing and leave my private + life out of it, okay pal?" +While they were doing that, +I walked over to the Oyster Bar. + A real dive. +But I knew the owner. +He used to play for the Dolphins +I said "Hi, Gil!" +You have to yell + -- he's hard of herring. + -- Kip Adotta, "Wet Dream" +% +Jack an Jill went up the hill. +Jill went down, +Jack came. +% +Jack and Jill +Went up the hill, +Each had a buck and a quarter! +Jill came down, +With two and a half, +You think they went for water? +% +Jack and Jill went up a hill +To fetch a pail of water. +Jack fell down and broke his crown Jack on Jill produced a thrill +And Jill came tumbling after. When on the ground he got her, + Then went down and told the town + He tumbled Jill and gaffed her. +Jack to Jill thus did such ill +That Jill, to pay the rotter, +Told the town Jack's crown broke down Jack and Jill have split the bill +When he set out to shaft her. Since Jack led Jill to totter. + Half the town deals Jill a frown + And half greets Jack with laughter. +% +Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, +Jack jumped over the candle stick. +But Jack wasn't so nimble, +Jack wasn't so quick, +So Jack's in the hospital, with a burned up dick! +% +Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. +Jack jumped over the candle stick, +And burnt his balls. +% +jake hates + all the girls(the +shy ones, the bold paul scorns all +ones; the meek the girls(the +proud sloppy sleek) bright ones, the dim +all except the cold ones; the slim + ones plump tiny tall) + all except the + dull ones +gus loves all the + girls(the +warped ones, the lamed mike likes all the girls +ones; the mad (the +moronic maimed) fat ones, the lean +all except ones; the mean + the dead ones kind dirty clean) + all + except the green ones + -- e e cummings +% +Kill Kill, +Hate Hate, +Murder, Maim, and Mutilate! +% +Kitten with a whip, Teddy bear in chains, Puss in leather boots, +tail, swish swish, spread on a bed; rising thigh high; +take what you will, fantasy games, black rubber suits; +get what you wish. deep in your head. making him cry. + +Squirm from the blows, Now pussy's all hot, Teddy bear sighs; +writhe from the pain; from the power trip; kitty's on top; +but teddy bear knows, ready or not, there's fire in her eyes, +that he wants it again. next swing's from and the cat won't stop. + the hip. + +The world explodes, Teddy's still tied; Kitten with a whip, +her claws dig in; lying all alone; tail, swish swish, +then kitty cat goes, even if he tried, take what you will, +cause she's through he couldn't go home. get what you wish. + with him. + -- Kitten With A Whip +% +Left a good broad by the river, +Traveled back into town just to get some rest! +Waited for 10 hours, +Went back to the river, +But I couldn't get her out of that mess! + +chorus: + Poor Mary Jo Kopechne, + Dead Mary Jo Kopechne, + Rollin'... rollin'... rollin' down the window! + +If you're gonna run for office, +And you know that it's an election year. +Don't go in the river, +'Specially by way of bridges, +It could put an end to your political career! +(chorus) + -- Poor Mary Jo, to the tune of "Proud Mary" +% +Leprosy, all my skin is falling off of me. +I'm not half the man I used to be. +Oh, how did I get leprosy? + +Syphillis, it all started with a simple kiss. +Now it even hurts to take a piss. +Oh why did I get syphillis? + +Why'd she have VD? I don't know, she wouldn't say. +I did something wrong, now I long for yesterday .... + -- "Leprosy," to the tune of "Yesterday" +% +Let's love each other slowly, +reaching for a plane, +of exquisite pleasure, +and delicate pain. + -- Adam Beslove +% +Like private parts to the Gods are we, +they play with us for their sport. + -- Lord Melchett (Blackadder 2) +% +Lions in the street and roaming, +Dogs in heat, rabid, foaming, +A beast caged in the heart of the city. +The body of his mother lying in the summer ground, +He fled the town. +Went down south across the border, +Left the chaos and disorder +Back there, over his shoulder. +One morning he awoke in a green hotel, +A strange creature groaning beside him. +Sweat oozed from its shiny skin. +Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin. + -- Jim Morrison, "Celebration of the Lizard" +% +Lipstick on your dipstick told a tale on you, +Lipstick on your dipstick said you were untrue. +Bet your bottom dollar you and I are through, +'Cause lipstick on your dipstick told a tale on you. + -- To the tune of "Lipstick On Your Collar" +% +Little Johnny with a grin, +Drank up all of daddy's gin, +Mother said, when he was plastered, +Go to bed, you little ... love-child. +% +Little Mary on the ice, +Went out to have a frisk, +Now wasn't little Mary nice, +Her pretty *? +% +Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, +Eating her curds and whey. +Along came a spider, +And bit her right in the snatch. +% +Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, +Her knickers all tattered and torn. +For it wasn't a spider that sat down beside her, +But Little Boy Blue with his horn! +% +Little Miss Muffet, +Sat on her tuffet, +Smoking some THC. +Along came a narc'er who sat down beside her +And said, "So... what's in the bag, bitch?!" +% +Love is a word that is constantly heard, +Hate is a word that is not. +Love, I am told, is more precious than gold. +Love, I have read, is hot. +But hate is the verb that to me is superb, +And Love but a drug on the mart. +Any kiddie in school can love like a fool, +But Hating, my boy, is an Art. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Love to eat them mousies, +Mousies I love to eat. +Bite they little heads off, +Nibble at they tiny feet. + -- Kliban +% + Love's Drug + +My love is like an iron wand + That conks me on the head, +My love is like the valium + That I take before my bed, +My love is like the pint of scotch + That I drink when I be dry; +And I shall love thee still, my dear, + Until my wife is wise. +% +Man's lust for a bust is hardly recent, +Some say not even indecent. +But if you lust, +It's a must! +% +Mary had a little lamb, +It's fleece as white as snow. +It followed her to school one day, +And got fucked by a big black dog. +% +Mary had a little lamb, +She kept it in a bucket. +And every time she let it out, +The bulldog used to ... +Umm, chase it around the garden. +% +Mary had a little lamb, +The lamb turned out to be a ram, +Now Mary has a little lamb. +% +Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, +And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go. +It followed her through rain or snow, lightning, sleet or hail. +It fetched the evening paper, her slippers, and the mail. +She never had a moment's peace; the lamb was always on her heels, +And on her feet its head would rest, while she ate her meals. +It followed her to school one day, the devotion never ended. +The lamb waltzed into her history class and Mary got suspended. +The night she went to Senior Prom, she thought she had him beat, +Until she heard a mournful "Baaa" coming from her car's seat. +Oh, Mary had a little lamb, it surely didn't please her. +So for dinner she had lambchops; the rest is in the freezer. + -- Alma Garcia +% +Mary had a little sheep, +And with the sheep she went to sleep, +The sheep turned out to be a ram, +And Mary had a little lamb. +% +Mary had a little watch; +She swallowed it one day. +And so she took some Ex-Lax +To pass the time away. + +But when she took the Ex-Lax +The time it did not pass. +So when you want to know the time, +Just look up Mary's ... Uncle. + +(He has a watch, too) +% +Me father makes book on the corner, +Me mother makes second hand gin, +Me sister makes love for a dollar, +And that's how the money rolls in! + + Rolls in, rolls in, just look how the money rolls in! + (Rolls in!) + Rolls in, rolls in, just look how the money rolls in! + +Me father sells cheap prophylactics, +Me mum pokes the tips with a pin, +Me sister performs the abortions, +And that's how the money rolls in! + +Me uncle's a poor missionary, +He saves fallen women from sin. +He'll save you a blonde for five dollars, +And that's how the money rolls in. +% +Men have many faults, + Women only two: +Everything they say, + And everything they do! +% +Missed the train at the railway station +Oh hell, blast, and damnation! +Asked a lady in there if she had the time, +She said "Yes", and a strong inclination. +% +Mistress Mary, quite contrary, +How does your garden grow? +With silver bells and cockle shells, +And one really fucked-up petunia. +% + +Money cannot buy +The fuel of love +but is excellent kindling. + +To the man-in-the-street, who, I'm sorry to say, +Is a keen observer of life, +The word intellectual suggests right away +A man who's untrue to his wife. + -- W.H. Auden, "Collected Shorter Poems" +% +Much to his Mum and Dad's dismay, Horace ate himself one day. +He didn't stop to say his grace, he just sat down and ate his face. +"We can't have this!" his Dad declared, "If that lad's ate, he should + be shared." +But even as he spoke they saw Horace eating more and more: +First his legs and then his thighs, his arms, his nose, his hair, his eyes... +"Stop him someone!" Mother cried, "Those eyeballs would be better fried!" +But all too late, for they were gone, and he had started on his dong... +"Oh! foolish child!" the father mourns "You could have deep-fried that + with prawns, +Some parsley and and some tartar sauce..." +But H. was on his second course: his liver and his lights and lung, +His ears, his neck, his chin, his tongue; "To think I raised him from the cot, +And now he's going to scoff the lot!" +His Mother cried: "What shall we do? What's left won't even make a stew..." +And as she wept, her son was seen, to eat his head, his heart his spleen. +and there he lay: a boy no more, just a stomach on the floor... +None the less, since it *was* his, they ate it -- that's what haggis is. +% +My travel agent's an Oxford chap +Who rolls his eyes when he speaks. +I asked him about the Isle of Man +For a journey of about six weeks. +And this is what he said to me +As he looked me right in the eye, +"For a far-out trip, try an ice cream dip +Of Elephant Shit On Rye." + +A brand-new store just opened its door +At the corner of 5th and Vine +And I happened to be standing right outside +When they turned on their neon sign. +I heard a strange sound, I looked around, +And that's when I almost died, +They nearly knocked me down to be the first in town +To get their Elephant Shit On Rye! +% +Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night, +God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light. + +It did not last; the devil howling "Ho! +Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo. +% +Nobody loves me, +Everybody hates me, +I think I'll go out and eat worms. +I'm gonna cut their heads off, +Eat their insides out, +And throw way the skins. +Big, fat, juicy ones, +Little, skinny, cute ones, +Watch how they wiggle and they squirm. +% +Now of a maid, I'll sing a song, +Sing, rikkity-tikkity-tin. +Now of a maid, I'll sing a song, She didn't like her Uncle Zeke, +Who didn't keep her family long. Sing, rikkity-tikkity-tin, +Not only did she do them wrong, She didn't like her Uncle Zeke, +She did every one of them in, them in, And so she drowned him in the creek. +She did every one of them in. The water we had was bad for a week, + So we had to make do with gin, with gin, +She weighted her father down with stones. We had to make do with gin. +Sing, rikkity-tikkity-tin. +She weighted her father down with stones, Her mother she could never stand, +And sent him off to Davy Jones. Sing, rikkity-tikkity-tin. +All that we ever found were bones, Her mother she could never stand, +And occasional pieces of skin, of skin, And so a cyanide soup she planned. +Occasional pieces of skin. Her mother died with the spoon in her hand, + And her face in a hideous grin, a grin. +She set her sister's hair on fire, Her face in a hideous grin. +Sing, rikkity-tikkity-tin. +She set her sister's hair on fire, One day, when she had nothing to do, +And as the smoke and flames grew higher, Sing, rikkity-tikkity-tin. +She danced around the funeral pyre, One day, when she had nothing to do, +Playing the violin, -olin, She cut her baby brother in two, +Playing the violin. And served him up as an Irish stew, + And invited the neighbors in, -bors in, +And when at last the police came by, Invited the neighbors in. +Sing, rikkity-tikkity-tin. +And when, at last, the police came by, For to do so she would have to lie, +Her little pranks she did nor deny, And lying, she knew, was a sin, a sin, + Lying she knew was a sin. + -- "Rikkity-tikkity-tin" +% +O! If I were a fish +I'd lay hap'ly on my dish. +Yes, that's my one and only wish -- +To be a fish! + +For fish don't ever mish; +They needn't flush after they pish! +Yes, and life's just swish, swish, swish, +For all the fish!!! +% +Oh Father, my Father, Oh what must I do? +They're burning our streets and beating me blue. +"Listen my son, I'll tell you the truth: +Get a close haircut and spit-shine your shoes." + +Oh Mother, my Mother, my confusions remove, +I long to embrace her whose hair is so smooth. +"Now listen my son, although you're confused, +Cut your hair close and shine all your shoes." + +Oh Teacher, my Teacher, your life with me share. +What books ought I read? What thoughts do I dare? +"Oh Student, my Student, of dissent you beware. +Shine those dull shoes and cut short your hair." + +Oh Preacher, my Preacher, does God really care? +Are all races equal? Are laws just and fair? +"Boy -- here's the answer, no need to despair: +Shine those new shoes and cut short that hair." +% +Oh freddled gruntbuggly, thy micturations are to me +As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee. +Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes, +And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, +Or I will rend thee in the goblerwarts with my blurglecruncheon, + see if I don't. + -- Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz +% +Oh give me a home, where the bookmakers roam, +Where the beer and the whiskey flows free, +Where never is heard, a discouraging word, +And the call-girls keep callin' for me! +% +Oh I'm just a typical American boy +From a typical American town. +I believe in God and Senator Dodd +And keeping old Castro down. +And when it came my time to serve +I knew "Better Dead Than Red", +But when I got to my old draft board, +Buddy, this is what I said: + +Chorus: + Sarge, I'm only eighteen, I've got a ruptured spleen, + And I always carry a purse! + I've got eyes like a bat and my feet are flat, + And my asthma's getting worse! + Yes, think of my career and my sweetheart dear, + And my poor old invalid aunt! + Besides I ain't no fool, I'm a-going to school + And I'm a-working in a defense plant! + -- Phil Ochs, "Draft Dodger Rag" +% +Oh, I could while away the hours, +Smoking herbs and flowers, +Shooting up my veins, + De-dum, De-dum, De-dum +Tell you, I've been a-thinkin' +I could drive a shiny Lincoln, +If I dealt in good cocaine. + -- To If I Only Had A Brain from "The Wizard of Oz" +% +Oh, I'm looking over, my dead dog Rover, +That got run over with my mower. +One leg is missing, and one other is gone, +The fourth one is scattered all over the lawn. +It's no use explain'n, the one remaining, +It landed by the kitchen door. +Oh, I'm looking over, my dead dog rover, +that ain't gonna walk no more... + -- Tune is something about a four-leaf clover. +% +Old King Cole was a merry old soul, +A merry old soul was he. +He called for his pipe, +And he called for his drums, +And he fiddled with his call girls three. +% +Old McDonald had a farm, +E-I-E-I-O! +And on this farm he had some chicks, +E-I-E-I-O! +With a chick-chick here, +And a chick-chick there, +Here a chick, +There a chick, +Everywhere a chick-chick, +Old McDonald lost his farm +'Cause he had too many chicks! +% +Old Mother Hubbard, +Went to the cubbard, +To get her poor doggie a bone. + +But when she stooped over, +Old Rover, he drove her. +You see, he had a bone of his own. +% +Once Law was sitting on the bench + And Mercy knelt a-weeping. +"Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench! + Nor come before me creeping. +Upon you knees if you appear, +'Tis plain you have no standing here." + +Then Justice came. His Honor cried: + "YOUR states? -- Devil seize you!" +"Amica curiae," she replied -- + "Friend of the court, so please you." +"Begone!" he shouted -- "There's the door -- +I never saw your face before!" + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Ouch mosquito, silent by night, +Why pierce my skin, so white? +You grow plump, as a leech. +Stop! I beseech (in vein). + +I have no choice. +Why waste my voice, +When only a slap will do? +Ouch, I am bitten! +What ho, you are smitten! +Yo mosquito, fuck you. + -- Mitchell Peck, "Ouch, Mosquito" +% +Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding, +In all of the directions it can whiz; +As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light, you know, +Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is. +So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, +How amazingly unlikely is your birth; +And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space, +'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth! + -- Monty Python, "The Meaning of Life" +% +Piddle, twiddle, and resolve, +Not one damn thing do we solve. + -- 1776 +% +Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation. +If you do the things we say, then you'll soon rule the nation. +Kill your foes and enemies and then kill your relations. +Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation. + -- "Plunderer's Theme," to the tune of + "Supercaligragilisticexpialidocius" +% +Posterity will ne'er survey +A nobler grave than this; +Here lie the bones of Castlereagh; +Stop, traveler, and piss. + -- Lord Byron, on Lord Castlereagh +% +Puff the Jewish dragon lived in Palestine, +And frollicked in the Autumn mist, +And drank Manishiewitz wine. +Little Rabbi Jacob loved that rascal Puff, +And brought him soup and Matzah balls, +And other kosher stuff. + +Then one day it happened, Puff was eating pork. +Little Rabbi Jacob took that dragon for a walk. +Gently he explained that dragons don't eat meat, +That come from little piggies who have dirty filthy feet. +% +Reefers and roach clips and papers and rollers +Cocaine and procaine for twenty year molars +Reds and peyote to work out your bugs +These are a few of my favorite drugs. + +Uppers and downers and methedrine freakout +Take some amphetamines, watch your brains leak out +Acid and mescaline pull out your plugs +These are a few of my favorite drugs. + +Backs that are perfect for carrying monkeys +Users of heroin, often called junkies +Methadone helps then to stop being thugs +Takes them off one of my favorite drugs. + + On a bad trip + When the cops come + When I lose my head + I simply take more of my favorite drugs + And then I'm not sad -- I'm dead! + -- "My Favorite Drugs," to the tune of "My Favorite Things" +% +San Francisco is my kind of city, +Where the women are strong and the men are pretty. +% +Santa Claus wears a red suit. +He's a Communist. + +He has long hair and a beard. +Must be a pacifist. + +And what's in the pipe that he's smoking? + +Santa Claus comes in your house at night. +He must be a dope fiend to get you up tight. + +Why do police guys beat on peace guys? + -- Arlo Guthrie, "The Pause of Mr. Claus" +% +Send lawyers, guns, and money, +The shit has hit the fan. + -- Warren Zevon +% +Sex and drugs and rock and roll, +Is all my brain and body need. +Sex and drugs and rock and roll, +Are very good indeed. + +Take your silly ways, +Throw them out the window, +The wisdom of your ways, +I've been there and I know, +Lots of other ways... + -- Ian Drury, "New Boots and Panties" +% +Sex is great, +Sex is grand, +Sex around here, +Is mostly by hand. +% +Share and enjoy, share and enjoy. +Journey through life with a plastic boy or girl by your side. +Let your pal be your guide. +And when it breaks down or starts to annoy, + or grinds when it moves and gives you no joy, + 'cause it digs up your hat, + or has sex with your cat, + sprays oil on your wall or rips off your door, + and you get to the point you can't stand any more. +Bring it to us, we won't give a shit. +We'll tell you: "Go stick your head in a pig". +% +She never liked zippers, she said, +Until she opened one in bed. +% +She was bred in ol' Kentucky +But she's just a crumb up here +She was knock-knee'd and double-jointed +With a cauliflower ear +Someday we will be married +And if vegetables become too dear +I'll just cut me a slice of +Her cauliflower ear! + -- Curly Howard, "The Three Stooges" +% +She's such a kinky girl, +The kind you don't take home to mother. +She will never let your spirits down +Once you get her off the street. +% +So now +that you have- + +you know, whoever + +you're trying +to do + +a favor +for + +-you've done it- + +and I'm sure +you had + +a smirk +on your mouth + +as you got me +into this. + -- "To Linda", from The Poetry Of H. Ross Perot, + composed for Linda Wertheimer of National Public Radio. + From SPY Magazine, November 1992 +% +So, good night, you moonlit ladies, +Rock-a-bye sweet baby James. +Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose, +Won't you let me go down in my dreams? +And rock-a-bye sweet baby James. + -- James Taylor, "Rock-a-bye Sweet Baby James" +% +Sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, pederasty, +Father, why do these words sound so nasty? + -- Hair +% +SOLOIST: MOUNTIES: +I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK, He's a lumberjack and he's OK, +I sleep all night and I work all day. He sleeps all night and he works + all day. + +I cut down trees, I eat my lunch, He cuts down trees, he eats his lunch, +I go to the lavatory. He goes to the lavatory. +On Wednesday I go shopping, On Wednesday he goes shopping, +And have buttered scones for tea. And has buttered scones for tea. + +I cut down trees, I skip and jump, He cuts down trees, he skips and jumps, +I like to press wild flowers, He likes to press wild flowers. +I put on women's clothing, He puts on women's clothing, +And hang around in bars. And hangs around in bars. + +I cut down trees, I wear high heels, He cuts down trees, he wears high heels, +Suspenders and a bra. Suspenders? and a bra? +I wish I'd been a girlie, That's rude... +Just like my dear Pappa. +% +Somebody's moggy, by the side of the road, +Somebody's pussy, who forgot his highway code, +Somebody's favourite feline, who ran clean out of luck, +When he ran onto the road, and tried to argue with a truck. + +Yesterday he purred and played, in his pussy paradise, +Decapitating tweety birds, and masticating mice. +Now he's just six pounds of raw mince meat, +That don't smell very nice -- +He's nobody's moggy now. + +Oh you who love your pussy, +Be sure to keep him in. +Don't let him argue with a truck, If he tries to play +The truck is bound to win. On the road way +And upon the busy road, I'm afraid that will be that, +Don't let him play or frolic. There will be one last despairing +If you do, I'm warning you, "Meow!" +It could be cat-astrophic! And a sort of squelchy Splat! + And your pussy will be slightly dead, +He's nobody's moggy -- And very, very flat! +Just red and squashed and soggy -- +He's nobody's moggy now. + -- Eric Bogle, "Scraps of Paper" +% +Starkle, starkle, little twink, +Who the hell you are I think +I'm not as drunk as thinkle peep +I'm just a little slort of sheep. +Tee martoonis make a guy, +Feel so woozy, I don't know why. +So mass the pixer and kill my fup +I've all day sober to sunday up. +% +Tequila my girl, is deceiving: +Take two at the very most. +Take three and you're under the table, +Take four and you're under the host. +% +The blacksmith told me before he died, +And I have no reason to believe that he lied, +That no matter how he tried, +His wife was never satisfied! + +And so he built a bloody great wheel, +Harnessed to a cock of steel, +Two balls of brass were filled with cream, +And the whole damn thing was driven by steam. + +Round and round went the bloody great wheel, +In and out went the cock of steel, +Till at last the maiden cried, +"Enough! Enough! I am satisfied!" + +And now we come to the crucial bit -- +There was no way of stopping it. +And she was split from hole to hole, +And the whole fucking thing was covered in shit... +% +The mind is its own place, and in itself +Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. +What matter where, if I be still the same, +And what I should be, all but less than he +Whom thunder hath made greater? here at least +We shall be free; the almighty hath not built +Here for his envy, will not drive us hence; +Here we may reign secure, and, in my choice, +To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: +Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. + -- Satan, Milton's "Paradise Lost", I, 254-263 +% +The orders come down and they march us away. +There's a battle outside and we join in the fray. +God, it's hell when you know this could be your last day, +But it's better than working for Xerox. + -- Frank Hayes, "Don't Ask" +% +The poor little doe +Crawled out of the woods, +Tired, bedraggled and blue. +"Look," she said, "What I did for a buck, +I should have asked for two!" +% +The rich man uses vaseline, + The poor man uses lard; +The worker uses axle grease + But gets it twice as hard. +% +The sun was shining brightly The breeze was blowing briskly, +And I could hardly wait, It made the flowers sway, +To ponder at my window The garden was enchanting +And gaze at my estate. On this inspiring day. + +My eyes fell on a little bird, I smiled at him cheerfully +With a beautiful yellow bill, And gave him a crust of bread, +I beckoned him to come and light And then I closed the window +Upon my window sill. And smashed his fucking head. + -- "Good Morning", Debbie Smith +% +There are Jews in the world, there are Buddhists, Every sperm is sacred, +there are Hindus and Mormons and then Every sperm is great, +there are those that follow Mohammed ...But... If a sperm is wasted, +I've never been one of them. God gets quite irate. + +I am a Roman Catholic Every sperm is wanted, +And have been since before I was born, Every sperm is good. +And the one thing they say about Catholics is Every sperm is needed, +They'll take you as soon as you're warm. In your neighborhood. + +You don't have to be a six-footer. Let the heathens spill theirs, +You don't have to have a great brain. On the dusty ground. +You don't have to have any clothes on, God shall make them pay for +You're a Catholic the moment Dad came Each sperm that can't be found. +...Because... + +Hindu, Taoist, Mormon, Every sperm is useful, +spill theirs just anywhere Every sperm is fine. +but God loves those who treat their God needs everybodies, +semen with more care. Mine, and mine, and mine. + -- Monty Python, "Every Sperm is Sacred" +% +There were the Scots +Who kept the Sabbath +And everything else they could lay their hands on. +Then there were the Welsh +Who prayed on their knees and their neighbors. +Thirdly there were the Irish +Who never knew what they wanted +But were willing to fight for it anyway. +Lastly there were the English +Who considered themselves a self-made nation +Thus relieving the Almighty of a dreadful responsibility. +% +This land is full of trousers! +this land is full of mausers! + And pussycats to eat them when the sun goes down! + -- Firesign Theater +% +This land is made of mountains, +This land is made of mud, +This land has lots of everything, +For me and Elmer Fudd. + +This land has lots of trousers, +This land has lots of mousers, +And pussycats to eat them +When the sun goes down. +% +Tiddely Quiddely +Edward M. Kennedy +Quite unaccountably +Drove in a stream. + +Pleas of amnesia +Incomprehensible +Possibly shattered +Political dream. +% +'Twas orgy, and the hip and mod +Did groove and trip out at the pad: "Beware the Radcliff girl, my son! +All whimsy were the slamming chicks, The looks that mell, the claws that +And the Radcliffe undergrad. catch! + Beware the Byrn Mawr deb, and shun +He took his venerable staff in hand: The uppity Wellesleysnatch!" +Long time the cool young stuff he + sought -- And as in raffish thought he sprawled, +So rested he among the spree The Radcliffe girl, no idle flirt, +And paused to smoke some pot. Crept past the hippies getting balled + And doffed her miniskirt. +One, two! One, two! And through + and through "And hast thou laid the Radcliffe girl? +The venerable staff went snicker-snack! Come to my arms, my horny boy! +He left her bred, sans maidenhead, O spaced-out day! Calooh! Callay!" +And went galumphing back. He cackled in his joy. + +'Twas orgy, and the hip and mod +Did groove and trip out at the pad: +All whimsy were the slamming chicks, +And the Radcliffe undergrad. +% +'Twas the night before Christmas -- the very last one -- +When the blazing of lasers destroyed all our fun. +Just as Santa had lifted off, driving his sleigh, +A satellite spotted him making his way. +The Star Wars Defense System -- Reagan's desire +Was ready for action, and started to fire! +The laser beams criss-crossed and lit up the sky +Like a fireworks show on the Fourth of July. +I'd just finished wrapping the last of the toys +When out of my chimney there came a great noise. +I looked to the fireplace, hoping to see +St. Nick bringing presents for missus and me. +But what I saw next was disturbing and shocking: +A flaming red jacket setting fire to my stocking! +Charred reindeer remains and a melted sleigh-bell; +Outside burning toys like confetti they fell. +So now you know, children, why Christmas is gone: +The Star Wars computer had got something wrong. +Only programmed for battle, it hadn't a heart; +'Twas hardly a chance it would work from the start. +It couldn't be tested, and no one could tell, +If the crazy contraption would work very well. +So after a trillion or two had been spent +The system thought Santa a Red missle sent. +So kids dry your tears now, and get off to bed, +There won't be a Christmas -- since Santa is dead. +% +Virginity is a bubble on the sea of life, +which takes but one prick to break. + -- Jordan Sand +% +Was it you that did the pushin', +Left the stains upon the cushion, +The footprints on the dashboard upside-down? +Was it you, you little pecker, +That got into my Rebecca, +If you did, you'd better leave this town! + +Yes, 'twas I that did the pushin', +Left the stains upon the cushion, +Footprints on the dashboard upside-down. +But since I stuck your daughter, +I've had trouble passin' water, +So I guess we're kind of even all around! +% +We +own +this land. + +I don't spend +any time +on this land. + +This +is a tiny +little piece + +of my +business +interests. + +It's like +a grain +of sand. + -- "Alliance Airport, from The Poetry Of H. Ross Perot, + recited on ABC's Town Meeting, June 29, 1992. + From SPY Magazine, November 1992 +% +We boggies are a hairy folk Ever hungry, ever thirsting, +Who like to eat until we choke. Never stop till belly's bursting. +Loving all like friend and brother, Chewing chop and pork and muttons, +And hardly ever eat each other. A merry race of boring gluttons. + +Sing: GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE. + +Boggies gather 'round the table, Anything edible, we've got dibs on, +Eat as much as you are able. And hope we all die with our bibs on. +Gorge yourselves from moon till noon Ever gay, we'll never grow up, +(Don't forget your plate and spoon.) Come! And sing and play and throw-up! + +Sing: GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE! + -- Bored of the Rings, "The Hobbits National Anthem" +% +We love our little Johnny +He's the best little boy in all the world +And we wouldn't trade him for anything +That's how much we love him. +No, we couldn't live without him +So that's why, since he died, +We keep him safe in our G.E. freezer. +He's so good, so well-behaved, +Even better than before; +Oh, such a wonderful kid he is. +Alice and me, we'll never be lonely, +Never miss our little Johnny, +He'll never grow up and leave us +That's why we love him like we do. + -- Mr. Mincemeat +% +We must! We must! +We must increase our bust! +The bigger the better! +The tighter the sweater! +And the boys will think more of us! +% +We will follow Zarathustra, We will worship like the Druids, +Zarathustra like we use to, Dancing naked in the woods, +I'm a Zarathustra booster, Drinking strange fermented fluids, +And he's good enough for me! And it's good enough for me! +(chorus) (chorus) + +In the church of Aphrodite, +The priestess wears a see through nightie, +She's a mighty righteous sightie, +And she's good enough for me! +(chorus) + +CHORUS: Give me that old time religion, + Give me that old time religion, + Give me that old time religion, + 'Cause it's good enough for me! +% +Well, actually, I don't mind going to weddings or anything, as long as they're +not my own, I show up, but uh, I've always kinda been partial to callin' myself +up on the phone, asking myself out, y'know, yeah, one thing about it, you're +always around. Yeah, I know, yeah, you ask yourself out, y'know, some class +joint somewhere, the Burrito King, or somethin', y'know, well, I ain't cheap +y'know. Take yourself out for a coupla drinks, mebbe, then you eat, some +provocative conversation on the way home, and uh, park in front of the house, +y'know, and you, oh yeah, you smoo with yourself, put a little nice music on, +mebbe you put on like, uh, y'know, like shoppin' music, something that's not +too interruptive, y'know, and then uh, y'know, slide over real nice, and say, +"Oh, I think you have something in your eye", well, maybe it's not that +romantic with you, but I don't, y'know, I get into it, y'know, I take myself +up to the porch, and uh, take myself inside, maybe, oh, I might get a little +something in a brandy snifter, "Would you like to listen to some of my back +records, I got something here...", well, usually, about two-thirty in the +morning, you've ended up takin' advantage of yourself, and there ain't no way +around that, y'know, yeah, makin' the scene with a magazine, ain't no way +around it. I'll confess, y'know, I'm no different, y'know, I'm not weird +about it or anything, I don't tie myself up first, I just, I just kinda +spend a little time with myself. + -- Tom Waits, "Nighthawks at the Diner" +% +Well, he went down to dinner in his Sunday best, +Excitable boy, they all said! +And he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest, +Excitable boy, they all said! (Well, he's just an excitable boy.) + +He took in the 4am show at the Clark, +Excitable boy, they all said! +And he bit the usherette's leg in the dark, +Excitable boy, they all said! (Well, he's just an excitable boy.) + +He took little Susie to the junior prom, +Excitable boy, they all said! +And he raped her and killed her, then he took her home, +Excitable boy, they all said! (Well, he's just an excitable boy!) + +After ten long years they let him out of the home, +Excitable boy, they all said! +And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones, +Excitable boy, they all said! (Well, he's just an excitable boy.) + -- Warren Zevon, "Excitable Boy" +% +Well, I went to a party, and what did they do? +They took off their socks and they took off their shoes. +They took off their shirts, and they took off their pants, +I had a hunch, we weren't gonna dance. + +Everybody, everybody's ass was bare, +No bras left, just a queer over there. +But the whole damn thing didn't faze me a bit; +I just jumped on the pile and grabbed some tit. + +My baby's not a sports fan, +But she plays with balls whenever she can. +'Cause her favorite sport you see, +Is playing tonsil hockey. +[chorus] + Eat, bite, fuck, suck, gobble, nibble, chew; + Nipple, bosom, hair pie, finger fuck, screw. + Moose piss, cat pud, orangutan tit; + Sheep pussy, camel crack, pig-lie-in-shit. + -- Doctor Dirty, "The Eat-Bite Song" +% +Well, I'd left home just a week before, +And I'd never ever kissed a woman before, +But Lola smiled and took me by the hand, +And said 'Little boy, gonna make you a man!' +Well, I'm not the world's most masculine man, +But I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man and so's Lola. +La, la, la, la-Lola... la, la, la, la-Lola... Lola. + -- The Kinks +% +What's the ugliest part of your body? +What's the ugliest part of your body? +Some say your nose, +Some say your toes, +But I think it's your mind. + -- Frank Zappa, 1965 +% +When a man grows old and his balls + grow cold, So find me a seat and stand me a drink +And the end of his knob turns blue; And a tale to you I'll tell +When it's bent in the middle like a Of Dead-eye Dick and Mexican Pete + one-string fiddle, And the gentle Eskimo Nell. +He can tell a tale or two. + +When Dead-eye Dick and Mexican Pete +Go out in search of fun, And when Dead-eye Dick and Mexican Pete +It's usually Dick who wields the prick Are sore, depressed, and mad, +And Mexican Pete the gun. 'Tis the cunt that bears the brunt + So the shooting ain't so bad. +There was rarely a day without a lay +And usually two or three Now Dead-eye Dick and Mexican Pete +For Dead-eye Dick, his kingly prick Had been hunting in Deadman's creek. +Was always like a tree. And they'd had no luck in the way of + a fuck +Just a moose or two and a caribou, For nigh on half a week. +And a bison cow or so; +And for Dead-eye Dick with his kingly prick +This fucking was mighty slow. + -- The Ballad of Eskimo Nell +% +When ev'rybody's tryin' to sleep, +I'm somewhere makin' my midnight creep. Chorus: +In the mornin' the rooster crow, I am a back door man, +Somethin' tells me I got to go. I am a back door man, + Well, the men don't know, +They take me to the doctor, But the little girls understand. + shot full of holes, +Nurse try to save a soul. +Killed her for murder first degree, +Judge what tried let the man go free. + +Stand up, cop's wife cried, don't take him down, +Rather be dead six feet in the ground. +When you come home, you can eat pork and beans, +I eats more chicken than any man's seen. + -- Willie Dixon, "Backdoor Man", 1961 +% +When I demanded of my friend what viands he preferred, +He quoth: "A large cold bottle, and a small hot bird!" + -- Eugene Field, "The Bottle and the Bird" +% +when i die, i'd like to go peacefully. +in my sleep. +like my grandfather. + +not screaming, +like the passengers in his car... +% +When I need something +To help me unwind +I find a six-foot baby What kind of guy +With a one-track mind Does a lot for me +Smart guys are nowhere Superman +They make demands With a lobotomy +Give me a moron My father's out of Harvard +With talented hands My brother's out of Yale +I go bar-hopping Well the guy I took home last night +And they say "Last call" Just got out of jail +I start shopping The way he grabbed and threw me +For a Neanderthal Oooo, it really got me hot + But the way he growled and bit me +The bigger they come I hoped he had his shots +The harder I fall +In love till we're done The bigger they are +Then they're out in the hall The harder they'll work + I got a soft spot + For a good-looking jerk + -- Julie Brown, "I Like 'Em Big and Stupid" +% +When in calling, plain speaking is out; +When the ladies (God bless 'em) are milling about, +You may wet, make water, or empty the glass; +You can powder your nose, or the "johnny" will pass. +It's a drain for the lily, or man about dog +When everyone's drunk, it's condensing the fog; +But sure as the devil, that word with a hiss +It's only in Shakespeare that characters ____. + -- Ogden Nash +% +When things go wrong as they usually will, +And your daily road seems all uphill, +When funds are low and debts are high, +When you try to smile, but can only cry -- +And you really feel you'd like to quit, +Don't talk to me; I don't give a shit. +% +When you're lying on the bed, +And the thought is in your head, +But the feeling is way down between your legs, +Take your problem in your hand, +And beat it to the band, +And try your best to keep it off the walls. + +Don't let your lover tell you, +Don't let anybody sell you, +That the joy of masturbation is a crime. +For I've rid myself of fears, +(I've been doing it for years) +And now I have an erection all the time. +% +... which the Minstrel was supposed by some authorities to have composed +beneath the gibbet at Elsdon on the occasion of his hanging, drawing and +quartering for misguidedly climbing into bed with Sir Oswald Capheughton's +wife, Lady Fleur, when that noble lord was not only in it, but in her at +the same time. Minstrel Flawse's introduction of himself into Sir Oswald +had met with that reaction known as dog-knotting on the part of all +concerned... +I gan noo wha ma organs gan +When oft I lay abed I should ha' known 'twas never Fleur +So rither hang me upside doon That smelt so mooch of sweat +Than by ma empty head. For she was iver sweet and pure + And iver her purse was wet. +But old Sir Oswald allus stank +Of horse and hound and dung So hang me noo fra' Elsdon tree +And when I chose to breech his rank And draw ma innards out +Was barrel to my bung. That all the wald around may see + What I have done without. +But ere ye come to draw ma heart +Na do it all so quick So prick 'em wet or prick 'em dry +But prise the arse of Oswald 'part 'Tis all the same to me +And bring me back ma prick. I canna wait for him to die + Afore I have a pee. + -- Tom Sharpe, "The Ballad of Prick 'Em Dry" +% +While sitting 'neath an oak one morn +In thought on this and that, +A tiny, twitt'ring little bird "Oh tiny bird, O Nature's gift +A load dropped in my hat. Of music and of wit! + Why didst thou feel that my best hat +"Thy music gladdens my poor soul, Was thy best place to shit?" +And brings joy to my heart. +But tell me, little bird divine, The tiny bird a few notes sang, +Why didst thou not just fart?" Then answer'd "Pardon me, + For thy hat I thought was my nest, +I rose and stood in solemn awe A-fallen from the tree." +His words to better mull, +Then lifted up a paving block +And crushed his fucking skull. + -- Bill Wordsworth, "A Tiny Twitt'ring Bird" +% +Willie in the cauldron fell; Willie saw some dynamite, +See the grief on mother's brow; Couldn't understand it quite; +Mother loved her darling well -- Curiosity never pays: +Willie's quite hard-boiled by now. It rained Willie seven days. + +Little Willie with a shout, William in a nice new sash, +Gouged the baby's eyeballs out; Fell in the fire and burned to an ash. +Stamped on them to make them pop. Now, although the room grows chilly, +Mother cried, "Now, William, stop!" I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy. + +William with a thirst for gore, Little Willie mean as hell, +Nailed the baby to the door. Threw his sister in the well! +Mother said, with humor quaint: Said his mother when drawing water, +"Careful, Will, don't mar the paint." 'sure is hard to raise a daughter.' + -- Harry Graham, "Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes", 1899 +% +Willie, looking in the mirror, Willie with the nursery shears +Sucked the mercury off Cut off both the baby's ears. +Thinking in his childish error To the baby so unsightly +It would cure the whooping cough. Mother raised her eyebrows slightly. + +At the funeral his weeping mother In the family drinking well +Sadly said to Mrs. Brown, Willie pushed his sister, Nell. +"'Twas a chilly day for Willie She's there still because it killed her, +When the mercury went down." Now, we have to buy a filter. +% +You may carve it on his tombstone, you may cut it on his card +That a young man married is a young man marred. + -- Rudyard Kipling, "The Story of the Gadsbys" +% +You say potatoe, +And I say potato. +You say tomatoe, +And I say tomato. +Potatoe, potato, +Tomatoe, tomato. +Let's go be the Vice President... +% +You wanna play the dozens, +Well, the dozens is a game, +But the way I fuck your mother is an ass-wringing shame! + -- George Carlin +% +You will always have friends +Some friends will peter out. +But I'll always be your friend, +Peter in or peter out. +% +Your mother's ghost stands at your shoulder +Face like ice, a little bit colder +She says "You can't do that it breaks all the rules +You learned in school," +But I don't really see +Why can't we go on as three? + -- David Crosby, "Triad" +% +Your spooning days are over, + And your pilot light is out; +When what used to be your sex appeal + Is now your water spout! +% +Zippity doo dah, zippity ay, +I just gave my sister's cherry away! +To a couple of truckers from Erie P.A., +Zippity doo dah, zippity ay. + -- John Valby +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/vulgarity b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/vulgarity new file mode 100644 index 0000000..642bc71 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/vulgarity @@ -0,0 +1,1089 @@ +(10) Not everybody looks good naked. + (9) Joe Garagiola was a hell of an emcee. + (8) Joe Cocker really should stick with decaffeinated coffee. + (7) Fringe! Fringe! Fringe! + (6) If you've got 72 hours to kill, you can probably find room for Sha Na Na. + (5) Never attend an event with a 50,000 to 1 person to Port-A-San ratio. + (4) Bellbottoms will never go out of style. + (3) A drum solo cannot be too long. + (2) I, David Letterman, will never rent out my farm again. + (1) We are stardust. We are golden. We are going to look really stupid to + future generations. + -- David Letterman, Top Ten Lessons of Woodstock +% +A bar patron returned from the men's room grumbling to himself. + "What's the trouble, buddy?" the bartender inquired. + "You got John Wayne toilet paper in there!" + "What do you mean?" the barkeeper asked. + "It's rough, it's tough, and it doesn't take shit from nobody." +% +A bear and a rabbit are taking a crap in the woods. The bear looks +over at the rabbit and asks, "Say, does shit ever stick to your fur?" + "No." +So the bear wiped his ass with the rabbit. +% +A grade school teacher, who was doing a unit on World War II heard that +the father of one of her students had been a fighter pilot during the war +with one of the Scandinavian Air Forces. She invited him to come in and +speak to the class. The guy was more than happy to talk, and began with +a story about a morning patrol where he had been nearly shot down. + "We had been up for about 20 minutes flying over enemy held +territory, when we noticed, just in time, 3 fokkers diving on us from above." +At the first mention of `fokkers' the class giggled a little bit. + "Our group broke formation, and began the dog-fighting. As we +fought, we noticed 2 more fokkers coming at us from above and 2 more +fokkers, fresh from the landing field, come to join the battle". +At this second and third mention of `fokkers' the class was almost laughing +openly, and the teacher interrupted the story to ask the pilot to explain +to the class that a 'fokker' was a particular type of plane flown by the +German Air Force. + He replied, "Ya, dat is true, but these fokkers were Messerschmidts". +% + A man came home from work and as he entered the house he yelled, +"Hi, honey, I'm home." + There was no response. He walked through the house and saw a note +on the refrigerator. It read "I'm out with the girls and I'll be home about +8. Either fix yourself something to eat, or wait for me and we'll eat when +I get home." + Well, he decided to wait until his wife returned. However, his +stomach started to growl and he remembered that he had an apple left over +from his lunch. He got the apple, polished it a little, and heard the +doorbell ring. He went to the door and there stood a little blond haired +girl holding out a little paper bag. "Trick or treat", she said. + He looked at the girl, looked at the apple, thought how hungry he +was, looked at the girl again, and with a slight sigh dropped his apple in +the bag. The little girl looked down in the bag, looked up again, and +complained, "You stupid son-of-a-bitch. You broke my cookies!" +% +A nuclear family is out golfing one day, when it becomes clear that Dad isn't +going to win any trophies, at least on this course. On the 3rd hole, after +two miserable bogies, he misses a two foot putt and exclaims, "Shit!" + His wife glances over at their sixteen year old daughter and says +nothing. + On the fourth hole Dad tees off with an incredible hook, and, after +the inevitable exclamation, his wife reproves him with "Honey!" + This continues on, with his golfing getting worse and his wife getting +more and more upset about his language. Finally, on the 17th hole, he again +misses a very easy putt. Flinging his club down, he curses the hole, the +club, and the sunset, using the word "fuck" for the first time. His wife +whirls around and cries, "Honey! Our daughter is standing right next to you!" + Feeling remorseful, but somewhat defensive, he turns to the +daughter and says, "Well, Cindy, you've heard that word before, haven't +you?" + "Yes," the daughter replies, "but never in anger." +% +A retired schoolteacher finally decided that she was tired of living alone +and wanted some companionship, so after a good deal of thought she decided +to visit the local pet shop. The owner suggested a parrot, with which she +could conduct a civilized conversation. This seemed to be an excellent +idea, so she bought a handsome parrot, sat him on a perch in her living room, +and said, "Say 'Pretty boy.'" Silence from the bird. "Come on now, say +'Pretty boy ... pretty boy.'" + At long last, disgustedly, the bird said, "Oh, shit." + Shocked, the schoolteacher said, "Just for that, you get five minutes +in the refrigerator." Five minutes later she put the shivering bird back on +its perch and said, "Now let's hear it: 'Pretty boy ... pretty boy.'" + "Damn it, wouldja lay off, lady?" said the parrot. + Outraged, the woman grabbed the bird, said, "That's it! Ten minutes +in the freezer," and slammed the door on him. + Hopping about to keep warm, what does the parrot come across but a +big frozen turkey waiting for Thanksgiving. Startled, he squawks, "My God, +you must have told the bitch to go fuck herself!" +% +A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature +replaces it with. + -- Tennessee Williams +% +A young New York housewife was shocked by some of the language used by her +daughter. When asked about it, the daughter said she had learned it from +a small girl she played with in the park. The next day, the mother sought +out the little girl as she played in the park. "Are you the little girl +who uses bad words?" + "Who told you?" + "A little bird," answered the mother. + "Well, I like that!" exclaimed the small girl. "And I've been +feeding the little bastards, too!" +% +After making a daring escape from the penitentiary, the convict eluded +bloodhounds and police roadblocks and dodged helicopter searchlights on +his way to see his wife. Finally sneaking in the back entrance, he knocked +on the door and smiled triumphantly as she opened it. "Where the hell have +you been?" she blared. "You busted out more than six hours ago!" +% +As near as I can tell, you're not any crazier than the average asshole +on the street. + -- R.P. McMurphy, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" +% +As they say about Dungeons and Dragons, "Life's a die, and then you bitch." +% +Ask your boss to reconsider -- + +It's so difficult to take "Go to hell" for an answer. +% + At his sentencing, Herbie Sperling proved that he was the all-time +stand-up guy. + Sperling's lawyer made a lengthy, impassioned plea for his client. +He talked of mercy, justice, humanity to fellow men who have chosen the wrong +path. Yes, the crimes were serious, yes, Mr. Sperling deserves a prison +sentence, but the maximum sentence was not warranted. + Then the judge turned to Sperling. "Mr. Sperling, is there anything +you wish to say?" + "Yes, Your Honor. If you think I'm going to beg for mercy, you've +got another think coming. You're all a bunch of fucking fascist cocksuckers, +you can all go to hell, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you..." + -- Gregory Wallace, "Papa's Game" +% +Been through hell? + +What did you bring back for me? +% +Better a sister in a whorehouse than a brother on a Honda. +% +Blow it out your ass! +% +Call things by their right names... Glass of brandy and water! That is the +current but not the appropriate name: ask for a glass of fire and distilled +damnation. + -- Robert Hall, in Olinthus Gregory's, "Brief Memoir of the + Life of Hall" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to logical names.] +% +Churchill was known to drain a glass or two and, after one +particularly convivial evening, he chanced to encounter Miss Bessie Braddock, +a Socialist member of the House of Commons, who, upon seeing his condition, +said, "Winston, you're drunk." Mustering all his dignity, Churchill drew +himself up to his full height, cocked an eyebrow and rejoined, "Shove it up +your ass, you ugly cunt." + When the noted playwright George Bernard Shaw sent him two tickets to +the opening night of his new play with a note that read: "Bring a friend, if +you have one," Churchill, not to be outdone, promptly wired back: "You and +your play can go fuck yourselves." + At an elegant dinner party, Lady Astor once leaned across the table +to remark, "If you were my husband, Winston, I'd poison your coffee." "And +if you were my wife, I'd beat the shit out of you," came Churchill's +unhesitating retort. + -- "The Churchill Wit", National Lampoon +% +Confucius say too damn much! +% +"Daddy?" + +"Yes son." + +"Wha-wha-wha-what does regret mean?" + +"Well, son, a funny thing about regret is that it's better to regret +something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done. And +by the way, if you see your Mom this weekend, would be you sure and tell +her, `SATAN, SATAN, SATAN!!!'" + -- Butthole Surfers, "Sweat Loaf" +% +"Dammit, man, that's unprofessional! A good bartender laughs anyway!" +% +Damn braces. + -- William Blake, "Proverbs of Hell" +% +DAMN IT, I GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE! +% +Damn, I need a Coke! + -- Dr. William DeVries + [after implanting the first artificial human heart] +% +"Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly, +sincerely, extremely dangerously. + +They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardio plate crossoffs. +They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stick tites. They used +intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used finks. +They used cops. They used search and seizure. They used fallaron. They +used betterment incentives. They used finger prints. They used the +bertillion system. They used cunning. They used guile. They used treachery. +They used Raoul-Mitgong but he wasn't much help. They used applied physics. +They used techniques of criminology. And what the hell, they caught him. + -- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man" +% +Don't just eat a hamburger; eat the HELL out of it. + -- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs +% +DROP THE DAMN BEAR!!! + -- The Adventurer +% +During the darkest days of World War II, when each night brought waves of +Luftwaffe bombers raining death and destruction on a near-defenseless London, +Prime Minister Churchill went on the air to address the British people. "I +read this morning's paper that Herr Hitler plans to wring England's neck like +that of a chicken," he began, "and I was reminded of what the Irish poacher +said as he stood on the gallows. It seems the poor fellow was approached by a +well-meaning if somewhat overzealous priest who, in horrific detail, described +the unfading torments of Hades which awaited him if he did not repent of his +misdeeds. The condemned man listened patiently to all that the priest had to +say, and when he was done, grinned broadly and replied, 'Eat it raw, fuzz +nuts.'" + -- "The Churchill Wit", National Lampoon +% +Early to bed and early to rise makes a man a helluva big nuisance. +% +Eat shit and die a virgin! +% +Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain +of being a damned fool. + -- Bellamy Brooks +% +Every morning, the crowd on Coney Island beach was startled to see +a jogger with the build of a pro football player but a head the size of a +baseball. Finally, some brave young man got up the nerve to stop him and +ask, "What happened to give you such a small head?" + The jogger sadly told the story of finding a magic lamp on the beach, +which produced a beautiful genie when rubbed. The genie said, "I now give +you one wish. Do you want a quick fuck or a little head?" +% +Fie for shame, you lascivious, lewd, lecherous, libidinous, lustful, +licentious, dirty bum!! +% +Fig Newton. +% +Folks, what can I tell you about my next guest. This cat allowed himself +to be adored, but not loved. And his success in show business was matched +by failure in his personal relationship bag, now that's where he really +bombed. And he came to believe that work, show business, love, his whole +life, even himself and all that jazz was bullshit. He became numero uno +gameplayer. Uh, to the point where he didn't know where the games ended +and the reality began. Like to this cat, the only reality... is death, man. +Ladies and gentlemen, let me lay on you, a so-so entertainer, not much of +a humanitarian, and this cat was never nobody's friend. In his final +appearance on the great stage of life, uh, you can applaud if you want to, +Mr. Joe Gideon!! + -- All That Jazz +% +Fuck art; let's dance! +% +Fuck off and die! +% +Fuck you and anybody who looks like you. +% +Fuck'em if they can't take a joke! +% +GET OFF THE FUCKING SYSTEM THIS INSTANT, YOU ASSHOLE!!!! +% +Get your bytes from our backend! + -- Britton Lee +% +Getting an education at the University of California is like having +$50.00 shoved up your ass, a nickel at a time. +% +Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities! +% +Grain grows best in shit. + -- Ursula K. LeGuin +% +Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks. +% +Gravity is an unforgiving motherfucker. +% +Hardly a pure science, history is closer to animal husbandry than it is to +mathematics, in that it involves selective breeding. The principal difference +between the husbandryman and the historian is that the former breeds sheep +or cows or such, and the latter breeds (assumed) facts. The husbandryman uses +his skills to enrich the future; the historian uses his to enrich the past. +Both are usually up to their ankles in bullshit. + -- Tom Robbins +% +Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned? + +Well, I haven't. I find that whenever a woman becomes friends with me, +she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damn nuisance; and +whenever I become friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical. +So here I am, Pickering, a confirmed old bachelor and very likely to +remain so. + -- Henry Higgins, "My Fair Lady" +% +Have you ever wondered what makes Californians so calm? Besides drugs, I +mean. The answer is hot tubs. A hot tub is a redwood container filled with +water that you sit in naked with members of the opposite sex, none of whom +is necessarily your spouse. After a few hours in their hot tubs, +Californians don't give a damn about earthquakes or mass murderers. They +don't give a damn about anything , which is why they are able to produce +"Laverne and Shirley" week after week. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +He who hesitates is a damned fool. + -- Mae West +% +He who trains his tongue to quote the learned sages, will be known far +and wide as a smart ass. + -- Howard Kandel +% +"He's not pining, he's passed on! This parrot won't squawk! He's +ceased to be! He's expired, and gone to meet his maker! It's a +stiff! No breath of life, he may rest in peace! If you hadn't nailed +him to the perch, he'd be pushing up the daisies! He's off the twig! +He's kicked the bucket! He's curled up his tooties! He's shuffled off +this mortal world! He's run down the curtain, and joined the bleed'n +Choir Invincible! HE'S FUCKING SNUFFED IT! Vis-a-vi his metabolic +processes is head is lost. All statements concerning this parrot is no +longer a going concern, after from now on, Inoperative... + + THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!! +% +Hell's broken loose. + -- Robert Greene +% +Hell, if you don't try to remake someone, how are they supposed to know +you care? +% +Here is the problem: for many years, the Supreme Court wrestled with the issue +of pornography, until finally Associate Justice John Paul Stevens came up with +the famous quotation about how he couldn't define pornography, but he knew it +when he saw it. So for a while, the court's policy was to have all the +suspected pornography trucked to Justice Stevens' house, where he would look it +over. "Nope, this isn't it," he'd say. "Bring some more." This went on until +one morning when his housekeeper found him trapped in the recreation room under +an enormous mound of rubberized implements, and the court had to issue a ruling +stating that it didn't know what the hell pornography was except that it was +illegal and everybody should stop badgering the court about it because the +court was going to take a nap. + -- Dave Barry, "Pornography" +% +Horsecrap, little brother. There's always something more to be done. +Another palm to be greased. Another back to be scratched. Another +weak sister to be shored up. + -- J.R. Ewing +% +Howard Cosell's biggest protrusion is his asshole. + -- John Valby +% +I am fairly unrepentant about her poetry. I really think that three quarters +of it is gibberish. However, I must crush down these thoughts otherwise the +dove of peace will shit on me. + -- Noel Coward on Edith Sitwell +% +I came; I saw; I fucked up. +% +I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about you pisses me off. + -- Peter Knight +% + I disapprove of the F-word, not because it's dirty, but because we +use it as a substitute for thoughtful insults, and it frequently leads to +violence. What we ought to do, when we anger each other, say, in traffic, +is exchange phone numbers, so that later on, when we've had time to think +of witty and learned insults or look them up in the library, we could call +each other up: + You: Hello? Bob? + Bob: Yes? + You: This is Ed. Remember? The person whose parking space you + took last Thursday? Outside of Sears? + Bob: Oh yes! Sure! How are you, Ed? + You: Fine, thanks. Listen, Bob, the reason I'm calling is: + "Madam, you may be drunk, but I am ugly, and ..." No, wait. + I mean: "you may be ugly, but I am Winston Churchill + and ..." No, wait. (Sound of reference book thudding onto + the floor.) S-word. Excuse me. Look, Bob, I'm going to + have to get back to you. + Bob: Fine. + -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!" +% +I don't know why women get so upset, they have half the money and all the pussy. + -- Gary Bussy, "DC Cab" +% +I don't love you, asshole, I love your daughter. + -- The Undergraduate +% +"I had to censor everything my sons watched ... even on the Mary Tyler +Moore show I heard the word 'damn'!" + -- Mary Lou Bax +% +I love this fucking University, and this University loves fucking me. +% +I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless +bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed +as a genius. Why, in comparison with him, Riff is a genius. + -- Tchaikovsky, October 9, 1886, diary entry +% +I think we can all agree that there is not enough common courtesy shown ... +HEY! PAY ATTENTION WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU DAMMIT! I said I think we can +all agree that there is not enough common courtesy shown today. When we take +the time to be courteous to each other, we find that we are happier and less +likely to engage in nuclear war. This point was driven home by the recent +summit talks, where Nancy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev, each of whose husband +thinks the other's husband is vermin, were able to sit down at a high-level +tea and engage in courteous conversation ... + -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette" +% +I wouldn't mind dying -- + +it's that business of having to stay dead that scares the shit out of me. + -- R. Geis +% +I'd rather be led to hell than managed to heavan. +% +I'm sorry I'm late folks, I just got out of jail. I tried to change my +girlfriend's name. Yeah, I went down to the hall of records. I said, "I'd +like to change it... I'd like to change it to... LYING LITTLE BITCH!" + -- Sam Kinison +% +I've been watching you closely to see if you have been good this year; +and since you have, I will be telling my elves to make some goodies for me +to leave under your tree on Christmas. I was going to bring you all the +gifts from the twelve days of Christmas, but we had a little problem up here. +The twelve fiddlers fiddling have all come down with V.D. from fiddling with +the ten ladies dancing, the eleven lords-a-leaping have knocked up the eight +maids-a-milking, and the nine pipers piping have been arrested for doing +weird things to the seven swans-a-swimming and the six geese-a-laying. The +four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and the partridge +in the pear tree have me up to my ass in birdshit. On top of all this, Mrs. +Claus is going through menopause, eight of my reindeer are in heat, the elves +have joined gay liberation, and those dumb ass Polacks have scheduled +Christmas for the fifth of February. I'll do what I can. + Sincerely, + Santa +% +If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a +damn fool about it. + -- W.C. Fields + +[Also attributed to Roy Mengot. Ed.] +% +If it's not one thing, it's a mother. +% +If life's a piece of shit, Calculus III is the spoon. +% +If today is the first day of the rest of your life, what the hell was yesterday? +% +If you don't ride a camel to work, you ain't Sheeite. +% + If you work for a man, in heaven's name, work for him. + If he pays you wages which supply you bread and butter, work for him; +speak well of him; stand by him, and by the institution he represents. + If put to a pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. + If you must vilify, condemn and eternally find disparage -- resign your +position, and when you are outside, damn to your heart's content... but, as +long as you are part of the institution do not condemn it. + If you do that, you are loosening the tendrils that are holding you to +the institution, and at the first high wind that comes along, you will +be uprooted and blown away, and probably will never know the reason why. +% +If you're going to break up with your old lady and you live in a small +town, make sure you don't break up at three in the morning. Because you're +screwed -- there's nothing to do ... So make it about nine in the morning, +... bullshit around, worry her a little, then come back at seven in the +night. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +In the beginning was the DEMO Project. And the Project was without form. +And darkness was upon the staff members thereof. So they spake unto +their Division Head, saying, "It is a crock of shit, and it stinks." + +And the Division Head spake unto his Department Head, saying, +"It is a crock of excrement and none may abide the odor thereof." +Now, the Department Head spake unto his Directorate Head, saying, +"It is a container of excrement, and is very strong, such that none +may abide before it." And it came to pass that the Directorate Head +spake unto the Assistant Technical Director, saying, "It is a vessel +of fertilizer and none may abide by its strength." + +And the assistant Technical Director spake thus unto the Technical +Director, saying, "It containeth that which aids growth and it is +very strong." And, Lo, the Technical Director spake then unto the +Captain, saying, "The powerful new Project will help promote the +growth of the Laboratories." + +And the Captain looked down upon the Project, and He saw that it was Good! +% +Inspite of all evidence to the contrary, the entire universe is composed of +only two basic substances: magic and bullshit. +% +It is a sad commentary on today's society that this fortune has to be +classified as "offensive" simply because it contains the word "fuck". +% +It may not be funny, but it's damned amusing! +% +It seems there were two young Marines walking down the street, and +they chanced upon a lady who was both very proper and very well endowed. +One of them said, "Wow! What tits! Hey lady, would I love to snuggle up with +them for awhile. What are you doing this afternoon?" + +Well, the other Marine thought that was just about the most shameful +thing he had ever witnessed, and felt that he had to restore the honor of the +Corps. "Pardon my friend, Ma'am," he apologized, "He's not been very well +brought up and don't know how to talk to cunt." +% +It used to be a man's world, and the woman's place was in the home. +They can kiss that shit goodbye. +% +It was almost closing time when a male patron who had been getting the +frosty treatment from a girl at the end of the bar called to the +bartender and said, "Give that bitchy douche bag over there one on me." + "We discourage that sort of language here, sir," the bartender +answered sternly. + "OK, OK. Serve the lady a cocktail with my compliments." + The bartender approached the female in question. "The, uh, gentleman +at the other end of the bar would like to buy you a drink, miss. What would +you like?" + "Vinegar and water." +% +It's a bit hard to bullshit the ocean. It's not listening, you know +what I mean. + -- David Crosby +% +It's a bitch being butch. +% +It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. + -- Andrew Jackson +% +It's better to be pissed off than pissed on. +% +It's so fuckin' great to be alive! +% +Life is a bitch, but the puppies can be cute. +% +Life is a shit sandwich, and every day you get to take another bite. +It's just that some days are TWO BITE days ... +% +Life is having a mother-in-law that sucks and a wife that don't. + -- Rodney Dangerfield +% +Life is like a cucumber -- + +one moment it's in your hand, the next it's up your ass. +% +Life is like a shit sandwich. + +The more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat. +% +Life is not a cabaret. +It's a fucking circus. +% +Life isn't a bitch. Life is a virgin. A bitch is easy. +% +Look out for yourself -- or they'll pee on your grave. + -- Louis B. Mayer + +The reason so many people showed up at Louis B. Mayer's funeral was because +they wanted to make sure he was dead. + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +Love is a slippery eel that bites like hell. + -- Matt Groening +% +Many a man has decided to stay alive not because of the will to live, but +because of the determination not to give assorted surviving bastards the +satisfaction of his death. + -- Brendan Francis +% + McQuillan was on the stand. The case involved a railroad and several of +the passengers who were injured. + "You say," thundered the counsel for the railroad, "that you saw +the two trains crash head on while doing sixty miles an hour. What did you +think when you saw this happen ?" + I thought," replied the Irishman, "this is one *helluva* way to run +a railroad." +% +Me, I love the rich. *Somebody* has to love them. Sure, a lot of rich +people are assholes, but believe me, a lot of poor people are assholes too. +And an asshole with money can at least pay for his own drinks. + -- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume" +% +Megaton Man: "LOOK at them! Helpless, tender creatures, relying on + ME, waiting for ME to make my move!" + +(from below): "Move your ASS, Fat-head!" + +Megaton Man: "It is a MANDATE, and I am DUTY BOUND to OBEY!" +% +Moody bitch in search of... + kind, considerate, loving man. Objective, love-hate relationship. +% +Moody bitch with attitude, seeks nice, good-looking guy to dump on. +% +Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass. + -- Frank Zappa +% +My advice to the women's clubs of America is to raise more hell and fewer +dahlias. + -- William Allen White +% +My brother-in-law has found a way to make ends meet. He goes around +with his head stuck up his ass. +% +Never fly under a seagull - they'll shit on your airplane. + -- Gordon Cooper +% + "Never send a MAN to do a WOMAN'S work! Why do you think I CAME here?" + "Not for the good of my ego, that was for damn sure." +% +No matter how clever the hardware boys are, the software boys piss it away. +% +Non Illegitimus Carborundum. + [Don't let the bastards wear you down.] +% +Obscene? Obscene is young men being trained to drop fire on people, but +their commanders not allowing them to write "fuck" on their airplanes +because it's obscene. +% +Obscenity is the crutch of inarticulate motherfuckers. +% +Old mercenaries never die. They go to hell and regroup. +% + On the day of his anniversary, Joe was frantically shopping +around for a present for his wife. He knew what she wanted, a +grandfather clock for the living room, but he found the right one almost +impossible to find. Finally, after many hours of searching, Joe found +just the clock he wanted, but the store didn't deliver. Joe, desperate, +paid the shopkeeper, hoisted the clock onto his back, and staggered out +onto the sidewalk. On the way home, he passed a bar. Just as he reached +the door, a drunk stumbled out and crashed into Joe, sending himself, +Joe, and the clock into the gutter. Murphy's law being in effect, the +clock ended up in roughly a thousand pieces. + "You stupid drunk!" screamed Joe, jumping up from the wreckage. +"Why don't you look where the hell you're going!" + With quiet dignity the drunk stood up somewhat unsteadily and +dusted himself off. "And why don't you just wear a wristwatch like a +normal person?" +% +Once upon a time, there was a non-conforming sparrow who decided not to +fly south for the winter. However, soon after the weather turned cold, +the sparrow changed his mind and reluctantly started to fly south. +After a short time, ice began to form his on his wings and he fell to +earth in a barnyard almost frozen. A cow passed by and crapped on this +little bird and the sparrow thought it was the end, but the manure +warmed him and defrosted his wings. Warm and happy the little sparrow +began to sing. Just then, a large Tom cat came by and hearing the +chirping investigated the sounds. As Old Tom cleared away the manure, +he found the chirping bird and promptly ate him. + +There are three morals to this story: + +(1) Everyone who shits on you is not necessarily your enemy. +(2) Everyone who gets you out of shit is not necessarily your friend. +(3) If you are warm and happy in a pile of shit, keep your mouth shut. +% +One day a little polar bear cub says to his mother, "Mommy, am I really +a polar bear?" + "Why of course you are, honey!" his mother replies. "You live at +the North Pole and you swim under the ice to catch fish. You play on the +ice floes and you romp through the snow and chase seals. Of *course* you're +a polar bear. Why do you ask?" + "Because," says the little cub, "I'm fuckin' freezing!" +% +Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing +to go through hell to get it. +% +Pardon me, sir, but you've obviously mistaken me for someone who gives a shit. +% +People who write position papers often find themselves in an +enviable position. They are hired to write papers for both sides of the +position. + A good position paper will have many words in it like +"superincumbence," "egress," and "plurification." + You will not often find the phrase "lightweight dropcase +limp-wristed motherfucker" in a serious position paper. + Charts and multiplication tables should always be included in +position papers. They should look complicated enough to make Albert +Einstein stagger across the room for a Tylenol. + A good position paper will never underestimate the value of a +semicolon. + -- Dan Jenkins, "Baja Oklahoma" +% +People will swim through shit if you put a few bob in it. + -- Peter Sellers +% +Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well anyhow +and is certainly a damn fool. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Shit happens. +% + Shortly after Churchill had grown a moustache, he was accosted by a +certain young lady whose political views were in direct opposition to his +own. Fancying herself something of a wag, she exclaimed, "Mr. Churchill, I +care for neither your politics nor your moustache." Unabashed, the young +statesman regarded her quietly for a moment, the wryly commented, "Suck my +dick." + While serving as a subaltern in the Boer War, the young Churchill was +asked by a superior officer to give his opinion of the Boers as soldiers. + "They're assholes, sir," he ventured, then paused briefly and added, with a +whimsical smile, "They're assholes." + Churchill was given to reading in the bathtub and, while staying at +the White House, he once became so engrossed in an account of the Battle of +Fonteney that he forgot President Roosevelt was due to drop by to discuss the +upcoming conference in Yalta. At the appointed hour, the President was +wheeled into Churchill's quarters only to be informed that the Prime Minister +had not finished bathing. Roosevelt was about to apologize for the intrusion +and depart when Churchill, puffing his customary cigar, strode into the room +stark naked and greeted the nonplussed world leader with a terse, "What are +you staring at, homo?" + -- "The Churchill Wit", National Lampoon +% +Silence can be the biggest lie of all. We have a responsibility to speak +up; and whenever the occasion calls for it, we have a responsibility to +raise bloody hell. + -- Herbert Block +% +So you fucked up... you trusted us! + -- Animal House +% +Some companies idea of playing ball is, you play ball with us, +and we'll stick the fucking bat up your ass. +% +Some of the management around here are the final proof that the Indians +fucked the buffalo. +% +Sometimes, you just gotta say "What the fuck." + -- Risky Business +% +Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your +editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. + -- Mark Twain +% +Success has many fathers, but failure is a bastard. +% +Tell you what," the haberdasher said to a persistent job applicant. "I've +got one suit I can't sell -- that purple, green and yellow number over there. +If you can make that sale, you've not only got the job, you've got it for +life." + Then the store owner left for lunch. When he returned, he was shocked +to see the young man's clothes in tatters and his hands and face bleeding. + "My God, what happened to you?" + "I sold the suit! I sold the suit!" the young man shouted, a smile +on his bloodied lips. + "Congratulations," the haberdasher said. "You've got the job. But +what happened? Did the customer start a fight?" + "Oh, no," the new salesman replied. "But his Seeing Eye dog was +*pissed*." +% +The best number for a dinner party is two--myself and a damn good head waiter. + -- Nubar Gulbenkian +% +The boys in the Epperson family all acquired fine educations except for Edward. +They made him go to school, but most of the time he just ignored what was said +there. Yet there were rare moments when he could display a bit of curiosity. + One day Edward was sitting at home looking at a magazine, and he said +to his brilliant older brother, Hud, he said, "Hud, what does fox pass mean?" + Brother Hud gave the question some deep consideration and then said, +"You must mean _faux_pas_." + "The way it's spelled," said dumb Ed, "it's fox pass." + Hud took a look at the way it was spelled and then said, "It's a French +phrase -- it means a social blunder. Remember last Sunday when the Bishop came +for dinner? Mother took him out in the garden and they were looking over the +roses when the Bishop got stuck on the thumb by a thorn. It was bleeding quite +a bit so Mother brought him in the house. They went into the bathroom together +and stayed quite a while, and when they came out we all went to the dinner +table. Remember all that, Ed?" + "Yeh." + "Now," Hud continued, "you recall that I was just getting to pass +the gravy when Mother said, 'Bishop, does your prick still throb?' The gravy +bowl flew out of my hands and hit the table, and the gravy splattered all +over everyone. And just at that point you, Brother Edward, you hollered, +'Sheee-itt!' You remember that?" + "Yeh." + "Well, when you hollered 'Sheee-itt!' that was a _faux_pas_." +% +The difference between graffiti and philosophy is the word "fuck". +% + The famous Nell Gwynn, stepping one day from a house where she had +made a short visit into her coach, saw a great crowd assembled, and her +footman all bloody and dirty; the fellow being asked by his mistress, the +reason for his being in that condition, answered, "I have been fighting, +madam, with an impudent rascal who called your ladyship a whore." + "You blockhead," replied Mrs. Gywnn, "at this rate you must fight +every day of your life; why, you fool, all the world knows it." + "Do they?" cries the fellow, in a muttering voice, after he had shut +the coach door, "they shan't call me a whore's footman for all that." + -- Henry Fielding, "Tom Jones" +% +The government was contemplating the dispatch of an expedition to Burma, +with a view to taking Rangoon, and a question arose as to who would be the +fittest general to be sent in command of the expedition. The Cabinet sent +for the Duke of Wellington, and asked his advice. He instantly replied, +"Send Lord Combermere." + "But we have always understood that your Grace thought Lord +Combermere a fool." + "So he is a fool, and a damned fool; but he can take Rangoon." + -- G.W.E. Russell +% +The higher you climb, the more you show your ass. + -- Alexander Pope, "The Dunciad" +% +The more crap you put up with, the more crap you're going to get. +% +... the most exquisitely squalid hells known to middle-class man: +freshman English at a Midwestern university. + -- Tom Wolfe +% +The objective of all dedicated employees should be to thoroughly analyze +all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their occurrence, have +answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve these problems +when called upon. + However... +When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to remind +yourself your initial objective was to drain the swamp. +% +The old man had lived all his life in a little house on the Vermont side of the +New Hampshire-Vermont border. One day, the surveyors came to inform him that +they had just discovered that he lived in New Hampshire, not Vermont. + "Thank heavens!" was his heartfelt reply. "I don't think I could have +taken another one of those damned Vermont winters!" +% +The only thing faster than the speed of light is shit flowing downhill. + -- Mike O'Dell +% +The only way you'll ever hear from me is if you're living in the same hell. + -- Roy Harper +% +The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And littered with +sloppy analysis! +% + THE TEN STAGES OF INTOXICATION + + (1) WITTY AND CHARMING: This is after one or two drinks. The tongue + is loosened and can yet remain in step with the brain. In the + "witty and charming" state, one is likely to use foreign idioms + and phrases such as "au contraire" in place of "Now way, Jose," + or "Bullsheyet". + (2) RICH AND POWERFUL: By the third drink, you begin mentioning the + little 380 SL you've had your eye on down at the Mercedes place. + (3) BENEVOLENT: You'll buy her a Mercedes, too. It's only money. + (4) JUST ONE MORE AND THEN WE'LL EAT: Stall tactic. + (5) TO HELL WITH DINNER: Just one more and then we'll eat. + (6) PATRIOTIC: The war stories begin. + (7) CRANK UP THE "ENOLA GAY": "We could have won in Nam, but..." + (8) INVISIBLE: So this is what the Ladies' Room looks like. + (9) WITTY AND CHARMING PART II: You know, you don't sweat much for + a fat girl. + (10) BULLETPROOF: Bull-sheyet, gimme them keys, I can drive. + -- Lewis Grizzard, "My Daddy Was a Pistol and I'm a Son + of a Gun". +% +The time has come for kicking ass and taking names. +% + The townspeople stood in despair as the fire that had begun in a diner +threatened to spread to adjoining homes. Just then, a truck filled with +farm workers came speeding down a hill toward the fire. The crowd moved +back and the truck drove right into the thickest of the flames. The workers +jumped out and beat at the fire with their coats, miraculously bringing the +blaze under control. + The city fathers were so grateful for the men's heroism that they +gave each a plaque and $1000. After the ceremony, newsmen interviewed the +driver and asked him what he was going to do with the money. + "You can be damned sure the first thing I'm gonna do," he replied, +"is get the brakes fixed on that son-of-a-bitchin' truck!" +% +The world is an 8000 mile in diameter spherical pile of shit. +% +There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +There are two sides to every divorce: yours and the shithead's. +% +There is always more hell that needs raising. + -- Lauren Leveut +% +There's a man deeply in debt, see, and he takes the money he has left +and goes to Monte Carlo to try to recoup at the roulette tables. Won a +little, lost a lot, and was down to his last franc. Prayed for help. +A voice whispered in his ear: "Le rouge..." Man looked around; nobody +there. What the hell -- he puts his last franc on the red, and it won. +The voice immediately said, "Encore le rouge..." Played red again, and +it won again. The voice said, "Impair..." Played odd, and it won. Voice +said, "Quinze..." so he put all the money on 15, and it won. This went +on for hours, the voice telling him what to bet, and the man putting all +his money on what the voice said, and winning. Finally when the voice +spoke, the man protested that he'd won millions of dollars and wanted to +quit. The voice was inexorable: "Douze..." The man put the money on 12, +and 11 came up -- he had lost everything -- the voice murmured "Merde!!" +% +There's a tendency today to absolve individuals from moral responsibility and +treat them as victims of social circumstance. You buy that, you pay with your +soul. It's not men who limit women, it's not straights who limit gays, it's +not whites who limit blacks. What limits people is lack of character. What +limits people is that they don't have the fucking nerve or imagination to star +in their own movie, let alone direct it. + -- Bernard Mickey Wrangle +% +They ought to make butt-flavored cat food. + -- Gallagher +% +This guy makes an appointment with a doctor because his hemorrhoids are +really bothering him. The doctor gives him some suppositories and tells +him to come back in a week for a checkup. "How's it going?" he asks +the patient a week later. + "I gotta tell you the truth, Doc," said the man. "For all the +good these pills did me, I coulda shoved them up my ass." +% +This guy walks into a bank and up to a female bank teller: + +Man: "I want to open a fuckin' savings account." +Teller: "Excuse me, sir?" +M: "Listen, bitch, I want to open a fuckin' savings account." +T: "Sir, I don't have to listen to this abusive language." +M: "LOOK! I just want to open a fuckin' savings account." +T: "Sir, you leave me no choice but to speak to the manager." + +The teller walks over and explains the customer's rude behavior to the bank +manager who then accompanies her back to the teller booth. + +Mgr: "Can I help you, sir?" +M: "I want to open a fuckin' savings account." +Mgr: "Please, sir, we'll be delighted to help you, but we must request + that you not use abusive language to our tellers." +M: "Look. I just won $25 million in the state lottery and I want to + open a fuckin' savings account!" +Mgr: "I see. And has this cunt been giving you any trouble?" +% +This is National Smokers-Are-Shits Week. +% +Today is gonna be one helluva week! +% +Tomorrow never comes! It's all the same fuckin' day, man! + -- Janis Joplin +% + Two little kids, aged six and eight, decide it's time to learn how to +swear. So, the eight-year-old says to the six-year-old, "Okay, you say +`ass' and I'll say `hell'". + All excited about their plan, they troop downstairs, where their +mother asks them what they'd like for breakfast. + "Aw, hell," says the eight-year-old, "gimme some Cheerios." His mother +backhands him off the stool, sending him bawling out of the room, and +turns to the younger brother. "What'll you have?" + "I dunno," quavers the six-year-old, "but you can bet your ass it +ain't gonna be Cheerios." +% +Two morticians alternated in sharing the responsibility of covering +the night shift. One early morning about 3:00 am, a body was brought into the +mortuary, and the mortician began work. When he had unclothed the corpse, he +noticed a cork in the anus. Removing it, the strains of "Hello, Dolly, well, +hello, Dolly...!" were plainly heard being sung. He put the cork back, and +the singing stopped. Pulling it out again, the same song started, "You're +lookin' swell, Dolly!". Amazed, he telephoned his partner, and insisted he +come immediately to see something very unusual. Roused from sleep, the partner +asked if it could wait until morning. It took great persistence, but finally +the partner agreed to dress and come down to the shop. When he got there, he +said, "Now what was it that was so important you had to get me out of bed at +this ungodly hour?" + The man said, "Come into the embalming room." + They go into the embalming room, and the first partner says, "Now +watch." + He pulls out the cork, and the anus takes off singing again. The +partner looks at him disgustedly and says: "You brought me down here at +three in the morning just to hear some asshole sing Hello Dolly"? +% +VYARZERZOMANIMORORSEZASSEZANSERAREORSES? +% +"Water? Never touch the stuff! Fish fuck in it." + -- W. C. Fields +% +We aren't what we eat. We are what we don't shit. + -- Hugh Romney +% +We call our dog Egypt, because in every room he leaves a pyramid. +% +We came, we saw, we kicked its ass! + -- Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters" +% +We must remember the First Amendment which protects any shrill jackass +no matter how self-seeking. + -- F. G. Withington +% +Well, now that SUN's in bed with AT&T, I sure hope she sleeps with her +back to the wall. + -- Guy Harris, on AT&T buying 20% of SUN Microsystems + +Eat shit and die. Strong memo to follow. + -- Mike O'Dell, on AT&T buying 20% of SUN Microsystems +% + Well, there was this tiger, who woke up one morning, and just felt +great (yes, just like Tony the Tiger: GREAAAAAAT). Anyway, he just felt +so good, he went out and cornered a small monkey and roared at him: "WHO IS +THE MIGHTIEST OF ALL THE JUNGLE ANIMALS?" + And this poor quaking little monkey replied: "You are of course, no +one is mightier than you." + A little while later this tiger confronts a deer, and just bellows out: +"WHO IS THE GREATEST AND STRONGEST OF ALL THE JUNGLE ANIMALS?" + The deer is shaking so hard it can barely speak, but manages to +stammer: "Oh great tiger, you are by far the mightiest animal in the jungle." + The tiger, being on a roll, swaggered, up to an elephant that was +quietly munching on some weeds, and roared at the top of his voice: "WHO IS +THE MIGHTIEST OF ALL THE ANIMALS IN THE JUNGLE?" + Well, this elephant grabs the tiger with his trunk, picks him up, slams +him down; picks him up again, and shakes him until the tiger is just a blur of +orange and black; and finally throws him violently into a nearby tree. + The tiger staggers to his feet, looks at the elephant and says: "Man, +you don't have to get so pissed, just because you don't know the answer!" +% +Well, this woman went to the butcher shop to get some ham for dinner. +She asked the butcher what kind of ham he recommended, and the butcher said, +"Well ma'am, we got some Damn ham here for $3.50 a pound..." Needless to +say, she was surprised at the butcher's language! The butcher, who was +reasonably astute, noticed the alarmed look on the woman's face, and quickly +justified himself. "No, no, ma'am, I wasn't cursin', the NAME of this here +ham is "Damn ham". Amused, the woman requested some "Damn ham." + That night, before dinner, the woman took her husband aside and +explained what had happened at the butcher shop. He also was amused, and +suggested that they play a joke on their son. So, at dinner, after grace, +the man turned to his wife and said, "Honey, pass the damn ham." + Their son looked up, surprised. "WHOAH! Dad be gettin' hip! +How 'bout them mother-fuckin' potatoes?" +% +What the fuck, over? +% +What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket. +% +When the shit hits the fan, keep your mouth shut! +% +Where the hell is Wall Drug? +% +Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? + -- Harry Warner, Warner Bros. Pictures, c. 1927 +% +Who took the MMMMMM out of MURINE? +% +Why doesn't everybody leave everybody else the hell alone? + -- Jimmy Durante +% +Winning isn't everything, but losing really sucks. +% +Winter is nature's way of saying, "Up yours." + -- Robert Byrne +% +Work like hell, tell everyone everything you know, close a deal with +a handshake, and have fun. + -- Harold "Doc" Edgerton, summing up his life's philosophy, + shortly before dying at the age of 86. +% +Would you mind terribly much if I asked you to take your silly-assed +problem down the hall? +% +Yesterday is a memory, + Tomorrow is a vision, + Today is a bitch! +% +You are without a doubt a rogue, a rascal, a villain, a thief, a scoundrel, +and a mean, dirty, stinking, sniveling, sneaking, pimping, pocketpicking, +thrice double-damned, no-good son-of-a-bitch. +% +You can find sympathy, in the dictionary, right near shit and suicide. +% +You can lead a whore to Vasser, but you can't make her think. + -- Frederick B. Artz +% +You have been bitchy since Tuesday and you'll probably get fired today. +% +You have to be a bastard to make it, and that's a fact. And the Beatles +are the biggest bastards on earth. + -- John Lennon +% +"You have to regard everything I say with suspicion -- I may be trying +to bullshit you, or I may just be bullshitting you inadvertently." + -- J. Wainwright, Mathematics 140b +% +You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you sure as hell can +tell how much it's going to cost. +% +You see that fucking fish? If he'd kept his mouth shut, he wouldn'ta got +caught. + -- Sam Giancana +% +You should be a hemorrhoid, you're such a pain in the ass. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/zippy b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/zippy new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2b5f153 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/off/unrotated/zippy @@ -0,0 +1,1289 @@ +A can of ASPARAGUS, 73 pigeons, some LIVE ammo, and a FROZEN DAQUIRI!! +% +A dwarf is passing out somewhere in Detroit! +% +A shapely CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRL is FIDGETING inside my costume.. +% +A wide-eyed, innocent UNICORN, poised delicately in a MEADOW filled +with LILACS, LOLLIPOPS & small CHILDREN at the HUSH of twilight?? +% +Actually, what I'd like is a little toy spaceship!! +% +All I can think of is a platter of organic PRUNE CRISPS being trampled +by an army of swarthy, Italian LOUNGE SINGERS ... +% +All of a sudden, I want to THROW OVER my promising ACTING CAREER, grow +a LONG BLACK BEARD and wear a BASEBALL HAT!! ... Although I don't know WHY!! +% +All of life is a blur of Republicans and meat! +% +All right, you degenerates! I want this place evacuated in 20 seconds! +% +All this time I've been VIEWING a RUSSIAN MIDGET SODOMIZE a HOUSECAT! +% +Alright, you!! Imitate a WOUNDED SEAL pleading for a PARKING SPACE!! +% +Am I accompanied by a PARENT or GUARDIAN? +% +Am I elected yet? +% +Am I in GRADUATE SCHOOL yet? +% +Am I SHOPLIFTING? +% +America!! I saw it all!! Vomiting! Waving! JERRY FALWELLING into +your void tube of UHF oblivion!! SAFEWAY of the mind ... +% +An air of FRENCH FRIES permeates my nostrils!! +% +An INK-LING? Sure -- TAKE one!! Did you BUY any COMMUNIST UNIFORMS?? +% +An Italian is COMBING his hair in suburban DES MOINES! +% +And furthermore, my bowling average is unimpeachable!!! +% +ANN JILLIAN'S HAIR makes LONI ANDERSON'S HAIR look like RICARDO +MONTALBAN'S HAIR! +% +Are the STEWED PRUNES still in the HAIR DRYER? +% +Are we live or on tape? +% +Are we on STRIKE yet? +% +Are we THERE yet? +% +Are we THERE yet? My MIND is a SUBMARINE!! +% +Are you mentally here at Pizza Hut?? +% +Are you selling NYLON OIL WELLS?? If so, we can use TWO DOZEN!! +% +Are you still an ALCOHOLIC? +% +As President I have to go vacuum my coin collection! +% +Awright, which one of you hid my PENIS ENVY? +% +BARBARA STANWYCK makes me nervous!! +% +Barbie says, Take quaaludes in gin and go to a disco right away! +But Ken says, WOO-WOO!! No credit at "Mr. Liquor"!! +% +BARRY ... That was the most HEART-WARMING rendition of "I DID IT MY +WAY" I've ever heard!! +% +Being a BALD HERO is almost as FESTIVE as a TATTOOED KNOCKWURST. +% +BELA LUGOSI is my co-pilot ... +% +BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI- +% +... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ... +% +Bo Derek ruined my life! +% +Boy, am I glad it's only 1971... +% +Boys, you have ALL been selected to LEAVE th' PLANET in 15 minutes!! +% +But they went to MARS around 1953!! +% +But was he mature enough last night at the lesbian masquerade? +% +Can I have an IMPULSE ITEM instead? +% +Can you MAIL a BEAN CAKE? +% +Catsup and Mustard all over the place! It's the Human Hamburger! +% +CHUBBY CHECKER just had a CHICKEN SANDWICH in downtown DULUTH! +% +Civilization is fun! Anyway, it keeps me busy!! +% +Clear the laundromat!! This whirl-o-matic just had a nuclear meltdown!! +% +Concentrate on th'cute, li'l CARTOON GUYS! Remember the SERIAL +NUMBERS!! Follow the WHIPPLE AVE. EXIT!! Have a FREE PEPSI!! Turn +LEFT at th'HOLIDAY INN!! JOIN the CREDIT WORLD!! MAKE me an OFFER!!! +% +CONGRATULATIONS! Now should I make thinly veiled comments about +DIGNITY, self-esteem and finding TRUE FUN in your RIGHT VENTRICLE?? +% +Content: 80% POLYESTER, 20% DACRONi ... The waitress's UNIFORM sheds +TARTAR SAUCE like an 8" by 10" GLOSSY ... +% +Could I have a drug overdose? +% +Did an Italian CRANE OPERATOR just experience uninhibited sensations in +a MALIBU HOT TUB? +% +Did I do an INCORRECT THING?? +% +Did I say I was a sardine? Or a bus??? +% +Did I SELL OUT yet?? +% +Did YOU find a DIGITAL WATCH in YOUR box of VELVEETA? +% +Did you move a lot of KOREAN STEAK KNIVES this trip, Dingy? +% +DIDI ... is that a MARTIAN name, or, are we in ISRAEL? +% +Didn't I buy a 1951 Packard from you last March in Cairo? +% +Disco oil bussing will create a throbbing naugahide pipeline running +straight to the tropics from the rug producing regions and devalue the dollar! +% +Do I have a lifestyle yet? +% +Do you guys know we just passed thru a BLACK HOLE in space? +% +Do you have exactly what I want in a plaid poindexter bar bat?? +% +Do you like "TENDER VITTLES"? +% +Do you think the "Monkees" should get gas on odd or even days? +% +Does someone from PEORIA have a SHORTER ATTENTION span than me? +% +does your DRESSING ROOM have enough ASPARAGUS? +% +DON'T go!! I'm not HOWARD COSELL!! I know POLISH JOKES ... WAIT!! +Don't go!! I AM Howard Cosell! ... And I DON'T know Polish jokes!! +% +Don't hit me!! I'm in the Twilight Zone!!! +% +Don't SANFORIZE me!! +% +Don't worry, nobody really LISTENS to lectures in MOSCOW, either! ... +FRENCH, HISTORY, ADVANCED CALCULUS, COMPUTER PROGRAMMING, BLACK +STUDIES, SOCIOBIOLOGY! ... Are there any QUESTIONS?? +% +Edwin Meese made me wear CORDOVANS!! +% +Eisenhower!! Your mimeograph machine upsets my stomach!! +% +Either CONFESS now or we go to "PEOPLE'S COURT"!! +% +Everybody gets free BORSCHT! +% +Everybody is going somewhere!! It's probably a garage sale or a +disaster Movie!! +% +Everywhere I look I see NEGATIVITY and ASPHALT ... +% +Excuse me, but didn't I tell you there's NO HOPE for the survival of +OFFSET PRINTING? +% +FEELINGS are cascading over me!!! +% +Finally, Zippy drives his 1958 RAMBLER METROPOLITAN into the faculty +dining room. +% +First, I'm going to give you all the ANSWERS to today's test ... So +just plug in your SONY WALKMANS and relax!! +% +FOOLED you! Absorb EGO SHATTERING impulse rays, polyester poltroon!! +% +for ARTIFICIAL FLAVORING!! +% +Four thousand different MAGNATES, MOGULS & NABOBS are romping in my +gothic solarium!! +% +FROZEN ENTREES may be flung by members of opposing SWANSON SECTS ... +% +FUN is never having to say you're SUSHI!! +% +Gee, I feel kind of LIGHT in the head now, knowing I can't make my +satellite dish PAYMENTS! +% +Gibble, Gobble, we ACCEPT YOU ... +% +Give them RADAR-GUIDED SKEE-BALL LANES and VELVEETA BURRITOS!! +% +Go on, EMOTE! I was RAISED on thought balloons!! +% +GOOD-NIGHT, everybody ... Now I have to go administer FIRST-AID to my +pet LEISURE SUIT!! +% +HAIR TONICS, please!! +% +Half a mind is a terrible thing to waste! +% +Hand me a pair of leather pants and a CASIO keyboard -- I'm living for today! +% +Has everybody got HALVAH spread all over their ANKLES?? ... Now, it's +time to "HAVE A NAGEELA"!! +% +... he dominates the DECADENT SUBWAY SCENE. +% +He is the MELBA-BEING ... the ANGEL CAKE ... XEROX him ... XEROX him -- +% +He probably just wants to take over my CELLS and then EXPLODE inside me +like a BARREL of runny CHOPPED LIVER! Or maybe he'd like to +PSYCHOLIGICALLY TERRORISE ME until I have no objection to a RIGHT-WING +MILITARY TAKEOVER of my apartment!! I guess I should call AL PACINO! +% +HELLO KITTY gang terrorizes town, family STICKERED to death! +% +HELLO, everybody, I'm a HUMAN!! +% +Hello, GORRY-O!! I'm a GENIUS from HARVARD!! +% +Hello. I know the divorce rate among unmarried Catholic Alaskan females!! +% +Hello. Just walk along and try NOT to think about your INTESTINES +being almost FORTY YARDS LONG!! +% +Hello... IRON CURTAIN? Send over a SAUSAGE PIZZA! World War III? No thanks! +% +Hello? Enema Bondage? I'm calling because I want to be happy, I guess ... +% +Here I am at the flea market but nobody is buying my urine sample bottles ... +% +Here I am in 53 B.C. and all I want is a dill pickle!! +% +Here I am in the POSTERIOR OLFACTORY LOBULE but I don't see CARL SAGAN +anywhere!! +% +Here we are in America ... when do we collect unemployment? +% +Hey, wait a minute!! I want a divorce!! ... you're not Clint Eastwood!! +% +Hey, waiter! I want a NEW SHIRT and a PONY TAIL with lemon sauce! +% +Hiccuping & trembling into the WASTE DUMPS of New Jersey like some +drunken CABBAGE PATCH DOLL, coughing in line at FIORUCCI'S!! +% +Hmmm ... a CRIPPLED ACCOUNTANT with a FALAFEL sandwich is HIT by a +TROLLEY-CAR ... +% +Hmmm ... A hash-singer and a cross-eyed guy were SLEEPING on a deserted +island, when ... +% +Hmmm ... a PINHEAD, during an EARTHQUAKE, encounters an ALL-MIDGET +FIDDLE ORCHESTRA ... ha ... ha ... +% +Hmmm ... an arrogant bouquet with a subtle suggestion of POLYVINYL +CHLORIDE ... +% +Hold the MAYO & pass the COSMIC AWARENESS ... +% +HOORAY, Ronald!! Now YOU can marry LINDA RONSTADT too!! +% +How do I get HOME? +% +How do you explain Wayne Newton's POWER over millions? It's th' MOUSTACHE +... Have you ever noticed th' way it radiates SINCERITY, HONESTY & WARMTH? +It's a MOUSTACHE you want to take HOME and introduce to NANCY SINATRA! +% +How many retured bricklayers from FLORIDA are out purchasing PENCIL +SHARPENERS right NOW?? +% +How's it going in those MODULAR LOVE UNITS?? +% +How's the wife? Is she at home enjoying capitalism? +% +hubub, hubub, HUBUB, hubub, hubub, hubub, HUBUB, hubub, hubub, hubub. +% +HUGH BEAUMONT died in 1982!! +% +HUMAN REPLICAS are inserted into VATS of NUTRITIONAL YEAST ... +% +I always have fun because I'm out of my mind!!! +% +I am a jelly donut. I am a jelly donut. +% +I am a traffic light, and Alan Ginzberg kidnapped my laundry in 1927! +% +I am covered with pure vegetable oil and I am writing a best seller! +% +I am deeply CONCERNED and I want something GOOD for BREAKFAST! +% +I am having FUN... I wonder if it's NET FUN or GROSS FUN? +% +I am NOT a nut.... +% +I appoint you ambassador to Fantasy Island!!! +% +I brought my BOWLING BALL -- and some DRUGS!! +% +I can't decide which WRONG TURN to make first!! I wonder if BOB +GUCCIONE has these problems! +% +I can't think about that. It doesn't go with HEDGES in the shape of +LITTLE LULU -- or ROBOTS making BRICKS ... +% +I demand IMPUNITY! +% +I didn't order any WOO-WOO ... Maybe a YUBBA ... But no WOO-WOO! +% +I don't believe there really IS a GAS SHORTAGE.. I think it's all just +a BIG HOAX on the part of the plastic sign salesmen -- to sell more numbers!! +% +... I don't know why but, suddenly, I want to discuss declining I.Q. +LEVELS with a blue ribbon SENATE SUB-COMMITTEE! +% +I don't know WHY I said that ... I think it came from the FILLINGS in +my read molars ... +% +... I don't like FRANK SINATRA or his CHILDREN. +% +I don't understand the HUMOUR of the THREE STOOGES!! +% +I feel ... JUGULAR ... +% +I feel better about world problems now! +% +I feel like a wet parking meter on Darvon! +% +I feel like I am sharing a ``CORN-DOG'' with NIKITA KHRUSCHEV ... +% +I feel like I'm in a Toilet Bowl with a thumbtack in my forehead!! +% +I feel partially hydrogenated! +% +I fill MY industrial waste containers with old copies of the "WATCHTOWER" +and then add HAWAIIAN PUNCH to the top ... They look NICE in the yard ... +% +I guess it was all a DREAM ... or an episode of HAWAII FIVE-O ... +% +I guess you guys got BIG MUSCLES from doing too much STUDYING! +% +I had a lease on an OEDIPUS COMPLEX back in '81 ... +% +I had pancake makeup for brunch! +% +I have a TINY BOWL in my HEAD +% +I have a very good DENTAL PLAN. Thank you. +% +I have a VISION! It's a RANCID double-FISHWICH on an ENRICHED BUN!! +% +I have accepted Provolone into my life! +% +I have many CHARTS and DIAGRAMS.. +% +... I have read the INSTRUCTIONS ... +% +-- I have seen the FUN -- +% +I have seen these EGG EXTENDERS in my Supermarket ... I have read the +INSTRUCTIONS ... +% +I have the power to HALT PRODUCTION on all TEENAGE SEX COMEDIES!! +% +I HAVE to buy a new "DODGE MISER" and two dozen JORDACHE JEANS because +my viewscreen is "USER-FRIENDLY"!! +% +I haven't been married in over six years, but we had sexual counseling +every day from Oral Roberts!! +% +I hope I bought the right relish ... zzzzzzzzz ... +% +I hope something GOOD came in the mail today so I have a REASON to live!! +% +I hope the ``Eurythmics'' practice birth control ... +% +I hope you millionaires are having fun! I just invested half your life +savings in yeast!! +% +I invented skydiving in 1989! +% +I joined scientology at a garage sale!! +% +I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!! +% +I just got my PRINCE bumper sticker ... But now I can't remember WHO he is ... +% +I just had a NOSE JOB!! +% +I just had my entire INTESTINAL TRACT coated with TEFLON! +% +I just heard the SEVENTIES were over!! And I was just getting in touch +with my LEISURE SUIT!! +% +I just remembered something about a TOAD! +% +I KAISER ROLL?! What good is a Kaiser Roll without a little COLE SLAW +on the SIDE? +% +I Know A Joke!! +% +I know how to do SPECIAL EFFECTS!! +% +I know th'MAMBO!! I have a TWO-TONE CHEMISTRY SET!! +% +I know things about TROY DONAHUE that can't even be PRINTED!! +% +I left my WALLET in the BATHROOM!! +% +I like the way ONLY their mouths move ... They look like DYING OYSTERS +% +I like your SNOOPY POSTER!! +% +-- I love KATRINKA because she drives a PONTIAC. We're going away +now. I fed the cat. +% +I love ROCK 'N ROLL! I memorized the all WORDS to "WIPE-OUT" in +1965!! +% +I need to discuss BUY-BACK PROVISIONS with at least six studio SLEAZEBALLS!! +% +I once decorated my apartment entirely in ten foot salad forks!! +% +I own seven-eighths of all the artists in downtown Burbank! +% +I put aside my copy of "BOWLING WORLD" and think about GUN CONTROL +legislation... +% +I represent a sardine!! +% +I request a weekend in Havana with Phil Silvers! +% +... I see TOILET SEATS ... +% +I selected E5 ... but I didn't hear "Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs"! +% +I smell a RANCID CORN DOG! +% +I smell like a wet reducing clinic on Columbus Day! +% +I think I am an overnight sensation right now!! +% +... I think I'd better go back to my DESK and toy with a few common +MISAPPREHENSIONS ... +% +I think I'll KILL myself by leaping out of this 14th STORY WINDOW while +reading ERICA JONG'S poetry!! +% +I think my career is ruined! +% +I used to be a FUNDAMENTALIST, but then I heard about the HIGH +RADIATION LEVELS and bought an ENCYCLOPEDIA!! +% +... I want a COLOR T.V. and a VIBRATING BED!!! +% +I want a VEGETARIAN BURRITO to go ... with EXTRA MSG!! +% +I want a WESSON OIL lease!! +% +I want another RE-WRITE on my CEASAR SALAD!! +% +I want EARS! I want two ROUND BLACK EARS to make me feel warm 'n secure!! +% +... I want FORTY-TWO TRYNEL FLOATATION SYSTEMS installed within +SIX AND A HALF HOURS!!! +% +I want the presidency so bad I can already taste the hors d'oeuvres. +% +I want to dress you up as TALLULAH BANKHEAD and cover you with VASELINE +and WHEAT THINS ... +% +I want to kill everyone here with a cute colorful Hydrogen Bomb!! +% +... I want to perform cranial activities with Tuesday Weld!! +% +I want to read my new poem about pork brains and outer space ... +% +I want to so HAPPY, the VEINS in my neck STAND OUT!! +% +I want you to MEMORIZE the collected poems of EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY +... BACKWARDS!! +% +I want you to organize my PASTRY trays ... my TEA-TINS are gleaming in +formation like a ROW of DRUM MAJORETTES -- please don't be FURIOUS with me -- +% +I was born in a Hostess Cupcake factory before the sexual revolution! +% +I was making donuts and now I'm on a bus! +% +I wish I was a sex-starved manicurist found dead in the Bronx!! +% +I wish I was on a Cincinnati street corner holding a clean dog! +% +I wonder if I could ever get started in the credit world? +% +I wonder if I ought to tell them about my PREVIOUS LIFE as a COMPLETE +STRANGER? +% +I wonder if I should put myself in ESCROW!! +% +I wonder if there's anything GOOD on tonight? +% +I would like to urinate in an OVULAR, porcelain pool -- +% +I'd like MY data-base JULIENNED and stir-fried! +% +I'd like some JUNK FOOD ... and then I want to be ALONE -- +% +I'll eat ANYTHING that's BRIGHT BLUE!! +% +I'll show you MY telex number if you show me YOURS ... +% +I'm a fuschia bowling ball somewhere in Brittany +% +I'm a GENIUS! I want to dispute sentence structure with SUSAN SONTAG!! +% +I'm a nuclear submarine under the polar ice cap and I need a Kleenex! +% +I'm also against BODY-SURFING!! +% +I'm also pre-POURED pre-MEDITATED and pre-RAPHAELITE!! +% +I'm ANN LANDERS!! I can SHOPLIFT!! +% +I'm changing the CHANNEL ... But all I get is commercials for "RONCO +MIRACLE BAMBOO STEAMERS"! +% +I'm continually AMAZED at th'breathtaking effects of WIND EROSION!! +% +I'm definitely not in Omaha! +% +I'm DESPONDENT ... I hope there's something DEEP-FRIED under this +miniature DOMED STADIUM ... +% +I'm dressing up in an ill-fitting IVY-LEAGUE SUIT!! Too late... +% +I'm EMOTIONAL now because I have MERCHANDISING CLOUT!! +% +I'm encased in the lining of a pure pork sausage!! +% +I'm GLAD I remembered to XEROX all my UNDERSHIRTS!! +% +I'm gliding over a NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP near ATLANTA, Georgia!! +% +I'm having a BIG BANG THEORY!! +% +I'm having a MID-WEEK CRISIS! +% +I'm having a RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE ... and I don't take any DRUGS +% +I'm having a tax-deductible experience! I need an energy crunch!! +% +I'm having an emotional outburst!! +% +I'm having an EMOTIONAL OUTBURST!! But, uh, WHY is there a WAFFLE in +my PAJAMA POCKET?? +% +I'm having BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS about the INSIPID WIVES of smug and +wealthy CORPORATE LAWYERS ... +% +I'm having fun HITCHHIKING to CINCINNATI or FAR ROCKAWAY!! +% +... I'm IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK ROOM +of a KOSHER DELI -- +% +I'm in direct contact with many advanced fun CONCEPTS. +% +I'm into SOFTWARE! +% +I'm meditating on the FORMALDEHYDE and the ASBESTOS leaking into my +PERSONAL SPACE!! +% +I'm mentally OVERDRAWN! What's that SIGNPOST up ahead? Where's ROD +STERLING when you really need him? +% +I'm not an Iranian!! I voted for Dianne Feinstein!! +% +I'm not available for comment.. +% +I'm pretending I'm pulling in a TROUT! Am I doing it correctly?? +% +I'm pretending that we're all watching PHIL SILVERS instead of RICARDO +MONTALBAN! +% +I'm QUIETLY reading the latest issue of "BOWLING WORLD" while my wife +and two children stand QUIETLY BY ... +% +I'm rated PG-34!! +% +I'm receiving a coded message from EUBIE BLAKE!! +% +I'm RELIGIOUS!! I love a man with a HAIRPIECE!! Equip me with MISSILES!! +% +I'm reporting for duty as a modern person. I want to do the Latin Hustle now! +% +I'm shaving!! I'M SHAVING!! +% +I'm sitting on my SPEED QUEEN ... To me, it's ENJOYABLE ... I'm WARM +... I'm VIBRATORY ... +% +I'm thinking about DIGITAL READ-OUT systems and computer-generated +IMAGE FORMATIONS ... +% +I'm totally DESPONDENT over the LIBYAN situation and the price of CHICKEN ... +% +I'm using my X-RAY VISION to obtain a rare glimpse of the INNER +WORKINGS of this POTATO!! +% +I'm wearing PAMPERS!! +% +I'm wet! I'm wild! +% +I'm young ... I'm HEALTHY ... I can HIKE THRU CAPT GROGAN'S LUMBAR REGIONS! +% +I'm ZIPPY the PINHEAD and I'm totally committed to the festive mode. +% +I've got a COUSIN who works in the GARMENT DISTRICT ... +% +I've got an IDEA!! Why don't I STARE at you so HARD, you forget your +SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER!! +% +I've read SEVEN MILLION books!! +% +... ich bin in einem dusenjet ins jahr 53 vor chr ... ich lande im +antiken Rom ... einige gladiatoren spielen scrabble ... ich rieche +PIZZA ... +% +If a person is FAMOUS in this country, they have to go on the ROAD for +MONTHS at a time and have their name misspelled on the SIDE of a +GREYHOUND SCENICRUISER!! +% +If elected, Zippy pledges to each and every American a 55-year-old houseboy ... +% +If I am elected no one will ever have to do their laundry again! +% +If I am elected, the concrete barriers around the WHITE HOUSE will be +replaced by tasteful foam replicas of ANN MARGARET! +% +If I felt any more SOPHISTICATED I would DIE of EMBARRASSMENT! +% +If I had a Q-TIP, I could prevent th' collapse of NEGOTIATIONS!! +% +... If I had heart failure right now, I couldn't be a more fortunate man!! +% +If I pull this SWITCH I'll be RITA HAYWORTH!! Or a SCIENTOLOGIST! +% +if it GLISTENS, gobble it!! +% +If our behavior is strict, we do not need fun! +% +If Robert Di Niro assassinates Walter Slezak, will Jodie Foster marry Bonzo?? +% +In 1962, you could buy a pair of SHARKSKIN SLACKS, with a "Continental +Belt," for $10.99!! +% +In Newark the laundromats are open 24 hours a day! +% +INSIDE, I have the same personality disorder as LUCY RICARDO!! +% +Inside, I'm already SOBBING! +% +Is a tattoo real, like a curb or a battleship? Or are we suffering in Safeway? +% +Is he the MAGIC INCA carrying a FROG on his shoulders?? Is the FROG +his GUIDELIGHT?? It is curious that a DOG runs already on the ESCALATOR ... +% +Is it 1974? What's for SUPPER? Can I spend my COLLEGE FUND in one +wild afternoon?? +% +Is it clean in other dimensions? +% +Is it NOUVELLE CUISINE when 3 olives are struggling with a scallop in a +plate of SAUCE MORNAY? +% +Is something VIOLENT going to happen to a GARBAGE CAN? +% +Is this an out-take from the "BRADY BUNCH"? +% +Is this going to involve RAW human ecstasy? +% +Is this TERMINAL fun? +% +Is this the line for the latest whimsical YUGOSLAVIAN drama which also +makes you want to CRY and reconsider the VIETNAM WAR? +% +Isn't this my STOP?! +% +It don't mean a THING if you ain't got that SWING!! +% +It was a JOKE!! Get it?? I was receiving messages from DAVID LETTERMAN!! +YOW!! +% +It's a lot of fun being alive ... I wonder if my bed is made?!? +% +It's NO USE ... I've gone to "CLUB MED"!! +% +It's OBVIOUS ... The FURS never reached ISTANBUL ... You were an EXTRA +in the REMAKE of "TOPKAPI" ... Go home to your WIFE ... She's making +FRENCH TOAST! +% +It's OKAY -- I'm an INTELLECTUAL, too. +% +It's the RINSE CYCLE!! They've ALL IGNORED the RINSE CYCLE!! +% +JAPAN is a WONDERFUL planet -- I wonder if we'll ever reach their level +of COMPARATIVE SHOPPING ... +% +Jesuit priests are DATING CAREER DIPLOMATS!! +% +Jesus is my POSTMASTER GENERAL ... +% +Kids, don't gross me off ... "Adventures with MENTAL HYGIENE" can be +carried too FAR! +% +Kids, the seven basic food groups are GUM, PUFF PASTRY, PIZZA, +PESTICIDES, ANTIBIOTICS, NUTRA-SWEET and MILK DUDS!! +% +Laundry is the fifth dimension!! ... um ... um ... th' washing machine +is a black hole and the pink socks are bus drivers who just fell in!! +% +LBJ, LBJ, how many JOKES did you tell today??! +% +Leona, I want to CONFESS things to you ... I want to WRAP you in a SCARLET +ROBE trimmed with POLYVINYL CHLORIDE ... I want to EMPTY your ASHTRAYS ... +% +Let me do my TRIBUTE to FISHNET STOCKINGS ... +% +Let's all show human CONCERN for REVERAND MOON's legal difficulties!! +% +Let's send the Russians defective lifestyle accessories! +% +Life is a POPULARITY CONTEST! I'm REFRESHINGLY CANDID!! +% +Like I always say -- nothing can beat the BRATWURST here in DUSSELDORF!! +% +Loni Anderson's hair should be LEGALIZED!! +% +Look DEEP into the OPENINGS!! Do you see any ELVES or EDSELS ... or a +HIGHBALL?? ... +% +Look into my eyes and try to forget that you have a Macy's charge card! +% +Look! A ladder! Maybe it leads to heaven, or a sandwich! +% +LOOK!! Sullen American teens wearing MADRAS shorts and "Flock of +Seagulls" HAIRCUTS! +% +Make me look like LINDA RONSTADT again!! +% +Mary Tyler Moore's SEVENTH HUSBAND is wearing my DACRON TANK TOP in a +cheap hotel in HONOLULU! +% +Maybe we could paint GOLDIE HAWN a rich PRUSSIAN BLUE -- +% +MERYL STREEP is my obstetrician! +% +MMM-MM!! So THIS is BIO-NEBULATION! +% +Mmmmmm-MMMMMM!! A plate of STEAMING PIECES of a PIG mixed with the +shreds of SEVERAL CHICKENS!! ... Oh BOY!! I'm about to swallow a +TORN-OFF section of a COW'S LEFT LEG soaked in COTTONSEED OIL and +SUGAR!! ... Let's see ... Next, I'll have the GROUND-UP flesh of CUTE, +BABY LAMBS fried in the MELTED, FATTY TISSUES from a warm-blooded +animal someone once PETTED!! ... YUM!! That was GOOD!! For DESSERT, +I'll have a TOFU BURGER with BEAN SPROUTS on a stone-ground, WHOLE +WHEAT BUN!! +% +Mr and Mrs PED, can I borrow 26.7% of the RAYON TEXTILE production of +the INDONESIAN archipelago? +% +My Aunt MAUREEN was a military advisor to IKE & TINA TURNER!! +% +My BIOLOGICAL ALARM CLOCK just went off ... It has noiseless DOZE +FUNCTION and full kitchen!! +% +My CODE of ETHICS is vacationing at famed SCHROON LAKE in upstate New York!! +% +My EARS are GONE!! +% +My face is new, my license is expired, and I'm under a doctor's care!!!! +% +My haircut is totally traditional! +% +MY income is ALL disposable! +% +My LESLIE GORE record is BROKEN ... +% +My life is a patio of fun! +% +My mind is a potato field ... +% +My mind is making ashtrays in Dayton ... +% +My nose feels like a bad Ronald Reagan movie ... +% +My NOSE is NUMB! +% +... My pants just went on a wild rampage through a Long Island Bowling Alley!! +% +My pants just went to high school in the Carlsbad Caverns!!! +% +My polyvinyl cowboy wallet was made in Hong Kong by Montgomery Clift! +% +My uncle Murray conquered Egypt in 53 B.C. And I can prove it too!! +% +My vaseline is RUNNING... +% +NANCY!! Why is everything RED?! +% +NATHAN ... your PARENTS were in a CARCRASH!! They're VOIDED -- They +COLLAPSED They had no CHAINSAWS ... They had no MONEY MACHINES ... They +did PILLS in SKIMPY GRASS SKIRTS ... Nathan, I EMULATED them ... but +they were OFF-KEY ... +% +NEWARK has been REZONED!! DES MOINES has been REZONED!! +% +Nipples, dimples, knuckles, NICKLES, wrinkles, pimples!! +% +Not SENSUOUS ... only "FROLICSOME" ... and in need of DENTAL WORK ... in PAIN!!! +% +Now I am depressed ... +% +Now I think I just reached the state of HYPERTENSION that comes JUST +BEFORE you see the TOTAL at the SAFEWAY CHECKOUT COUNTER! +% +Now I understand the meaning of "THE MOD SQUAD"! +% +Now I'm being INVOLUNTARILY shuffled closer to the CLAM DIP with the +BROKEN PLASTIC FORKS in it!! +% +Now I'm concentrating on a specific tank battle toward the end of World War II! +% +Now I'm having INSIPID THOUGHTS about the beatiful, round wives of +HOLLYWOOD MOVIE MOGULS encased in PLEXIGLASS CARS and being approached +by SMALL BOYS selling FRUIT ... +% +Now KEN and BARBIE are PERMANENTLY ADDICTED to MIND-ALTERING DRUGS ... +% +Now my EMOTIONAL RESOURCES are heavily committed to 23% of the SMELTING +and REFINING industry of the state of NEVADA!! +% +Now that I have my "APPLE", I comprehend COST ACCOUNTING!! +% +Now, let's SEND OUT for QUICHE!! +% +Of course, you UNDERSTAND about the PLAIDS in the SPIN CYCLE -- +% +Oh my GOD -- the SUN just fell into YANKEE STADIUM!! +% +Oh, I get it!! "The BEACH goes on", huh, SONNY?? +% +Okay ... I'm going home to write the "I HATE RUBIK's CUBE HANDBOOK FOR +DEAD CAT LOVERS" ... +% +OKAY!! Turn on the sound ONLY for TRYNEL CARPETING, FULLY-EQUIPPED +R.V.'S and FLOATATION SYSTEMS!! +% +OMNIVERSAL AWARENESS?? Oh, YEH!! First you need four GALLONS of JELL-O +and a BIG WRENCH!! ... I think you drop th'WRENCH in the JELL-O as if +it was a FLAVOR, or an INGREDIENT ... ... or ... I ... um ... WHERE'S +the WASHING MACHINES? +% +On SECOND thought, maybe I'll heat up some BAKED BEANS and watch REGIS +PHILBIN ... It's GREAT to be ALIVE!! +% +On the other hand, life can be an endless parade of TRANSSEXUAL +QUILTING BEES aboard a cruise ship to DISNEYWORLD if only we let it!! +% +On the road, ZIPPY is a pinhead without a purpose, but never without a POINT. +% +Once upon a time, four AMPHIBIOUS HOG CALLERS attacked a family of +DEFENSELESS, SENSITIVE COIN COLLECTORS and brought DOWN their PROPERTY +VALUES!! +% +Once, there was NO fun ... This was before MENU planning, FASHION +statements or NAUTILUS equipment ... Then, in 1985 ... FUN was +completely encoded in this tiny MICROCHIP ... It contain 14,768 vaguely +amusing SIT-COM pilots!! We had to wait FOUR BILLION years but we +finally got JERRY LEWIS, MTV and a large selection of creme-filled +snack cakes! +% +One FISHWICH coming up!! +% +ONE LIFE TO LIVE for ALL MY CHILDREN in ANOTHER WORLD all THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES. +% +ONE: I will donate my entire "BABY HUEY" comic book collection to + the downtown PLASMA CENTER ... +TWO: I won't START a BAND called "KHADAFY & THE HIT SQUAD" ... +THREE: I won't ever TUMBLE DRY my FOX TERRIER again!! +% +... or were you driving the PONTIAC that HONKED at me in MIAMI last Tuesday? +% +Our father who art in heaven ... I sincerely pray that SOMEBODY at this +table will PAY for my SHREDDED WHEAT and ENGLISH MUFFIN ... and also +leave a GENEROUS TIP .... +% +over in west Philadelphia a puppy is vomiting ... +% +OVER the underpass! UNDER the overpass! Around the FUTURE and BEYOND REPAIR!! +% +PARDON me, am I speaking ENGLISH? +% +Pardon me, but do you know what it means to be TRULY ONE with your BOOTH! +% +PEGGY FLEMMING is stealing BASKET BALLS to feed the babies in VERMONT. +% +People humiliating a salami! +% +PIZZA!! +% +Place me on a BUFFER counter while you BELITTLE several BELLHOPS in the +Trianon Room!! Let me one of your SUBSIDIARIES! +% +Please come home with me ... I have Tylenol!! +% +Psychoanalysis?? I thought this was a nude rap session!!! +% +PUNK ROCK!! DISCO DUCK!! BIRTH CONTROL!! +% +Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!! +% +RELATIVES!! +% +Remember, in 2039, MOUSSE & PASTA will be available ONLY by prescription!! +% +RHAPSODY in Glue! +% +SANTA CLAUS comes down a FIRE ESCAPE wearing bright blue LEG WARMERS +... He scrubs the POPE with a mild soap or detergent for 15 minutes, +starring JANE FONDA!! +% +Send your questions to ``ASK ZIPPY'', Box 40474, San Francisco, CA +94140, USA +% +SHHHH!! I hear SIX TATTOOED TRUCK-DRIVERS tossing ENGINE BLOCKS into +empty OIL DRUMS ... +% +Should I do my BOBBIE VINTON medley? +% +Should I get locked in the PRINCICAL'S OFFICE today -- or have a VASECTOMY?? +% +Should I start with the time I SWITCHED personalities with a BEATNIK +hair stylist or my failure to refer five TEENAGERS to a good OCULIST? +% +Sign my PETITION. +% +So this is what it feels like to be potato salad +% +So, if we convert SUPPLY-SIDE SOYABEAN FUTURES into HIGH-YIELD T-BILL +INDICATORS, the PRE-INFLATIONARY risks will DWINDLE to a rate of 2 +SHOPPING SPREES per EGGPLANT!! +% +Someone in DAYTON, Ohio is selling USED CARPETS to a SERBO-CROATIAN +% +Sometime in 1993 NANCY SINATRA will lead a BLOODLESS COUP on GUAM!! +% +Somewhere in DOWNTOWN BURBANK a prostitute is OVERCOOKING a LAMB CHOP!! +% +Somewhere in suburban Honolulu, an unemployed bellhop is whipping up a +batch of illegal psilocybin chop suey!! +% +Somewhere in Tenafly, New Jersey, a chiropractor is viewing "Leave it +to Beaver"! +% +Spreading peanut butter reminds me of opera!! I wonder why? +% +TAILFINS!! ... click ... +% + Talking Pinhead Blues: +Oh, I LOST my ``HELLO KITTY'' DOLL and I get BAD reception on channel + TWENTY-SIX!! + +Th'HOSTESS FACTORY is closin' down and I just heard ZASU PITTS has been + DEAD for YEARS.. (sniff) + +My PLATFORM SHOE collection was CHEWED up by th' dog, ALEXANDER HAIG + won't let me take a SHOWER 'til Easter ... (snurf) + +So I went to the kitchen, but WALNUT PANELING whup me upside mah HAID!! + (on no, no, no.. Heh, heh) +% +TAPPING? You POLITICIANS! Don't you realize that the END of the "Wash +Cycle" is a TREASURED MOMENT for most people?! +% +Tex SEX! The HOME of WHEELS! The dripping of COFFEE!! Take me to +Minnesota but don't EMBARRASS me!! +% +Th' MIND is the Pizza Palace of th' SOUL +% +Thank god!! ... It's HENNY YOUNGMAN!! +% +The appreciation of the average visual graphisticator alone is worth +the whole suaveness and decadence which abounds!! +% +The entire CHINESE WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL TEAM all share ONE personality -- +and have since BIRTH!! +% +The fact that 47 PEOPLE are yelling and sweat is cascading down my +SPINAL COLUMN is fairly enjoyable!! +% +The FALAFEL SANDWICH lands on my HEAD and I become a VEGETARIAN ... +% +... the HIGHWAY is made out of LIME JELLO and my HONDA is a barbequeued +OYSTER! Yum! +% +The Korean War must have been fun. +% +... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!! +% +The Osmonds! You are all Osmonds!! Throwing up on a freeway at dawn!!! +% +The PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY is CRYING for an END to BURT REYNOLDS movies!! +% +The PINK SOCKS were ORIGINALLY from 1952!! But they went to MARS +around 1953!! +% +The SAME WAVE keeps coming in and COLLAPSING like a rayon MUU-MUU ... +% +There is no TRUTH. There is no REALITY. There is no CONSISTENCY. +There are no ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS. I'm very probably wrong. +% +There's a little picture of ED MCMAHON doing BAD THINGS to JOAN RIVERS +in a $200,000 MALIBU BEACH HOUSE!! +% +There's enough money here to buy 5000 cans of Noodle-Roni! +% + "These are DARK TIMES for all mankind's HIGHEST VALUES!" + "These are DARK TIMES for FREEDOM and PROSPERITY!" + "These are GREAT TIMES to put your money on BAD GUY to kick the CRAP +out of MEGATON MAN!" +% +These PRESERVES should be FORCE-FED to PENTAGON OFFICIALS!! +% +They collapsed ... like nuns in the street ... they had no teen +appeal! +% +This ASEXUAL PIG really BOILS my BLOOD ... He's so ... so ... URGENT!! +% +"This is a job for BOB VIOLENCE and SCUM, the INCREDIBLY STUPID MUTANT DOG." + -- Bob Violence +% +This is a NO-FRILLS flight -- hold th' CANADIAN BACON!! +% +This MUST be a good party -- My RIB CAGE is being painfully pressed up +against someone's MARTINI!! +% +... this must be what it's like to be a COLLEGE GRADUATE!! +% +This PIZZA symbolizes my COMPLETE EMOTIONAL RECOVERY!! +% +This PORCUPINE knows his ZIPCODE ... And he has "VISA"!! +% +This TOPS OFF my partygoing experience! Someone I DON'T LIKE is +talking to me about a HEART-WARMING European film ... +% +Those aren't WINOS -- that's my JUGGLER, my AERIALIST, my SWORD +SWALLOWER, and my LATEX NOVELTY SUPPLIER!! +% +Thousands of days of civilians ... have produced a ... feeling for the +aesthetic modules -- +% +Today, THREE WINOS from DETROIT sold me a framed photo of TAB HUNTER +before his MAKEOVER! +% +Toes, knees, NIPPLES. Toes, knees, nipples, KNUCKLES ... +Nipples, dimples, knuckles, NICKLES, wrinkles, pimples!! +% +TONY RANDALL! Is YOUR life a PATIO of FUN?? +% +Uh-oh -- WHY am I suddenly thinking of a VENERABLE religious leader +frolicking on a FORT LAUDERDALE weekend? +% +Uh-oh!! I forgot to submit to COMPULSORY URINALYSIS! +% +UH-OH!! I put on "GREAT HEAD-ON TRAIN COLLISIONS of the 50's" by +mistake!!! +% +UH-OH!! I think KEN is OVER-DUE on his R.V. PAYMENTS and HE'S having a +NERVOUS BREAKDOWN too!! Ha ha. +% +Uh-oh!! I'm having TOO MUCH FUN!! +% +UH-OH!! We're out of AUTOMOBILE PARTS and RUBBER GOODS! +% +Used staples are good with SOY SAUCE! +% +VICARIOUSLY experience some reason to LIVE!! +% +Vote for ME -- I'm well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived and TAX-DEFERRED! +% +Wait ... is this a FUN THING or the END of LIFE in Petticoat Junction?? +% +Was my SOY LOAF left out in th'RAIN? It tastes REAL GOOD!! +% +We are now enjoying total mutual interaction in an imaginary hot tub ... +% +We have DIFFERENT amounts of HAIR -- +% +We just joined the civil hair patrol! +% +We place two copies of PEOPLE magazine in a DARK, HUMID mobile home. +45 minutes later CYNDI LAUPER emerges wearing a BIRD CAGE on her head! +% +Well, here I am in AMERICA.. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE it. I +HATE it. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE ... +EMOTIONS are SWEEPING over me!! +% +Well, I'm a classic ANAL RETENTIVE!! And I'm looking for a way to +VICARIOUSLY experience some reason to LIVE!! +% +Well, I'm INVISIBLE AGAIN ... I might as well pay a visit to the LADIES +ROOM ... +% +Well, O.K. I'll compromise with my principles because of EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR! +% +Were these parsnips CORRECTLY MARINATED in TACO SAUCE? +% +What a COINCIDENCE! I'm an authorized "SNOOTS OF THE STARS" dealer!! +% +What GOOD is a CARDBOARD suitcase ANYWAY? +% +What I need is a MATURE RELATIONSHIP with a FLOPPY DISK ... +% +What I want to find out is -- do parrots know much about Astro-Turf? +% +What PROGRAM are they watching? +% +What UNIVERSE is this, please?? +% +What's the MATTER Sid? ... Is your BEVERAGE unsatisfactory? +% +When I met th'POPE back in '58, I scrubbed him with a MILD SOAP or +DETERGENT for 15 minutes. He seemed to enjoy it ... +% +When this load is DONE I think I'll wash it AGAIN ... +% +When you get your PH.D. will you get able to work at BURGER KING? +% +When you said "HEAVILY FORESTED" it reminded me of an overdue CLEANING +BILL ... Don't you SEE? O'Grogan SWALLOWED a VALUABLE COIN COLLECTION +and HAD to murder the ONLY MAN who KNEW!! +% +Where do your SOCKS go when you lose them in th' WASHER? +% +Where does it go when you flush? +% +Where's SANDY DUNCAN? +% +Where's th' DAFFY DUCK EXHIBIT?? +% +Where's the Coke machine? Tell me a joke!! +% +While my BRAINPAN is being refused service in BURGER KING, Jesuit +priests are DATING CAREER DIPLOMATS!! +% +While you're chewing, think of STEVEN SPIELBERG'S bank account ... his +will have the same effect as two "STARCH BLOCKERS"! +% +WHO sees a BEACH BUNNY sobbing on a SHAG RUG?! +% +WHOA!! Ken and Barbie are having TOO MUCH FUN!! It must be the +NEGATIVE IONS!! +% +Why are these athletic shoe salesmen following me?? +% +Why don't you ever enter any CONTESTS, Marvin?? Don't you know your +own ZIPCODE? +% +Why is everything made of Lycra Spandex? +% +Why is it that when you DIE, you can't take your HOME ENTERTAINMENT +CENTER with you?? +% +Will it improve my CASH FLOW? +% +Will the third world war keep "Bosom Buddies" off the air? +% +Will this never-ending series of PLEASURABLE EVENTS never cease? +% +With YOU, I can be MYSELF ... We don't NEED Dan Rather ... +% +World War III? No thanks! +% +World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced dress code! +% +Wow! Look!! A stray meatball!! Let's interview it! +% +Xerox your lunch and file it under "sex offenders"! +% +Yes, but will I see the EASTER BUNNY in skintight leather at an IRON +MAIDEN concert? +% +You can't hurt me!! I have an ASSUMABLE MORTGAGE!! +% +You mean now I can SHOOT YOU in the back and further BLUR th' +distinction between FANTASY and REALITY? +% +You mean you don't want to watch WRESTLING from ATLANTA? +% +YOU PICKED KARL MALDEN'S NOSE!! +% +You should all JUMP UP AND DOWN for TWO HOURS while I decide on a NEW CAREER!! +% +You were s'posed to laugh! +% +YOU!! Give me the CUTEST, PINKEST, most charming little VICTORIAN +DOLLHOUSE you can find!! An make it SNAPPY!! +% +Your CHEEKS sit like twin NECTARINES above a MOUTH that knows no BOUNDS -- +% +Youth of today! Join me in a mass rally for traditional mental +attitudes! +% +Yow! +% +Yow! Am I having fun yet? +% +Yow! Am I in Milwaukee? +% +Yow! And then we could sit on the hoods of cars at stop lights! +% +Yow! Are we laid back yet? +% +Yow! Are we wet yet? +% +Yow! Are you the self-frying president? +% +Yow! Did something bad happen or am I in a drive-in movie?? +% +Yow! I just went below the poverty line! +% +Yow! I threw up on my window! +% +Yow! I want my nose in lights! +% +Yow! I want to mail a bronzed artichoke to Nicaragua! +% +Yow! I'm having a quadrophonic sensation of two winos alone in a steel mill! +% +Yow! I'm imagining a surfer van filled with soy sauce! +% +Yow! Is my fallout shelter termite proof? +% +Yow! Is this sexual intercourse yet?? Is it, huh, is it?? +% +Yow! It's a hole all the way to downtown Burbank! +% +Yow! It's some people inside the wall! This is better than mopping! +% +Yow! Maybe I should have asked for my Neutron Bomb in PAISLEY -- +% +Yow! Now I get to think about all the BAD THINGS I did to a BOWLING +BALL when I was in JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL! +% +Yow! Now we can become alcoholics! +% +Yow! Those people look exactly like Donnie and Marie Osmond!! +% +Yow! We're going to a new disco! +% +YOW!! Everybody out of the GENETIC POOL! +% +YOW!! I'm in a very clever and adorable INSANE ASYLUM!! +% +YOW!! Now I understand advanced MICROBIOLOGY and th' new TAX REFORM laws!! +% +YOW!! The land of the rising SONY!! +% +YOW!! Up ahead! It's a DONUT HUT!! +% +YOW!! What should the entire human race DO?? Consume a fifth of +CHIVAS REGAL, ski NUDE down MT. EVEREST, and have a wild SEX WEEKEND! +% +YOW!!! I am having fun!!! +% +Zippy's brain cells are straining to bridge synapses ... +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/paradoxum b/fortune-mod/datfiles/paradoxum new file mode 100644 index 0000000..05a6929 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/paradoxum @@ -0,0 +1,198 @@ +% + A little pain never hurt anyone. +% + "A unified, neutral Germany? Given that nation's heritage, such a + phrase may prove to be the oxymoron of the decade." -Kevin M. + Matarese, Fulda, West Germany; as seen in "Letters", Time + magazine, p. 5, March 5, 1990. +% + A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. Include + me out. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + Christ was born in 4 B.C. +% + Cum tacent, clamant. When they are silent, they shout. -Cicero +% + Gentlemen, I want you to know that I am not always right, but I am + never wrong. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + Goes (Went) over like a lead balloon. +% + Honk if you are against noise pollution! +% + I'll give you a definite maybe. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + I'm not going to say, "I told you so." +% + I am a deeply superficial person. -Andy Warhol +% + I'm proud of my humility. +% + I can resist everything except temptation. -Oscar Wilde +% + If Roosevelt were alive, he'd turn over in his grave. -Samuel + Goldwyn +% + If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive! + -Samuel Goldwyn +% + If you fall and break your legs, don't come running to me. -Samuel + Goldwyn +% + I never put on a pair of shoes until I've worn them five years. + -Samuel Goldwyn +% + It isn't an optical illusion. It just looks like one. +% + It's more than magnificent-it's mediocre. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + May I ask a question? +% + No one goes to that restaurant anymore-it's always too crowded. + (attributed to Yogi Berra) +% + Our comedies are not to be laughed at. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + Parting is such sweet sorrow. -William Shakespeare +% + Procrastination means never having to say you're sorry. +% + "Professional certification for car people may sound like an + oxymoron." -The Wall Street Journal, page B1, Tuesday, July 17, + 1990. +% + Referring to a book: I read part of it all the way through. + -Samuel Goldwyn +% + Smoking is the leading cause of statistics. +% + Some bachelors want a meaningful overnight relationship. +% + Talking about a piece of movie dialogue: Let's have some new + cliches. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + The scene is dull. Tell him to put more life into his dying. + -Samuel Goldwyn +% + Thank God I'm an atheist. +% + This report is filled with omissions. +% + We are not anticipating any emergencies. +% + We're overpaying him, but he's worth it. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + His honour rooted in dishonour stood, + And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. + -Alfred Lord Tennyson +% + The good oxymoron, to define it by a self-illustration, must be a + planned inadvertency. -Wilson Follett +% + An Irishman is never at peace except when he's fighting. +% + I marvel at the strength of human weakness. +% + Always be sincere, even when you don't mean it. -Irene Peter +% + Live within your income, even if you have to borrow to do so. + -Josh Billings +% + Of course I can keep secrets. It's the people I tell them to that + can't keep them. -Anthony Haden-Guest +% + The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. -W.C. Fields +% + I distinctly remember forgetting that. -Clara Barton +% + We must believe in free will. We have no choice. -Isaac B. Singer +% + I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. +% + Monotheism is a gift from the gods. +% + After they got rid of capital punishment, they had to hang twice + as many people as before. +% + I never liked you, and I always will. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + Why don't you pair `em up in threes? -Yogi Berra +% + Our similarities are different. -Dale Berra, son of Yogi +% + After Donald Trump's stretch limousine was stolen and found + undamaged a few blocks away; he said, "Nothing was stolen. I had + an honest thief."-International Herald Tribune, page 3, March 2, + 1992 +% + Some bird populations soaring down + -Headline of an article in + Science News, page 126, February 20, 1993. +% + Most bacteria have the decency to be microscopic. Epulopiscium + fishelsoni is not among them. The newly identified one-celled + macro-microorganism is a full .5 mm long, large enough to be seen + with the naked eye. Described in the current Nature, "It is a + million times as massive as a typical bacterium."-Time, page 25, + March 29, 1993 +% + "Triumph without Victory, The Unreported History of the Persian + Gulf War", -Headline published in the U.S. News & World Report, + 1992. +% + An empty cab drove up and Sarah Bernhardt got out. -Arthur Baer, + American comic and columnist +% + She used to diet on any kind of food she could lay her hands on. + -Arthur Baer, American comic and columnist +% + The first condition of immortality is death. -Stanislaw Lec +% + As famous as the unknown soldier. +% + I must follow the people. Am I not their leader? -Benjamin Disraeli +% + Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man + can never learn anything from history. -George Bernard Shaw +% + William Safire's rules for writing as seen in the New York Times + + Do not put statements in the negative form. + And don't start sentences with a conjunction. + If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great + deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. + Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. + Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all. + If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. + Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. + Never, ever use repetitive redundancies. + Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration. + Last, but not least, avoid cliche's like the plague. +% + Everyone writes on the walls except me. -Said to be graffiti seen in Pompeii +% + I tripped over a hole that was sticking up out of the ground. +% + I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after + they're dead. -Samuel Goldwyn +% + This page intentionally left blank. +% + Evil isn't all bad. +% + I disagree with unanimity. +% + "It's a step forward although there was no progress." + President Hosni Murbarak of Egypt attempting to put the best face + on a disappointing summit meeting between President Clinton and + the Syrian dictator Hafez Assad. +% + "I always avoid prophesying beforehand because it is much better + to prophesy after the event has already taken place. " - Winston + Churchill +% + All truths are true to an extend, including this one. -XA +% + Assume a virtue, if you have it not. -William Shakespeare +% + All generalisations are dangerous, including this one. diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/people b/fortune-mod/datfiles/people new file mode 100644 index 0000000..440b9dc --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/people @@ -0,0 +1,4317 @@ +A "practical joker" deserves applause for his wit according to its quality. +Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling. +But staking him out on an anthill should be reserved for the very wittiest. + -- Lazarus Long +% +A 'full' life in my experience is usually full only of other people's demands. +% +A bore is a man who talks so much about himself that you can't talk about +yourself. +% +A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have +enlightened him with ours. +% +A city is a large community where people are lonesome together + -- Herbert Prochnow +% +A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil. + -- Victor Hugo +% +A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen lantern. + -- Edgar A. Shoaff +% +A fair exterior is a silent recommendation. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +A friend is a present you give yourself. + -- Robert Louis Stevenson +% +A gossip is one who talks to you about others, a bore is one who talks to +you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to +you about yourself. + -- Lisa Kirk +% +A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The +green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that +grew in the ears themselvse, stuck out on either side like turn signals +indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the +bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled +with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor +of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly's supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down +upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D.H. Holmes department +store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several +of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be +properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of +anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and +geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one's soul. + -- John Kennedy Toole, "Confederacy of Dunces" +% +A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own +weight in other people's patience. + -- John Updike +% +A man is crawling through the Sahara desert when he is approached by another +man riding on a camel. When the rider gets close enough, the crawling man +whispers through his sun-parched lips, "Water... please... can you give... +water..." + "I'm sorry," replies the man on the camel, "I don't have any water +with me. But I'd be delighted to sell you a necktie." + "Tie?" whispers the man. "I need *water*." + "They're only four dollars apiece." + "I need *water*." + "Okay, okay, say two for seven dollars." + "Please! I need *water*!", says the man. + "I don't have any water, all I have are ties," replies the salesman, +and he heads off into the distance. + The man, losing track of time, crawls for what seems like days. +Finally, nearly dead, sun-blind and with his skin peeling and blistering, he +sees a restaurant in the distance. Summoning the last of his strength he +staggers up to the door and confronts the head waiter. + "Water... can I get... water," the dying man manages to stammer. + "I'm sorry, sir, ties required." +% +A man of genius makes no mistakes. +His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. + -- James Joyce, "Ulysses" +% + A man pleaded innocent of any wrong doing when caught by the police +during a raid at the home of a mobster, excusing himself by claiming that he +was making a bolt for the door. +% +A man who keeps stealing mopeds is an obvious cycle-path. +% +A man who turns green has eschewed protein. +% +A man with 3 wings and a dictionary is cousin to the turkey. +% +A man would still do something out of sheer perversity - he would create +destruction and chaos - just to gain his point... and if all this could in +turn be analyzed and prevented by predicting that it would occur, then man +would deliberately go mad to prove his point. + -- Feodor Dostoevsky, "Notes From the Underground" +% +A narcissist is someone better looking than you are. + -- Gore Vidal +% +A paranoid is a man who knows a little of what's going on. + -- William S. Burroughs +% +A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants. +% + "A penny for your thoughts?" + "A dollar for your death." + -- The Odd Couple +% +A person forgives only when they are in the wrong. +% +A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry. +% +A person who has nothing looks at all there is and wants something. +A person who has something looks at all there is and wants all the rest. +% +A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +A pretty foot is one of the greatest gifts of nature... please send me your +last pair of shoes, already worn out in dancing... so I can have something +of yours to press against my heart. + -- Goethe +% +A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions. + -- George Eliot +% +A private sin is not so prejudicial in the world as a public indecency. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +A real friend isn't someone you use once and then throw away. +A real friend is someone you can use over and over again. +% +A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and +the real reason. +% +A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single +man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. + -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery +% +A sadist is a masochist who follows the Golden Rule. +% +A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep +him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those that are +worth committing. + -- Samuel Butler +% + "...A strange enigma is man!" + "Someone calls him a soul concealed in an animal," I suggested. + "Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes. "He remarked +that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he +becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what +any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number +will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says +the statistician." + -- Sherlock Holmes, "The Sign of Four" +% +A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, +and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +A truly great man will neither trample on a worm nor sneak to an emperor. + -- B. Franklin +% +A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without +getting nervous. +% +A well-known friend is a treasure. +% + A young honeymoon couple were touring southern Florida and happened +to stop at one of the rattlesnake farms along the road. After seeing the +sights, they engaged in small talk with the man that handled the snakes. +"Gosh!" exclaimed the new bride. "You certainly have a dangerous job. +Don't you ever get bitten by the snakes?" + "Yes, upon rare occasions," answered the handler. + "Well," she continued, "just what do you do when you're bitten by +a snake?" + "I always carry a razor-sharp knife in my pocket, and as soon as I +am bitten, I make deep criss-cross marks across the fang entry and then +suck the poison from the wound." + "What, uh... what would happen if you were to accidentally *sit* on +a rattler?" persisted the woman. + "Ma'am," answered the snake handler, "that will be the day I learn +who my real friends are." +% +Accept people for what they are -- completely unacceptable. +% +According to the obituary notices, a mean and unimportant person never dies. +% +Adam was but human--this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the +apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in +not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent. + -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" +% +Advice is a dangerous gift; be cautious about giving and receiving it. +% +Advice to young men: Be ascetic, and if you can't be ascetic, +then at least be aseptic. +% +After all, it is only the mediocre who are always at their best. + -- Jean Giraudoux +% +After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not for +you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply +sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi. + -- P.J. O'Rourke +% +After living in New York, you trust nobody, but you believe everything. +Just in case. +% + After Snow White used a couple rolls of film taking pictures of the +seven dwarfs, she mailed the roll to be developed. Later she was heard to +sing, "Some day my prints will come." +% +Against stupidity the very gods Themselves contend in vain. + -- Friedrich von Schiller, "The Maid of Orleans", III, 6 +% +Ah say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball. +% +Ah, sweet Springtime, when a young man lightly turns his fancy over! +% +Al didn't smile for forty years. You've got to admire a man like that. + -- from "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" +% +Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself +or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has +a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and +Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm. + -- Tom Robbins +% +All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, +barely presentable. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" +% +All his life he has looked away... to the horizon, to the sky, +to the future. Never his mind on where he was, on what he was doing. + -- Yoda +% +All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance. +% +All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power. + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% +All I've got left on the list of desirable vocations is heiress to the +throne of any country in Western Europe and Laurie Anderson. "Be +practical", was the choral reply from the dinner table. Well, Laurie +Anderson is already Laurie Anderson, but I read an article in Harpers +that said there were eleven countries, in the world this is I think, +that have queens as sovereign rulers. That's probably my best shot. +% +All men have the right to wait in line. +% +All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest +would be folly. To believe none so is something worse. + -- John Quincy Adams +% +All most people want is a little more than they'll ever get. +% +All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us sane. +% +"All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific." + -- Jane Wagner +% +All of the animals except man know that the principal business of life is +to enjoy it. +% +All possibility of understanding is rooted in the ability to say no. + -- Susan Sontag +% +All progress is based upon a universal innate desire of every organism +to live beyond its income. + -- Samuel Butler, "Notebooks" +% +All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. + -- Sean O'Casey +% +All we know is the phenomenon: we spend our time sending messages to each +other, talking and trying to listen at the same time, exchanging information. +This seems to be our most urgent biological function; it is what we do with +our lives." + -- Lewis Thomas, "The Lives of a Cell" +% +Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back. +% +Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else. +% +Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. + -- Charlie McCarthy +% +America's best buy for a quarter is a telephone call to the right person. +% +An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible. +% +An elderly couple were flying to their Caribbean hideaway on a chartered plane +when a terrible storm forced them to land on an uninhabited island. When +several days passed without rescue, the couple and their pilot sank into a +despondent silence. Finally, the woman asked her husband if he had made his +usual pledge to the United Way Campaign. + "We're running out of food and water and you ask *that*?" her husband +barked. "If you really need to know, I not only pledged a half million but +I've already paid them half of it." + "You owe the U.W.C. a *quarter million*?" the woman exclaimed +euphorically. "Don't worry, Harry, they'll find us! They'll find us!" +% +An evil mind is a great comfort. +% +An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch. He wears +a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and is advertised +only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune and Rich +Protestant Golfer Magazine. The advertisements are written in +incomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denote excellence: + +"The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence and +discriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly able +to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting +things by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watch parts +or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly a timeless +statement. For the individual who is very secure. Who doesn't need to +be reminded all the time that he is very successful. Much more successful +than the people who laughed at him in high school. Because of his acne. +People who are probably nowhere near as successful as he is now. Maybe +he'll go to his 20th reunion, and they'll see his Rolex Hyperion. +Hahahahahahahahaha." + -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" +% +An expert is a person who avoids the small errors as he sweeps on to the +grand fallacy. + -- Benjamin Stolberg +% +An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows +absolutely everything about nothing. +% +An idealist is one who helps the other fellow to make a profit. + -- Henry Ford +% +An infallible method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be +devoured. + -- Konrad Adenauer +% +An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. + -- Albert Camus +% +An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience. + -- Don Marquis +% +And I suppose the little things are harder to get used to than the big +ones. The big ones you get used to, you make up your mind to them. The +little things come along unexpectedly, when you aren't thinking about +them, aren't braced against them. + -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, "The Forbidden Tower" +% +And I will do all these good works, and I will do them for free! +My only reward will be a tombstone that says "Here lies Gomez Addams -- +he was good for nothing." + -- Jack Sharkey, The Addams Family +% +And on the eighth day, we bulldozed it. +% +And the crowd was stilled. One elderly man, wondering at the sudden silence, +turned to the Child and asked him to repeat what he had said. Wide-eyed, +the Child raised his voice and said once again, "Why, the Emperor has no +clothes! He is naked!" + -- "The Emperor's New Clothes" +% +"And, you know, I mustn't preach to you, but surely it wouldn't be right for +you to take away people's pleasure of studying your attire, by just going +and making yourself like everybody else. You feel that, don't you?" said +he, earnestly. + -- William Morris, "Notes from Nowhere" +% +Anger is momentary madness. + -- Horace +% +Anger kills as surely as the other vices. +% +Animals can be driven crazy by putting too many in too small a pen. +Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art. + -- Charles McCabe +% +Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a +mountain in a fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside +than in bed. What kind of man would live where there is no daring? +And is life so dear that we should blame men for dying in adventure? +Is there a better way to die? + -- Charles Lindbergh +% +Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of sense to know +how to lie well. + -- Samuel Butler +% +Any man can work when every stroke of his hand brings down the fruit +rattling from the tree to the ground; but to labor in season and out of +season, under every discouragement, by the power of truth -- that +requires a heroism which is transcendent. + -- Henry Ward Beecher +% +Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad. + -- Leo Rosten, on W.C. Fields +% +Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. +% +Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is +probably parked. +% +Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire. +% +Anyone can become angry -- that is easy; but to be angry with the right +person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose +and in the right way -- that is not easy. + -- Aristotle +% +"Anyone can say 'no'. It is the first word a child learns and often the +first word he speaks. It is a cheap word because it requires no +explanation, and many men and women have acquired a reputation for +intelligence who know only this word and have used it in place of +thought on every occasion." + -- Chuck Jones (Warner Bros. animation director.) +% +Anyone stupid enough to be caught by the police is probably guilty. +% +Apathy Club meeting this Friday. If you want to come, you're not invited. +% +"Apathy is not the problem, it's the solution" +% +Appearances often are deceiving. + -- Aesop +% +Are your glasses mended with a strip of masking tape right over your nose? +Do you put pennies in the slots in your penny loafers? +Does your bow-tie flash "hey you kid" in red neon at parties? +Do you think pizza before noon is unhealthy? +Do you use the "greasy kid's stuff" to stick down your cowlick? +Do you wear a "nerd-pack" in your shirt pocket to keep the dozen + or so pencils from marking the cloth? +Do you think Mary Jane is somebody's name? +Is illegal fishing something only a daring criminal would do? +Is Batman your hero? Superman? Green Lantern? The Shadow? +Do you think girls who kiss on the first date are loose? +% + Rate yourself on the nerd-o-matic scale. (1 point for each YES answer) +0-2 -- You are really hip, a real cool cat, a hoopy frood. +3-5 -- There is hope for you yet. +6-7 -- Uh-oh, trouble in River City. +8-10 -- Your immortal soul is in peril. +11+ -- Does suicide seem attractive? +% +Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly +the same opinion. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +"Arguments with furniture are rarely productive." + -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" +% +As crazy as hauling timber into the woods. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +As many of you know, I am taking a class here at UNC on Personality. +One of the tests to determine personality in our book was so incredibly +useful and interesting, I just had to share it. + +Answer each of the following items "true" or "false" + + 1. I salivate at the sight of mittens. + 2. If I go into the street, I'm apt to be bitten by a horse. + 3. Some people never look at me. + 4. Spinach makes me feel alone. + 5. My sex life is A-okay. + 6. When I look down from a high spot, I want to spit. + 7. I like to kill mosquitoes. + 8. Cousins are not to be trusted. + 9. It makes me embarrassed to fall down. +10. I get nauseous from too much roller skating. +11. I think most people would cry to gain a point. +12. I cannot read or write. +13. I am bored by thoughts of death. +14. I become homicidal when people try to reason with me. +15. I would enjoy the work of a chicken flicker. +16. I am never startled by a fish. +17. My mother's uncle was a good man. +18. I don't like it when somebody is rotten. +19. People who break the law are wise guys. +20. I have never gone to pieces over the weekend. +% +As many of you know, I am taking a class here at UNC on Personality. +One of the tests to determine personality in our book was so incredibly +useful and interesting, I just had to share it. + +Answer each of the following items "true" or "false" + + 1. I think beavers work too hard. + 2. I use shoe polish to excess. + 3. God is love. + 4. I like mannish children. + 5. I have always been diturbed by the sight of Lincoln's ears. + 6. I always let people get ahead of me at swimming pools. + 7. Most of the time I go to sleep without saying goodbye. + 8. I am not afraid of picking up door knobs. + 9. I believe I smell as good as most people. +10. Frantic screams make me nervous. +11. It's hard for me to say the right thing when I find myself in a room + full of mice. +12. I would never tell my nickname in a crisis. +13. A wide necktie is a sign of disease. +14. As a child I was deprived of licorice. +15. I would never shake hands with a gardener. +16. My eyes are always cold. +17. Cousins are not to be trusted. +18. When I look down from a high spot, I want to spit. +19. I am never startled by a fish. +20. I have never gone to pieces over the weekend. +% +As you grow older, you will still do foolish things, but you will do them +with much more enthusiasm. + -- The Cowboy +% +Ask not what's inside your head, but what your head's inside of. + -- J.J. Gibson +% +Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so. + -- John Stuart Mill +% +Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve. Run +with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be strengthened. Keep +the company of bums and you will become a bum. Hang around with rich people +and you will end by picking up the check and dying broke. + -- Stanley Walker +% +At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his +thumb with a hammer. + -- Marshall Lumsden +% +Back when I was a boy, it was 40 miles to everywhere, uphill both ways +and it was always snowing. +% +Bacon's not the only thing that's cured by hanging from a string. +% +Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink +that they may live. + -- Socrates +% +Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. +% +Be careful how you get yourself involved with persons or situations that +can't bear inspection. +% +Be careful what you set your heart on -- for it will surely be yours. + -- James Baldwin, "Nobody Knows My Name" +% +Be incomprehensible. If they can't understand, they can't disagree. +% +Be independent. Insult a rich relative today. +% +Be nice to people on the way up, because you'll meet them on your way down. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +Be not anxious about what you have, but about what you are. + -- Pope St. Gregory I +% +Be open to other people -- they may enrich your dream. +% +Be self-reliant and your success is assured. +% +Be valiant, but not too venturous. +Let thy attire be comely, but not costly. + -- John Lyly +% +Beauty may be skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone. + -- Redd Foxx +% +Before borrowing money from a friend, decide which you need more. + -- Addison H. Hallock +% +Before destruction a man's heart is haughty, but humility goes before honour. + -- Psalms 18:12 +% +Being popular is important. Otherwise people might not like you. +% +Being ugly isn't illegal. Yet. +% +Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember +and be sad. + -- Christina Rossetti +% +Beware of self-styled experts: an ex is a has-been, and a spurt is a +drip under pressure. +% +Beware of the man who knows the answer before he understands the question. +% +"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and +finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of +murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by +their ignorance the hard way." + -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle" +% +BEWARE! People acting under the influence of human nature. +% +Birds are entangled by their feet and men by their tongues. +% +Birthdays are like busses, never the number you want. +% +Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders. + -- Nietzsche +% +Blessed are they that have nothing to say, and who cannot be persuaded +to say it. + -- James Russell Lowell +% +Blessed is he who expects no gratitude, for he shall not be disappointed. + -- W.C. Bennett +% +Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. + -- Alexander Pope +% +Blessed is he who has reached the point of no return and knows it, +for he shall enjoy living. + -- W.C. Bennett +% +Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving +wordy evidence of the fact. + -- George Eliot +% +Bounders get bound when they are caught bounding. + -- Ralph Lewin +% +Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers. There is, indeed, no wild beast +more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. +If you are civil to the voluble, they will abuse your patience; if +brusque, your character. + -- Jonathan Swift +% +Buck-passing usually turns out to be a boomerang. +% +But I find the old notions somehow appealing. Not that I want to go back +to them -- it is outrageous to have some outer authority tell you what is +proper use and abuse of your own faculties, and it is ludicrous to hold +reason higher than body or feeling. Still there is something true and +profoundly sane about the belief that acts like murder or theft or +assault violate the doer as well as the done to. We might even, if we +thought this way, have less crime. The popular view of crime, as far as +I can deduce it from the movies and television, is that it is a breaking +of a rule by someone who thinks they can get away with that; implicitly, +everyone would like to break the rule, but not everyone is arrogant +enough to imagine they can get away with it. It therefore becomes very +important for the rule upholders to bring such arrogance down. + -- Marilyn French, "The Woman's Room" +% +But Officer, I stopped for the last one, and it was green! +% +"But officer, I was only trying to gain enough speed so I could coast +to the nearest gas station." +% +But since I knew now that I could hope for nothing of greater value than +frivolous pleasures, what point was there in denying myself of them? + -- M. Proust +% +By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task +completely overwhelm you. +% +By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. +% +By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart. + -- Confucius +% +Calling you stupid is an insult to stupid people! + -- Wanda, "A Fish Called Wanda" +% +Can you buy friendship? You not only can, you must. It's the +only way to obtain friends. Everything worthwhile has a price. + -- Robert J. Ringer +% +Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, +But it's very funny -- did you ever try buying them without money? + -- Ogden Nash +% +Character is what you are in the dark! + -- Lord John Whorfin +% +Charlie Brown: Why was I put on this earth? +Linus: To make others happy. +Charlie Brown: Why were others put on this earth? +% +Charm is a way of getting the answer "Yes" -- without having asked any +clear question. +% +Class, that's the only thing that counts in life. Class. +Without class and style, a man's a bum; he might as well be dead. + -- "Bugsy" Siegel +% +Class: when they're running you out of town, to look like you're +leading the parade. + -- Bill Battie +% +Clones are people two. +% +Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery. +% +Coming together is a beginning; + keeping together is progress; + working together is success. +% +Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at +different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. + -- Clive James +% +Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius. + -- Josh Billings +% +Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. + -- Albert Einstein +% +Common sense is the most evenly distributed quantity in the world. +Everyone thinks he has enough. + -- Descartes, 1637 +% +Conceit causes more conversation than wit. + -- LaRouchefoucauld +% +Confess your sins to the Lord and you will be forgiven; +confess them to man and you will be laughed at. + -- Josh Billings +% +Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is +good for dandruff. + -- Peter de Vries +% +Confession is good for the soul, but bad for the career. +% +Confessions may be good for the soul, but they are bad for the reputation. + -- Lord Thomas Dewar +% +Confidence is simply that quiet, assured feeling you have before you +fall flat on your face. + -- Dr. L. Binder +% +Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation. +% +Conformity is the refuge of the unimaginative. +% +Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. + -- H.L. Mencken, "A Mencken Chrestomathy" +% +Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good. +% +Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you +wish you weren't. +% +Convention is the ruler of all. + -- Pindar +% +Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius. +% +Cops never say good-bye. They're always hoping to see you again in the line-up. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +Correction does much, but encouragement does more. + -- Goethe +% +Courage is fear that has said its prayers. +% +Courage is grace under pressure. +% +Creativity in living is not without its attendant difficulties, for +peculiarity breeds contempt. And the unfortunate thing about being +ahead of your time when people finally realize you were right, they'll +say it was obvious all along. + -- Alan Ashley-Pitt +% +Creativity is no substitute for knowing what you are doing. +% +Creativity is not always bred in an environment of tranquility; +sometimes you have to squeeze a little to get the paste out of the tube. +% +Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship. + -- Zeuxis +% +Dare to be naive. + -- R. Buckminster Fuller +% +Dave Mack: "Your stupidity, Allen, is simply not up to par." +Allen Gwinn: "Yours is." +% +Dear Lord: Please make my words sweet and tender, for tomorrow I may +have to eat them. +% +Death rays don't kill people, people kill people!! +% +Defeat is worse than death because you have to live with defeat. + -- Bill Musselman +% +Delay is preferable to error. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +Did you know that clones never use mirrors? + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Dishonor will not trouble me, once I am dead. + -- Euripides +% +Distance doesn't make you any smaller, but it does make you part of a +larger picture. +% +Do clones have navels? +% +Do more than anyone expects, and pretty soon everyone will expect more. +% +Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes +may not be the same. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Do not think by infection, catching an opinion like a cold. +% +Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each +day as it comes. + -- Donald Kaul +% +Do you know, I think that Dr. Swift was silly to laugh about Laputa. I +believe it is a mistake to make a mock of people, just because they think. +There are ninety thousand people in this world who do not think, for every +one who does, and these people hate the thinkers like poison. Even if some +thinkers are fanciful, it is wrong to make fun of them for it. Better to +think about cucumbers even, than not to think at all. + -- T.H. White +% +Do you mean that you not only want a wrong answer, but a certain wrong answer? + -- Tobaben +% +Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take +the time to take the dirt out of them? +% +Don't be overly suspicious where it's not warranted. +% +Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say. +% +Don't change the reason, just change the excuses! + -- Joe Cointment +% +Don't confuse things that need action with those that take care of themselves. +% +Don't despise your poor relations, they may become suddenly rich one day. + -- Josh Billings +% +Don't ever slam a door; you might want to go back. +% +Don't expect people to keep in step--it's hard enough just staying in line. +% +Don't hit a man when he's down -- kick him; it's easier. +% +Don't interfere with the stranger's style. +% +Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Don't remember what you can infer. + -- Harry Tennant +% +Don't say "yes" until I finish talking. + -- Darryl F. Zanuck +% +Don't shoot until you're sure you both aren't on the same side. +% +Don't shout for help at night. You might wake your neighbors. + -- Stanislaw J. Lem, "Unkempt Thoughts" +% +Don't tell me that worry doesn't do any good. I know better. The things +I worry about don't happen. + -- Watchman Examiner +% +Don't tell me what you dreamed last night for I've been reading Freud. +% +Don't try to have the last word -- you might get it. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free +with my breakfast cereal. + -- Zaphod Beeblebrox +% +Don't worry about avoiding temptation -- as you grow older, it starts +avoiding you. + -- The Old Farmer's Almanac +% +Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, +you'll have to ram them down people's throats. + -- Howard Aiken +% +Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too +busy worrying over what you are thinking about them. +% +Don't you wish that all the people who sincerely want to help you +could agree with each other? +% +Dorothy: But how can you talk without a brain? +Scarecrow: Well, I don't know... but some people without brains + do an awful lot of talking. + -- The Wizard of Oz +% +Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. + -- Voltaire +% +Drive defensively. Buy a tank. +% +Early to bed and early to rise and you'll be groggy when everyone else is +wide awake. +% + Eeyore, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and +looked at himself in the water. + "Pathetic," he said. "That's what it is. Pathetic." + He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, +splashed across it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he +looked at himself again. + "As I thought," he said, "no better from *____this* side. But nobody +minds. Nobody cares. Pathetic, that's what it is. + -- A.A. Milne, "Winnie the Pooh," Chapter VI, "In Which Eeyore + Has a Birthday and Gets Two Presents" +% +Elevators smell different to midgets. +% +Enjoy your life; be pleasant and gay, like the birds in May. +% +Enjoy yourself while you're still old. +% +Envy is a pain of mind that successful men cause their neighbors. + -- Onasander +% +Etiquette is for those with no breeding; fashion for those with no taste. +% +Even a hawk is an eagle among crows. +% +Even God lends a hand to honest boldness. + -- Menander +% +Even if you persuade me, you won't persuade me. + -- Aristophanes +% +Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. + -- Will Rogers +% +Even moderation ought not to be practiced to excess. +% + Everthing is farther away than it used to be. It is even twice as +far to the corner and they have added a hill. I have given up running for +the bus; it leaves earlier than it used to. + It seems to me they are making the stairs steeper than in the old +days. And have you noticed the smaller print they use in the newspapers? + There is no sense in asking anyone to read aloud anymore, as everbody +speaks in such a low voice I can hardly hear them. + The material in dresses is so skimpy now, especially around the hips +and waist, that it is almost impossible to reach one's shoelaces. And the +sizes don't run the way they used to. The 12's and 14's are so much smaller. + Even people are changing. They are so much younger than they used to +be when I was their age. On the other hand people my age are so much older +than I am. + I ran into an old classmate the other day and she has aged so much +that she didn't recognize me. + I got to thinking about the poor dear while I was combing my hair +this morning and in so doing I glanced at my own reflection. Really now, +they don't even make good mirrors like they used to. + Sandy Frazier, "I Have Noticed" +% +Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible. + -- Frank Moore Colby +% +Every man is apt to form his notions of things difficult to be apprehended, +or less familiar, from their analogy to things which are more familiar. +Thus, if a man bred to the seafaring life, and accustomed to think and talk +only of matters relating to navigation, enters into discourse upon any other +subject; it is well known, that the language and the notions proper to his +own profession are infused into every subject, and all things are measured +by the rules of navigation: and if he should take it into his head to +philosophize concerning the faculties of the mind, it cannot be doubted, +but he would draw his notions from the fabric of the ship, and would find +in the mind, sails, masts, rudder, and compass. + -- Thomas Reid, "An Inquiry into the Human Mind", 1764 +% +Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits +of the world. + -- Schopenhauer +% +Every time I look at you I am more convinced of Darwin's theory. +% +Everybody has something to conceal. + -- Humphrey Bogart +% +Everybody is somebody else's weirdo. + -- Dykstra +% +Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. +% +Everyone complains of his memory, no one of his judgement. +% +Everyone hates me because I'm paranoid. +% +Everyone is a genius. It's just that some people are too stupid to realize it. +% +Everyone is entitled to my opinion. +% +Everyone is more or less mad on one point. + -- Rudyard Kipling +% +Everyone talks about apathy, but no one ____does anything about it. +% +Everyone wants results, but no one is willing to do what it takes to get them. + -- Dirty Harry +% +Everyone was born right-handed. Only the greatest overcome it. +% +Everyone's in a high place when you're on your knees. +% +Evil is that which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil +of others, but it is seldom a mistake. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. + -- Albert Schweitzer +% + Excellence is THE trend of the '80s. Walk into any shopping +mall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as +"Garfield Gets Spayed", and you'll see a half-dozen books telling you +how to be excellent: "In Search of Excellence", "Finding Excellence", +"Grasping Hold of Excellence", "Where to Hide Your Excellence at Night +So the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It", etc. + -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" +% +Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from +acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. + -- W. Somerset Maugham +% +Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, +and just before you realize what is wrong with it. +% +Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens +to you. + -- Aldous Huxley +% +Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake +when you make it again. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% +Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones. +% +Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. +% +Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else. +% +Experience teaches you that the man who looks you straight in the eye, +particularly if he adds a firm handshake, is hiding something. + -- Clifton Fadiman, "Enter Conversing" +% +Fame may be fleeting but obscurity is forever. +% +Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it +every six months. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Fashions have done more harm than revolutions. + -- Victor Hugo +% +Fess: Well, you must admit there is something innately humorous about + a man chasing an invention of his own halfway across the galaxy. +Rod: Oh yeah, it's a million yuks, sure. But after all, isn't that the + basic difference between robots and humans? +Fess: What, the ability to form imaginary constructs? +Rod: No, the ability to get hung up on them. + -- Christopher Stasheff, "The Warlock in Spite of Himself" +% +Flattery is like cologne -- to be smelled, but not swallowed. + -- Josh Billings +% +For an idea to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be +always old-fashioned. +% +For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. + -- Harrison +% +For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill. + -- R. Clopton +% +For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. + -- Paul of Tarsus, (Saint Paul) +% + "For I perceive that behind this seemingly unrelated sequence +of events, there lurks a singular, sinister attitude of mind." + "Whose?" + "MINE! HA-HA!" +% +For men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble: +and whoso doth us a good turn we write it in dust. + -- Sir Thomas More +% +For most men life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to +get themselves filed. + -- Clifton Fadiman +% +For people who like that kind of book, that is the kind of book they will like. +% +For perfect happiness, remember two things: + (1) Be content with what you've got. + (2) Be sure you've got plenty. +% +For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +"For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but +phone calls taper off." + -- Johnny Carson +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #2 + + If at first you don't succeed, think how many people + you've made happy. +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #21 + + Shall I compare thee to a Summer day? + No, I guess not. +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #6 + + "But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?" + It's nothing, honey. Go back to sleep. +% +Four fifths of the perjury in the world is expended on tombstones, women +and competitors. + -- Lord Thomas Dewar +% +Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate. + -- Thomas Jones +% +Friendships last when each friend thinks he has a slight superiority +over the other. + -- Honore DeBalzac +% +Genius is the talent of a person who is dead. +% +Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty. +% +Give me a sleeping pill and tell me your troubles. +% +Go out and tell a lie that will make the whole family proud of you. + -- Cadmus, to Pentheus, in "The Bacchae" by Euripides +% +Go slowly to the entertainments of thy friends, but quickly to their +misfortunes. + -- Chilo +% +God gives us relatives; thank goodness we can chose our friends. +% +God must love the common man; He made so many of them. +% +Good advice is one of those insults that ought to be forgiven. +% +Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad +example. + -- La Rouchefoucauld +% +Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. + -- Jim Horning +% +Gratitude, like love, is never a dependable international emotion. + -- Joseph Alsop +% +Great minds run in great circles. +% +Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. +% +Growing old isn't bad when you consider the alternatives. + -- Maurice Chevalier +% +Half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at. +% +Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, +and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it. +% +Hate is like acid. It can damage the vessel in which it is stored as well +as destroy the object on which it is poured. +% +Hate the sin and love the sinner. + -- Mahatma Gandhi +% +Have no friends not equal to yourself. + -- Confucius +% +Having no talent is no longer enough. + -- Gore Vidal +% +He had occasional flashes of silence that made his conversation perfectly +delightful. + -- Sydney Smith +% +He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and heavy +presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope of ever +behaving "normally." + -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72" +% +He hadn't a single redeeming vice. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +He is a man capable of turning any colour into grey. + -- John LeCarre +% +He is considered a most graceful speaker who can say nothing in the most words. +% +He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +He laughs at every joke three times... once when it's told, once when +it's explained, and once when he understands it. +% +He looked at me as if I were a side dish he hadn't ordered. + -- Ring Lardner +% +He missed an invaluable opportunity to hold his tongue. + -- Andrew Lang +% +He only knew his iron spine held up the sky -- he didn't realize his brain +had fallen to the ground. + -- The Book of Serenity +% +He thinks by infection, catching an opinion like a cold. +% +He walks as if balancing the family tree on his nose. +% +He was so narrow-minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes. +% +He who always plows a straight furrow is in a rut. +% +He who despises himself nevertheless esteems himself as a self-despiser. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +He who hoots with owls by night cannot soar with eagles by day. +% +He who is flogged by fate and laughs the louder is a masochist. +% +He who is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. +% +He who is known as an early riser need not get up until noon. +% +He who minds his own business is never unemployed. +% +He who walks on burning coals is sure to get burned. + -- Sinbad +% +He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder. + -- M.C. Escher +% +He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd +be there... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter. +% +"He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ..." +% +Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; always busy without getting +on, always behind hand and lamenting it, without altering her ways; +wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity; dissatisfied +with her servants, without skill to make them better, and whether helping, or +reprimanding, or indulging them, without any power of engaging their respect. + -- J. Austen +% +Here I am, fifty-eight, and I still don't know what I want to be when +I grow up. + -- Peter Drucker +% +Hi! I'm Larry. This is my brother Bob, and this is my other brother +Jimbo. We thought you might like to know the names of your assailants. +% +Higgins: Doolittle, you're either an honest man or a rogue. +Doolittle: A little of both, Guv'nor. Like the rest of us, a + little of both. + -- Shaw, "Pygmalion" +% +Hindsight is always 20:20. + -- Billy Wilder +% +Hindsight is an exact science. +% +His life was formal; his actions seemed ruled with a ruler. +% +His mind is like a steel trap: full of mice. + -- Foghorn Leghorn +% +History repeats itself -- the first time as a tragi-comedy, the second +time as bedroom farce. +% +History repeats itself only if one does not listen the first time. +% +History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history. +% +Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. + -- Robert Frost, "The Death of the Hired Man" +% +Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is +to a cockatoo. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. + -- Francis Bacon +% +Hope is a waking dream. + -- Aristotle +% +Hope not, lest ye be disappointed. + -- M. Horner +% +How comes it to pass, then, that we appear such cowards in reasoning, +and are so afraid to stand the test of ridicule? + -- A. Cooper +% +How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on. +% +How many "coming men" has one known! Where on earth do they all go to? + -- Sir Arthur Wing Pinero +% +However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional +manner ... sulking and nausea. + -- Tom K. Ryan +% +Human kind cannot bear very much reality. + -- T.S. Eliot, "Four Quartets: Burnt Norton" +% +Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, +responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and +immature. + -- Tom Robbins +% +Humans are communications junkies. We just can't get enough. + -- Alan Kay +% +Humility is the first of the virtues -- for other people. + -- Oliver Wendell Holmes +% +I allow the world to live as it chooses, and I allow myself to live as I +choose. +% +I always choose my friends for their good looks and my enemies for their +good intellects. Man cannot be too careful in his choice of enemies. + -- Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" +% +I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. +It is never any good to oneself. + -- Oscar Wilde, "An Ideal Husband" +% +I always say beauty is only sin deep. + -- Saki, "Reginald's Choir Treat" +% +I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. + -- Winston Churchill +% +I am firm. You are obstinate. He is a pig-headed fool. + -- Katharine Whitehorn +% +I am looking for a honest man. + -- Diogenes the Cynic +% +"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the +great ordeal of meeting me is another matter." + -- Winston Churchill +% +I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean. + -- G.K. Chesterton +% +I call them as I see them. If I can't see them, I make them up. + -- Biff Barf +% +I can give you my word, but I know what it's worth and you don't. + -- Nero Wolfe, "Over My Dead Body" +% +I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write +faster than anybody who can write better. + -- A.J. Liebling +% +I can't seem to bring myself to say, "Well, I guess I'll be toddling along." +It isn't that I can't toddle. It's that I can't guess I'll toddle. + -- Robert Benchley +% +I can't stand squealers; hit that guy. + -- Albert Anastasia +% +I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can +understand it. + -- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. +% +I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened +of the old ones. + -- John Cage +% +I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions. + -- Lillian Hellman +% +I consider the day misspent that I am not either charged with a crime, +or arrested for one. + -- "Ratsy" Tourbillon +% +I didn't get sophisticated -- I just got tired. But maybe that's what +sophisticated is -- being tired. + -- Rita Gain +% +"I didn't know it was impossible when I did it." +% +I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to +tell such LIES! +% +I do not know myself and God forbid that I should. + -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe +% +I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern, +any adequate account of that nature with which I am acquainted. Mythology +comes nearest to it of any. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% + "I don't know what you mean by 'glory'," Alice said. + Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't -- +till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'" + "But glory doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice +objected. + "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful +tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." + "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean +so many different things." + "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- +that's all." + -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know +what his grandson will be. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +I don't know why we're here, I say we all go home and free associate. +% +I don't make the rules, Gil, I only play the game. + -- Cash McCall +% +I don't mind arguing with myself. It's when I lose that it bothers me. + -- Richard Powers +% +I don't remember it, but I have it written down. +% +"I don't think they could put him in a mental hospital. On the other +hand, if he were already in, I don't think they'd let him out." +% +"I don't understand," said the scientist, "why you lemmings all rush down +to the sea and drown yourselves." + +"How curious," said the lemming. "The one thing I don't understand is why +you human beings don't." + -- James Thurber +% +I don't want to bore you, but there's nobody else around for me to bore. +% +I either want less decadence or more chance to participate in it. +% +I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. + -- Mae West +% +I give you the man who -- the man who -- uh, I forgets the man who? + -- Beauregard Bugleboy +% +I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals. + -- Butch Cassidy +% +I guess I've been wrong all my life, but so have billions of other people... +Certainty is just an emotion. + -- Hal Clement +% +I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know +how bad I am. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park +there's nothing else to do. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable +to sit still in a room. + -- Blaise Pascal +% +I have found little that is good about human beings. In my experience +most of them are trash. + -- Sigmund Freud +% +I have great faith in fools -- self confidence my friends call it. + -- Edgar Allan Poe +% +I have learned silence from the talkative, +toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. + -- Kahlil Gibran +% +I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming +that I have never made one. + -- James Gordon Bennett +% +I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his +own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks +of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin. + -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery +% +I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn't need a gun, you'd better +take one along that worked. + -- Raymond Chandler +% +I love mankind ... It's people I hate. + -- Schulz +% + I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments +of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use +of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such +as "certainly", "undoubtedly", etc. I adopted instead of them "I conceive", +"I apprehend", or "I imagine" a thing to be so or so; or "so it appears to me +at present". + When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied +myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him +immediately some absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by +observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, +but in the present case there appeared or semed to me some difference, etc. + I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the +conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I +proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction. +I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily +prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I +happened to be in the right. + -- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin +% +"I may appear to be just sitting here like a bucket of tapioca, but don't +let appearances fool you. I'm approaching old age ... at the speed of light." + -- Prof. Cosmo Fishhawk +% +I may be getting older, but I refuse to grow up! +% +I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent. + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% +I never killed a man that didn't deserve it. + -- Mickey Cohen +% +I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest. + -- Alexandre Dumas, fils +% +I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob. + -- William F. Buckley +% +I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of +tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If +they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go +crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible. +These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even +aspire to crudeness. + -- William Gibson, "Johnny Mnemonic" +% +"... I should explain that I was wearing a black velvet cape that was +supposed to make me look like the dashing, romantic Zorro but which actually +made me look like a gigantic bat wearing glasses ..." + -- Dave Barry, "The Wet Zorro Suit and Other Turning + Points in l'Amour" +% +I sometimes think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +I think I'm schizophrenic. One half of me's paranoid and the other half's +out to get him. +% +I treasure this strange combination found in very few persons: a fierce +desire for life as well as a lucid perception of the ultimate futility of +the quest. + -- Madeleine Gobeil +% +I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in +my body. Then I realized who was telling me this. + -- Emo Phillips +% +I waited and waited and when no message came I knew it must be from you. +% +I will follow the good side right to the fire, but not into it if I can +help it. + -- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne +% +I'll defend to the death your right to say that, but I never said I'd +listen to it! + -- Tom Galloway with apologies to Voltaire +% +I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell ... their heart's +in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ. + -- W. Somerset Maugham, "The Summing Up" +% +I'll pretend to trust you if you'll pretend to trust me. +% +I'm not the person your mother warned you about... her imagination isn't +that good. + -- Amy Gorin +% +"I'm really enjoying not talking to you ... Let's not talk again ____REAL +soon ..." +% +I'm so miserable without you, it's almost like you're here. +% +I'm sorry if the correct way of doing things offends you. +% +I'm sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma. +% +I'm successful because I'm lucky. The harder I work, the luckier I get. +% +I've already told you more than I know. +% +I've found my niche. If you're wondering why I'm not there, there was +this little hole in the bottom ... + -- John Croll +% +I've given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself. +% +I've known him as a man, as an adolescent and as a child -- sometimes +on the same day. +% +"I've seen, I SAY, I've seen better heads on a mug of beer" + -- Senator Claghorn +% +Ideas don't stay in some minds very long because they don't like +solitary confinement. +% +If a man has talent and cannot use it, he has failed. + -- Thomas Wolfe +% +If God had intended Man to Walk, He would have given him Feet. +% +If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way. +% +If God had really intended men to fly, he'd make it easier to get to the +airport. + -- George Winters +% +If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you bigger hands. +% +If God hadn't wanted you to be paranoid, He wouldn't have given you such +a vivid imagination. +% +If God wanted us to be brave, why did he give us legs? + -- Marvin Kitman +% +If he should ever change his faith, it'll be because he no longer thinks +he's God. +% +If I'm over the hill, why is it I don't recall ever being on top? + -- Jerry Muscha +% +If man is only a little lower than the angels, the angels should reform. + -- Mary Wilson Little +% +If one studies too zealously, one easily loses his pants. + -- A. Einstein. +% +If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out. + -- Oscar Wilde, "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use + of the Young" +% +If only I could be respected without having to be respectable. +% +If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without +having to accomplish anything. +% +If only you had a personality instead of an attitude. +% +If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough. +% +If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, +then we are a sorry lot indeed. + -- Albert Einstein +% +If people see that you mean them no harm, they'll never hurt you, nine +times out of ten! +% +If practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, why practice? +% +If some people didn't tell you, you'd never know they'd been away on vacation. +% +If someone says he will do something "without fail", he won't. +% +If the weather is extremely bad, church attendance will be down. If +the weather is extremely good, church attendance will be down. If the +bulletin covers are in short supply, however, church attendance will +exceed all expectations. + -- Reverend Chichester +% +If there is a wrong way to do something, then someone will do it. + -- Edward A. Murphy Jr. +% +If there was any justice in the world, "trust" would be a four-letter word. +% +If things don't improve soon, you'd better ask them to stop helping you. +% +"If we were meant to fly, we wouldn't keep losing our luggage." +% +If we were meant to get up early, God would have created us with alarm clocks. +% +If you are a fatalist, what can you do about it? + -- Ann Edwards-Duff +% +If you are honest because honesty is the best policy, your honesty is corrupt. +% +If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, then +you clearly don't understand the situation. +% +If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me. + -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth +% +If you cannot in the long run tell everyone what you have been doing, +your doing was worthless. + -- Edwim Schrodinger +% +If you continually give you will continually have. +% +If you didn't get caught, did you really do it? +% +If you didn't have most of your friends, you wouldn't have most of +your problems. +% +If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about +it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else. + -- Carlyle +% +If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost. +% +If you don't do it, you'll never know what would have happened if you +had done it. +% +If you don't do the things that are not worth doing, who will? +% +If you don't go to other men's funerals they won't go to yours. + -- Clarence Day +% +If you don't have a nasty obituary you probably didn't matter. + -- Freeman Dyson +% +If you don't like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk! +% +If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will. +% +If you flaunt it, expect to have it trashed. +% +If you float on instinct alone, how can you calculate the buoyancy for +the computed load? + -- Christopher Hodder-Williams +% +If you go out of your mind, do it quietly, so as not to disturb those +around you. +% +If you had any brains, you'd be dangerous. +% +If you just try long enough and hard enough, you can always manage to +boot yourself in the posterior. + -- A.J. Liebling, "The Press" +% +If you keep your mind sufficiently open, people will throw a lot of +rubbish into it. + -- William Orton +% +If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets +and fire them all off, wouldn't you? + -- Garrison Keillor +% +If you look good and dress well, you don't need a purpose in life. + -- Robert Pante, fashion consultant +% +If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you +really make them think they'll hate you. +% +If you mess with a thing long enough, it'll break. + -- Schmidt +% +If you notice that a person is deceiving you, they must not be +deceiving you very well. +% +If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have +schizophrenia. + -- Thomas Szasz +% +If you think before you speak the other guy gets his joke in first. +% +If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it. + -- Arthur Kasspe +% +If you think things can't get worse it's probably only because you +lack sufficient imagination. +% +If you try to please everyone, somebody is not going to like it. +% +If you want to know how old a man is, ask his brother-in-law. +% +If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that +fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and +heartbeats. +% +If you would understand your own age, read the works of fiction produced +in it. People in disguise speak freely. +% +If you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you. +% +If you're constantly being mistreated, you're cooperating with the treatment. +% +If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for tomorrow +morning, sleep late. + -- Henny Youngman +% +If you're happy, you're successful. +% +If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +In good speaking, should not the mind of the speaker know the truth of +the matter about which he is to speak? + -- Plato +% +In matters of principle, stand like a rock; +in matters of taste, swim with the current. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +In most instances, all an argument proves is that two people are present. +% +In success there's a tendency to keep on doing what you were doing. + -- Alan Kay +% +In the misfortune of our friends we find something that is not displeasing +to us. + -- La Rochefoucauld, "Maxims" +% +In this world some people are going to like me and some are not. So, I may +as well be me. Then I know if someone likes me, they like me. +% +In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one +wants, and the other is getting it. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself. + -- Joan Didion, "On Self Respect" +% +Intolerance is the last defense of the insecure. +% +Involvement with people is always a very delicate thing -- +it requires real maturity to become involved and not get all messed up. + -- Bernard Cooke +% +It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +It does not matter if you fall down as long as you pick up something +from the floor while you get up. +% +It doesn't matter what you do, it only matters what you say you've +done and what you're going to do. +% +It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is +thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have +drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have +been searching for evidence which could support this. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +It is all right to hold a conversation, but you should let go of it +now and then. + -- Richard Armour +% +It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, +you are an exceptionally good liar. + -- Jerome K. Jerome +% +It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. +% +It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be +coming up it. + -- Henry Allen +% +It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. +% +It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig. + -- George Santayana +% +It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted. + -- Aeschylus +% +It is equally bad when one speeds on the guest unwilling to go, and when he +holds back one who is hastening. Rather one should befriend the guest who +is there, but speed him when he wishes. + -- Homer, "The Odyssey" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to scheduling.] +% +It is exactly because a man cannot do a thing that he is a proper judge of it. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without +your help. + -- Miss Manners +% +It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because +if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of people. + -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" +% +It is impossible for an optimist to be pleasantly surprised. +% +It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. +% +It is indeed desirable to be well descended, but the glory belongs to +our ancestors. + -- Plutarch +% +It is much easier to be critical than to be correct. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. + -- Rene Descartes +% +It is not enough to have great qualities, we should also have the +management of them. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +It is not good for a man to be without knowledge, +and he who makes haste with his feet misses his way. + -- Proverbs 19:2 +% +It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. + -- Grace Murray Hopper +% +It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it. + -- Cervantes +% +It is only people of small moral stature who have to stand on their dignity. +% +It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared +to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great. + -- Havelock Ellis +% +It is the business of little minds to shrink. + -- Carl Sandburg +% +It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, +and it were but to roast their eggs. + -- Francis Bacon +% +It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. + -- Francis Bacon +% +It is the wise bird who builds his nest in a tree. +% +It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether II win or lose. + -- Darrin Weinberg +% +It may be bad manners to talk with your mouth full, but it isn't too +good either if you speak when your head is empty. +% +It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a +warning to others. +% +It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety. +% +It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept +better... while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more. + -- Woody Allen, "Side Effects" +% +It seems to make an auto driver mad if he misses you. +% +It takes a special kind of courage to face what we all have to face. +% +It takes all kinds to fill the freeways. + -- Crazy Charlie +% +It takes both a weapon, and two people, to commit a murder. +% +It takes less time to do a thing right than it does to explain why you +did it wrong. + -- H.W. Longfellow +% +It takes two to tell the truth: one to speak and one to hear. +% +It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature +and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant examples. + -- Charles Dickens +% +It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything. +% +It's amazing how many people you could be friends with if only they'd +make the first approach. +% +It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired. +% +It's amazing how nice people are to you when they know you're going away. + -- Michael Arlen +% +It's bad enough that life is a rat-race, but why do the rats always have to win? +% +It's better to be quotable than to be honest. + -- Tom Stoppard +% +It's better to be wanted for murder that not to be wanted at all. + -- Marty Winch +% +It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. +% +It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for being +right. +% +It's hard not to like a man of many qualities, even if most of them are bad. +% +It's hard to be humble when you're perfect. +% +It's hard to keep your shirt on when you're getting something off your chest. +% +It's interesting to think that many quite distinguished people have +bodies similar to yours. +% +It's only by NOT taking the human race seriously that I retain +what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess. + -- Roger Noe +% +It's reassuring to know that if you behave strangely enough, society will +take full responsibility for you. +% +It's sweet to be remembered, but it's often cheaper to be forgotten. +% +Jealousy is all the fun you think they have. +% +Just because I turn down a contract on a guy doesn't mean he isn't going +to get hit. + -- Joey +% +Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you. +% +"Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have some +of the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?" + -- Patricia O Tuama, rissa@killer.DALLAS.TX.US +% +Just weigh your own hurt against the hurt of all the others, and then +do what's best. + -- Lovers and Other Strangers +% +Just when you thought you were winning the rat race, along comes a faster rat!! +% +Justice always prevails ... three times out of seven! + -- Michael J. Wagner +% +Keep cool, but don't freeze. + -- Hellman's Mayonnaise +% +Keep your mouth shut and people will think you stupid; +Open it and you remove all doubt. +% +Lack of capability is usually disguised by lack of interest. +% +Lack of money is the root of all evil. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Largest Number of Driving Test Failures + By April 1970 Mrs. Miriam Hargrave had failed her test thirty-nine +times. In the eight preceding years she had received two hundred and +twelve driving lessons at a cost of L300. She set the new record while +driving triumphantly through a set of red traffic lights in Wakefield, +Yorkshire. Disappointingly, she passed at the fortieth attempt (3 August +1970) but eight years later she showed some of her old magic when she was +reported as saying that she still didn't like doing right-hand turns. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +Last guys don't finish nice. + -- Stanley Kelley, on the cult of victory at all costs +% +Laughter is the closest distance between two people. + -- Victor Borge +% +Learn from other people's mistakes, you don't have time to make your own. +% +Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +Let the meek inherit the earth -- they have it coming to them. + -- James Thurber +% +Let's do it. + -- Gary Gilmore, to his firing squad +% +Life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed by the desire to +change his bed. + -- Charles Baudelaire +% +Life is a series of rude awakenings. + -- R.V. Winkle +% +Life is a serious burden, which no thinking, humane person would +wantonly inflict on someone else. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others. +% +Life is like bein' on a mule team. Unless you're the lead mule, all the +scenery looks about the same. +% +"Life would be much simpler and things would get done much faster if it +weren't for other people" + -- Blore +% +Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer. +It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who watches +over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide people to follow +His precepts -- there is just too much misery and cruelty for that. On the +other hand, I respect and envy the people who get inspiration from their +religions. + -- Benjamin Spock +% + Looking for a cool one after a long, dusty ride, the drifter strode +into the saloon. As he made his way through the crowd to the bar, a man +galloped through town screaming, "Big Mike's comin'! Run fer yer lives!" + Suddenly, the saloon doors burst open. An enormous man, standing over +eight feet tall and weighing an easy 400 pounds, rode in on a bull, using a +rattlesnake for a whip. Grabbing the drifter by the arm and throwing him over +the bar, the giant thundered, "Gimme a drink!" + The terrified man handed over a bottle of whiskey, which the man +guzzled in one gulp and then smashed on the bar. He then stood aghast as +the man stuffed the broken bottle in his mouth, munched broken glass and +smacked his lips with relish. + "Can I, ah, uh, get you another, sir?" the drifter stammered. + "Naw, I gotta git outa here, boy," the man grunted. "Big Mike's +a-comin'." +% +Lord, defend me from my friends; I can account for my enemies. + -- Charles D'Hericault +% +Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood. + -- Louise Beal +% +Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up to. +% +Love your neighbour, yet don't pull down your hedge. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Lying is an indispensable part of making life tolerable. + -- Bergan Evans +% +Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood. + -- Daniel Hudson Burnham +% +Man belongs wherever he wants to go. + -- Wernher von Braun +% +Man has made his bedlam; let him lie in it. + -- Fred Allen +% +Man has never reconciled himself to the ten commandments. +% +Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon +to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the +victims he intends to eat until he eats them. + -- Samuel Butler (1835-1902) +% +Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal +that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they +ought to be. + -- William Hazlitt +% +Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it +is an enemy. + -- Albert Einstein +% +Man's horizons are bounded by his vision. +% +Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between +the desire to stand out and the need to blend in. + -- Sydney J. Harris +% +Many a family tree needs trimming. +% +Many a man that can't direct you to a corner drugstore will get a respectful +hearing when age has further impaired his mind. + -- Finley Peter Dunne +% +Many mental processes admit of being roughly measured. For instance, +the degree to which people are bored, by counting the number of their +fidgets. I not infrequently tried this method at the meetings of the +Royal Geographical Society, for even there dull memoirs are occasionally +read. [...] The use of a watch attracts attention, so I reckon time +by the number of my breathings, of which there are 15 in a minute. They +are not counted mentally, but are punctuated by pressing with 15 fingers +successively. The counting is reserved for the fidgets. These observations +should be confined to persons of middle age. Children are rarely still, +while elderly philosophers will sometimes remain rigid for minutes altogether. + -- Francis Galton, 1909 +% +Many people are desperately looking for some wise advice which will +recommend that they do what they want to do. +% +Many people are secretly interested in life. +% +Many people feel that if you won't let them make you happy, they'll make you +suffer. +% +Many people feel that they deserve some kind of recognition for all the +bad things they haven't done. +% +Many people resent being treated like the person they really are. +% +Many receive advice, few profit by it. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +May those that love us love us; and those that don't love us, may +God turn their hearts; and if he doesn't turn their hearts, may +he turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping. +% +May you die in bed at 95, shot by a jealous spouse. +% +Maybe Jesus was right when he said that the meek shall inherit the +earth -- but they inherit very small plots, about six feet by three. + -- Lazarus Long +% +"Maybe we can get together and show off to each other sometimes." +% +Meekness is uncommon patience in planning a worthwhile revenge. +% +Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our +pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs +and tears. ... It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, +inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us +sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness +and acts that are contrary to habit... + -- Hippocrates "The Sacred Disease" +% +Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and speech only to +conceal their thoughts. + -- Voltaire +% +Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a +rainy Sunday afternoon. + -- Susan Ertz +% +Mind your own business, then you don't mind mine. +% +Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans; it's lovely to be silly +at the right moment. + -- Horace +% +Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings. +% +Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue. + -- J.K. Galbraith +% +More are taken in by hope than by cunning. + -- Vauvenargues +% +More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice. + -- R.S. Surtees +% +Most of our lives are about proving something, either to ourselves or to +someone else. +% +Most of the fear that spoils our life comes from attacking difficulties +before we get to them. + -- Dr. Frank Crane +% +Most of your faults are not your fault. +% +Most people are too busy to have time for anything important. +% +Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and +they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment +to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +Most people can do without the essentials, but not without the luxuries. +% +Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently +than they do. + -- Turgenev +% +Most people deserve each other. + -- Shirley +% +Most people feel that everyone is entitled to their opinion. +% +Most people have a furious itch to talk about themselves and are restrained +only by the disinclination of others to listen. Reserve is an artificial +quality that is developed in most of us as the result of innumerable rebuffs. + -- W.S. Maugham +% +Most people have a mind that's open by appointment only. +% +Most people have two reasons for doing anything -- a good reason, and +the real reason. +% +Most people in this society who aren't actively mad are, at best, +reformed or potential lunatics. + -- Susan Sontag +% +Most people need some of their problems to help take their mind off +some of the others. +% +Most people prefer certainty to truth. +% +Mother told me to be good but she's been wrong before. +% +Murder is always a mistake -- one should never do anything one cannot +talk about after dinner. + -- Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" +% +My brain is my second favorite organ. + -- Woody Allen +% +My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say. +And then say it with the utmost levity. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +My mind can never know my body, although it has become quite friendly +with my legs. + -- Woody Allen, on Epistemology +% +My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. +% +My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +My philosophy is: Don't think. + -- Charles Manson +% +Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's +character, give him power. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +Needs are a function of what other people have. +% +Neither spread the germs of gossip nor encourage others to do so. +% +Never argue with a fool -- people might not be able to tell the difference. +% +Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel. +% +Never ask the barber if you need a haircut. +% +Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will never +believe you anyway. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +Never face facts; if you do you'll never get up in the morning. + -- Marlo Thomas +% +Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry. +% +Never frighten a small man -- he'll kill you. +% +Never get into fights with ugly people because they have nothing to lose. +% +Never insult an alligator until you've crossed the river. +% +Never kick a man, unless he's down. +% +Never leave anything to chance; make sure all your crimes are premeditated. +% +Never pay a compliment as if expecting a receipt. +% +Never speak ill of yourself, your friends will always say enough on +that subject. + -- Charles-Maurice De Talleyrand +% +Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient. +% +Never trust anybody whose arm is bigger than your leg. +% +Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. +% +Never, ever lie to someone you love unless you're absolutely sure they'll +never find out the truth. +% +Nezvannyi gost'--khuzhe tatarina. + [An uninvited guest is worse than the Mongol invasion] + -- Russian proverb +% +Nice boy, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. + -- Foghorn Leghorn +% +No character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, +however false. + -- Alexander Hamilton +% +No guest is so welcome in a friend's house that he will not become a +nuisance after three days. + -- Titus Maccius Plautus +% +No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas. +% +No man is useless who has a friend, and if we are loved we are indispensable. + -- Robert Louis Stevenson +% +No man would listen to you talk if he didn't know it was his turn next. + -- E.W. Howe +% +No matter what happens, there is always someone who knew it would. +% +No one becomes depraved in a moment. + -- Decimus Junius Juvenalis +% +No one can have a higher opinion of him than I have, and I think he's a +dirty little beast. + -- W.S. Gilbert +% +No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. + -- Eleanor Roosevelt +% +No one can put you down without your full cooperation. +% +"No one gets too old to learn a new way of being stupid." +% +No one knows what he can do till he tries. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +No one regards what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars. + -- Quintus Ennius +% +No one so thoroughly appreciates the value of constructive criticism as the +one who's giving it. + -- Hal Chadwick +% +No question is so difficult as one to which the answer is obvious. +% +No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. +% +No sooner said than done -- so acts your man of worth. + -- Quintus Ennius +% +Nobody can be as agreeable as an uninvited guest. +% +Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet. + -- Kin Hubbard +% +Nobody is one block of harmony. We are all afraid of something, or feel +limited in something. We all need somebody to talk to. It would be good +if we talked to each other--not just pitter-patter, but real talk. We +shouldn't be so afraid, because most people really like this contact; +that you show you are vulnerable makes them free to be vulnerable too. +It's so much easier to be together when we drop our masks. + -- Liv Ullman +% +Nobody knows the trouble I've been. +% +Nobody knows what goes between his cold toes and his warm ears. + -- Roy Harper +% +Nobody wants constructive criticism. It's all we can do to put up with +constructive praise. +% +Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. +Conscience makes egotists of us all. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at +which the hearer is permitted to laugh. + -- Quentin Crisp +% +O Lord, grant that we may always be right, for Thou knowest we will +never change our minds. +% +Objects are lost only because people look where they are not rather than +where they are. +% +Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off your goal. +% +Oh this age! How tasteless and ill-bred it is. + -- Gaius Valerius Catullus +% +Oh wearisome condition of humanity! +Born under one law, to another bound. + -- Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke +% +"Oh, yes. The important thing about having lots of things to remember is +that you've got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you +see? You've got to stop. You haven't really been anywhere until you've got +back home. I think that's what I mean." + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill. +% +Old age is always fifteen years old than I am. + -- B. Baruch +% +Old age is the harbor of all ills. + -- Bion +% +Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man. + -- Trotsky +% +Old age is too high a price to pay for maturity. +% +Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their +inability to set a bad example. + -- La Rochefoucauld, "Maxims" +% +On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are +created jerks. + -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow" +% +One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody's +listening. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% +One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. + -- Helen Keller +% +One family builds a wall, two families enjoy it. +% +One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. +Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, +a rivalry of aim. + -- Henry Brook Adams +% +One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious. + -- Chateaubriand (1768-1848) +% +One is often kept in the right road by a rut. + -- Gustave Droz +% +One man tells a falsehood, a hundred repeat it as true. +% +One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends +can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention. + -- Clifton Fadiman +% +One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people. +% +One of the large consolations for experiencing anything unpleasant is +the knowledge that one can communicate it. + -- Joyce Carol Oates +% +One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with +Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just +to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't +be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending +to be so outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't +understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was +reknowned for being quite clever and quite clearly was so -- but not all the +time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be +puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be +genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they +need no answer. + -- George Gordon, Lord Byron +% +One of the worst of my many faults is that I'm too critical of myself. +% +One would like to stroke and caress human beings, but one dares not do so, +because they bite. + -- Vladimir Il'ich Lenin +% +Only a fool has no doubts. +% +Only a mediocre person is always at his best. + -- Laurence Peter +% +Only fools are quoted. + -- Anonymous +% +Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right +to use the editorial "we". + -- Mark Twain +% +Only someone with nothing to be sorry for smiles back at the rear of an +elephant. +% +Only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core. + -- Hannah Arendt +% +Only two of my personalities are schizophrenic, but one of them is +paranoid and the other one is out to get him. +% +Optimism is the content of small men in high places. + -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack Up" +% +Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born +to people you could not have possibly met. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +Others can stop you temporarily, only you can do it permanently. +% +Others will look to you for stability, so hide when you bite your nails. +% +Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made. + -- Immanuel Kant +% +Paranoia doesn't mean the whole world isn't out to get you. +% +Paranoia is heightened awareness. +% +Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life. +% +Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one. +% +Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy +to criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too. + -- D.J. Hicks +% +Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. + -- Eric Hoffer +% +Patience is a minor form of despair, disguised as virtue. + -- Ambrose Bierce, on qualifiers +% +Pelorat sighed. + "I will never understand people." + "There's nothing to it. All you have to do is take a close look +at yourself and you will understand everyone else. How would Seldon have +worked out his Plan -- and I don't care how subtle his mathematics was -- +if he didn't understand people; and how could he have done that if people +weren't easy to understand? You show me someone who can't understand +people and I'll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself +-- no offense intended." + -- Asimov, "Foundation's Edge" +% +People (a group that in my opinion has always attracted an undue amount of +attention) have often been likened to snowflakes. This analogy is meant to +suggest that each is unique -- no two alike. This is quite patently not the +case. People ... are simply a dime a dozen. And, I hasten to add, their +only similarity to snowflakes resides in their invariable and lamentable +tendency to turn, after a few warm days, to slush. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +People are like onions -- you cut them up, and they make you cry. +% +People are unconditionally guaranteed to be full of defects. +% +People don't change; they only become more so. +% +People don't usually make the same mistake twice -- they make it three +times, four time, five times... +% +People love high ideals, but they got to be about 33-percent plausible. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +People need good lies. There are too many bad ones. + -- Bokonon, "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. +% +People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the +future. +% +People respond to people who respond. +% +People say I live in my own little fantasy world... well, at least they +*know* me there! + -- D.L. Roth +% +People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people +have been left out on the pleasure. + -- Russell Baker +% +People tend to make rules for others and exceptions for themselves. +% +People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never +slept in a room with a single mosquito. +% +People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes. + -- Abigail Van Buren +% +People who have no faults are terrible; there is no way of taking +advantage of them. +% +People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't +what they want that they don't want it. + -- Ogden Nash +% +People who make no mistakes do not usually make anything. +% +People who push both buttons should get their wish. +% +People who take cat naps don't usually sleep in a cat's cradle. +% +People who take cold baths never have rheumatism, but they have cold baths. +% +People who think they know everything greatly annoy those of us who do. +% +People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin +Franklin said it first. +% +People will do tomorrow what they did today because that is what they +did yesterday. +% +People with narrow minds usually have broad tongues. +% +Perhaps the world's second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore. + -- Cecil Beaton +% +Personifiers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity! + -- Bernadette Bosky +% +Please don't put a strain on our friendship by asking me to do something +for you. +% +Please don't recommend me to your friends-- it's difficult enough to +cope with you alone. +% +Please forgive me if, in the heat of battle, I sometimes forget which +side I'm on. +% +Practically perfect people never permit sentiment to muddle their thinking. + -- Mary Poppins +% +Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist! +% +Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their +minds cannot change anything. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +Put your brain in gear before starting your mouth in motion. +% +Put your trust in those who are worthy. +% +Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +"Quite frankly, I don't like you humans. After what you all have done, +I find being 'inhuman' a compliment." + -- Spider Robinson, "Callahan's Secret" +% +Rarely do people communicate; they just take turns talking. +% +Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't the remotest +knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die. + -- Oscar Wilde, "The Importance of Being Earnest" +% +... relaxed in the manner of a man who has no need to put up a front of +any kind. + -- John Ball, "Mark One: the Dummy" +% +Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life. + -- Dave Butler +% +Revenge is a form of nostalgia. +% +Revenge is a meal best served cold. +% + "Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing +what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt +somebody else. He even told you he'd be hurt if..." + "He was going to suck my blood!" + "Which is what we do to anyone when we tell them we'll be hurt +if they don't live our way." +... + "The thing that puzzles you," he said, "is an accepted saying that +happens to be impossible. The phrase is hurt somebody else. We choose, +ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what. Us who decides. +Nobody else. My vampire told you he'd be hurt if you didn't let him? That's +his decision to be hurt, that's his choice. What you do about it is your +decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake +through his heart. If he doesn't want the holly stake, he's free to resist, +in whatever way he wants. It goes on and on, choices, choices." + "When you look at it that way..." + "Listen," he said, "it's important. We are all. Free. To do. +Whatever. We want. To do." + -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" +% +Rincewind looked down at him and grinned slowly. It was a wide, manic, and +utterly humourless rictus. It was the sort of grin that is normally +accompanied by small riverside birds wandering in and out, picking scraps +out of the teeth. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Lure of the Wyrm" +% +Rudeness is a weak man's imitation of strength. +% +Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent. + -- George Orwell, "Reflections on Gandhi" +% +Sanity and insanity overlap a fine grey line. +% +Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. + -- Mark Harrold +% +Say no, then negotiate. + -- Helga +% +Say something you'll be sorry for, I love receiving apologies. +% +Scenery is here, wish you were beautiful. +% +Schizophrenia beats being alone. +% +Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else. +% +"See - the thing is - I'm an absolutist. I mean, kind of ... in a way ..." +% +Sentimentality -- that's what we call the sentiment we don't share. + -- Graham Greene +% +Serenity through viciousness. +% +Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a +little kinder than is necessary? + -- J.M. Barrie +% +Shame is an improper emotion invented by pietists to oppress the human race. + -- Robert Preston, Toddy, "Victor/Victoria" +% +She often gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it). + -- Lewis Carroll +% +Short people get rained on last. +% +Show your affection, which will probably meet with pleasant response. +% +Sin boldly. + -- Martin Luther +% +Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all. +% +Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are +invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful -- just stupid). + -- Lazarus Long +% +Since we have to speak well of the dead, let's knock them while they're alive. + -- John Sloan +% +Since we're all here, we must not be all there. + -- Bob "Mountain" Beck +% +Sinners can repent, but stupid is forever. +% +So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good: so far +as we do evil or good, we are human: and it is better, in a paradoxical +way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least we exist. + -- T.S. Eliot, essay on Baudelaire +% +So live that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the +town gossip. +% +Some don't prefer the pursuit of happiness to the happiness of pursuit. +% +Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men +have mediocrity thrust upon them. + -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" +% +Some men are discovered; others are found out. +% +Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear +lest she should catch a cold on overexposure. + -- Samuel Butler +% +Some of the things that live the longest in peoples' memories never +really happened. +% +Some people around here wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit them on the head. +% +Some people cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go. +% +Some people have a way about them that seems to say: "If I have +only one life to live, let me live it as a jerk." +% +Some people have parts that are so private they themselves have no +knowledge of them. +% +Some people's mouths work faster than their brains. They say things they +haven't even thought of yet. +% +Some rise by sin and some by virtue fall. +% +Someone will try to honk your nose today. +% +Something better... + + 1 (obvious): Excuse me. Is that your nose or did a bus park on your face? + 2 (meteorological): Everybody take cover. She's going to blow. + 3 (fashionable): You know, you could de-emphasize your nose if you wore + something larger. Like ... Wyoming. + 4 (personal): Well, here we are. Just the three of us. + 5 (punctual): Alright gentlemen. Your nose was on time but you were fifteen + minutes late. + 6 (envious): Oooo, I wish I were you. Gosh. To be able to smell your + own ear. + 7 (naughty): Pardon me, Sir. Some of the ladies have asked if you wouldn't + mind putting that thing away. + 8 (philosophical): You know. It's not the size of a nose that's important. + It's what's in it that matters. + 9 (humorous): Laugh and the world laughs with you. Sneeze and it's goodbye, + Seattle. +10 (commercial): Hi, I'm Earl Schibe and I can paint that nose for $39.95. +11 (polite): Ah. Would you mind not bobbing your head. The orchestra keeps + changing tempo. +12 (melodic): Everybody! "He's got the whole world in his nose." + -- Steve Martin, "Roxanne" +% +Something better... + +13 (sympathetic): Oh, What happened? Did your parents lose a bet with God? +14 (complimentary): You must love the little birdies to give them this to + perch on. +15 (scientific): Say, does that thing there influence the tides? +16 (obscure): Oh, I'd hate to see the grindstone. +17 (inquiry): When you stop to smell the flowers, are they afraid? +18 (french): Say, the pigs have refused to find any more truffles until you + leave. +19 (pornographic): Finally, a man who can satisfy two women at once. +20 (religious): The Lord giveth and He just kept on giving, didn't He. +21 (disgusting): Say, who mows your nose hair? +22 (paranoid): Keep that guy away from my cocaine! +23 (aromatic): It must be wonderful to wake up in the morning and smell the + coffee ... in Brazil. +24 (appreciative): Oooo, how original. Most people just have their teeth + capped. +25 (dirty): Your name wouldn't be Dick, would it? + -- Steve Martin, "Roxanne" +% +Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth. + -- Benjamin Disraeli +% +Sometimes I get the feeling that I went to a party on Perry Lane in 1962, and +the party spilled out of the house, and came down the street, and covered the +world. + -- Robert Stone +% +Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +Sometimes when you look into his eyes you get the feeling that someone +else is driving. + -- David Letterman +% +Speak softly and carry a +6 two-handed sword. +% +Speak softly and own a big, mean Doberman. + -- Dave Millman +% +Start every day off with a smile and get it over with. + -- W.C. Fields +% +Start the day with a smile. After that you can be your nasty old self again. +% +Stay together, drag each other down. +% +Still looking for the glorious results of my misspent youth. Say, do you +have a map to the next joint? +% +Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out? +% +Stupidity is its own reward. +% +Style may not be the answer, but at least it's a workable alternative. +% +Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way +before it is understood. +% +Success is a journey, not a destination. +% +Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get. +% +Success is in the minds of Fools. + -- William Wrenshaw, 1578 +% +Success is relative: It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things. + -- T.S. Eliot, "The Family Reunion" +% +Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring. +% +Such a fine first dream! +But they laughed at me; they said +I had made it up. +% +Suicide is simply a case of mistaken identity. +% +Suicide is the sincerest form of self-criticism. + -- Donald Kaul +% +Support your local Search and Rescue unit -- get lost. +% +Sure he's sharp as a razor ... he's a two-dimensional pinhead! +% +Surly to bed, surly to rise, makes you about average. +% +Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far. + -- Jean Cocteau +% +Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a +hole in his head. +% +Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy. +% +Take a lesson from the whale; the only time he gets speared is when he +raises to spout. +% +Talk is cheap because supply always exceeds demand. +% +Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. + -- Euripides +% +Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than +a gallon of vinegar. + -- B. Franklin +% +Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. +Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure. +% +Tell me what to think!!! +% +Telling the truth to people who misunderstand you is generally promoting +a falsehood, isn't it? + -- A. Hope +% +"That boy's about as sharp as a pound of wet liver" + -- Foghorn Leghorn +% +That must be wonderful: I don't understand it at all. + -- Moliere +% +That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee. +% +That's always the way when you discover something new; everyone thinks +you're crazy. + -- Evelyn E. Smith +% +The adjuration to be "normal" seems shockingly repellent to me; I see neither +hope nor comfort in sinking to that low level. I think it is ignorance that +makes people think of abnormality only with horror and allows them to remain +undismayed at the proximity of "normal" to average and mediocre. For surely +anyone who achieves anything is, essentially, abnormal. + -- Dr. Karl Menninger, "The Human Mind", 1930 +% +The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being but to remind him that +he is already degraded. + -- George Orwell +% +The angry man always thinks he can do more than he can. + -- Albertano of Brescia +% +The average nutritional value of promises is roughly zero. +% +The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in +the morning feeling just terrible. + -- Jean Kerr +% +The best laid plans of mice and men are usually about equal. + -- Blair +% +The best portion of a good man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts +of kindness and love. + -- Wordsworth +% +The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and +fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are +drifting side by side to our common doom. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time. +% +The best way to get rid of worries is to let them die of neglect. +% +The best way to keep your friends is not to give them away. +% +The bigger they are, the harder they hit. +% +The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred. +% +The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch. +% +The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet's dream; it is a most depressing +and humiliating reality. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none +of my business, but --" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use +excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat +is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" +% +The difference between a good haircut and a bad one is seven days. +% +The difference between common-sense and paranoia is that common-sense is +thinking everyone is out to get you. That's normal -- they are. Paranoia +is thinking that they're conspiring. + -- J. Kegler +% +The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. +% +The difference between sentiment and being sentimental is the following: +Sentiment is when a driver swerves out of the way to avoid hitting a +rabbit on the road. Being sentimental is when the same driver, when +swerving away from the rabbit hits a pedestrian. + -- Frank Herbert, "The White Plague" +% +The discerning person is always at a disadvantage. +% +The distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly +blurred by... the pollution of the language. + -- Arne Tiselius +% +The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +The forest is safe because a lion lives therein and the lion is safe because +it lives in a forest. Likewise the friendship of persons rests on mutual help. + -- Laukikanyay. +% +The full potentialities of human fury cannot be reached until a friend +of both parties tactfully interferes. + -- G.K. Chesterton +% +The Golden Rule is of no use to you whatever unless you realize it +is your move. + -- Frank Crane +% +The great merit of society is to make one appreciate solitude. + -- Charles Chincholles, "Reflections on the Art of Life" +% +The great secret in life ... [is] not to open your letters for a fortnight. +At the expiration of that period you will find that nearly all of them have +answered themselves. + -- Arthur Binstead +% +The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none. +% +The greatest remedy for anger is delay. +% +The hardest thing is to disguise your feelings when you put a lot of +relatives on the train for home. +% +The hatred of relatives is the most violent. + -- Tacitus (c.55 - c.117) +% +... the heat come 'round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day. +% +The help people need most urgently is help in admitting that they need help. +% +The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet, +challenging us to be true to ourselves by appeals to the martial spirit that +keeps the blood at heat. Some little, unassuming, unobtrusive choice presents +itself before us slyly and craftily, glib and insinuating, in the modest garb +of innocence. To yield to its blandishments is so easy. The wrong, it seems, +is venial... Then it is that you will be summoned to show the courage of +adventurous youth. + -- Benjamin Cardozo +% +The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange +protein -- it rejects it. + -- P. Medawar +% +The human race never solves any of its problems. It merely outlives them. + -- David Gerrold +% +The idle mind knows not what it is it wants. + -- Quintus Ennius +% +The important thing is not to stop questioning. +% +The kind of danger people most enjoy is the kind they can watch from +a safe place. +% +The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence makes innocence unattainable. + -- Irving Howe +% +The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand. + -- Fred Allen +% +The Least Successful Defrosting Device + The all-time record here is held by Mr. Peter Rowlands of Lancaster +whose lips became frozen to his lock in 1979 while blowing warm air on it. + "I got down on my knees to breathe into the lock. Somehow my lips +got stuck fast." + While he was in the posture, an old lady passed an inquired if he +was all right. "Alra? Igmmlptk", he replied at which point she ran away. + "I tried to tell her what had happened, but it came out sort of... +muffled," explained Mr. Rowlands, a pottery designer. + He was trapped for twenty minutes ("I felt a bit foolish") until +constant hot breathing brought freedom. He was subsequently nicknamed "Hot +Lips". + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason that He makes +so many of them. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the +societies in which they occur. + -- A.N. Whitehead +% +The man who raises a fist has run out of ideas. + -- H.G. Wells, "Time After Time" +% +The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two +chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. + -- Carl Jung +% +The minute a man is convinced that he is interesting, he isn't. +% +The mirror sees the man as beautiful, the mirror loves the man; another +mirror sees the man as frightful and hates him; and it is always the same +being who produces the impressions. + -- Marquis D.A.F. de Sade +% +The more I know men the more I like my horse. +% +The more I see of men the more I admire dogs. + -- Mme De Sevigne, 1626-1696 +% +The more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of us is right. +% +The most disagreeable thing that your worst enemy says to your face does +not approach what your best friends say behind your back. + -- Alfred De Musset +% +The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise. +% +The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people. + -- Lucille S. Harper +% +The odds are a million to one against your being one in a million. +% +The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy. +% +The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age +brings wisdom. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint +has a past and every sinner has a future. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The only really decent thing to do behind a person's back is pat it. +% +The only rose without thorns is friendship. +% +The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any +use to oneself. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The only two things that motivate me and that matter to me are revenge +and guilt. + -- Elvis Costello +% +The only way to amuse some people is to slip and fall on an icy pavement. +% +The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +The part of the world that people find most puzzling is the part called "Me". +% +The people sensible enough to give good advice are usually sensible +enough to give none. +% +The perfect friend sees the best in you -- sees it constantly -- not just +when you occasionally are that way, but also when you waver, when you +forget yourself, act like less than you are. In time, you become more +like his vision of you -- which is the person you have always wanted to be. + -- Nancy Friday +% +The point is, you see, that there is no point in driving yourself mad +trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and +save your sanity for later. +% +... the privileged being which we call human is distinguished from +other animals only by certain double-edged manifestations which in +charity we can only call "inhuman." + -- R. A. Lafferty +% +The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the +stupidity of your action. +% +The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can +be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues. + -- Elizabeth Taylor +% +The propriety of some persons seems to consist in having improper +thoughts about their neighbours. + -- F.H. Bradley +% +The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one +persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress +depends on the unreasonable man. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This +means that only left handed people are in their right mind. +% +"The Schizophrenic: An Unauthorized Autobiography" +% +The second best policy is dishonesty. +% +The secret of happiness is total disregard of everybody. +% +The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends. + -- Marcus Tullius Cicero +% +The strong give up and move away, while the weak give up and stay. +% +The strong individual loves the earth so much he lusts for recurrence. He +can smile in the face of the most terrible thought: meaningless, aimless +existence recurring eternally. The second characteristic of such a man is +that he has the strength to recognise -- and to live with the recognition -- +that the world is valueless in itself and that all values are human ones. +He creates himself by fashoning his own values; he has the pride to live +by the values he wills. + -- Nietzsche +% +The sudden sight of me causes panic in the streets. They have yet to learn +-- only the savage fears what he does not understand. + -- The Silver Surfer +% +The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher +esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. + -- Nietzsche +% +The things that interest people most are usually none of their business. +% +The three questions of greatest concern are -- 1. Is it attractive? +2. Is it amusing? 3. Does it know its place? + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" +% +The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds +the other fellow of a dull one. + -- Sid Caesar +% +The truth about a man lies first and foremost in what he hides. + -- Andre Malraux +% +The very remembrance of my former misfortune proves a new one to me. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones. + -- Nathaniel Howe +% +The way some people find fault, you'd think there was some kind of reward. +% +The way to a man's heart is through the left ventricle. +% +The wise man seeks everything in himself; the ignorant man tries to get +everything from somebody else. +% +The wise shepherd never trusts his flock to a smiling wolf. +% +The wonderful thing about a dancing bear is not how well he dances, +but that he dances at all. +% +The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an +open doorway with an open mind. + -- E.B. White +% +The world needs more people like us and fewer like them. +% +The worst cliques are those which consist of one man. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +The worst is not so long as we can say "This is the worst." + -- King Lear +% +The worst part of having success is trying to find someone who is happy for you. + -- Bette Midler +% +The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, +but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober. + -- William Butler Yeats +% +The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and +not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could +have materialized -- and never knowing. + -- David Viscott +% + Then there's the story of the man who avoided reality for 70 years +with drugs, sex, alcohol, fantasy, TV, movies, records, a hobby, lots of +sleep... And on his 80th birthday died without ever having faced any of +his real problems. + The man's younger brother, who had been facing reality and all his +problems for 50 years with psychiatrists, nervous breakdowns, tics, tension, +headaches, worry, anxiety and ulcers, was so angry at his brother for having +gotten away scott free that he had a paralyzing stroke. + The moral to this story is that there ain't no justice that we can +stand to live with. + -- R. Geis +% +There are few people more often in the wrong than those who cannot endure +to be thought so. +% +There are many people today who literally do not have a close personal +friend. They may know something that we don't. They are probably +avoiding a great deal of pain. +% +There are more dead people than living, and their numbers are increasing. + -- Eugene Ionesco +% +There are no emotional victims, only volunteers. +% +There are no great men, buster. There are only men. + -- Elaine Stewart, "The Bad and the Beautiful" +% +There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced +by circumstances to meet. + -- Admiral William Halsey +% +There are only two kinds of men -- the dead and the deadly. + -- Helen Rowland +% +There are people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the +truth without lying. + -- Josh Billings +% +There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good +sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more. + -- Woody Allen +% +There comes a time to stop being angry. + -- A Small Circle of Friends +% +There is a certain frame of mind to which a cemetery is, if not an antidote, +at least an alleviation. If you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere else. + --Robert Louis Stevenson: Immortelles +% +There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it +has not yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +There is brutality and there is honesty. There is no such thing as brutal +honesty. +% +There is no delight the equal of dread. As long as it is somebody else's. + --Clive Barker +% +There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist. +% +There is no statute of limitations on stupidity. +% +There is no substitute for good manners, except, perhaps, fast reflexes. +% +There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness or death. +Any attempt to prove otherwise constitutes unacceptable behaviour. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" +% +There is nothing more silly than a silly laugh. + -- Gaius Valerius Catullus +% +There is nothing stranger in a strange land than the stranger who comes +to visit. +% +There is only one word for aid that is genuinely without strings, +and that word is blackmail. + -- Colm Brogan +% +There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly +divide the people of the world into two classes and those who do not. + -- Robert Benchley +% +There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad it's not a fence. +% +There's a lot to be said for not saying a lot. +% +There's no saint like a reformed sinner. +% +There's no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it. +% +Therefore it is necessary to learn how not to be good, and to use +this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the cause. + -- Machiavelli +% +They also serve who only stand and wait. + -- John Milton +% +They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see +nothing but sea. + -- Francis Bacon +% +"They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!" +% +They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid! +% +"They're unfriendly, which is fortunate, really. They'd be difficult to like." + -- Avon +% +Thinking you know something is a sure way to blind yourself. + -- Frank Herbert, "Chapterhouse: Dune" +% +This generation doesn't have emotional baggage. We have emotional moving vans. + -- Bruce Feirstein +% +This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother's +side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little +else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds happiness in +a world in which happiness is always in short supply. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Those of you who think you know everything are annoying those of us who do. +% +Those who are mentally and emotionally healthy are those who have +learned when to say yes, when to say no and when to say whoopee. + -- W.S. Krabill +% +Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. + -- George Santayana +% +Those who don't know, talk. Those who don't talk, know. +% +Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose. +% +To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am always right. +% +To be great is to be misunderstood. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +To be is to be related. + -- C.J. Keyser. +% +To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved. +% +To be who one is, is not to be someone else. +% +To be wise, the only thing you really need to know is when to say +"I don't know." +% +To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for +you in your private heart is true for all men -- that is genius. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +To criticize the incompetent is easy; it is more difficult to criticize +the competent. +% +To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient +solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. + -- H. Poincar'e +% +To find a friend one must close one eye; to keep him -- two. + -- Norman Douglas +% +To keep your friends treat them kindly; to kill them, treat them often. +% +To laugh at men of sense is the privilege of fools. +% +To make an enemy, do someone a favor. +% +To refuse praise is to seek praise twice. +% +To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn +old falsehoods. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love" +% +To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what +he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do. +% +Too clever is dumb. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Troglodytism does not necessarily imply a low cultural level. +% +Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant intelligence. + -- Henrik Tikkanen +% +Try to be the best of whatever you are, even if what you are is no good. +% +Try to divide your time evenly to keep others happy. +% +Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth. + -- Alan Watts +% +Uh-oh -- I've let the cat out of the bag. Let me, then, straightforwardly +state the thesis I shall now elaborate: Making variations on a theme is +really the crux of creativity. + -- Douglas R. Hofstadter, "Metamagical Themas" +% +Unless you love someone, nothing else makes any sense. + -- e.e. cummings +% +Vila: "I think I have just made the biggest mistake of my life." + +Orac: "It is unlikely. I would predict there are far greater mistakes + waiting to be made by someone with your obvious talent for it." +% +Violence stinks, no matter which end of it you're on. But now and then +there's nothing left to do but hit the other person over the head with a +frying pan. Sometimes people are just begging for that frypan, and if we +weaken for a moment and honor their request, we should regard it as +impulsive philanthropy, which we aren't in any position to afford, but +shouldn't regret it too loudly lest we spoil the purity of the deed. + -- Tom Robbins +% +Virtue does not always demand a heavy sacrifice -- only the willingness +to make it when necessary. + -- Frederick Dunn +% +Virtue is its own punishment. + -- Denniston + +Righteous people terrify me ... virtue is its own punishment. + -- Aneurin Bevan +% +Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors. + -- Confucius +% +Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +Visits always give pleasure: if not on arrival, then on the departure. + -- Edouard Le Berquier, "Pensees des Autres" +% +Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime. +For a first offense, that is. +% +Walk softly and carry a BFG-9000. +% +Walk softly and carry a big stick. + -- Theodore Roosevelt +% +Walk softly and carry a megawatt laser. +% +We all dream of being the darling of everybody's darling. +% +We all know that no one understands anything that isn't funny. +% +We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon. + -- Dr. Konrad Adenauer +% +We are all born mad. Some remain so. + -- Samuel Beckett +% +We are all dying -- and we're gonna be dead for a long time. +% +We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +We are all so much together and yet we are all dying of loneliness. + -- A. Schweitzer +% +We are anthill men upon an anthill world. + -- Ray Bradbury +% +We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it. + -- Whole Earth Catalog +% +We are each only one drop in a great ocean -- but some of the drops sparkle! +% +We are not loved by our friends for what we are; rather, we are loved in +spite of what we are. + -- Victor Hugo +% +We are so fond of each other because our ailments are the same. + -- Jonathan Swift +% +We are stronger than our skin of flesh and metal, for we carry and share a +spectrum of suns and lands that lends us legends as we craft our immortality +and interweave our destinies of water and air, leaving shadows that gather +color of their own, until they outshine the substance that cast them. +% +We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it. + -- La Rochefoucauld +% +We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from the +machinations of the wicked. +% +We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves. + -- Eric Hoffer +% +We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always respect +their good judgement. +% +We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are +free from great ones. + -- La Rouchefoucauld +% +We prefer to believe that the absence of inverted commas guarantees the +originality of a thought, whereas it may be merely that the utterer has +forgotten its source. + -- Clifton Fadiman, "Any Number Can Play" +% +We prefer to speak evil of ourselves rather than not speak of ourselves at all. +% +We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears. +% +We read to say that we have read. +% +We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our best +friends are trying to kill us. +% +We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them. + -- Thucydides +% +We seldom repent talking too little, but very often talking too much. + -- Jean de la Bruyere +% +We thrive on euphemism. We call multi-megaton bombs "Peace-keepers", closet +size apartments "efficient" and incomprehensible artworks "innovative". In +fact, "euphemism" has become a euphemism for "bald-faced lie". And now, here +are the euphemisms so colorfully employed in Personal Ads: + +EUPHEMISM REALITY +------------------- ------------------------- +Excited about life's journey No concept of reality +Spiritually evolved Oversensitive +Moody Manic-depressive +Soulful Quiet manic-depressive +Poet Boring manic-depressive +Sultry/Sensual Easy +Uninhibited Lacking basic social skills +Unaffected and earthy Slob and lacking basic social skills +Irreverent Nasty and lacking basic social skills +Very human Quasimodo's best friend +Swarthy Sweaty even when cold or standing still +Spontaneous/Eclectic Scatterbrained +Flexible Desperate +Aging child Self-centered adult +Youthful Over 40 and trying to deny it +Good sense of humor Watches a lot of television +% +Well, I'm disenchanted too. We're all disenchanted. + -- James Thurber +% +Were it not for the presence of the unwashed and the half-educated, the +formless, queer and incomplete, the unreasonable and absurd, the infinite +shapes of the delightful human tadpole, the horizon would not wear so wide +a grin. + -- F.M. Colby, "Imaginary Obligations" +% +What do I consider a reasonable person to be? I'd say a reasonable person +is one who accepts that we are all human and therefore fallible, and takes +that into account when dealing with others. Implicit in this definition is +the belief that it is the right and the responsibility of each person to +live his or her own life as he or she sees fit, to respect this right in +others, and to demand the assumption of this responsibility by others. +% +What good is it if you talk in flowers, and they think in pastry? + -- Ashleigh Brilliant +% + What is involved in such [close] relationships is a form of emotional +chemistry, so far unexplained by any school of psychiatry I am aware of, that +conditions nothing so simple as a choice between the poles of attraction and +repulsion. You can meet some people thirty, forty times down the years, and +they remain amiable bystanders, like the shore lights of towns that a sailor +passes at stated times but never calls at on the regular run. Conversely, +all considerations of sex aside, you can meet some other people once or twice +and they remain permanent influences on your life. + Everyone is aware of this discrepancy between the acquaintance seen +as familiar wallpaper or instant friend. The chemical action it entails is +less worth analyzing than enjoying. At any rate, these six pieces are about +men with whom I felt an immediate sympat - to use a coining of Max Beerbohm's +more satisfactory to me than the opaque vogue word "empathy". + -- Alistair Cooke, "Six Men" +% +What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed +of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- that +is the first law of nature. + -- Voltaire +% +What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that they think +themselves cleverer than we are. +% +What on earth would a man do with himself if something did not stand in his way? + -- H.G. Wells +% +What upsets me is not that you lied to me, but that from now on I can no +longer believe you. + -- Nietzsche +% +What we see depends on mainly what we look for. + -- John Lubbock +% +What you see is from outside yourself, and may come, or not, but is beyond +your control. But your fear is yours, and yours alone, like your voice, or +your fingers, or your memory, and therefore yours to control. If you feel +powerless over your fear, you have not yet admitted that it is yours, to do +with as you will. + -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, "Stormqueen" +% +What's the matter with the world? Why, there ain't but one thing wrong +with every one of us -- and that's "selfishness." + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +What's this stuff about people being "released on their own recognizance"? +Aren't we all out on our own recognizance? +% +What, after all, is a halo? It's only one more thing to keep clean. + -- Christopher Fry +% +Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: that you are dreadfully like +other people. + -- James Russell Lowell, "My Study Windows" +% +Whatever you want to do, you have to do something else first. +% +When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his +mind wonderfully. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +When a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or four years +ago, he is a broad-minded man who has courage enough to change his mind +with changing conditions. When a man you don't like does it, he is a +liar who has broken his promises. + -- Franklin Adams +% +When all other means of communication fail, try words. +% +When among apes, one must play the ape. +% +When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them. +% +When in doubt, do it. It's much easier to apologize than to get permission. + -- Grace Murray Hopper +% +When it comes to helping you, some people stop at nothing. +% +When people say nothing, they don't necessarily mean nothing. +% +When there are two conflicting versions of the story, the wise course +is to believe the one in which people appear at their worst. + -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow" +% +When you dig another out of trouble, you've got a place to bury your own. +% +When you jump for joy, beware that no-one moves the ground from beneath +your feet. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Unkempt Thoughts" +% +When you speak to others for their own good it's advice; +when they speak to you for your own good it's interference. +% +When you try to make an impression, the chances are that is the +impression you will make. +% +WHENEVER ANYBODY SAYS he's struggling to become a human being I have to +laugh because the apes beat him to it by about a million years. Struggle +to become a parrot or something. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes. +% +Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Whenever someone tells you to take their advice, you can be pretty sure +that they're not using it. +% +... whether it is better to spend a life not knowing what you want or to +spend a life knowing exactly what you want and that you will never have it. + -- Richard Shelton +% +While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is +admission to someone else. +% +While having never invented a sin, I'm trying to perfect several. +% +While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their +correctness never does. +% +While we are sleeping, two-thirds of the world is plotting to do us in. + -- Dean Rusk +% +While you don't greatly need the outside world, it's still very +reassuring to know that it's still there. +% +While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands you are +safe, for you can watch both of his. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not +become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks +into you. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +Whoever would lie usefully should lie seldom. +% +Why be difficult when, with a bit of effort, you could be impossible? +% +Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement unless it was to +avoid responsibility with? +% +Why my thoughts are my own, when they are in, but when they are out they +are another's. + -- Susanna Martin, executed for witchcraft, 1681 +% +Why was I born with such contemporaries? + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Why, every one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow. + -- Rabelais +% +Will your long-winded speeches never end? +What ails you that you keep on arguing? + -- Job 16:3 +% +Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as +it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat. +% +With a gentleman I try to be a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I +try to be a fraud and a half. + -- Otto von Bismark +% +With clothes the new are best, with friends the old are best. +% +Words must be weighed, not counted. +% +Worrying is like rocking in a rocking chair -- It gives you something to do, +but it doesn't get you anywhere. +% +Write a wise saying and your name will live forever. + -- Anonymous +% +Ye've also got to remember that ... respectable people do the most astonishin' +things to preserve their respectability. Thank God I'm not respectable. + -- Ruthven Campbell Todd +% +Yes, but every time I try to see things your way, I get a headache. +% +Yield to Temptation ... it may not pass your way again. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" +% +You ain't learning nothing when you're talking. +% +You are a wish to be here wishing yourself. + -- Philip Whalen +% +You are absolute plate-glass. I see to the very back of your mind. + -- Sherlock Holmes +% +You are not a fool just because you have done something foolish -- +only if the folly of it escapes you. +% +You can always tell luck from ability by its duration. +% +You can always tell the people that are forging the new frontier. +They're the ones with arrows sticking out of their backs. +% +You can bear anything if it isn't your own fault. + -- Katharine Fullerton Gerould +% +You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow. + -- Janis Joplin +% +You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks. +% +You can't cheat an honest man. Never give a sucker an even break or +smarten up a chump. + -- W.C. Fields +% +You can't cross a large chasm in two small jumps. +% +You can't erase a dream, you can only wake me up. + -- Peter Frampton +% +You can't have your cake and let your neighbor eat it too. + -- Ayn Rand +% +You can't hold a man down without staying down with him. + -- Booker T. Washington +% +You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle +is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. + -- W. Somerset Maugham, "The Circle" +% +You can't play your friends like marks, kid. + -- Henry Gondorf, "The Sting" +% +You can't start worrying about what's going to happen. You get spastic +enough worrying about what's happening now. + -- Lauren Bacall +% +"You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or they don't." + -- Dagwood Bumstead +% +You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd. +% +You cannot kill time without injuring eternity. +% +You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back. +% +You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. + -- Indira Gandhi +% +You cannot use your friends and have them too. +% +You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the first +and last month in advance. +% +You don't have to be nice to people on the way up if you're not planning on +coming back down. + -- Oliver Warbucks, "Annie" +% +You don't have to explain something you never said. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +You give me space to belong to myself yet without separating me +from your own life. May it all turn out to your happiness. + -- Goethe +% +You got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, +because you might not get there. + -- Yogi Berra +% +You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. + -- John Viscount Morley +% +You humans are all alike. +% +You just wait, I'll sin till I blow up! + -- Dylan Thomas +% +You know how to win a victory, Hannibal, but not how to use it. + -- Maharbal +% +You know it's going to be a bad day when you want to put on the clothes +you wore home from the party and there aren't any. +% +You know it's going to be a long day when you get up, shave and shower, +start to get dressed and your shoes are still warm. + -- Dean Webber +% +You know it's Monday when you wake up and it's Tuesday. + -- Garfield +% +You know what they say -- the sweetest word in the English language is revenge. + -- Peter Beard +% +You know you are getting old when you think you should drive the speed limit. + -- E.A. Gilliam +% +You know you're in trouble when... +(1) You wake up face down on the pavement. +(2) Your wife wakes up feeling amorous and you have a headache. +(3) You turn on the news and they're showing emergency routes + out of the city. +(4) Your twin sister forgot your birthday. +(5) You wake up and discover your waterbed broke and then + remember that you don't have a waterbed. +(6) Your doctor tells you you're allergic to chocolate. +% +You know you're in trouble when... +(1) You've been at work for an hour before you notice that your + skirt is caught in your pantyhose. + Especially if you're a man. +(2) Your blind date turns out to be your ex-wife. +(3) Your income tax check bounces. +(4) You put both contact lenses in the same eye. +(5) Your wife says, "Good morning, Bill" and your name is George. +(6) You wake up to the soothing sound of flowing water... the day + after you bought a waterbed. +(7) You go on your honeymoon to a remote little hotel and the desk + clerk, bell hop, and manager have a "Welcome Back" party + for your spouse. +% +You know you're in trouble when... +(1) Your car horn goes off accidentally and remains stuck as you + follow a group of Hell's Angels on the freeway. +(2) You want to put on the clothes you wore home from the party + and there aren't any. +(3) Your boss tells you not to bother to take off your coat. +(4) The bird singing outside your window is a buzzard. +(5) You wake up and your braces are locked together. +(6) Your mother approves of the person you're dating. +% +You know you're in trouble when... +(1) Your only son tells you he wishes Anita Bryant would mind + her own business. +(2) You put your bra on backwards and it fits better. +(3) You call Suicide Prevention and they put you on hold. +(4) You see a `60 Minutes' news team waiting in your office. +(5) Your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles. +(6) Your 4-year old reveals that it's "almost impossible" to + flush a grapefruit down the toilet. +(7) You realize that you've memorized the back of the cereal box. +% +You know your apartment is small... + when you can't know its position and velocity at the same time. + you put your key in the lock and it breaks the window. + you have to go outside to change your mind. + you can vacuum the entire place using a single electrical outlet. +% +You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a "realist," he +is preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of doing. + -- Sydney Harris +% +You may easily play a joke on a man who likes to argue -- agree with him. + -- Ed Howe +% +You men out there probably think you already know how to dress for success. +You know, for example, that you should not wear leisure suits or white +plastic belts and shoes, unless you are going to a costume party disguised +as a pig farmer vacationing at Disney World. + -- Dave Barry, "How to Dress for Real Success" +% +You must know that a man can have only one invulnerable loyalty, loyalty +to his own concept of the obligations of manhood. All other loyalties +are merely deputies of that one. + -- Nero Wolfe +% +You never gain something but that you lose something. + -- Thoreau +% +You never get a second chance to make a first impression. +% +You never go anywhere without your soul. +% +You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough. + -- William Blake +% +You never learn anything by doing it right. +% +You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could +know how seldom they do. + -- Olin Miller. +% + "You say there are two types of people?" + "Yes, those who separate people into two groups and those that don't." + "Wrong. There are three groups: + Those who separate people into three groups. + Those who don't separate people into groups. + Those who can't decide." + "Wait a minute, what about people who separate people into two groups?" + "Oh. Okay, then there are four groups." + "Aren't you then separating people into four groups?" + "Yeah." + "So then there's a fifth group, right?" + "You know, the problem is these idiots who can't make up their minds." +% +You see things; and you say "Why?" +But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" + -- George Bernard Shaw, "Back to Methuselah" + [No, it wasn't J.F. Kennedy. Ed.] +% +You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends. + -- Joseph Conrad +% +You should avoid hedging, at least that's what I think. +% +You should make a point of trying every experience once -- except +incest and folk-dancing. + -- A. Bax, "Farewell My Youth" +% +You shouldn't wallow in self-pity. But it's OK to put your feet in it +and swish them around a little. + -- Guindon +% +You want to know why I kept getting promoted? Because my mouth knows more +than my brain. + -- W.G. +% +You won't skid if you stay in a rut. + -- Frank Hubbard +% +You'd best be snoozin', 'cause you don't be gettin' no work done at 5 a.m. +anyway. + -- From the wall of the Wurster Hall stairwell +% +You'd better smile when they watch you, smile like you're in control. + -- Smile, "Was (Not Was)" +% +You're always thinking you're gonna be the one that makes 'em act different. + -- Woody Allen, "Manhattan" +% +You're either part of the solution or part of the problem. + -- Eldridge Cleaver +% +You're never too old to become younger. + -- Mae West +% +You've always made the mistake of being yourself. + -- Eugene Ionesco +% +You've been telling me to relax all the way here, and now you're telling +me just to be myself? + -- The Return of the Secaucus Seven +% +Young men are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for +counsel; and fitter for new projects than for settled business. For the +experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth +them; but in new things, abuseth them. The errors of young men are the ruin +of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might +have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and management of +actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly +to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few +principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not how they innovate, +which draws unknown inconveniences; and, that which doubleth all errors, will +not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop +nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, +repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but +content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly, it is good to +compound employments of both ... because the virtues of either age may correct +the defects of both. + -- Francis Bacon, "Essay on Youth and Age" +% +Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools. + -- George Chapman +% +Young men, hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young. + -- Augustus Caesar +% +Your Co-worker Could Be a Space Alien, Say Experts + ...Here's How You Can Tell +Many Americans work side by side with space aliens who look human -- but you +can spot these visitors by looking for certain tip-offs, say experts. They +listed 10 signs to watch for: + (3) Bizarre sense of humor. Space aliens who don't understand + earthly humor may laugh during a company training film or tell + jokes that no one understands, said Steiger. + (6) Misuses everyday items. "A space alien may use correction + fluid to paint its nails," said Steiger. + (8) Secretive about personal life-style and home. "An alien won't + discuss details or talk about what it does at night or on weekends." + (10) Displays a change of mood or physical reaction when near certain + high-tech hardware. "An alien may experience a mood change when + a microwave oven is turned on," said Steiger. +The experts pointed out that a co-worker would have to display most if not +all of these traits before you can positively identify him as a space alien. + -- National Enquirer, Michael Cassels, August, 1984. + + [I thought everybody laughed at company training films. Ed.] +% +Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you +from enjoying it. +% +Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your +acquaintances will know you in a thousand years. + -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" +% +Youth -- not a time of life but a state of mind... a predominance of +courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. + -- Robert F. Kennedy +% +Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret. + -- Benjamin Disraeli, "Coningsby" +% +Youth is a disease from which we all recover. + -- Dorothy Fuldheim +% + Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind; it is a temper of +the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance +of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease. + Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow +old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up +enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear, and despair +-- these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit +back to dust. + Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart the love +of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and the starlike things and +thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite +for what next, and the joy and the game of life. + You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your +self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your +despair. + So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, +grandeur and power from the earth, from man, and from the Infinite, so long +you are young. + -- Samuel Ullman +% +If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save +you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not +bring forth will destroy you. + -- Jesus, "Gnostic Gospels" (Elaine Pagel) +% +I am myself plus my circumstance, and if I do not save it, I cannot +save myself. + -- Jos'e Ortega Y Gasset +% +If a man slept by day, he had little time to work. That was a +satisfying notion to Escargot. + -- "The Stone Giant", James P. Blaylock +% +He liked fishing a little too much, and he believed that work was +something a man did when he had to. He had always been able to get +along well enough without it, especially for the last couple of +years. + -- "The Stone Giant", James P. Blaylock +% +Would a giant, profit-oriented cartel lie to you? + -- Top Ten List, Late Night with David Letterman +% +Some days you wake and immediately start worrying. Nothing in +particular is wrong, it's just the suspicion that forces are aligning +quietly and there will be trouble. + -- "Survival Series", Jenny Holzer +% +When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but +only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered +glass and splintered wood, like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat +crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard +powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything +like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to +someone else. + -- Margaret Atwood, "Alias Grace" +% +I am examining you on your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian +on earth believes. + -- Clarence Darrow, to William Jennings Bryan +% +"Go on, girl! You'll never get a better chance to buy Jif at this +price. *Carpe diem*, babe!" + -- "The Naked Consumer", Erik Larson +% +I'm enthralled by combine harvesters. In fact, I yearn to have one -- +as a pet. + -- "The Day of the Jackal" +% +The horizon of many people is a circle with a radius of zero. They call +this their point of view. + -- Albert Einstein +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/perl b/fortune-mod/datfiles/perl new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e283cb0 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/perl @@ -0,0 +1,1026 @@ +All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Jul13.010945.19157@netlabs.com +% +Although the Perl Slogan is There's More Than One Way to Do It, I hesitate +to make 10 ways to do something. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <9695@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +And don't tell me there isn't one bit of difference between null and space, +because that's exactly how much difference there is. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <10209@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +"And I don't like doing silly things (except on purpose)." + -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul3.191825.14435@netlabs.com> +% +: And it goes against the grain of building small tools. +Innocent, Your Honor. Perl users build small tools all day long. + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> +% +/* And you'll never guess what the dog had */ +/* in its mouth... */ + -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code +% +Because . doesn't match \n. [\0-\377] is the most efficient way to match +everything currently. Maybe \e should match everything. And \E would +of course match nothing. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <9847@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Be consistent. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +Besides, including is a fatal error on machines that +don't have it yet. Bad language design, there... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Aug22.220929.6857@netlabs.com> +% +Besides, it's good to force C programmers to use the toolbox occasionally. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991May31.181659.28817@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> +% +Besides, REAL computers have a rename() system call. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <7937@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +break; /* don't do magic till later */ + -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code +% +But you have to allow a little for the desire to evangelize when you +think you have good news. + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> +% +Chip Salzenberg sent me a complete patch to add System V IPC (msg, sem and +shm calls), so I added them. If that bothers you, you can always undefine +them in config.sh. :-) -- Larry Wall in <9384@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +/* dbmrefcnt--; */ /* doesn't work, rats */ + -- Larry Wall in hash.c from the perl source code +% +#define NULL 0 /* silly thing is, we don't even use this */ + -- Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code +% +#define SIGILL 6 /* blech */ + -- Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code +% +Does the same as the system call of that name. +If you don't know what it does, don't worry about it. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page regarding chroot(2) +% +double value; /* or your money back! */ +short changed; /* so triple your money back! */ + -- Larry Wall in cons.c from the perl source code +% +Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is +paved with melting snowballs. + -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul2.222039.26476@netlabs.com> +% +echo "Congratulations. You aren't running Eunice." + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +echo "Hmmm...you don't have Berkeley networking in libc.a..." +echo "but the Wollongong group seems to have hacked it in." + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +echo "ICK, NOTHING WORKED!!! You may have to diddle the includes.";; + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +echo $package has manual pages available in source form. +echo "However, you don't have nroff, so they're probably useless to you." + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +echo "Your stdio isn't very std." + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +#else /* !STDSTDIO */ /* The big, slow, and stupid way */ + -- Larry Wall in str.c from the perl source code +% +[End of diatribe. We now return you to your regularly scheduled +programming...] + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +Even if you aren't in doubt, consider the mental welfare of the person who +has to maintain the code after you, and who will probably put parens in +the wrong place. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +"Help save the world!" -- Larry Wall in README +% +Hey, I had to let awk be better at *something*... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Nov7.200504.25280@netlabs.com>1 +% +I already have too much problem with people thinking the efficiency of +a perl construct is related to its length. On the other hand, I'm +perfectly capable of changing my mind next week... :-) --lwall +% +I don't know if it's what you want, but it's what you get. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +I dunno, I dream in Perl sometimes... + -- Larry Wall in <8538@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +If I allowed "next $label" then I'd also have to allow "goto $label", +and I don't think you really want that... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Mar11.230002.27271@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> +% +If I don't document something, it's usually either for a good reason, +or a bad reason. In this case it's a good reason. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1992Jan17.005405.16806@netlabs.com> +% +"I find this a nice feature but it is not according to the documentation. +Or is it a BUG?" +"Let's call it an accidental feature. :-)" + -- Larry Wall in <6909@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +if (instr(buf,sys_errlist[errno])) /* you don't see this */ + -- Larry Wall in eval.c from the perl source code +% +if (rsfp = mypopen("/bin/mail root","w")) { /* heh, heh */ + -- Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code +% +If you consistently take an antagonistic approach, however, people are +going to start thinking you're from New York. :-) + -- Larry Wall to Dan Bernstein in <10187@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +If you want to program in C, program in C. It's a nice language. I +use it occasionally... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <7577@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +If you want to see useful Perl examples, we can certainly arrange to have +comp.lang.misc flooded with them, but I don't think that would help the +advance of civilization. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1992Mar5.180926.19041@netlabs.com> +% +If you want your program to be readable, consider supplying the argument. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +I know it's weird, but it does make it easier to write poetry in perl. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <7865@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +I'll say it again for the logic impaired. + -- Larry Wall +% +I might be able to shoehorn a reference count in on top of the numeric +value by disallowing multiple references on scalars with a numeric value, +but it wouldn't be as clean. I do occasionally worry about that. --lwall +% +I'm sure that that could be indented more readably, but I'm scared of +the awk parser. + -- Larry Wall in <6849@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +In general, if you think something isn't in Perl, try it out, because it +usually is. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Jul31.174523.9447@netlabs.com> +% +In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +Interestingly enough, since subroutine declarations can come anywhere, +you wouldn't have to put BEGIN {} at the beginning, nor END {} at the +end. Interesting, no? I wonder if Henry would like it. :-) --lwall +% +I think it's a new feature. Don't tell anyone it was an accident. :-) + -- Larry Wall on s/foo/bar/eieio in <10911@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +"It is easier to port a shell than a shell script." + -- Larry Wall +% +It is, of course, written in Perl. Translation to C is left as an +exercise for the reader. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7448@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +It's all magic. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <7282@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +It's documented in The Book, somewhere... + -- Larry Wall in <10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +> (It's sorta like sed, but not. It's sorta like awk, but not. etc.) +Guilty as charged. Perl is happily ugly, and happily derivative. + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> +% +It's there as a sop to former Ada programmers. :-) + -- Larry Wall regarding 10_000_000 in <11556@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +It won't be covered in the book. The source code has to be useful for +something, after all... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <10160@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +: I've heard that there is a shell (bourne or csh) to perl filter, does +: anyone know of this or where I can get it? +Yeah, you filter it through Tom Christiansen. :-) -- Larry Wall +% +: I've tried (in vi) "g/[a-z]\n[a-z]/s//_/"...but that doesn't +: cut it. Any ideas? (I take it that it may be a two-pass sort of solution). +In the first pass, install perl. :-) + -- Larry Wall <6849@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +I won't mention any names, because I don't want to get sun4's into +trouble... :-) -- Larry Wall in <11333@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Just don't compare it with a real language, or you'll be unhappy... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1992May12.190238.5667@netlabs.com> +% +Just don't create a file called -rf. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <11393@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +last|perl -pe '$_ x=/(..:..)...(.*)/&&"'$1'"ge$1&&"'$1'"lt$2' +That's gonna be tough for Randal to beat... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Apr29.072206.5621@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> +% +Let's say the docs present a simplified view of reality... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <6940@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Let us be charitable, and call it a misleading feature :-) + -- Larry Wall in <2609@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> +% +Lispers are among the best grads of the Sweep-It-Under-Someone-Else's-Carpet +School of Simulated Simplicity. [Was that sufficiently incendiary? :-)] + -- Larry Wall in <1992Jan10.201804.11926@netlabs.com +% +No, I'm not going to explain it. If you can't figure it out, you didn't +want to know anyway... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Aug7.180856.2854@netlabs.com> +% +/* now make a new head in the exact same spot */ + -- Larry Wall in cons.c from the perl source code +% +OK, enough hype. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +OOPS! You naughty creature! You didn't run Configure with sh! +I will attempt to remedy the situation by running sh for you... + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +Perl is designed to give you several ways to do anything, so +consider picking the most readable one. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +Perl itself is usually pretty good about telling you what you shouldn't +do. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <11091@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Perl programming is an *empirical* science! + -- Larry Wall in <10226@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +pos += screamnext[pos] /* does this goof up anywhere? */ + -- Larry Wall in util.c from the perl source code +% +Q. Why is this so clumsy? +A. The trick is to use Perl's strengths rather than its weaknesses. + -- Larry Wall in <8225@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Randal said it would be tough to do in sed. He didn't say he didn't +understand sed. Randal understands sed quite well. Which is why he +uses Perl. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7874@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <8571@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Remember though that +THERE IS NO GENERAL RULE FOR CONVERTING A LIST INTO A SCALAR. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +s = (char*)(long)retval; /* ouch */ + -- Larry Wall in doio.c from the perl source code +% +signal(i, SIG_DFL); /* crunch, crunch, crunch */ + -- Larry Wall in doarg.c from the perl source code +% +Sorry. My testing organization is either too small, or too large, depending +on how you look at it. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Apr22.175438.8564@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> +% +stab_val(stab)->str_nok = 1; /* what a wonderful hack! */ + -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code +% +str->str_pok |= SP_FBM; /* deep magic */ +s = (unsigned char*)(str->str_ptr); /* deeper magic */ + -- Larry Wall in util.c from the perl source code +% +Tactical? TACTICAL!?!? Hey, buddy, we went from kilotons to megatons +several minutes ago. We don't need no stinkin' tactical nukes. +(By the way, do you have change for 10 million people?) --lwall +% +That means I'll have to use $ans to suppress newlines now. +Life is ridiculous. + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +The autodecrement is not magical. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +The only disadvantage I see is that it would force everyone to get Perl. +Horrors. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <8854@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +*** The previous line contains the naughty word "$&".\n +if /(ibm|apple|awk)/; # :-) + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over. + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug19.041614.6963@netlabs.com> +% +There are many times when you want it to ignore the rest of the string just +like atof() does. Oddly enough, Perl calls atof(). How convenient. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1991Jun24.231628.14446@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> +% +There are probably better ways to do that, but it would make the parser +more complex. I do, occasionally, struggle feebly against complexity... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <7886@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +There are still some other things to do, so don't think if I didn't fix +your favorite bug that your bug report is in the bit bucket. (It may be, +but don't think it. :-) Larry Wall in <7238@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +There is, however, a strange, musty smell in the air that reminds me of +something...hmm...yes...I've got it...there's a VMS nearby, or I'm a Blit. + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +"The road to hell is paved with melting snowballs." + -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul2.222039.26476@netlabs.com> +% +/* This bit of chicanery makes a unary function followed by +a parenthesis into a function with one argument, highest precedence. */ + -- Larry Wall in toke.c from the perl source code +% +"...this does not mean that some of us should not want, in a rather +dispassionate sort of way, to put a bullet through csh's head." +Larry Wall in <1992Aug6.221512.5963@netlabs.com> +% +> This made me wonder, suddenly: can telnet be written in perl? +Of course it can be written in Perl. Now if you'd said nroff, +that would be more challenging... -- Larry Wall +% +Though I'll admit readability suffers slightly... + -- Larry Wall in <2969@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> +% +tmps_base = tmps_max; /* protect our mortal string */ + -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code +% +Unix is like a toll road on which you have to stop every 50 feet to +pay another nickel. But hey! You only feel 5 cents poorer each time. + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug13.192357.15731@netlabs.com> +% +"We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on +when it's necessary to compromise." + -- Larry Wall in <1991Nov13.194420.28091@netlabs.com> +% +/* we have tried to make this normal case as abnormal as possible */ + -- Larry Wall in cmd.c from the perl source code +% +What about WRITING it first and rationalizing it afterwords? :-) + -- Larry Wall in <8162@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +: 1. What is the possibility of this being added in the future? +In the near future, the probability is close to zero. In the distant +future, I'll be dead, and posterity can do whatever they like... :-) --lwall +% +"What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the sound of a wall that +people have stopped banging their heads against?" + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> +% +When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some +poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. + -- Larry Wall in the perl man page +% +"You can't have filenames longer than 14 chars. +You can't even think about them!" + -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +You have to admit that it's difficult to misplace the Perl sources. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> +% +Your csh still thinks true is false. Write to your vendor today and tell +them that next year Configure ought to "rm /bin/csh" unless they fix their +blasted shell. :-) -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution +% +You want it in one line? Does it have to fit in 80 columns? :-) + -- Larry Wall in <7349@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> +% +Well, enough clowning around. Perl is, in intent, a cleaned up and +summarized version of that wonderful semi-natural language known as +"Unix". + -- Larry Wall in <1994Apr6.184419.3687@netlabs.com> +% +Anyway, there's plenty of room for doubt. It might seem easy enough, +but computer language design is just like a stroll in the park. + +Jurassic Park, that is. + -- Larry Wall in <1994Jun15.074039.2654@netlabs.com> +% +I want to see people using Perl to glue things together creatively, not +just technically but also socially. + -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org> +% +The whole history of computers is rampant with cheerleading at best and +bigotry at worst. + -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org> +% +Unix weanies are as bad at this as anyone. + -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org> +% +If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason to +avoid them. + -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org> +% +As usual, I'm overstating the case to knock a few neurons loose, but the +truth is usually somewhere in the muddle, uh, middle. + -- Larry Wall in <199702111639.IAA28425@wall.org> +% +Odd that we think definitions are definitive. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org> +% +: But for some things, Perl just isn't the optimal choice. + +(yet) :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org> +% +I don't like this official/unofficial distinction. It sound, er, officious. + -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org> +% +If you write something wrong enough, I'll be glad to make up a new +witticism just for you. + -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org> +% +Perl 5 introduced everything else, including the ability to introduce +everything else. + -- Larry Wall in <199702252152.NAA28845@wall.org> +% +So far we've managed to avoid turning Perl into APL. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199702251904.LAA28261@wall.org> +% +Not that I have anything much against redundancy. But I said that already. + -- Larry Wall in <199702271735.JAA04048@wall.org> +% +They can always run stderr through uniq. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199704012331.PAA16535@wall.org> +% +I'd put my money where my mouth is, but my mouth keeps moving. + -- Larry Wall in <199704051723.JAA28035@wall.org> +% +Of course, I reserve the right to make wholly stupid changes to Perl +if I think they improve the language. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199704251604.JAA27300@wall.org> +% +Call me bored, but don't call me boring. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +I think $[ is more like a coelacanth than a mastadon. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +: I used to think that this was just another demonstration of Larry's +: enormous skill at pulling off what other people would fail or balk at. + +Well, everyone else knew it was impossible, so they didn't try. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +We question most of the mantras around here periodically, in case +you hadn't noticed. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +(Presuming for the sake of argument that it's even *possible* to design +better code in Perl than in C. :-) + -- Larry Wall on core code vs. module code design +% +: The hierarchy is excessive. + +So is the anarchy. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +That could certainly be done, but I don't want to fall into the Forth +trap, where every running Forth implementation is really a different +language. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +Tcl long ago fell into the Forth trap, and is now trying desperately to +extricate itself (with some help from Sun's marketing department). + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +The core is not frozen, but slushy. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +The whole intent of Perl 5's module system was to encourage the growth +of Perl culture rather than the Perl core. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +Randal can write one-liners again. Everyone is happy, and peace spreads +over the whole Earth. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +Life gets boring, someone invents another necessity, and once again we +turn the crank on the screwjack of progress hoping that nobody gets +screwed. + -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> +% +No prisoner's dilemma here. Over the long term, symbiosis is more +useful than parasitism. More fun, too. Ask any mitochondria. + -- Larry Wall in <199705102042.NAA00851@wall.org> +% +Obviously I was either onto something, or on something. + -- Larry Wall on the creation of Perl +% +It's the Magic that counts. + -- Larry Wall on Perl's apparent ugliness +% +May you do Good Magic with Perl. + -- Larry Wall's blessing +% +P.S. Perl's master plan (or what passes for one) is to take over the +world like English did. Er, *as* English did... + -- Larry Wall in <199705201832.LAA28393@wall.org> +% +You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language. :-) + + -- Larry Wall in <199706242038.NAA29853@wall.org> +% +I think you didn't get a reply because you used the terms "correct" and +"proper", neither of which has much meaning in Perl culture. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199706251602.JAA01786@wall.org> +% +I'm sure a mathematician would claim that 0 and 1 are both very +interesting numbers. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org> +% +True, it returns "" for false, but "" is an even more interesting +number than 0. + -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org> +% +Any false value is gonna be fairly boring in Perl, mathematicians +notwithstanding. + -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org> +% +We didn't put in ^^ because then we'd have to keep telling people what +it means, and then we'd have to keep telling them why it doesn't short +circuit. :-/ + -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org> +% +Anybody want a binary telemetry frame editor written in Perl? + -- Larry Wall in <199708012226.PAA22015@wall.org> +% +Most places distinguish them merely by using the appropriate value. +Hooray for context... + -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org> +% +But then it's a bit odd to think that declaring something int could +actually slow down the program, if it ended up forcing more conversions +back to string. + -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org> +% +It's possible that I'm just an idiot, and don't recognize a sleepy +slavemaster when I see one. + -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org> +% +Perhaps I'm missing the gene for making enemies. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org> +% +Perl has a long tradition of working around compilers. + -- Larry Wall in <199708252256.PAA00105@wall.org> +% +Personally, I like to defiantly split my infinitives. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199708271551.IAA10211@wall.org> +% +Real theology is always rather shocking to people who already +think they know what they think. I'm still shocked myself. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199708261932.MAA05218@wall.org> +% +But maybe we don't really need that... + -- Larry Wall in <199709011851.LAA07101@wall.org> +% +The computer should be doing the hard work. That's what it's paid to do, +after all. + -- Larry Wall in <199709012312.QAA08121@wall.org> +% +The following two statements are usually both true: + +There's not enough documentation. + +There's too much documentation. + -- Larry Wall in <199709020026.RAA08431@wall.org> +% +I don't think I'm gonna agree with that. Way too much visual confusion... + -- Larry Wall in <199709021627.JAA11966@wall.org> +% +There's certainly precedent for that already too. (Not claiming it's +*good* precedent, mind you. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199709021744.KAA12428@wall.org> +% +Of course, this being Perl, we could always take both approaches. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199709021744.KAA12428@wall.org> +% +For the run-time caching, I was going to suggest "cached" (doh!), but +perhaps "once" is more meaningful to ordinary people. + -- Larry Wall in <199709021812.LAA12571@wall.org> +% +The random quantum fluctuations of my brain are historical accidents that +happen to have decided that the concepts of dynamic scoping and lexical +scoping are orthogonal and should remain that way. + -- Larry Wall in <199709021854.LAA12794@wall.org> +% +At many levels, Perl is a "diagonal" language. + -- Larry Wall in <199709021854.LAA12794@wall.org> +% +I'm serious about thinking through all the possibilities before we +settle on anything. All things have the advantages of their +disadvantages, and vice versa. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +Part of language design is purturbing the proposed feature in various +directions to see how it might generalize in the future. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +Sometimes we choose the generalization. Sometimes we don't. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +I wouldn't ever write the full sentence myself, but then, I never use +goto either. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +It's appositival, if it's there. And it doesn't have to be there. +And it's really obvious that it's there when it's there. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +Oh, get ahold of yourself. Nobody's proposing that we parse English. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +As with all the other proposals, it's basically just a list of words. +You can deal with that... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +I hope I'm not getting so famous that I can't think out load [sic] anymore. + -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> +% +It would be possible to optimize some forms of goto, but I haven't +bothered. + -- Larry Wall in <199709041935.MAA27136@wall.org> +% +A "goto" in Perl falls into the category of hard things that should be +possible, not easy things that should be easy. + -- Larry Wall in <199709041935.MAA27136@wall.org> +% +How do Crays and Alphas handle the POSIX problem? + -- Larry Wall in <199709050042.RAA29379@wall.org> +% +One of the reasons Perl is faster than certain other unnamed interpreted +languages is that it binds variable names to a particular package (or +scope) at compile time rather than at run time. + -- Larry Wall in <199709050035.RAA29328@wall.org> +% +Well, that's more-or-less what I was saying, though obviously addition +is a little more cosmic than the bitwise operators. + -- Larry Wall in <199709051808.LAA01780@wall.org> +% +You tell it that it's indicative by appending $!. That's why we made $! +such a short variable name, after all. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199709081801.LAA20629@wall.org> +% +The choice of approaches could be made the responsibility of the +programmer. + -- Larry Wall in <199709081901.MAA20863@wall.org> +% +As someone pointed out, you could have an attribute that says "optimize +the heck out of this routine", and your definition of heck would be a +parameter to the optimizer. + -- Larry Wall in <199709081854.LAA20830@wall.org> +% +I guess what I'm saying is that the croak in question is requiring +agreement (in the linguistic sense) that isn't buying us anything. + -- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org> +% +If you're going to define a shortcut, then make it the base [sic] darn +shortcut you can. + -- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org> +% +It is my job in life to travel all roads, so that some may take the road +less travelled, and others the road more travelled, and all have a +pleasant day. + -- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org> +% +It's getting harder and harder to think out loud. One of these days +someone's gonna go off and kill Thomas a'Becket for me... + -- Larry Wall in <199709242015.NAA10312@wall.org> +% +I was about to say, "Avoid fame like the plague," but you know, they can +cure the plague with penicillin these days. + -- Larry Wall in <199709242015.NAA10312@wall.org> +% +But the possibility of abuse may be a good reason for leaving +capabilities out of other computer languages, it's not a good reason for +leaving capabilities out of Perl. + -- Larry Wall in <199709251614.JAA15718@wall.org> +% +Oh, wait, that was Randal...nevermind... + -- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org> +% +:-) your own self. + -- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org> +% +P.S. I suppose I really should be nicer to people today, considering +I'll be singing in Billy Graham's choir tonight... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org> +% +Magically turning people's old scalar contexts into list contexts is a +recipe for several kinds of disaster. + -- Larry Wall in <199709291631.JAA08648@wall.org> +% +: The following (relative to AutoSplit 1.03) attempts to please everyone +: and perhaps pleases no one: + +I think that's way cool. + -- Larry Wall in <199709292015.NAA09627@wall.org> +% +And we can always supply them with a program that makes identical files +into links to a single file. + -- Larry Wall in <199709292012.NAA09616@wall.org> +% +I wasn't recommending that we make the links for them, only provide them +with the tools to do so if they want to take the gamble (or the gambol). + -- Larry Wall in <199709292259.PAA10407@wall.org> +% +This has been planned for some time. I guess we'll just have to find +someone with an exceptionally round tuit. + -- Larry Wall in <199709302338.QAA17037@wall.org> +% + switch (ref $@) { + OverflowError => + +warn "Dam needs to be drained"; + DomainError => + +warn "King needs to be trained"; + NuclearWarError => + +die; + } + -- Larry Wall in <199709302338.QAA17037@wall.org> +% +I surely do hope that's a syntax error. + -- Larry Wall in <199710011752.KAA21624@wall.org> +% +Soitainly. I was assuming that came with the OO-ness of it. + -- Larry Wall in <199710011802.LAA21692@wall.org> +% +Because the demand for it is low enough that it would be best handled +as an XSUB, and the demand for it is low enough that nobody has +bothered to write it as an XSUB. + -- Larry Wall on in-place Perl sorting +% +But that looks a little too much like a declaration for my tastes, when +in fact it isn't one. So forget I mentioned it. + -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org> +% +I'm not sure whether that's actually useful... + -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org> +% +Anyway, my money is still on use strict vars . . . + -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org> +% +By rule #1, 5.005 should always allow localization of lexical @_ . . . + -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org> +% +I *know* it's weird, but strict vars already comes very, very close to +partitioning the crowd into those who can deal with local lexicals and +those who can't. + -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org> +% +If you remove stricture from a large Perl program currently, you're just +installing delayed bugs, whereas with this feature, you're installing an +instant bug that's easily fixed. Whoopee. + -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org> +% +The reason I like hitching a ride on strict vars is that it cuts down +the number of rarely used pragmas people have to remember, yet provides +a way to get to the point where we might, just maybe, someday, make +local lexicals the default for everyone, without having useless pragmas +wandering around various programs, or using up another bit in $^H. + -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org> +% +I don't think it's worth washing hogs over. + -- Larry Wall in <199710060253.TAA09723@wall.org> +% +It's certainly easy to calculate the average attendance for Perl +conferences. + -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org> +% +Tcl tends to get ported to weird places like routers. + -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org> +% +Historically Tcl has always stored all intermediate results as strings. +(With 8.0 they're rethinking that. Of course, Perl rethought that from +the start.) + -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org> +% +I knew I'd hate COBOL the moment I saw they'd used "perform" instead of +"do". + -- Larry Wall on a not-so-popular programming language +% +Just don't make the '9' format pack/unpack numbers... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710091434.HAA00838@wall.org> +% +I think that's easier to read. Pardon me. Less difficult to read. + -- Larry Wall in <199710120226.TAA06867@wall.org> +% +That wouldn't be good enough. + -- Larry Wall in <199710131621.JAA14907@wall.org> +% +To ordinary folks, conversion is not always automatic. It's something +that may or may not require explicit assistance. See Billy Graham. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710141738.KAA22289@wall.org> +% +The prayer of serenity applies here. To both of us. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710141802.LAA22443@wall.org> +% +Well, you can implement a Perl peek() with unpack('P',...). Once you +have that, there's only security through obscurity. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710161537.IAA07828@wall.org> +% +It may be possible to get this condition from within Perl if a signal +handler runs at just the wrong moment. Another point for Chip... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710161546.IAA07885@wall.org> +% +As pointed out in a followup, Real Perl Programmers prefer things to be +visually distinct. + -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org> +% +The Harvard Law states: Under controlled conditions of light, temperature, +humidity, and nutrition, the organism will do as it damn well pleases. + -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org> +% +That should probably be written: + no !@#$%^&*:@!semicolon + -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org> +% +That gets us out of deciding how to spell Reg[eE]xp?|RE . . . +Of course, then we have to decide what ref $re returns... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710171838.LAA24968@wall.org> +% +Depends on how you define "always". :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710211647.JAA17957@wall.org> +% +'Course, that doesn't work when 'a' contains parentheses. + -- Larry Wall in <199710211647.JAA17957@wall.org> +% +I was trying not to mention backtracking. Which, of course, means that +yours is "righter" than mine, in a theoretical sense. + -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org> +% +Not that I'm against sneaking some notions into people's heads upon +occasion. (Or blasting them in outright.) + -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org> +% +(To the extent that anyone but a Prolog programmer can understand \X totally. +(And to the extent that a Prolog programmer can understand "cut". :-)) + -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org> +% +But you'll notice Perl has a goto. + -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org> +% +Suppose you're working on an optimizer to render \X unnecessary (or +rather, redundant, which isn't the same thing in my book). + -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org> +% +Wow, I'm being shot at from both sides. That means I *must* be right. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710211959.MAA18990@wall.org> +% +You don't have to wait--you can have it in 5.004_54 or so. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710221740.KAA24455@wall.org> +% +There's something to be said for returning the whole syntax tree. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221833.LAA24741@wall.org> +% +It's not really a rule--it's more like a trend. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221721.KAA24321@wall.org> +% +Double *sigh*. _04 is going onto thousands of CDs even as we speak, +so to speak. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221718.KAA24299@wall.org> +% +The code also assumes that it's difficult to misspell "a" or "b". :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710221731.KAA24396@wall.org> +% +Well, hey, let's just make everything into a closure, and then we'll +have our general garbage collector, installed by "use less memory". + -- Larry Wall in <199710221744.KAA24484@wall.org> +% +No, that'd be silly. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org> +% +People who understand context would be steamed to have someone else +dictating how they can call it. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org> +% +For the sake of argument I'll ignore all your fighting words. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org> +% +Think of prototypes as a funny markup language--the interpretation is +left up to the rendering engine. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org> +% +Either approach may give birth to various sorts of monstrosities. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221950.MAA25210@wall.org> +% +The way these things go, there are probably 6 or 8 kludgey ways to do +it, and a better way that involves rethinking something that hasn't +been rethunk yet. + -- Larry Wall in <199710221859.LAA24889@wall.org> +% +Obviously your filters are throwing away mail from Randal. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710221937.MAA25131@wall.org> +% +Beauty? What's that? + -- Larry Wall in <199710221937.MAA25131@wall.org> +% +Oh yeah. Forgot about those. Getting senile, I guess... + -- Larry Wall in <199710261551.HAA17791@wall.org> +% +'Course, I haven't weighed in yet. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710281816.KAA29614@wall.org> +% +I'm afraid my gut level reaction is basically, "'proceed' is cute, but +cute doesn't cut it in the emergency room." + -- Larry Wall in <199710281816.KAA29614@wall.org> +% +I suppose one could claim that an undocumented feature has no +semantics. :-( + -- Larry Wall in <199710290036.QAA01818@wall.org> +% +: How would you disambiguate these situations? + +By shooting the person who did the latter. + -- Larry Wall in <199710290235.SAA02444@wall.org> +% +Yes, we have consensus that we need 64 bit support. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org> +% +: - cut in regexps + +I don't think we reached consensus on that. We're still backtracking... + -- Larry Wall in <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org> +% +Maybe it's time to break that. + -- Larry Wall in <199710311718.JAA19082@wall.org> +% +Boss: You forgot to assign the result of your map! + +Hacker: Dang, I'm always forgetting my assignations... + +Boss: And what's that "goto" doing there?!? + +Hacker: Er, I guess my finger slipped when I was typing "getservbyport"... + +Boss: Ah well, accidents will happen. Maybe we should have picked APL. + -- Larry Wall in <199710311732.JAA19169@wall.org> +% +Perhaps they will have to outlaw sending random lists of words. fee fie +foe foo [sic] + -- Larry Wall in <199710311916.LAA19760@wall.org> +% +Hey, if pi == 3, and three == 0, does that make pi == 0? :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199711011926.LAA25557@wall.org> +% +I think you're letting your knowledge of internals interfere with your +linguistic judgement here. + -- Larry Wall in <199711011949.LAA25651@wall.org> +% +(Never thought I'd be telling Malcolm and Ilya the same thing... :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199711071819.KAA29909@wall.org> +% +And other operators aren't so special syntactically, but weird +in other ways, like "scalar", and "goto". + -- Larry Wall in <199711071749.JAA29751@wall.org> +% +Portability should be the default. + -- Larry Wall in <199711072201.OAA01123@wall.org> +% +Actually, it also looks like we should optimize (13,2,42,8,'hike') into +a pp_padav copy as well. + -- Larry Wall in <199711081945.LAA06315@wall.org> +% +If this were Ada, I suppose we'd just constant fold 1/0 into + + die "Illegal division by zero" + -- Larry Wall in <199711100226.SAA12549@wall.org> +% +Are you perchance running on a 64-bit machine? + -- Larry Wall in <199711102149.NAA16878@wall.org> +% +Almost nothing in Perl serves a single purpose. + -- Larry Wall in <199712040054.QAA13811@wall.org> +% +There's some entertainment value in watching people juggle nitroglycerin. + -- Larry Wall in <199712041747.JAA18908@wall.org> +% +Reserve your abuse for your true friends. + -- Larry Wall in <199712041852.KAA19364@wall.org> +% +Er, Tom, I hate to be the one to point this out, but your fix list +is starting to resemble a feature list. You must be human or something. + -- Larry Wall in <199801081824.KAA29602@wall.org> +% +It's hard to tune heavily tuned code. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199801141725.JAA07555@wall.org> +% +Perl will always provide the null. + -- Larry Wall in <199801151818.KAA14538@wall.org> +% +It's easy to solve the halting problem with a shotgun. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199801151836.KAA14656@wall.org> +% +Well, I think Perl should run faster than C. :-) + -- Larry Wall in <199801200306.TAA11638@wall.org> +% +To Perl, or not to Perl, that is the kvetching. + -- Larry Wall in <199801200310.TAA11670@wall.org> +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/pets b/fortune-mod/datfiles/pets new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0bfebf0 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/pets @@ -0,0 +1,186 @@ +A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. + -- Ogden Nash +% + A little dog goes into a saloon in the Wild West, and beckons to +the bartender. "Hey, bartender, gimme a whiskey." + The bartender ignores him. + "Hey bartender, gimme a whiskey!" + Still ignored. + "HEY BARMAN!! GIMME A WHISKEY!!" + The bartender takes out his six-shooter and shoots the dog in the +leg, and the dog runs out the saloon, howling in pain. + Three years later, the wee dog appears again, wearing boots, +jeans, chaps, a Stetson, gun belt, and guns. He ambles slowly into the +saloon, goes up to the bar, leans over it, and says to the bartender, +"I'm here t'git the man that shot muh paw." +% +About the only thing on a farm that has an easy time is the dog. +% +All intelligent species own cats. +% +Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall be +liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind person shall +be deemed to be a cat. + -- Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London +% +Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat. + -- R. Heinlein +% + "Anything else you wish to draw to my attention, Mr. Holmes ?" + "The curious incident of the stable dog in the nighttime." + "But the dog did nothing in the nighttime." + "That was the curious incident." + -- A. Conan Doyle, "Silver Blaze" +% +Auribus teneo lupum. + [I hold a wolf by the ears.] + [Boy, it *sounds* good. But what does it *mean*?] +% +Breeding rabbits is a hare raising experience. +% +Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function. + -- Garrison Keillor +% +Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't make eight cats pull a sled through +the snow. +% +Cats, no less liquid than their shadows, offer no angles to the wind. +% +Chihuahuas drive me crazy. I can't stand anything that shivers when it's warm. +% +"Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern +technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat." +% +Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? I think +that's how dogs spend their lives. + -- Sue Murphy +% +Does the name Pavlov ring a bell? +% +Dogs just don't seem to be able to tell the difference between important people +and the rest of us. +% +Everyone *knows* cats are on a higher level of existence. These silly humans +are just to big-headed to admit their inferiority. + Just think what a nicer world this would be if it were controlled by +cats. + You wouldn't see cats having waste disposal problems. + They're neat. + They don't have sexual hangups. A cat gets horny, it does something +about it. + They keep reasonable hours. You *never* see a cat up before noon. + They know how to relax. Ever heard of a cat with an ulcer? + What are the chances of a cat starting a nuclear war? Pretty neglible. +It's not that they can't, they just know that there are much better things to +do with ones time. Like lie in the sun and sleep. Or go exploring the world. +% +For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a cat. +% +Hi! You have reached 555-0129. None of us are here to answer the phone and +the cat doesn't have opposing thumbs, so his messages are illegible. Please +leave your name and message after the beep... +% +I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts +to bite people themselves. + -- August Strindberg +% +I love dogs, but I hate Chihuahuas. A Chihuahua isn't a dog. It's a rat +with a thyroid problem. +% +If a can of Alpo costs 38 cents, would it cost $2.50 in Dog Dollars? +% +If anyone has seen my dog, please contact me at x2883 as soon as possible. +We're offering a substantial reward. He's a sable collie, with three legs, +blind in his left eye, is missing part of his right ear and the tip of his +tail. He's been recently fixed. Answers to "Lucky". +% +If you are a police dog, where's your badge? + -- Question James Thurber used to drive his German Shepherd + crazy. +% +"If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do: Pour a little +Lavoris in the toilet." + -- Jay Leno +% +If you have received a letter inviting you to speak at the dedication of a +new cat hospital, and you hate cats, your reply, declining the invitation, +does not necessarily have to cover the full range of your emotions. You must +make it clear that you will not attend, but you do not have to let fly at cats. +The writer of the letter asked a civil question; attack cats, then, only if +you can do so with good humor, good taste, and in such a way that your answer +will be courteous as well as responsive. Since you are out of sympathy with +cats, you may quite properly give this as a reason for not appearing at the +dedication ceremonies of a cat hospital. But bear in mind that your opinion +of cats was not sought, only your services as a speaker. Try to keep things +straight. + -- Strunk and White, "The Elements of Style" +% +In the eyes of my dog, I'm a man. + -- Martin Mull +% +It is not a good omen when goldfish commit suicide. +% +It was Penguin lust... at its ugliest. +% +It's no use crying over spilt milk -- it only makes it salty for the cat. +% +Lost: gray and white female cat. Answers to electric can opener. +% +Never try to outstubborn a cat. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" +% +No animal should ever jump on the dining room furniture unless +absolutely certain he can hold his own in conversation. + -- Fran Lebowitz +% +No one can feel as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish. +% +PENGUINICITY!! +% +Raising pet electric eels is gaining a lot of current popularity. +% +"Shelter," what a nice name for for a place where you polish your cat. +% +Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be +chewed and digested. + -- Francis Bacon + [As anyone who has ever owned a puppy already knows. Ed.] +% +Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I feel very peculiar. I feel +like I've just got to bite a cat! I feel like if I don't bite a cat +before sundown, I'll go crazy! But then I just take a deep breath and +forget about it. That's what is known as real maturity. + -- Snoopy +% +Speaking of purchasing a dog, never buy a watchdog that's on sale. +After all, everyone knows a bargain dog never bites! +% +The difference between dogs and cats is that dogs come when they're +called. Cats take a message and get back to you. +% +The main problem I have with cats is, they're not dogs. + -- Kevin Cowherd +% +The only time a dog gets complimented is when he doesn't do anything. + -- C. Schulz +% +There are many intelligent species in the universe, and they all own cats. +% +There's no use in having a dog and doing your own barking. +% +To err is human, +To purr feline. + -- Robert Byrne +% +When man calls an animal "vicious", he usually means that it will attempt +to defend itself when he tries to kill it. +% +When the fog came in on little cat feet last night, it left these little +muddy paw prints on the hood of my car. +% +Who loves me will also love my dog. + -- John Donne +% +With a rubber duck, one's never alone. + -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/platitudes b/fortune-mod/datfiles/platitudes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..739eed8 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/platitudes @@ -0,0 +1,1376 @@ +(1) Everything depends. +(2) Nothing is always. +(3) Everything is sometimes. +% +42 +% +A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that balances are +correct. + -- Princess Irulan, "Manual of Maud'Dib" +% +A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him. +% +A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. + -- Cervantes +% +A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. +% +A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose. +% + A boy spent years collecting postage stamps. The girl next door bought +an album too, and started her own collection. "Dad, she buys everything I've +bought, and it's taken all the fun out of it for me. I'm quitting." Don't, +son, remember, 'Imitation is the sincerest form of philately.'" +% +A certain amount of opposition is a help, not a hindrance. Kites rise +against the wind, not with it. +% +A chicken is an egg's way of producing more eggs. +% +A chronic disposition to inquiry deprives domestic felines of vital qualities. +% +A clever prophet makes sure of the event first. +% +A closed mouth gathers no foot. +% +A couch is as good as a chair. +% +A day without orange juice is like a day without orange juice. +% +A day without sunshine is like a day without Anita Bryant. +% +A day without sunshine is like a day without orange juice. +% +A day without sunshine is like night. +% +A dead man cannot bite. + -- Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey) +% +A farmer is a man outstanding in his field. +% + A farmer with extremely prolific hens posted the following sign. "Free +Chickens. Our Coop Runneth Over." +% + A father gave his teen-age daughter an untrained pedigreed pup for +her birthday. An hour later, when wandering through the house, he found her +looking at a puddle in the center of the kitchen. "My pup," she murmured +sadly, "runneth over." +% +A fool and his money are soon popular. +% +A fool and your money are soon partners. +% +A fool must now and then be right by chance. +% +A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +A friend in need is a pest indeed. +% +A full belly makes a dull brain. + -- Ben Franklin + + [and the local candy machine man. Ed] +% + A girl spent a couple hours on the phone talking to her two best +friends, Maureen Jones, and Maureen Brown. When asked by her father why she +had been on the phone so long, she responded "I heard a funny story today +and I've been telling it to the Maureens." +% +A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort of). +% +A good memory does not equal pale ink. +% +A good name lost is seldom regained. When character is gone, +all is gone, and one of the richest jewels of life is lost forever. + -- J. Hawes +% +A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. + -- Patton +% +A good reputation is more valuable than money. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +A good scapegoat is hard to find. +A guilty conscience is the mother of invention. + -- Carolyn Wells +% +A handful of friends is worth more than a wagon of gold. +% +A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains. +% +A hermit is a deserter from the army of humanity. +% +A homeowner's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a weekend for? +% + A horse breeder has his young colts bottle-fed after they're three +days old. He heard that a foal and his mummy are soon parted. +% +A hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong! +% +A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance. +% +A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. + -- Lao Tsu +% +A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's feet. + -- Lao Tsu +% +A king's castle is his home. +% +A lie in time saves nine. +% +A lie is an abomination unto the Lord and a very present help in time of +trouble. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. + -- Aristotle +% +A little experience often upsets a lot of theory. +% +A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation. + -- C.E. Ayres +% +A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. + -- H.H. Munro, "Saki" +% +A lost ounce of gold may be found, a lost moment of time never. +% +A man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles +in the road. + -- Alexander Smith +% +A man who carries a cat by its tail learns something he can learn +in no other way. +% +A man with one watch knows what time it is. +A man with two watches is never quite sure. +% +A man's best friend is his dogma. +% +A man's house is his castle. + -- Sir Edward Coke +% +A man's house is his hassle. +% +A mind is a wonderful thing to waste. +% +A mushroom cloud has no silver lining. +% +A penny saved has not been spent. +% +A penny saved is ridiculous. +% +A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his +mouth. +% +A place for everything and everything in its place. + -- Isabella Mary Beeton, "The Book of Household Management" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to memory management system services.] +% +A platitude is simply a truth repeated till people get tired of hearing it. + -- Stanley Baldwin +% +A plethora of individuals with expertise in culinary techniques contaminate +the potable concoction produced by steeping certain edible nutriments. +% +A plucked goose doesn't lay golden eggs. +% +A pound of salt will not sweeten a single cup of tea. +% +"A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives." +% +A rolling stone gathers momentum. +% +A rolling stone gathers no moss. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +A shortcut is the longest distance between two points. +% +A sinking ship gathers no moss. + -- Donald Kaul +% +A Smith & Wesson beats four aces. +% +A snake lurks in the grass. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger. + -- Proverbs 15:1 +% +A soft drink turneth away company. +% +A song in time is worth a dime. +% +A stitch in time saves nine. +% +A violent man will die a violent death. + -- Lao Tsu +% +A watched clock never boils. +% +A wise man can see more from a mountain top than a fool can from the bottom +of a well. +% +A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a +mountain top. +% +A wise person makes his own decisions, a weak one obeys public opinion. + -- Chinese proverb +% +A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets +people's attention. +% +A witty saying proves nothing. + -- Voltaire +% +A word to the wise is enough. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Above all else -- sky. +% +Above all things, reverence yourself. +% +Absence makes the heart forget. +% +Absence makes the heart go wander. +% +Absence makes the heart grow fonder -- of somebody else. +% +Absence makes the heart grow fonder. + -- Sextus Aurelius +% +Absence makes the heart grow frantic. +% +Absolutum obsoletum. (If it works, it's out of date.) + -- Stafford Beer +% +Ad astra per aspera. + [To the stars by aspiration.] +% +Adde parvum parvo manus acervus erit. + [Add little to little and there will be a big pile.] + -- Ovid +% +Advice from an old carpenter: measure twice, saw once. +% +After the game the king and the pawn go in the same box. + -- Italian proverb +% +Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill. +% +Age before beauty; and pearls before swine. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star. + -- W. Clement Stone +% +Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing. + -- The Mad Dogtender +% +Alas, I am dying beyond my means. + -- Oscar Wilde [as he sipped champagne on his deathbed] +% +Alimony is the high cost of leaving. +% +All a man needs out of life is a place to sit 'n' spit in the fire. +% +All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous. +% +-- All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous. +-- When there are visible vapors having the prevenience in ignited + carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration. +-- Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted. +-- A plethora of individuals wither expertise in culinary techniques vitiated + the potable concoction produced by steeping certain coupestibles. +-- Eleemosynary deeds have their initial incidence intramurally. +-- Male cadavers are incapable of yielding testimony. +-- Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices would be well + advised to refrain from catapulting projectiles. +% +All I kin say is when you finds yo'self wanderin' in a peach orchard, +ya don't go lookin' for rutabagas. + -- Kingfish +% +All is fear in love and war. +% +All is well that ends well. + -- John Heywood +% +All that glitters has a high refractive index. +% +All that glitters is not gold; all that wander are not lost. +% +All things are possible, except for skiing through a revolving door. +% +All things being equal, you are bound to lose. +% +All true wisdom is found on T-shirts. +% +All's well that ends. +% +An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or +one-and-a-half truths. + -- Karl Kraus +% +An apple a day makes 365 apples a year. +% +An apple every eight hours will keep three doctors away. +% +An idle mind is worth two in the bush. +% +An ounce of clear truth is worth a pound of obfuscation. +% +An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition. + -- Michael Korda +% +An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest. + -- Spanish proverb +% +"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge." +% +And tomorrow will be like today, only more so. + -- Isaiah 56:12, New Standard Version +% +Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. + -- Proverbs, 26:5 +% +Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche -- +a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance, my +grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one off the fence." +I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was undoubtedly true. + -- Solomon Short +% +Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there. + -- Sydney J. Harris +% +Any road followed to its end leads precisely nowhere. +Climb the mountain just a little to test it's a mountain. +From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain. + -- Bene Gesserit proverb, "Dune" +% +Anything is possible on paper. + -- Ron McAfee +% +Anything is possible, unless it's not. +% +Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto +undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth. + -- Max Beerbohm, "Mainly on the Air" +% +Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. +% +As well look for a needle in a bottle of hay. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Ask not for whom the Bell tolls, and you will pay only the station-to-station +rate. + -- Howard Kandel +% +Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls... +if thou art in the bathtub, it tolls for thee. +% +Avoid cliches like the plague. They're a dime a dozen. +% +Be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds. + -- Homer +% +Be sure to evaluate the bird-hand/bush ratio. +% +Beggars should be no choosers. + -- John Heywood +% +Better dead than mellow. +% +Better hope you get what you want before you stop wanting it. +% +Better late than never. + -- Titus Livius (Livy) +% +Better living a beggar than buried an emperor. +% +Better to be nouveau than never to have been riche at all. +% +Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. + -- motto of the Christopher Society +% +Better tried by twelve than carried by six. + -- Jeff Cooper +% +Beware of friends who are false and deceitful. +% +Beware of geeks bearing graft. +% +Call on God, but row away from the rocks. + -- Indian proverb +% +Charity begins at home. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +Cheap things are of no value, valuable things are not cheap. +% +Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely. + -- P.J. O'Rourke +% +Cleanliness is next to impossible. +% +Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- +"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +"Cogito ergo I'm right and you're wrong." + -- Blair Houghton +% +Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought her back. +% +Desist from enumerating your fowl prior to their emergence from the shell. +% +Do not count your chickens before they are hatched. + -- Aesop +% +Do unto others before they undo you. +% +Do, or do not; there is no try. +% +Doing gets it done. +% +Don't get even -- get odd! +% +Don't get mad, get even. + -- Joseph P. Kennedy + +Don't get even, get jewelry. + -- Anonymous +% +Don't get mad, get interest. +% +Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today because if you enjoy it today, +you can do it again tomorrow. +% +Eschew obfuscation. +% +Every path has its puddle. +% +Every silver lining has a cloud around it. +% +Every solution breeds new problems. +% +Expedience is the best teacher. +% +Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills. + -- Minna Antrim, "Naked Truth and Veiled Allusions" +% +Familiarity breeds attempt. +% +Flattery will get you everywhere. +% +Flee at once, all is discovered. +% +For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. + -- Alexander Pope +% +Forgive and forget. + -- Cervantes +% +Fortune and love befriend the bold. + -- Ovid +% +Fortune favors the lucky. +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #12 + + Those who can, do. Those who can't, write the instructions. +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #3 + + Birds of a feather flock to a newly washed car. +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #9 + + A word to the wise is often enough to start an argument. +% +Freedom from incrustation of grime is contiguous to rectitude. +% +Genius is pain. + -- John Lennon +% +Given sufficient time, what you put off doing today will get done by itself. +% +God gave man two ears and one tongue so that we listen twice as much as +we speak. + -- Arab proverb +% +Happiness adds and multiplies as we divide it with others. +% +Happiness is the greatest good. +% +Haste makes waste. + -- John Heywood +% +Have a nice day! +% +Have a nice diurnal anomaly. +% +Have an adequate day. +% +He that bringeth a present, findeth the door open. + -- Scottish proverb. +% +He who fears the unknown may one day flee from his own backside. + -- Sinbad +% +He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. +% +He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over. +% +He who has a shady past knows that nice guys finish last. +% +He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet. +% +He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world +as he who is ready to die. + -- Giacomo Leopardi +% +He who hates vices hates mankind. +% +He who hesitates is last. +% +He who hesitates is sometimes saved. +% +He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news. + -- Bertolt Brecht +% +He who laughs last -- missed the punch line. +% +He who laughs last didn't get the joke. +% +He who laughs last hasn't been told the terrible truth. +% +He who laughs last is probably your boss. +% +He who laughs last usually had to have joke explained. +% +He who laughs, lasts. +% +He who lives without folly is less wise than he believes. +% +He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man. + -- Dr. Johnson +% +Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense. +% +Honesty's the best policy. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Honi soit qui mal y pense. + [Evil to him who evil thinks.] + -- Motto of the Order of the Garter (est. Edward III) +% +How sharper than a hound's tooth it is to have a thankless serpent. +% +How you look depends on where you go. +% +I am a man: nothing human is alien to me. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +I doubt, therefore I might be. +% +I know on which side my bread is buttered. + -- John Heywood +% +I think, therefore I am... I think. +% +I'll turn over a new leaf. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +If a fool persists in his folly he shall become wise. + -- William Blake +% +If anything can go wrong, it will. +% +If at first you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment. +% +If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried. +% +If at first you don't succeed, quit; don't be a nut about success. +% +If at first you don't succeed, redefine success. +% +If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. + -- W.E. Hickson +% +If at first you don't succeed, you're doing about average. + -- Leonard Levinson +% +If happiness is in your destiny, you need not be in a hurry. + -- Chinese proverb +% +If I cannot bend Heaven, I shall move Hell. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +If in doubt, mumble. +% +If it ain't broke, don't fix it. +% +If it heals good, say it. +% +If the shoe fits, it's ugly. +% +If the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will. +% +If there is no wind, row. + -- Polish proverb +% +If two wrongs don't make a right, try three. + -- Laurence J. Peter +% +If wishes were horses, then beggars would be thieves. +% +If you wish to be happy for one hour, get drunk. +If you wish to be happy for three days, get married. +If you wish to be happy for a month, kill your pig and eat it. +If you wish to be happy forever, learn to fish. + -- Chinese Proverb +% +If you wish to succeed, consult three old people. +% +If you would keep a secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend. +% +In charity there is no excess. + -- Francis Bacon +% +In God we trust; all else we walk through. +% +In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Inspiration without perspiration is usually sterile. +% +Integrity has no need for rules. +% +It doesn't matter whether you win or lose -- until you lose. +% +It is a poor judge who cannot award a prize. +% +It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish. + -- Aeschylus +% +It is annoying to be honest to no purpose. + -- Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) +% +It is bad luck to be superstitious. + -- Andrew W. Mathis +% +It is better to have loved a short man than never to have loved a tall. +% +It is better to have loved and lost -- much better. +% +It is better to have loved and lost than just to have lost. +% +It is better to wear out than to rust out. +% +It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, +admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. + -- Franklin D. Roosevelt +% +It is sweet to let the mind unbend on occasion. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca +% +It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +It is wise to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final. + -- Roger Babson +% +It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +It's always darkest just before it gets pitch black. +% +It's always darkest just before the lights go out. + -- Alex Clark +% +It's better to burn out than it is to rust. +% +It's better to burn out than to fade away. +% +It's later than you think. +% +It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame. +% +It's the thought, if any, that counts! +% +Keep on keepin' on. +% +Keep the phase, baby. +% +Kites rise highest against the wind -- not with it. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Knowledge is power. + -- Francis Bacon +% +Knowledge without common sense is folly. +% +Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone. +% +Laugh and the world thinks you're an idiot. +% +Laugh at your problems; everybody else does. +% +Laugh when you can; cry when you must. +% +Laugh, and the world ignores you. Crying doesn't help either. +% +Leave no stone unturned. + -- Euripides +% +Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. +% +Let sleeping dogs lie. + -- Charles Dickens +% +Let your conscience be your guide. + -- Pope +% +Life is one long struggle in the dark. + -- Titus Lucretius Carus +% +"Life is too important to take seriously." + -- Corky Siegel +% +Life is too short to be taken seriously. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Look before you leap. + -- Samuel Butler +% +Look ere ye leap. + -- John Heywood +% +-- Male cadavers are incapable of yielding testimony. +-- Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices would be well advised + to refrain from catapulting projectiles. +-- Neophyte's serendipity. +-- Exclusive dedication to necessitious chores without interludes of hedonistic + diversion renders John a hebetudinous fellow. +-- A revolving concretion of earthy or mineral matter accumulates no congeries + of small, green bryophytic plant. +-- Abstention from any aleatory undertaking precludes a potential escallation + of a lucrative nature. +-- Missiles of ligneous or osteal consistency have the potential of fracturing + osseous structure, but appellations will eternally remain innocuous. +% +Man is the measure of all things. + -- Protagoras +% +Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts. + -- Plotinus +% +Many are called, few are chosen. Fewer still get to do the choosing. +% +Many are called, few volunteer. +% +Many are cold, but few are frozen. +% +Many hands make light work. + -- John Heywood +% +May you have warm words on a cold evening, +a full mooon on a dark night, +and a smooth road all the way to your door. +% +May you live in uninteresting times. + -- Chinese proverb +% +Men freely believe that what they wish to desire. + -- Julius Caesar +% +Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate. +% +Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it. + -- Russell Baker +% +Misfortunes arrive on wings and leave on foot. +% +Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure. +% +Mistrust first impulses; they are always right. +% +Moderation in all things. + -- Publius Terentius Afer [Terence] +% +Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Mother is the invention of necessity. +% +Mum's the word. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Necessity has no law. + -- St. Augustine +% +Necessity hath no law. + -- Oliver Cromwell +% +Necessity is a mother. +% +-- Neophyte's serendipity. +-- Exclusive dedication to necessitious chores without interludes of + hedonistic diversion renders John a hebetudinous fellow. +-- A revolving concretion of earthy or mineral matter accumulates no + congeries of small, green bryophytic plant. +-- The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the + optimal cachinnation. +-- Abstention from any aleatory undertaking precludes a potential + escallation of a lucrative nature. +-- Missiles of ligneous or osteal consistency have the potential of + fracturing osseous structure, but appellations will eternally + remain innocuous. +% +Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. +% +Never look a gift horse in the mouth. + -- Saint Jerome +% +Never promise more than you can perform. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid all together. +% +Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after. +% +Nice guys don't finish nice. +% +Nice guys finish last, but we get to sleep in. + -- Evan Davis +% +Nice guys finish last. + -- Leo Durocher +% +Nice guys get sick. +% +No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. + -- Aesop +% +No evil can happen to a good man. + -- Plato +% +No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness. + -- Aristotle +% +No good deed goes unpunished. + -- Clare Booth Luce +% +None love the bearer of bad news. + -- Sophocles +% +Not everything worth doing is worth doing well. +% +Nothing endures but change. + -- Heraclitus +% +Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced -- even a +proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it. + -- John Keats +% +Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit. + [There is no great genius without some touch of madness.] + -- Seneca +% +Often things ARE as bad as they seem! +% +Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +Once harm has been done, even a fool understands it. + -- Homer +% +One good turn asketh another. + -- John Heywood +% +One good turn deserves another. + -- Gaius Petronius +% +One good turn usually gets most of the blanket. +% +One man's Mede is another man's Persian. + -- George M. Cohan +% +One picture is worth more than ten thousand words. + -- Chinese proverb +% +Oppernockity tunes but once. +% +Out of sight is out of mind. + -- Arthur Clough +% + -- Owen Meredith +% +Patience is the best remedy for every trouble. + -- Titus Maccius Plautus +% +Pauca sed matura. + [Few but excellent.] + -- Gauss +% +Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt. + [Confound those who have said our remarks before us.] + or + [May they perish who have expressed our bright ideas before us.] + -- Aelius Donatus +% +Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. + -- Don Marquis +% +Plus ,ca change, plus c'est la m^eme chose. + [The more things change, the more they remain the same.] + -- Alphonse Karr, "Les Gu^epes" +% +Practice yourself what you preach. + -- Titus Maccius Plautus +% +Praise the sea; on shore remain. + -- John Florio +% +Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore. + -- Russian Proverb +% +Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur. + [Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.] +% +Remembering is for those who have forgotten. + -- Chinese proverb +% +Removing the straw that broke the camel's back does not necessarily +allow the camel to walk again. +% +Rome was not built in one day. + -- John Heywood +% +Rome wasn't burnt in a day. +% +Rotten wood cannot be carved. + -- Confucius, "Analects", Book 5, Ch. 9 +% +-- Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minikin. +-- Members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate. +-- Surveillance should precede saltation. +-- Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity. +-- It is fruitless to become lachrymose over precipitately departed + lacteal fluid. +-- Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude. +-- It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated + canine with innovative maneuvers. +-- Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion. +-- The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly + galled saucepan does not reach 212 degrees Farenheit. +% +Scintillation is not always identification for an auric substance. +% +Seek simplicity -- and distrust it. + -- Alfred North Whitehead +% +Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow! + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +Set the cart before the horse. + -- John Heywood +% +Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait. + [If youth but knew, if old age but could.] + -- Henri Estienne +% +Sic transit gloria Monday! +% +Sic transit gloria mundi. + [So passes away the glory of this world.] + -- Thomas `a Kempis +% +Sic Transit Gloria Thursdi. +% +Small change can often be found under seat cushions. + -- One of Lazarus Long's most penetrating insights +% +Small is beautiful. + -- Schumacher's Dictum +% +Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you. +% +Stop searching forever. Happiness is unattainable. +% +Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. Now, if they'd only +take a bath ... +% +Sweet April showers do spring May flowers. + -- Thomas Tusser +% +The coast was clear. + -- Lope de Vega +% +The course of true anything never does run smooth. + -- Samuel Butler +% +The descent to Hades is the same from every place. + -- Anaxagoras +% +The early worm gets the bird. +% +The early worm gets the late bird. +% +The ends justify the means. + -- after Matthew Prior +% +The greatest love is a mother's, then a dog's, then a sweetheart's. + -- Polish proverb +% +The life which is unexamined is not worth living. + -- Plato +% +The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approaching train. +% +The light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming dragon. +% +The man who runs may fight again. + -- Menander +% +The man who sees, on New Year's day, Mount Fuji, a hawk, and an eggplant +is forever blessed. + -- Old Japanese proverb +% +The meek will inherit the earth -- if that's OK with you. +% +The more the merrier. + -- John Heywood +% +The more things change, the more they stay insane. +% +The more things change, the more they'll never be the same again. +% +The only certainty is that nothing is certain. + -- Pliny the Elder +% +The only constant is change. +% +The only problem with seeing too much is that it makes you insane. + -- Phaedrus +% +The only reward of virtue is virtue. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +"The porcupine with the sharpest quills gets stuck on a tree more often." +% +The proof of the pudding is in the eating. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +The reverse side also has a reverse side. + -- Japanese proverb +% +The road to Hades is easy to travel. + -- Bion +% +The superfluous is very necessary. + -- Voltaire +% +The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly ogled +culinary vessel will not achieve 100 degrees on the Celsius scale. +% +The worst is enemy of the bad. +% +-- The writing implement is more potent than the claymore. +-- All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous. +-- When there are visible vapors having the prevenience in ignited carbonaceous + materials, there is conflagration. +-- Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted. +-- A plethora of individuals wither expertise in culinary techniques vitiated + the potable concoction produced by steeping certain coupestibles. +-- The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the + optimal cachinnation. +-- Eleemosynary deeds have their initial incidence intramurally. +% +There are more things in heaven and earth than any place else. +% +There are more ways of killing a cat than choking her with cream. +% +There is no fool to the old fool. + -- John Heywood +% +There is no grief which time does not lessen and soften. +% +There is no proverb that is not true. + -- Cervantes +% +There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to. +% +There's no heavier burden than a great potential. +% +There's no such thing as a free lunch. + -- Milton Friendman +% +There's no such thing as an original sin. + -- Elvis Costello +% +There's no time like the pleasant. +% +Things are more like they are today than they ever were before. + -- Dwight Eisenhower +% +Things are more like they used to be than they are now. +% +Things are not always what they seem. + -- Phaedrus +% +Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. +% +Thou hast seen nothing yet. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +Time and tide wait for no man. +% +Time as he grows old teaches all things. + -- Aeschylus +% +Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. +% +Time goes, you say? +Ah no! +Time stays, *we* go. + -- Austin Dobson +% +Time sure flies when you don't know what you're doing. +% +To add insult to injury. + -- Phaedrus +% +To err is human, but I can REALLY foul things up. +% +To err is human, but when the eraser wears out before the pencil, +you're overdoing it a little. +% +To err is human, to forgive is against company policy. +% +To err is human, to forgive unusual. +% +To err is human, to moo bovine. +% +To err is human, to purr feline. +To err is human, two curs canine. +To err is human, to moo bovine. +% +To err is human, to repent, divine, to persist, devilish. + -- Benjamin Franklin +% +To err is human. +To blame someone else for your mistakes is even more human. +% +To err is human; to admit it, a blunder. +% +To err is human; to forgive is simply not our policy. + -- MIT Assasination Club +% +To err is humor. +% +To every Ph.D. there is an equal and opposite Ph.D. + -- B. Duggan +% +Treat your friend as if he might become an enemy. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +Trust in Allah, but tie your camel. + -- Arabian proverb +% +Truth can wait; he's used to it. +% +Turn the other cheek. + -- Jesus Christ +% +Two heads are better than one. + -- John Heywood +% +Two heads are more numerous than one. +% +Two is company, three is an orgy. +% +Two wrongs are only the beginning. + -- Kohn +% +Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse. + -- Thomas Szasz +% +Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. +% +Walking on water wasn't built in a day. + -- Jack Kerouac +% +We are what we are. +% +We are what we pretend to be. + -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. +% +We have seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's out. +% +Well begun is half done. + -- Aristotle +% +What fools these morals be! +% +What fools these mortals be. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca +% +What one believes to be true either is true or becomes true. + -- John Lilly +% +What one fool can do, another can. + -- Ancient Simian Proverb +% +What we wish, that we readily believe. + -- Demosthenes +% +What you don't know can hurt you, only you won't know it. +% +What you don't know won't help you much either. + -- D. Bennett +% +Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they bring gifts. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +When in doubt, follow your heart. +% +When in doubt, use brute force. + -- Ken Thompson +% +When nothing can possibly go wrong, it will. +% +When the ax entered the forest, the trees said, "The handle is one of us!" + -- Turkish proverb +% +When the blind lead the blind they will both fall over the cliff. + -- Chinese proverb +% +When the going gets tough, everyone leaves. + -- Lynch +% +When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. +% +When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look +like a nail. +% +When the sun shineth, make hay. + -- John Heywood +% +When we talk of tomorrow, the gods laugh. +% +When you are at Rome live in the Roman style; when you are elsewhere live +as they live elsewhere. + -- St. Ambrose +% +When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut. +% +When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, +must be the truth. + -- Sherlock Holmes, "The Sign of Four" +% +Where there are visible vapors, having their prevenance in ignited +carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration. +% +Where there is much light there is also much shadow. + -- Goethe +% +While there's life, there's hope. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising. +% +Whom the mad would destroy, first they make Gods. + -- Bernard Levin +% +Without fools there would be no wisdom. +% +Words are the voice of the heart. +% +Words can never express what words can never express. +% +Words have a longer life than deeds. + -- Pindar +% +Would ye both eat your cake and have your cake? + -- John Heywood +% +You buttered your bread, now lie in it. +% +You can drive a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead. +% +You can fool some of the people all of the time, +and all of the people some of the time, +but you can make a fool of yourself anytime. +% +You can fool some of the people all of the time, +and all of the people some of the time, +but you can never fool your Mom. +% +You can fool some of the people some of the time, +and some of the people all of the time, +and that is sufficient. +% +You can get everything in life you want, if you will help enough other +people get what they want. +% +You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a +kind word alone. + -- Al Capone + [Also attributed to Johnny Carson. Ed.] +% +You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard. +% +You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular. +% +You can move the world with an idea, but you have to think of it first. +% +You can never do just one thing. + -- Hardin +% +You can't break eggs without making an omelet. +% +You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair. +% +You cannot see the wood for the trees. + -- John Heywood +% +You get what you pay for. + -- Gabriel Biel +% +You k'n hide de fier, but w'at you gwine do wid de smoke? + -- Joel Chandler Harris, proverbs of Uncle Remus +% +Zhizn' prozhit'--ne pole pereiti. + [Life's a bitch.] + [Well, okay. lit., to live through life is not as simple as crossing + a field. Happy now?] + -- Russian proverb +% +"MOKE DAT YIGARETTE" + -- "The Last Coin", James P. Blaylock +% +You may be marching to the beat of a different drummer, but you're +still in the parade. +% +"World conquerors sometimes become fools, but fools never become world +conquerors." + -- "The Outer Limits: The Invisibles" +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/politics b/fortune-mod/datfiles/politics new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a87a08 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/politics @@ -0,0 +1,2969 @@ +$100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at +which time it will be worth absolutely nothing. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" +% +1st graffitiist: QUESTION AUTHORITY! + +2nd graffitiist: Why? +% +A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a +"Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble. + -- Mahatma Gandhi +% +A billion here, a billion there -- pretty soon it adds up to real money. + -- Sen. Everett Dirksen, on the U.S. defense budget +% +A billion seconds ago Harry Truman was president. +A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ. +A billion hours ago man had not yet walked on earth. +A billion dollars ago was late yesterday afternoon at the U.S. Treasury. +% +A bureaucrat's idea of cleaning up his files is to make a copy of everything +before he destroys it. +% +A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the +poor to protect them from each other. +% +A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but +won't cross the street to vote in a national election. + -- Bill Vaughan +% +A Difficulty for Every Solution. + -- Motto of the Federal Civil Service +% +A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur coat. +% +A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you +actually look forward to the trip. + -- Caskie Stinnett, "Out of the Red" +% +A diplomat's life consists of three things: protocol, Geritol, and alcohol. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. + -- Winston Churchill +% +A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +A general leading the State Department resembles a dragon commanding ducks. + -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981 +% +A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough +to take it all away. + -- Barry Goldwater +% +A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges. + -- B. Franklin +% +A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest +man a century. +% +A group of politicians deciding to dump a President because his morals +are bad is like the Mafia getting together to bump off the Godfather for +not going to church on Sunday. + -- Russell Baker +% +A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. +% +A long memory is the most subversive idea in America. +% +A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. + -- Alexander Hamilton +% +A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. +% +A penny saved is a penny taxed. +% +A penny saved kills your career in government. +% +A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to +govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures +on armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins +itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and +manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain. + -- Anatole France +% +A political man can have as his aim the realization of freedom, +but he has no means to realize it other than through violence. + -- Jean Paul Sartre +% +A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then +asks you not to kill him. + -- Sir Winston Churchill, 1952 +% +A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be +too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which +was intended for her preservation. + -- Colton +% +A real diplomat is one who can cut his neighbor's throat without having +his neighbour notice it. + -- Trygve Lie +% +A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices +that the system works. +% +A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. + -- Ramsey Clark +% +A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from +the vexation of thinking. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1831 +% +A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years. + -- Harry S. Truman +% +A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. + -- O'Henry +% +A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many +bad measures. + -- Daniel Webster +% +Abraham Lincoln didn't die in vain. He died in Washington, D.C. +% +"After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of +the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the +cost to others, to win advancement." + -- Norman Thomas +% +Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value. + -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, + Ecole Superieure de Guerre +% +Alea iacta est. + [The die is cast] + -- Gaius Julius Caesar +% +Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing - and that was +the closest our country has ever been to being even. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent +upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a +visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is +informing, stimulating and ennobling. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +All bad precedents began as justifiable measures. + -- Gaius Julius Caesar, quoted in "The Conspiracy of + Catiline", by Sallust +% +All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means. + -- Chou En Lai +% +All kings is mostly rapscallions. + --Mark Twain +% +All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of +the United States. + -- Vic Gold +% +All people are born alike -- except Republicans and Democrats. + -- Groucho Marx +% +All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by +the government in less than a second. + -- Jim Fiebig +% +All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... Each one owes +infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in +which he was born. + -- Francois Fenelon +% +America is the country where you buy a lifetime supply of aspirin for one +dollar, and use it up in two weeks. +% +America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism +to decadence without touching civilization. + -- John O'Hara +% +America: born free and taxed to death. +% +An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie and intrigue for the +benefit of his country. + -- Sir Henry Wotton, 1568-1639 +% +An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the president but is +always polite to traffic cops. +% +An efficient and a successful administration manifests itself equally in +small as in great matters. + -- W. Churchill +% +An honest politician is one who when he is bought will stay bought. + -- Simon Cameron + +There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians. When +bought they stay bought. + -- Bill Moyers +% +Anarchy may not be a better form of government, but it's better than no +government at all. +% +"...and the fully armed nuclear warheads, are, of course, merely a +courtesy detail." +% +And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, for if you hit a man +with a plowshare, he's going to know he's been hit. +% +And yet, seasons must be taken with a grain of salt, for they too have +a sense of humor, as does history. Corn stalks comedy, comedy stalks +tragedy, and this too is historic. And yet, still, when corn meets +tragedy face to face, we have politics. + -- Dalglish, Larsen and Sutherland, "Root Crops and + Ground Cover" +% +Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes. +Galileo: No, unhappy the land that _____needs heroes. + -- Bertolt Brecht, "Life of Galileo" +% +Another such victory over the Romans, and we are undone. + -- Pyrrhus +% +Any excuse will serve a tyrant. + -- Aesop +% + "Any news from the President on a successor?" he asked hopefully. + "None," Anita replied. "She's having great difficulty finding someone +qualified who is willing to accept the post." + "Then I stay," said Dr. Fresh. "I'm not good for much, but I +can at least make a decision." + "Somewhere," he grumphed, "there must be a naive, opportunistic +young welp with a masochistic streak who would like to run the most +up-and-down bureaucracy in the history of mankind." + -- R.L. Forward, "Flight of the Dragonfly" +% +Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years +organising and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office. + -- David Broder +% +Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no +account be allowed to do the job. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. +When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. + -- Oscar Wilde, "Intentions" +% +Audacity, and again, audacity, and always audacity. + -- G.J. Danton +% +Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare. +% +Be it our wealth, our jobs, or even our homes; nothing is safe while the +legislature is in session. +% +Bedfellows make strange politicians. +% +Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. + -- Herbert Hoover +% +C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre! + [It is magnificent, but it is not war] + -- Pierre Bosquet, witnessing the charge of the Light Brigade +% +"Cable is not a luxury, since many areas have poor TV reception." + -- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989 +% +Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents +for postage and 30 cents for storage. + -- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial Post +% +Census Taker to Housewife: +Did you ever have the measles, and, if so, how many? +% +Concerning the war in Vietnam, Senator George Aiken of Vermount noted +in January, 1966, "I'm not very keen for doves or hawks. I think we need +more owls." + -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" +% +Conquering Russia should be done steppe by steppe. +% +Corruption is not the #1 priority of the Police Commissioner. His job +is to enforce the law and fight crime. + -- P.B.A. President E. J. Kiernan +% +Crime does not pay ... as well as politics. + -- Alfred E. Newman +% +Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It +eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the +business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation." + -- Johnny Hart +% +Demand the establishment of the government in its rightful home at Disneyland. +% +Democracy becomes a government of bullies, tempered by editors. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than +we deserve. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder +aloud what the country could do under first-class management. + -- Senator Soaper +% +Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the +incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you +don't think. +% +Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who +will get the blame. + -- Laurence J. Peter +% +Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse. + -- Jawaharlal Nehru +% +Democracy is the name we give the people whenever we need them. + -- Arman de Caillavet, 1913 +% +Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people +are right more than half of the time. + -- E. B. White +% +Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other +forms that have been tried from time to time. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for +the people. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Demographic polls show that you have lost credibility across the board. +Especially with those 14 year-old Valley girls. +% +Diplomacy is about surviving until the next century. Politics is about +surviving until Friday afternoon. + -- Sir Humphrey Appleby +% +Diplomacy is the art of letting the other party have things your way. + -- Daniele Vare +% +Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" until you can find a rock. + -- Wynn Catlin +% +Diplomacy is to do and say, the nastiest thing in the nicest way. + -- Balfour +% +Disclose classified information only when a NEED TO KNOW exists. +% +Don't be humble ... you're not that great. + -- Golda Meir +% +Don't mind him; politicians always sound like that. +% +Don't steal... the IRS hates competition! +% +Don't suspect your friends -- turn them in! + -- "Brazil" +% +Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and +the lash. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Don't vote -- it only encourages them! +% +Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders +has been discontinued. +% +Each person has the right to take part in the management of public affairs +in his country, provided he has prior experience, a will to succeed, a +university degree, influential parents, good looks, a curriculum vitae, two +3x4 snapshots, and a good tax record. +% +Each person has the right to take the subway. +% +Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United +States we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only two cents a day. + + [and getting better! Soon it'll be down to a penny a day!] +% +Ever wonder if taxation without representation might have been cheaper? +% +Every country has the government it deserves. + -- Joseph De Maistre +% +Every one says that politicians lie all the time, and that just isn't so! +But you do have to understand body language to know when they're lying and +when they aren't. + + When a politician rubs his nose, he isn't lying. + When a politician tugs on his ear, he isn't lying. + When a politician scratches his collar bone, he isn't lying. + When his mouth starts moving, that's when he's lying! +% +Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately, +no one we know belongs. +% +Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice... moderation in the pursuit +of justice is no virtue. + -- Barry Goldwater +% +Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim. + -- George Santayana +% +Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the +former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free. + +Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and +reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days, spirits +were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women +and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures +from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty +deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before -- and thus +was the Empire forged. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +Fay: The British police force used to be run by men of integrity. +Truscott: That is a mistake which has been rectified. + -- Joe Orton, "Loot" +% +Fear and loathing, my man, fear and loathing. + -- H.S. Thompson +% +First rule of public speaking. + First, tell 'em what you're goin' to tell 'em; + then tell 'em; + then tell 'em what you've tole 'em. +% +For the first time we have a weapon that nobody has used for thirty years. +This gives me great hope for the human race. + -- Harlan Ellison +% +Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws +of nature! + -- G.B. Shaw +% +Fraud is the homage that force pays to reason. + -- Charles Curtis, "A Commonplace Book" +% +Free Speech Is The Right To Shout 'Theater' In A Crowded Fire. + -- A Yippie Proverb +% +Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite. +% +Freedom is nothing else but the chance to do better. + -- Camus +% +Freedom is slavery. +Ignorance is strength. +War is peace. + -- George Orwell +% +Freedom of the press is for those who happen to own one. +% +Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. + -- Kris Kristofferson, "Me and Bobby McGee" +% +"... gentlemen do not read each other's mail." + -- Secretary of State Henry Stimson, on closing down + the Black Chamber, the precursor to the National + Security Agency. +% +Gentlemen, + Whilst marching from Portugal to a position which commands the +approach to Madrid and the French forces, my officers have been +diligently complying with your requests which have been sent by H.M. ship +from London to Lisbon and thence by dispatch to our headquarters. + We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles, +and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty's Government holds +me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit, and +spleen of every officer. Each item and every farthing has been accounted +for, with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg your indulgence. + Unfortunately the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains +unaccounted for in one infantry battalion's petty cash and there has been +a hideous confusion as the the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to +one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This +reprehensible carelessness may be related to the pressure of circumstance, +since we are war with France, a fact which may come as a bit of a surprise +to you gentlemen in Whitehall. + This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request +elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty's Government so that I +may better understand why I am dragging an army over these barren plains. +I construe that perforce it must be one of two alternative duties, as +given below. I shall pursue either one with the best of my ability, but +I cannot do both: + 1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the +benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London or perchance: + 2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain. + -- Duke of Wellington, to the British Foreign Office, + London, 1812 +% +George Orwell 1984. Northwestern 0. + -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82 +% +George Orwell was an optimist. +% +George Washington was first in war, first in peace -- and the first to +have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend. + -- Ashley Cooper +% +Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that might go into a +"Pearl Harbor File". +% +"Give me enough medals, and I'll win any war." + -- Napoleon +% +Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and +car keys to teenage boys. + -- P.J. O'Rourke +% +God shows his contempt for wealth by the kind of person he selects to +receive it. + -- Austin O'Malley +% +Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of +those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the +will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of +government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. + -- Frank Herbert, "Children of Dune" +% +Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed. +% +Got a complaint about the Internal Revenue Service? +Call the convenient toll-free "IRS Taxpayer Complaint Hot Line Number": + + 1-800-AUDITME +% +Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Don't overdo it. + -- Lao Tsu +% +Government [is] an illusion the governed should not encourage. + -- John Updike, "Couples" +% +Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are different lies. +% +Government spending? I don't know what it's all about. I don't know +any more about this thing than an economist does, and, God knows, he +doesn't know much. + -- Will Rogers +% + Graduating seniors, parents and friends... + Let me begin by reassuring you that my remarks today will stand up +to the most stringent requirements of the new appropriateness. + The intra-college sensitivity advisory committee has vetted the +text of even trace amounts of subconscious racism, sexism and classism. + Moreover, a faculty panel of deconstructionists have reconfigured +the rhetorical components within a post-structuralist framework, so as to +expunge any offensive elements of western rationalism and linear logic. + Finally, all references flowing from a white, male, eurocentric +perspective have been eliminated, as have any other ruminations deemed +denigrating to the political consensus of the moment. + + Thank you and good luck. + -- Doonesbury, the University Chancellor's graduation speech. +% +Great Moments in History: #3 + +August 27, 1949: + A Hall of Fame opened to honor outstanding members of the + Women's Air Corp. It was a WAC's Museum. +% + Grover Cleveland, though constantly at loggerheads with the +Senate, got on better with the House of Representatives. A popular +story circulating during his presidency concerned the night he was +roused by his wife crying, "Wake up! I think there are burglars in the +house." + "No, no, my dear," said the president sleepily, "in the Senate maybe, +but not in the House." +% +Grub first, then ethics. + -- Bertolt Brecht +% +Hark ye, Clinker, you are a most notorious offender. You stand convicted of +sickness, hunger, wretchedness, and want. + -- Tobias Smollet +% +Has the great art and mystery of politics no apparent utility? Does it +appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene and low down, +and its salient virtuosi a gang of umitigated scoundrels? Then let us +not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickel the midriff, its +incomparable services as a maker of entertainment. + -- H.L. Mencken, "A Carnival of Buncombe" +% +Have you noticed the way people's intelligence capabilities decline +sharply the minute they start waving guns around? + -- Dr. Who +% +He didn't run for reelection. "Politics brings you into contact with all +the people you'd give anything to avoid," he said. "I'm staying home." + -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegone Days" +% +He is the best of men who dislikes power. + -- Mohammed +% +He that would govern others, first should be the master of himself. +% +He thinks the Gettysburg Address is where Lincoln lived. + -- Wanda, "A Fish Called Wanda" +% +He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry +attacks democracy itself. + -- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS +% +He who renders warfare fatal to all engaged in it will be the greatest +benefactor the world has yet known. + -- Sir Richard Burton +% +He who slings mud generally loses ground. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +He's just a politician trying to save both his faces... +% +Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the +sun now stands I Will Fight No More Forever. + -- Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce +% +Here comes the orator, with his flood of words and his drop of reason. +% +History has much to say on following the proper procedures. From a history +of the Mexican revolution: + "Hidalgo was later defeated at Guadalajara. The rebel army was +captured on its way through the mountains. All were courtmartialed and +shot, except Hidalgo, because he was a priest. He was handed over to +the bishop of Durango who excommunicated him and returned him to the +army where he was then executed." +% +History is on our side (as long as we can control the historians). +% +History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree on. + -- Napoleon Bonaparte, "Maxims" +% +History shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, +periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts them +asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at +intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another... Truly the imago +state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every moult is a step gained. + -- Charles Darwin, from "Origin of the Species" +% +History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have +exhausted all other alternatives. + -- Abba Eban +% +How can you govern a nation which has 246 kinds of cheese? + -- Charles de Gaulle +% +How is the world ruled, and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to +journalists, and they believe what they read. + -- Karl Kraus, "Aphorisms and More Aphorisms" +% +I am a friend of the working man, and I would rather be his friend +than be one. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +I am convinced that the truest act of courage is to sacrifice ourselves +for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice. To be a man +is to suffer for others. + -- Cesar Chavez +% +I am not a politician and my other habits are also good. + -- A. Ward +% +I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half. + -- Jay Gould +% +I don't care how poor and inefficient a little country is; they like to +run their own business. I know men that would make my wife a better +husband than I am; but, darn it, I'm not going to give her to 'em. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +"I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating." + -- Boss Tweed +% +I don't like the Dutchman. He's a crocodile. He's sneaky. I don't trust him. + -- Jack "Legs" Diamond, just before a peace conference + with Dutch Schultz. + +I don't trust Legs. He's nuts. He gets excited and starts pulling a +trigger like another guy wipes his nose. + -- Dutch Schultz, just before a peace conference with + "Legs" Diamond. +% +I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the +streets and frighten the horses. + -- Victor Hugo +% +I DON'T THINK I'M ALONE when I say I'd like to see more and more planets +fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I find this corpse guilty of carrying a concealed weapon and I fine it $40. + -- Judge Roy Bean, finding a pistol and $40 on a man he'd + just shot. +% +I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble. + -- Augustus Caesar +% +I have a dream. I have a dream that one day, on the red hills of Georgia, +the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to +sit down together at the table of brotherhood. + -- Martin Luther King, Jr. +% +I have already given two cousins to the war and I stand ready to sacrifice +my wife's brother. + -- Artemus Ward +% +I have always noticed that whenever a radical takes to Imperialism, +he catches it in a very acute form. + -- Winston Churchill, 1903 +% +I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth +and they never believe me. + -- Camillo Di Cavour +% +I have gained this by philosophy: +that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. + -- Aristotle +% +I have never understood this liking for war. It panders to instincts +already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment. + -- Alan Bennett +% +I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing... + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World +War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. + -- Albert Einstein +% +I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote +peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much +that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them +have it. + -- Dwight D. Eisenhower +% +I might have gone to West Point, but I was too proud to speak to a congressman. + -- Will Rogers +% +I needed the good will of the legislature of four states. I formed the +legislative bodies with my own money. I found that it was cheaper that way. + -- Jay Gould +% +I never deny, I never contradict. I sometimes forget. + -- Benjamin Disraeli, British PM, on dealing with the + Royal Family +% +I never vote for anyone. I always vote against. + -- W.C. Fields +% +I owe the government $3400 in taxes. So I sent them two hammers and a +toilet seat. + -- Michael McShane +% +I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as +the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must +not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we +must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, +in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from +wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they +will be happy. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +I pledge allegiance to the flag +of the United States of America +and to the republic for which it stands, +one nation, +indivisible, +with liberty +and justice for all. + -- Francis Bellamy, 1892 +% +I prefer the most unjust peace to the most righteous war. + -- Cicero + +Even peace may be purchased at too high a price. + -- Poor Richard +% +I realize that the MX missile is none of our concern. I realize that the +whole point of living in a democracy is that we pay professional +congresspersons to concern themselves with things like the MX missile so we +can be free to concern ourselves with getting hold of the plumber. + +But from time to time, I feel I must address major public issues such as +this, because in a free and open society, where the very future of the world +hinges on decisions made by our elected leaders, you never win large cash +journalism awards if you stick to the topics I usually write about, such as +nose-picking. + -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against + Political Fallout" +% +I see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering taxes. I hope +they do get 'em lowered down enough so people can afford to pay 'em. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +I see where we are starting to pay some attention to our neigbors to +the south. We could never understand why Mexico wasn't just crazy about +us; for we have always had their good will, and oil and minerals, at heart. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +I steal. + -- Sam Giancana, explaining his livelihood to his draft board + +Easy. I own Chicago. I own Miami. I own Las Vegas. + -- Sam Giancana, when asked what he did for a living +% +I think the world is run by C students. + -- Al McGuire +% +I trust the first lion he meets will do his duty. + -- J.P. Morgan on Teddy Roosevelt's safari +% +I try not to break the rules but merely to test their elasticity. + -- Bill Veeck +% +I try to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out. + -- Judge Harold T. Stone +% +I use not only all the brains I have, but all those I can borrow as well. + -- Woodrow Wilson +% +I used to be a rebel in my youth. + +This cause... that cause... (chuckle) I backed 'em ALL! But I learned. +Rebellion is simply a device used by the immature to hide from his own +problems. So I lost interest in politics. Now when I feel aroused by +a civil rights case or a passport hearing... I realize it's just a device. +I go to my analyst and we work it out. You have no idea how much better +I feel these days. + -- J. Feiffer +% +I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law. + -- Martin Luther King, Jr. +% +I was appalled by this story of the destruction of a member of a valued +endangered species. It's all very well to celebrate the practicality of +pigs by ennobling the porcine sibling who constructed his home out of +bricks and mortar. But to wantonly destroy a wolf, even one with an +excessive taste for porkers, is unconscionable in these ecologically +critical times when both man and his domestic beasts continue to maraud +the earth. + Sylvia Kamerman, "Book Reviewing" +% +I was offered a job as a hoodlum and I turned it down cold. A thief is +anybody who gets out and works for his living, like robbing a bank or +breaking into a place and stealing stuff, or kidnapping somebody. He really +gives some effort to it. A hoodlum is a pretty lousy sort of scum. He +works for gangsters and bumps guys off when they have been put on the spot. +Why, after I'd made my rep, some of the Chicago Syndicate wanted me to work +for them as a hood -- you know, handling a machine gun. They offered me +two hundred and fifty dollars a week and all the protection I needed. I +was on the lam at the time and not able to work at my regular line. But +I wouldn't consider it. "I'm a thief," I said. "I'm no lousy hoodlum." + -- Alvin Karpis, "Public Enemy Number One" +% +I went to my mother and told her I intended to commence a different life. I +asked for and obtained her blessing and at once commenced the career of a +robber. + -- Tiburcio Vasquez +% +I wish a robot would get elected president. That way, when he came to town, +we could all take a shot at him and not feel too bad. + -- Jack Handley +% +I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in +understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, +our tasks will be solved. + -- Warren G. Harding +% +I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection +with income tax policies. + -- William F. Buckley +% +I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue, than why I have one. + -- Marcus Procius Cato +% +I would rather be a serf in a poor man's house and be above ground than +reign among the dead. + -- Achilles, "The Odessey", XI, 489-91 +% +I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the +whole field to private industry. + -- Joseph Heller +% +"I'll carry your books, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over, +carry forward, Cary Grant, cash & carry, Carry Me Back To Old Virginia, +I'll even Hara Kari if you show me how, but I will *not* carry a gun." + -- Hawkeye, M*A*S*H +% +"I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob. +That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood." + -- Daffy Duck, "Robin Hood Daffy", [1958, Chuck Jones] +% +I'm going to Vietnam at the request of the White House. President Johnson +says a war isn't really a war without my jokes. + -- Bob Hope +% +"I'm not stupid, I'm not expendable, and I'M NOT GOING!" +% +I'm proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is +-- I could be just as proud for half the money. + -- Arthur Godfrey +% +"I'm willing to sacrifice anything for this cause, even other people's lives." +% +I've always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers. +% +If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; +and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it +will lose that, too. + -- W. Somerset Maugham +% +If built in great numbers, motels will be used for nothing but illegal +purposes. + -- J. Edgar Hoover +% +If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a deal faster. + -- The Duchess, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it's still a foolish thing. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +If God had meant for us to be in the Army, we would have been born with +green, baggy skin. +% +If God wanted us to have a President, He would have sent us a candidate. + -- Jerry Dreshfield +% +If Karl, instead of writing a lot about Capital, had made a lot of Capital, +it would have been much better. + -- Karl Marx's Mother +% +If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad, +he should see how bad it is with representation. +% +If people have to choose between freedom and sandwiches, they +will take sandwiches. + -- Lord Boyd-orr + +Eats first, morals after. + -- Bertolt Brecht, "The Threepenny Opera" +% +If pro is the opposite of con, what is the opposite of progress? +% +If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom. + -- Robert Frost +% +If the American dream is for Americans only, it will remain our dream +and never be our destiny. + -- Ren'e de Visme Williamson +% +If the government doesn't trust the people, why doesn't it dissolve them +and elect a new people? +% +"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" + -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920) +% +If the rich could pay the poor to die for them, what a living the poor +could make! +% +If they were so inclined, they could impeach him because they don't like +his necktie. + -- Attorney General William Saxbe +% +If voting could change the system, it would be illegal. If not voting +could change the system, it would be illegal. +% +If we all work together, we can totally disrupt the system. +% +If we can ever make red tape nutritional, we can feed the world. + -- R. Schaeberle, "Management Accounting" +% +If we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, +and involve others in our doom. + -- Samuel Adams +% +If we won't stand together, we don't stand a chance. +% +If you don't strike oil in twenty minutes, stop boring. + -- Andrew Carnegie, on public speaking +% +"If you ever want to get anywhere in politics, my boy, you're going to +have to get a toehold in the public eye." +% +If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it +will always do it. + -- Les Aspin, D., Wisconsin +% +If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is +make the rubble bounce. + -- Winston Churchill +% +If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee. + -- Graham Summer +% +If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year +with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +If you took all of the grains of sand in the world, and lined +them up end to end in a row, you'd be working for the government! + -- Mr. Interesting +% +If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the +Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's +statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone +directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles +beginning with the word "National." + -- George Will +% +If you wants to get elected president, you'se got to think up some +memoraboble homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin' +it, even if they don't know what it means. + -- Walt Kelly, "The Pogo Party" +% +If your hands are clean and your cause is just and your demands are +reasonable, at least it's a start. +% +Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian. + -- Robert Orben + +Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery. + -- Jack Paar +% +Imbalance of power corrupts and monopoly of power corrupts absolutely. + -- Genji +% +Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery. + -- Jack Paar +% +In America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just one +of the risks he takes. + -- Adlai Stevenson +% +In an orderly world, there's always a place for the disorderly. +% +In case of atomic attack, the federal ruling against prayer in schools +will be temporarily canceled. +% +In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable. + -- W. Churchill, on General Montgomery +% +In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last +resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but +inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +In fiction the recourse of the powerless is murder; in life the recourse +of the powerless is petty theft. +% +In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because +I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up +because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I +didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the +Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came +for me -- and by that time no one was left to speak up. + -- Pastor Martin Niemoller +% +In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, +murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci +and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had +five hundred years of democracy and peace -- and what did they produce? +The cuckoo-clock. + -- Orson Welles, "The Third Man" +% +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, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +In Pierre Trudeau, Canada has finally produced a Prime Minister worthy of +assassination. + -- John Diefenbaker +% +In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +In those days he was wiser than he is now -- he used to frequently take +my advice. + -- Winston Churchill +% +In war it is not men, but the man who counts. + -- Napoleon +% +In war, truth is the first casualty. + -- U Thant +% +... indifference is a militant thing ... when it goes away it leaves +smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is +not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery. + -- Stephen Crane +% +Individualists unite! +% +Indomitable in retreat; invincible in advance; insufferable in victory. + -- Winston Churchill, on General Montgomery +% +Inform all the troops that communications have completely broken down. +% + Inheritance taxes are getting so out of line, that the deceased family +often doesn't have a legacy to stand on. +% +Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. + -- Martin Luther King, Jr. +% +Interesting poll results reported in today's New York Post: people on the +street in midtown Manhattan were asked whether they approved of the US +invasion of Grenada. Fifty-three percent said yes; 39 percent said no; +and 8 percent said "Gimme a quarter?" + -- David Letterman +% +Interfere? Of course we should interfere! Always do what you're +best at, that's what I say. + -- Doctor Who +% +It follows that any commander in chief who undertakes to carry out a plan +which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forth his reasons, +insist of the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather +than be the instrument of his army's downfall. + -- Napoleon, "Military Maxims and Thought" +% +It got to the point where I had to get a haircut or both feet firmly +planted in the air. +% +It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. +% +It is better to wear chains than to believe you are free, and weight +yourself down with invisible chains. +% +It is difficult to legislate morality in the absence of moral legislators. +% +It is easier to be a "humanitarian" than to render your own country its +proper due; it is easier to be a "patriot" than to make your community a +better place to live in; it is easier to be a "civic leader" than to treat +your own family with loving understanding; for the smaller the focus of +attention, the harder the task. + -- Sydney J. Harris +% +It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. + -- Alfred Adler +% +It is enough to make one sympathize with a tyrant for the determination +of his courtiers to deceive him for their own personal ends... + -- Russell Baker and Charles Peters +% +It is impossible to defend perfectly against the attack of those who want +to die. +% +It is like saying that for the cause of peace, God and the Devil will +have a high-level meeting. + -- Rev. Carl McIntire, on Nixon's China trip +% +It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be privileged +to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to corrupt the +youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +It is not the critic who counts, or how the strong man stumbled, or whether +the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the +man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and +blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who +knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, and who spends himself in a +worthy cause, and if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that +he'll never be with those cold and timid souls who never know either victory +or defeat. + -- Teddy Roosevelt +% +It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is? + -- Elizabeth Carpenter +% +It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a +sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate +in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, +too, shall pass away." + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better +still to be a live lion. And usually easier. + -- Lazarus Long +% +It pays in England to be a revolutionary and a bible-smacker most of +one's life and then come round. + -- Lord Alfred Douglas +% +It seems a little silly now, but this country was founded as a protest +against taxation. +% +It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. +% +It took a while to surface, but it appears that a long-distance credit card +may have saved a U.S. Army unit from heavy casualties during the Grenada +military rescue/invasion. Major General David Nichols, Air Force ... said +the Army unit was in a house surrounded by Cuban forces. One soldier found +a telephone and, using his credit card, called Ft. Bragg, N.C., telling Army +officiers there of the perilous situation. The officers in turn called the +Air Force, which sent in gunships to scatter the Cubans and relieve the unit. + -- Aviation Week and Space Technology +% +"It was a Roman who said it was sweet to die for one's country. The +Greeks never said it was sweet to die for anything. They had no vital lies." + -- Edith Hamilton, "The Greek Way" +% +It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. +Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for. +% +It's a recession when your neighbour loses his job; it's a depression +when you lose yours. + -- Harry S. Truman +% + "It's a summons." + "What's a summons?" + "It means summon's in trouble." + -- Rocky and Bullwinkle +% +It's getting uncommonly easy to kill people in large numbers, and the first +thing a principle does -- if it really is a principle -- is to kill somebody. + -- Dorothy L. Sayers, "Gaudy Night" +% +It's important that people know what you stand for. +It's more important that they know what you won't stand for. +% +It's no surprise that things are so screwed up: everyone that knows how +to run a government is either driving taxicabs or cutting hair. + -- George Burns +% +It's the opinion of some that crops could be grown on the moon. Which raises +the fear that it may not be long before we're paying somebody not to. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% + Jacek, a Polish schoolboy, is told by his teacher that he has +been chosen to carry the Polish flag in the May Day parade. + "Why me?" whines the boy. "Three years ago I carried the flag +when Brezhnev was the Secretary; then I carried the flag when it was +Andropov's turn, and again when Chernenko was in the Kremlin. Why is +it always me, teacher?" + "Because, Jacek, you have such golden hands," the teacher +explains. + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +Join in the new game that's sweeping the country. It's called "Bureaucracy". +Everybody stands in a circle. The first person to do anything loses. +% +Join the army, see the world, meet interesting, exciting people, and kill them. +% +Join the Navy; sail to far-off exotic lands, meet exciting interesting people, +and kill them. +% +Just as most issues are seldom black or white, so are most good solutions +seldom black or white. Beware of the solution that requires one side to be +totally the loser and the other side to be totally the winner. The reason +there are two sides to begin with usually is because neither side has all +the facts. Therefore, when the wise mediator effects a compromise, he is +not acting from political motivation. Rather, he is acting from a deep +sense of respect for the whole truth. + -- Stephen R. Schwambach +% +Keep your laws off my body! +% +Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A. +% +L'etat c'est moi. + [I am the state.] + -- Louis XIV +% +Law stands mute in the midst of arms. + -- Marcus Tullius Cicero +% +Lawful Dungeon Master -- and they're MY laws! +% +Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it; what +is happening in America is that those parades are getting smaller and +smaller -- and there are many more of them. + -- John Naisbitt, "Megatrends" +% +Let no guilty man escape. + -- U.S. Grant +% +Let the people think they govern and they will be governed. + -- William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania +% +Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. + -- John F. Kennedy +% +Liberty don't work as good in practice as it does in speeches. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. + -- Harry Emerson Fosdick +% +Life is a concentration camp. You're stuck here and there's no way +out and you can only rage impotently against your persecutors. + -- Woody Allen +% +Listen, there is no courage or any extra courage that I know of to find out +the right thing to do. Now, it is not only necessary to do the right thing, +but to do it in the right way and the only problem you have is what is the +right thing to do and what is the right way to do it. That is the problem. +But this economy of ours is not so simple that it obeys to the opinion of +bias or the pronouncements of any particular individual, even to the President. +This is an economy that is made up of 173 million people, and it reflects +their desires, they're ready to buy, they're ready to spend, it is a thing +that is too complex and too big to be affected adversely or advantageously +just by a few words or any particular -- say, a little this and that, or even +a panacea so alleged. + -- D.D. Eisenhower, in response to: "Has the government + been lacking in courage and boldness in facing up to + the recession?" +% +Lots of folks are forced to skimp to support a government that won't. +% +Love America -- or give it back. +% +"MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into +the smallest amount of thoughts." + -- Winston Churchill +% +Majorities, of course, start with minorities. + -- Robert Moses +% +Man is a military animal, glories in gunpowder, and loves parade. + -- P.J. Bailey +% +Man is by nature a political animal. + -- Aristotle +% +Many a bum show has been saved by the flag. + -- George M. Cohan +% +Massachusetts has the best politicians money can buy. +% +Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it. +% +Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch. +% +Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. + -- Groucho Marx +% +Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. + -- Groucho Marx +% +Most people want either less corruption or more of a chance to +participate in it. +% +Mr. Salter's side of the conversation was limited to expressions of assent. +When Lord Copper was right he said "Definitely, Lord Copper"; when he was +wrong, "Up to a point." + "Let me see, what's the name of the place I mean? Capital of Japan? +Yokohama isn't it?" + "Up to a point, Lord Copper." + "And Hong Kong definitely belongs to us, doesn't it?" + "Definitely, Lord Copper." + -- Evelyn Waugh, "Scoop" +% +My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty +nights -- or very early mornings -- when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, +instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at +a hundred miles an hour ... booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at +the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which +turnoff to take when I got to the other end ... but being absolutely certain +that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were +just as high and wild as I was: no doubt at all about that. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +"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, "The Defendant" +% +My experience with government is when things are non-controversial, beautifully +co-ordinated and all the rest, it must be that not much is going on. + -- J.F. Kennedy +% +My father was a saint, I'm not. + -- Indira Gandhi +% +My folks didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they were there to meet +the boat. +% +My own life has been spent chronicling the rise and fall of human systems, +and I am convinced that we are terribly vulnerable. ... We should be +reluctant to turn back upon the frontier of this epoch. Space is indifferent +to what we do; it has no feeling, no design, no interest in whether or not +we grapple with it. But we cannot be indifferent to space, because the grand, +slow march of intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point +from which we can explore and understand and utilize it. To turn back now +would be to deny our history, our capabilities. + -- James A. Michener +% +NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Giuseppe? Everything he + says is wrong. +GIUSEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says + will be right. + -- G. B. Shaw, "The Man of Destiny" +% +National security is in your hands - guard it well. +% +Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. +It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. + -- William Pitt, 1783 +% +Neglect of duty does not cease, by repetition, to be neglect of duty. + -- Napoleon +% +Nemo me impune lacessit. + [No one provokes me with impunity] + -- Motto of the Crown of Scotland +% +Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. + -- Salvor Hardin, "Foundation" +% +Never trust an automatic pistol or a D.A.'s deal. + -- John Dillinger +% +"Never underestimate the power of a small tactical nuclear weapon." +% +Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying +as an income tax refund. + -- F. J. Raymond +% +Nihilism should commence with oneself. +% +No man's ambition has a right to stand in the way of performing a simple +act of justice. + -- John Altgeld +% +No matter whether th' constitution follows th' flag or not, th' supreme +court follows th' iliction returns. + -- Mr. Dooley +% +No, my friend, the way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it +all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly +the functions he is competent to. It is by dividing and subdividing these +republics from the national one down through all its subordinations, until it +ends in the administration of every man's farm by himself; by placing under +every one what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best. + -- Thomas Jefferson, to Joseph Cabell, 1816 +% +No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he had only had good +intentions. He had money as well. + -- Margaret Thatcher +% +Nobody shot me. + -- Frank Gusenberg, his last words, when asked by police + who had shot him 14 times with a machine gun in the Saint + Valentine's Day Massacre. + +Only Capone kills like that. + -- George "Bugs" Moran, on the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre + +The only man who kills like that is Bugs Moran. + -- Al Capone, on the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre +% +Nobody takes a bribe. Of course at Christmas if you happen to hold out +your hat and somebody happens to put a little something in it, well, that's +different. + -- New York City Police Commissioner (Ret.) William P. + O'Brien, instructions to the force. +% +Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. + -- Winston Churchill + +Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as +satisfying as an income tax refund. + -- F.J. Raymond +% +Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it. + -- Andrew Young +% +Nothing, nothing, nothing, no error, no crime is so absolutely repugnant +to God as everything which is official; and why? because the official is +so impersonal and therefore the deepest insult which can be offered to a +personality. + -- Soren Kierkegaard +% +Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature. +% +"Nuclear war would mean abolition of most comforts, and disruption of +normal routines, for children and adults alike." + -- Willard F. Libby, "You *Can* Survive Atomic Attack" +% +"Nuclear war would really set back cable." + -- Ted Turner +% +O'Brien held up his left hand, its back toward Winston, with the +thumb hidden and the four fingers extended. + "How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?" + "Four." + "And if the Party says that it is not four but five -- then how many?" + "Four." + The word ended in a gasp of pain. + -- George Orwell +% +Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd +be irresponsible, too. + -- Lichty & Wagner +% +Old soldiers never die. Young ones do. +% +On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only +nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter +what it does. + -- Will Rogers +% +Once is happenstance, +Twice is coincidence, +Three times is enemy action. + -- Auric Goldfinger +% + Once there was a marine biologist who loved dolphins. He spent his +time trying to feed and protect his beloved creatures of the sea. One day, +in a fit of inventive genius, he came up with a serum that would make +dolphins live forever! + Of course he was ecstatic. But he soon realized that in order to mass +produce this serum he would need large amounts of a certain compound that was +only found in nature in the metabolism of a rare South American bird. Carried +away by his love for dolphins, he resolved that he would go to the zoo and +steal one of these birds. + Unbeknownst to him, as he was arriving at the zoo an elderly lion was +escaping from its cage. The zookeepers were alarmed and immediately began +combing the zoo for the escaped animal, unaware that it had simply lain down +on the sidewalk and had gone to sleep. + Meanwhile, the marine biologist arrived at the zoo and procured his +bird. He was so excited by the prospect of helping his dolphins that he +stepped absentmindedly stepped over the sleeping lion on his way back to his +car. Immediately, 1500 policemen converged on him and arrested him for +transporting a myna across a staid lion for immortal porpoises. +% +Once upon a time there was a kingdom ruled by a great bear. The peasants +were not very rich, and one of the few ways to become at all wealthy was +to become a Royal Knight. This required an interview with the bear. If +the bear liked you, you were knighted on the spot. If not, the bear would +just as likely remove your head with one swat of a paw. However, the family +of these unfortunate would-be knights was compensated with a beautiful +sheepdog from the royal kennels, which was itself a fairly valuable +possession. And the moral of the story is: + +The mourning after a terrible knight, nothing beats the dog of the bear that +hit you. +% +Once you've seen one nuclear war, you've seen them all. +% +One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day. +% +One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to +do and always a clever thing to say. + -- Will Durant +% +One organism, one vote. +% +One planet is all you get. +% +One seldom sees a monument to a committee. +% +Only two kinds of witnesses exist. The first live in a neighborhood where +a crime has been committed and in no circumstances have ever seen anything +or even heard a shot. The second category are the neighbors of anyone who +happens to be accused of the crime. These have always looked out of their +windows when the shot was fired, and have noticed the accused person standing +peacefully on his balcony a few yards away. + -- Sicilian police officer +% +Our congratulations go to a Burlington Vermont civilian employee of the +local Army National Guard base. He recently received a substational cash +award from our government for inventing a device for optical scanning. +His device reportedly will save the government more than $6 million a year +by replacing a more expensive helicopter maintenance tool with his own, +home-made, hand-held model. + +Not suprisingly, we also have a couple of money-saving ideas that we submit +to the Pentagon free of charge: + + (a) Don't kill anybody. + (b) Don't build things that do. + (c) And don't pay other people to kill anybody. + +We expect annual savings to be in the billions. + -- Sojourners +% +Our sires' age was worse that our grandsires'. +We their sons are more worthless than they: +so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +Our swords shall play the orators for us. + -- Christopher Marlowe +% +Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. + -- General Omar N. Bradley +% +Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. + -- S. Johnson, "The Life of Samuel Johnson" by J. Boswell + +In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last +resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but +inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. + -- Ambrose Bierce + +When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel, +he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word reform. + -- Sen. Roscoe Conkling + +Public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel. + -- Boies Penrose +% +Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. + -- Albert Einstein +% +Peace is much more precious than a piece of land... let there be no more wars. + -- Mohammed Anwar Sadat, 1918-1981 +% +People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election. + -- Otto Von Bismarck +% +People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction +rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +People that can't find something to live for always seem to find something to +die for. The problem is, they usually want the rest of us to die for it too. +% +People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed. +% +People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world +citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time. + -- Norman Cousins +% +Perhaps the most widespread illusion is that if we were in power we would +behave very differently from those who now hold it -- when, in truth, in +order to get power we would have to become very much like them. (Lenin's +fatal mistake, both in theory and in practice.) +% +Persistence in one opinion has never been considered a merit in political +leaders. + -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, "Ad familiares", 1st century BC +% +Pilfering Treasury property is paticularly dangerous: big thieves are +ruthless in punishing little thieves. + -- Diogenes +% +Poland has gun control. +% +Political history is far too criminal a subject to be a fit thing to +teach children. + -- W.H. Auden +% +Political speeches are like steer horns. A point here, a point there, +and a lot of bull inbetween. + -- Alfred E. Neuman +% +Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell +all their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds. +% +Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even +where there is no river. + -- Nikita Khrushchev +% +Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. + -- Arthur C. Clarke +% +Politicians speak for their parties, and parties never are, never have +been, and never will be wrong. + -- Walter Dwight +% +Politics -- the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign +funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other. + -- Oscar Ameringer +% +Politics and the fate of mankind are formed by men without ideals and without +greatness. Those who have greatness within them do not go in for politics. + -- Albert Camus +% +Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war, +you can only be killed once. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing +between the disastrous and the unpalatable. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next +week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to +explain why it didn't happen. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Politics makes strange bedfellows, and journalism makes strange politics. + -- Amy Gorin +% +Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the +systematic organisation of hatreds. + -- Henry Adams, "The Education of Henry Adams" +% +Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of matrydom to the +reformers of error. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +Populus vult decipi. + [The people like to be deceived.] +% +Post proelium, praemium. + [After the battle, the reward.] +% +Postmen never die, they just lose their zip. +% +Poverty begins at home. +% +Poverty must have its satisfactions, else there would not be so many poor +people. + -- Don Herold +% +Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat. + -- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy, 1981-1987 +% +Power is poison. +% +Power is the finest token of affection. +% +Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. + -- Lord Acton +% +Practical politics consists in ignoring facts. + -- Henry Adams +% +President Reagan has noted that there are too many economic pundits and +forecasters and has decided on an excess prophets tax. +% +Put a rogue in the limelight and he will act like an honest man. + -- Napoleon Bonaparte, "Maxims" +% +Question authority. +% +QUESTION AUTHORITY. + +(Sez who?) +% +Question: Is it better to abide by the rules until they're changed or +help speed the change by breaking them? +% +Remember folks. Street lights timed for 35 mph are also timed for 70 mph. + -- Jim Samuels +% +"Remember, if it's being done correctly, here or abroad, it's ___not the U.S. +Army doing it!" + -- Good Morning VietNam +% +Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western + Civilization? +Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea. +% +Reunite Gondwondaland! +% +Rev. Jim: What does an amber light mean? +Bobby: Slow down. +Rev. Jim: What... does... an... amber... light... mean? +Bobby: Slow down. +Rev. Jim: What.... does.... an.... amber.... light.... +% +"Rights" is a fictional abstraction. No one has "Rights", neither machines +nor flesh-and-blood. Persons... have opportunities, not rights, which they +use or do not use. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Rule the Empire through force. + -- Shogun Tokugawa +% +Sauron is alive in Argentina! +% +Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the Presidency. + -- Richard Nixon +% +Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny. +% +Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes? + [Who guards the Guardians?] +% +Sentenced to two years hard labor (for sodomy), Oscar Wilde stood handcuffed +in driving rain waiting for transport to prison. "If this is the way Queen +Victoria treats her prisoners," he remarked, "she doesn't deserve to have +any." +% +Serfs up! + -- Spartacus +% +Shah, shah! Ayatollah you so! +% +Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken +him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of +stupidity, sir, is not in Nature. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help. + -- The Brown University Security Crime Prevention Pamphlet +% +Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised +when others believe him. + -- Charles DeGaulle +% +Since aerosols are forbidden, the police are using roll-on Mace! +% +[Sir Stafford Cripps] has all the virtues I dislike and none of the +vices I admire. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work ... I did not, when +a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and apparently incoherent +songs. I was myself within the circle, so that I neither saw nor heard as +those without might see and hear. They told a tale which was then altogether +beyond my feeble comprehension: they were tones, loud, long and deep, +breathing the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest +anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God +for deliverance from chains. + -- Frederick Douglass +% +So from the depths of its enchantment, Terra was able to calculate a course +of action. Here at last was an opportunity to consort with Dirbanu on a +friendly basis -- great Durbanu which, since it had force fields which Earth +could not duplicate, must of necessity have many other things Earth could +use; mighty Durbanu before whom we would kneel in supplication (with purely- +for-defense bombs hidden in our pockets) with lowered heads (making invisible +the knife in our teeth) and ask for crumbs from their table (in order to +extrapolate the location of their kitchens). + -- Theodore Sturgeon, "The World Well Lost" +% +... so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those +who wish to tyrranize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, +and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious +and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. + -- Voltarine de Cleyre +% +So many men, so many opinions; every one his own way. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +Some men rob you with a six-gun -- others with a fountain pen. + -- Woodie Guthrie +% + Somewhat alarmed at the continued growth of the number of employees +on the Department of Agriculture payroll in 1962, Michigan Republican Robert +Griffin proposed an amendment to the farm bill so that "the total number of +employees in the Department of Agriculture at no time exceeds the number of +farmers in America." + -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" +% +Stamp out organized crime!! Abolish the IRS. +% + Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? +Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era -- the kind of peak that +never comes again. San Fransisco in the middle sixties was a very special time +and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long +run... There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the +Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda... You could +strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we +were doing was right, that we were winning... + And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory +over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't +need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting +-- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest +of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go +up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes +you can almost ___see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally +broke and rolled back. + -- Hunter S. Thompson +% +Such a foolish notion, that war is called devotion, when the greatest +warriors are the ones who stand for peace. +% +Support your local police force -- steal!! +% +Support your right to arm bears!! +% +Support your right to bare arms! + -- A message from the National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association +% +Surprise! You are the lucky winner of random I.R.S. Audit! Just type +in your name and social security number. Please remember that leaving +the room is punishable under law: + +Name +# +% +Take Care of the Molehills, and the Mountains Will Take Care of Themselves. + -- Motto of the Federal Civil Service +% +Take your Senator to lunch this week. +% +TANSTAAFL +% +Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind +the tree." + -- Russell Long +% +Taxes are going up so fast, the government is likely to price itself +out of the market. +% +Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed. +% +Ten persons who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent. + -- Napoleon I +% +That government is best which governs least. + -- Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience" +% +That's where the money was. + -- Willie Sutton, on being asked why he robbed a bank + +It's a rather pleasant experience to be alone in a bank at night. + -- Willie Sutton +% +... The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem that +consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune +of "Camptown Races". Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to +listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +The Army needs leaders the way a foot needs a big toe. + -- Bill Murray +% +The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use +in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the +Declaration not for that, but for future use. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +The attacker must vanquish; the defender need only survive. +% +The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any +reward. + -- John Maynard Keynes +% +The better the state is established, the fainter is humanity. +To make the individual uncomfortable, that is my task. + -- Nietzsche +% +The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding bureaucracy. +% +The Constitution may not be perfect, but it's a lot better than what we've got! +% +The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself. + -- Hilaire Belloc +% +The Crown is full of it! + -- Nate Harris, 1775 +% +The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class +is unfit to govern. + -- Lord Acton +% +The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. + -- F. Dostoyevski +% +The dirty work at political conventions is almost always done in the grim +hours between midnight and dawn. Hangmen and politicians work best when +the human spirit is at its lowest ebb. + -- Russell Baker +% +The distinction between Freedom and Liberty is not accurately known; +naturalists have been unable to find a living specimen of either. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man +really clever who has not found that he is stupid. + -- Gilbert K. Chesterson +% +The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. + -- Buckminster Fuller +% +The eyes of taxes are upon you. +% +The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not +utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, +a widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible. + -- Bertrand Russell, in "Marriage and Morals", 1929 +% +The fact that people are poor or discriminated against doesn't necessarily +endow them with any special qualities of justice, nobility, charity or +compassion. + -- Saul Alinsky +% +The famous politician was trying to save both his faces. +% +The fashionable drawing rooms of London have always been happy to accept +outsiders -- if only on their own, albeit undemanding terms. That is to +say, artists, so long as they are not too talented, men of humble birth, +so long as they have since amassed several million pounds, and socialists +so long as they are Tories. + -- Christopher Booker +% +The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. + -- Abbie Hoffman +% +The founding fathers tried to set up a judicial system where the accused +received a fair trial, not a system to insure an acquittal on technicalities. +% + The General disliked trying to explain the highly technical inner +workings of the U.S. Air Force. + "$7,662 for a ten cup coffee maker, General?" the Senator asked. + In his head he ran through his standard explanations. "It's not so," +he thought. "It's a deterrent." Soon he came up with, "It's computerized, +Senator. Tiny computer chips make coffee that's smooth and full-bodied. Try +a cup." + The Senator did. "Pfffttt! Tastes like jet fuel!" + "It's not so," the General thought. "It's a deterrent." + Then he remembered something. "We bought a lot of untested computer +chips," the General answered. "They got into everything. Just a little +mix-up. Nothing serious." + Then he remembered something else. It was at the site of the +mysterious B-1 crash. A strange smell in the fuel lines. It smelled like +coffee. Smooth and full bodied... + -- Another Episode of General's Hospital +% +The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the +people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people +drudge along paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return. + -- Gore Vidal +% +The government has just completed work on a missile that turned out to be a +bit of a boondoggle; nicknamed "Civil Servant", it won't work and they can't +fire it. +% +The Government just announced today the creation of the Neutron Bomb II. +Similar to the Neutron Bomb, the Neutron Bomb II not only kills people +and leaves buildings standing, but also does a little light housekeeping. +% +The graveyards are full of indispensable men. + -- Charles de Gaulle +% +The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men +of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. + -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis +% +The greatest disloyalty one can offer to great pioneers is to refuse to +move an inch from where they stood. +% +The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. + -- Albert Einstein +% +The hater of property and of government takes care to have his warranty +deed recorded, and the book written against fame and learning has the +author's name on the title page. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1831 +% +The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality +of functions performed by private citizens. + -- Alexis de Tocqueville +% +The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf +has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know +when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr. + -- Will Rogers +% +The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; +the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. + -- Churchill +% +The introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the +whole state, for styles of music are never disturbed without affecting +the most important political institutions. ... The new style, gradually +gaining a lodgement, quitely insinuates itself into manners and customs, +and from it ... goes on to attack laws and constitutions, displaying the +utmost impudence, until it ends by overturning everything. + -- Plato, "Republic", 370 B.C. +% +The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free +information hot lines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of a dynamite tax +tip is that you should print neatly. If you ask them a real tax question, +such as how you can cheat, they're useless. + +So, for guidance, you want to look to big business. Big business never pays +a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer +organization that never pays a nickel in taxes... + -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" +% +The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% +The Least Successful Executions + History has furnished us with two executioners worthy of attention. +The first performed in Sydney in Australia. In 1803 three attempts were +made to hang a Mr. Joseph Samuels. On the first two of these the rope +snapped, while on the third Mr. Samuels just hung there peacefully until he +and everyone else got bored. Since he had proved unsusceptible to capital +punishment, he was reprieved. + The most important British executioner was Mr. James Berry who +tried three times in 1885 to hang Mr. John Lee at Exeter Jail, but on each +occasion failed to get the trap door open. + In recognition of this achievement, the Home Secretary commuted +Lee's sentence to "life" imprisonment. He was released in 1917, emigrated +to America and lived until 1933. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The Least Successful Police Dogs + America has a very strong candidate in "La Dur", a fearsome looking +schnauzer hound, who was retired from the Orlando police force in Florida +in 1978. He consistently refused to do anything which might ruffle or +offend the criminal classes. + His handling officer, Rick Grim, had to admit: "He just won't go up +and bite them. I got sick and tired of doing that dog's work for him." + The British contenders in this category, however, took things a +stage further. "Laddie" and "Boy" were trained as detector dogs for drug +raids. Their employment was terminated following a raid in the Midlands in +1967. + While the investigating officer questioned two suspects, they +patted and stroked the dogs who eventually fell asleep in front of the +fire. When the officer moved to arrest the suspects, one dog growled at +him while the other leapt up and bit his thigh. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. + -- Kin Hubbard +% +The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep. + -- Woody Allen +% +"The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as +we could with both of them." + -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" +% +The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The +terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency. + -- Albert Einstein +% +The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The +man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been. + -- Alan Ashley-Pitt +% +The man with the best job in the country is the Vice President. All he has +to do is get up every morning and say, "How's the President?" + -- Will Rogers + +The vice-presidency ain't worth a pitcher of warm spit. + -- Vice President John Nance Garner +% +The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, +while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. + -- Wilhelm Stekel +% + The Minnesota Board of Education voted to consider requiring all +students to do some "volunteer work" as a prerequisite to high school +graduation. + Senator Orrin Hatch said that "capital punishment is our society's +recognition of the sanctity of human life." + According to the tax bill signed by President Reagan on December 22, +1987, Don Tyson and his sister-in-law Barbara run a "family farm." Their +"farm" has 25,000 employees and grosses $1.7 billion a year. But as a "family +farm" they get tax breaks that save them $135 million a year. + Scott L. Pickard, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of +Public Works, calls them "ground-mounted confirmatory route markers." You +probably call them road signs, but then you don't work in a government agency. + It's not "elderly" or "senior citizens" anymore. Now it's "chrono- +logically experienced citizens." + According to the FAA, the propeller blade didn't break off, it was +just a case of "uncontained blade liberation." + -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE) +% +The Moral Majority is neither. +% +The more control, the more that requires control. +% +The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. +% +The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I +hope I don't get run over again. +% +The Official Colorado State Vegetable is now the "state legislator". +% +The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky. + -- David Gerrold +% +The poetry of heroism appeals irresitably to those who don't go to a war, +and even more so to those whom the war is making enormously wealthy." + -- Celine +% +The polite thing to do has always been to address people as they wish to be +addressed, to treat them in a way they think dignified. But it is equally +important to accept and tolerate different standards of courtesy, not +expecting everyone else to adapt to one's own preferences. Only then can +we hope to restore the insult to its proper social function of expressing +true distaste. + -- Judith Martin, "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly + Correct Behavior" +% +The politician is someone who deals in man's problems of adjustment. +To ask a politician to lead us is to ask the tail of a dog to lead the dog. + -- Buckminster Fuller +% +The price of greatness is responsibility. +% +The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday +they might force their beliefs on us. + -- Mario Cuomo +% +The primary theme of SoupCon is communication. The acronym "LEO" +represents the secondary theme: + + Law Enforcement Officials + +The overall theme of SoupCon shall be: + + Avoiding Communication with Law Enforcement Officials + -- M. Gallaher +% +The problem with most conspiracy theories is that they seem to believe that +for a group of people to behave in a way detrimental to the common good +requires intent. +% +The problem with this country is that there is no death penalty for +incompetence. +% +The public demands certainties; it must be told definitely and a bit +raucously that this is true and that is false. But there are no certainties. + -- H.L. Mencken, "Prejudice" +% +The public is an old woman. Let her maunder and mumble. + -- Thomas Carlyle +% +The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but +because it gave pleasure to the spectators. + -- Thomas Macaulay, "History of England" +% +The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it +about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that +you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste? + -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics" +% +The revolution will not be televised. +% +"The Right Honorable Gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests +and to his imagination for his facts." + -- Sheridan +% +The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today. + -- Lewis Carroll +% +The scum also rises. + -- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson +% +The so-called lessons of history are for the most part the rationalizations +of the victors. History is written by the survivors. + -- Max Lerner +% +The time for action is past! Now is the time for senseless bickering. +% +The time was the 19th of May, 1780. The place was Hartford, Connecticut. +The day has gone down in New England history as a terrible foretaste of +Judgement Day. For at noon the skies turned from blue to grey and by +mid-afternoon had blackened over so densely that, in that religious age, +men fell on their knees and begged a final blessing before the end came. +The Connecticut House of Representatives was in session. And, as some of +the men fell down and others clamored for an immediate adjournment, the +Speaker of the House, one Col. Davenport, came to his feet. He silenced +them and said these words: "The day of judgment is either approaching or +it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I +choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be +brought." + -- Alistair Cooke +% +The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians +who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool +all of the people all of the time. + -- Franklin Adams +% +The two oldest professions in the world have been ruined by amateurs. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +The two party system ... is a triumph of the dialectic. It showed that +two could be one and one could be two and had probably been fabricated +by Hegel for the American market on a subcontract from General Dynamics. + -- I.F. Stone +% +The universe is ruled by letting things take their course. It cannot be +ruled by interfering. + -- Chinese proverb +% +The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of +altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their +views ... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the +facts that needs altering. + -- Doctor Who, "Face of Evil" +% +"The wages of sin are death; but after they're done taking out taxes, +it's just a tired feeling:" +% +The way I understand it, the Russians are sort of a combination of evil and +incompetence... sort of like the Post Office with tanks. + -- Emo Philips +% +The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great +scholars great men. + -- Oliver Wendell Holmes +% +The Worst Bank Robbery + In August 1975 three men were on their way in to rob the Royal Bank of +Scotland at Rothesay, when they got stuck in the revolving doors. They +had to be helped free by the staff and, after thanking everyone, +sheepishly left the building. + A few minutes later they returned and announced their intention of +robbing the bank, but none of the staff believed them. When they demanded +5,000 pounds in cash, the head cashier laughed at them, convinced that it +was a practical joke. + Then one of the men jumped over the counter, but fell to the floor +clutching his ankle. The other two tried to make their getaway, but got +trapped in the revolving doors again. +% +The Worst Prison Guards + The largest number of convicts ever to escape simultaneously from a +maximum security prison is 124. This record is held by Alcoente Prison, +near Lisbon in Portugal. + During the weeks leading up to the escape in July 1978 the prison +warders had noticed that attendances had fallen at film shows which +included "The Great Escape", and also that 220 knives and a huge quantity +of electric cable had disappeared. A guard explained, "Yes, we were +planning to look for them, but never got around to it." The warders had +not, however, noticed the gaping holes in the wall because they were +"covered with posters". Nor did they detect any of the spades, chisels, +water hoses and electric drills amassed by the inmates in large quantities. +The night before the breakout one guard had noticed that of the 36 +prisoners in his block only 13 were present. He said this was "normal" +because inmates sometimes missed roll-call or hid, but usually came back +the next morning. + "We only found out about the escape at 6:30 the next morning when +one of the prisoners told us," a warder said later. [...] When they +eventually checked, the prison guards found that exactly half of the gaol's +population was missing. By way of explanation the Justice Minister, Dr. +Santos Pais, claimed that the escape was "normal" and part of the +"legitimate desire of the prisoner to regain his liberty." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +There appears to be irrefutable evidence that the mere fact of overcrowding +induces violence. + -- Harvey Wheeler +% +There are a lot of lies going around.... and half of them are true. + -- Winston Churchill +% +There are no manifestos like cannon and musketry. + -- The Duke of Wellington +% +There are only two things in this world that I am sure of, death and +taxes, and we just might do something about death one of these days. + -- shades +% +There are two kinds of fool. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." +And one says, "This is new, and therefore better" + -- John Brunner, "The Shockwave Rider" +% +There but for the grace of God, goes God. + -- Winston Churchill, speaking of Sir Stafford Cripps. +% +There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship. + -- Ralph Nader +% +There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full. + -- Henry Kissinger +% +There is a certain impertinence in allowing oneself to be burned for an opinion. + -- Anatole France +% +There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum. + -- Arthur C. Clarke +% +There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die, +and we will conquer. Follow me. + -- General Barnard E. Bee (CSA) +% +There is no act of treachery or mean-ness of which a political party +is not capable; for in politics there is no honour. + -- Benjamin Disraeli, "Vivian Grey" +% +There is no education that is not political. An apolitical +education is also political because it is purposely isolating. +% +There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +There is no security on this earth. There is only opportunity. + -- General Douglas MacArthur +% +There is not a man in the country that can't make a living for himself and +family. But he can't make a living for them *and* his government, too, +the way his government is living. What the government has got to do is +live as cheap as the people. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% +There is one difference between a tax collector and a taxidermist -- +the taxidermist leaves the hide. + -- Mortimer Caplan +% +There is only one way to kill capitalism -- by taxes, taxes, and more taxes. + -- Karl Marx +% +There is perhaps in every thing of any consequence, secret history, which +it would be amusing to know, could we have it authentically communicated. + -- James Boswell +% +There never was a good war or a bad peace. + -- B. Franklin +% +There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government +working for you. + -- Will Rogers +% +There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead +armadillos. + -- Jim Hightower, Texas Agricultural Commissioner +% +They call them "squares" because it's the most complicated shape they can +deal with. +% +"They make a desert and call it peace." + -- Tacitus (55?-120?) +% +They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom for trying to change the +system from within. I'm coming now I'm coming to reward them. First +we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin. + +I'm guided by a signal in the heavens. I'm guided by this birthmark on +my skin. I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons. First we take Manhattan, +then we take Berlin. + +I'd really like to live beside you, baby. I love your body and your spirit +and your clothes. But you see that line there moving through the station? +I told you I told you I told you I was one of those. + -- Leonard Cohen, "First We Take Manhattan" +% +"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary +safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." + -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 +% +They use different words for things in America. +For instance they say elevator and we say lift. +They say drapes and we say curtains. +They say president and we say brain damaged git. + -- Alexie Sayle +% +They will only cause the lower classes to move about needlessly. + -- The Duke of Wellington, on early steam railroads. +% +They're giving bank robbing a bad name. + -- John Dillinger, on Bonnie and Clyde +% +Thieves respect property; they merely wish the property to become +their property that they may more perfectly respect it. + -- G.K. Chesterton, "The Man Who Was Thursday" +% +This is a country where people are free to practice their religion, +regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling keys... +% + Thompson, if he is to be believed, has sampled the entire rainbow of +legal and illegal drugs in heroic efforts to feel better than he does. + As for the truth about his health: I have asked around about it. I +am told that he appears to be strong and rosy, and steadily sane. But we +will be doing what he wants us to do, I think, if we consider his exterior +a sort of Dorian Gray facade. Inwardly, he is being eaten alive by tinhorn +politicians. + The disease is fatal. There is no known cure. The most we can do +for the poor devil, it seems to me, is to name his disease in his honor. +From this moment on, let all those who feel that Americans can be as easily +led to beauty as to ugliness, to truth as to public relations, to joy as to +bitterness, be said to be suffering from Hunter Thompson's disease. I don't +have it this morning. It comes and goes. This morning I don't have Hunter +Thompson's disease. + -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Excerpt + from "A Political Disease", Vonnegut's review of "Fear and + Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" +% +"Those who do not do politics will be done in by politics." + -- French Proverb +% +Those who have had no share in the good fortunes of the mighty +Often have a share in their misfortunes. + -- Bertolt Brecht, "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" +% +Those who have some means think that the most important thing in the +world is love. The poor know that it is money. + -- Gerald Brenan +% +Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are +men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean +without the roar of its many waters. + -- Frederick Douglass +% +To be excellent when engaged in administration is to be like the North +Star. As it remains in its one position, all the other stars surround it. + -- Confucius +% +To make tax forms true they should read "Income Owed Us" and "Incommode You". +% +To say you got a vote of confidence would be to say you needed a vote of +confidence. + -- Andrew Young +% +To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. + -- Eugene Ionesco +% +To use violence is to already be defeated. + -- Chinese proverb +% +Today is a good day to bribe a high-ranking public official. +% +Too often I find that the volume of paper expands to fill the available +briefcases. + -- Governor Jerry Brown +% +Travel important today; Internal Revenue men arrive tomorrow. +% +Treaties are like roses and young girls -- they last while they last. + -- Charles DeGaulle +% +True leadership is the art of changing a group from what it is to what +it ought to be. + -- Virginia Allan +% +Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers +in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship and +was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy +fog, so the Captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities. + Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, +"Light, bearing on the starboard bow." + "Is it steady or moving astern?" the Captain called out. + Lookout replied, "Steady, Captain," which meant we were on a dangerous +collision course with that ship. + The Captain then called to the signalman, "Signal that ship: We are on +a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees." + Back came a signal "Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees." + In reply, the Captain said, "Send: I'm a Captain, change course 20 +degrees!" + "I'm a seaman second class," came the reply, "You had better change +course 20 degrees." + By that time, the Captain was furious. He spit out, "Send: I'm a +battleship, change course 20 degrees." + Back came the flashing light: "I'm a lighthouse!" + We changed course. + -- The Naval Institute's "Proceedings" +% +"Ubi non accusator, ibi non judex." + +(Where there is no police, there is no speed limit.) + -- Roman Law, trans. Petr Beckmann (1971) +% +Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a +just man is also a prison. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% +Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some +ordinance under which you can be booked. + -- Robert D. Sprecht, Rand Corp. +% +Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. + -- J.K. Galbraith +% +Under every stone lurks a politician. + -- Aristophanes +% +United Nations, New York, December 25. The peace and joy of the Christmas +season was marred by a proclamation of a general strike of all the military +forces of the world. Panic reigns in the hearts of all the patriots of +every persuasion. Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all-time +low over the world. + -- Isaac Asimov +% +Unknown person(s) stole the American flag from its pole in Etra Park sometime +between 3pm Jan 17 and 11:30 am Jan 20. The flag is described as red, white +and blue, having 50 stars and was valued at $40. + -- Windsor-Heights Herald "Police Blotter", Jan 28, 1987 +% +Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out +twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +Usually, when a lot of men get together, it's called a war. + -- Mel Brooks, "The Listener" +% +Veni, vidi, vici. + [I came, I saw, I conquered]. + -- Gaius Julius Caesar +% +Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen +at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects. + -- Herodotus +% +Victory uber allies! +% +"Violence accomplishes nothing." What a contemptible lie! Raw, naked +violence has settled more issues throughout history than any other method +ever employed. Perhaps the city fathers of Carthage could debate the +issue, with Hitler and Alexander as judges? +% +Violence is a sword that has no handle -- you have to hold the blade. +% +Violence is molding. +% +Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. + -- Salvor Hardin +% +Vote anarchist. +% +War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left. +% +War hath no fury like a non-combatant. + -- Charles Edward Montague +% +War is an equal opportunity destroyer. +% +War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it. + -- Desiderius Erasmus +% +War is like love, it always finds a way. + -- Bertolt Brecht, "Mother Courage" +% +War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military. + -- Clemenceau +% +War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ketchup is a vegetable. +% +War spares not the brave, but the cowardly. + -- Anacreon +% +[Washington, D.C.] is the home of... taste for the people -- the big, +the bland and the banal. + -- Ada Louise Huxtable +% +Washington, D.C: Fifty square miles almost completely surrounded by reality. +% +We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean +the same thing. + -- A. Lincoln +% +We are all born equal... just some of us are more equal than others. +% +We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm. + -- Winston Churchill +% +We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +We have not inherited the earth from our parents, we've borrowed it from +our children. +% +... we must not judge the society of the future by considering whether or not +we should like to live in it; the question is whether those who have grown up +in it will be happier than those who have grown up in our society or those of +the past. + -- Joseph Wood Krutch +% +We should be glad we're living in the time that we are. If any of us had been +born into a more enlightened age, I'm sure we would have immediately been taken +out and shot. + -- Strange de Jim +% +We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if only words were +taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things +themselves. + -- John Locke +% +We should have a Vollyballocracy. We elect a six-pack of presidents. +Each one serves until they screw up, at which point they rotate. + -- Dennis Miller +% +We the unwilling, led by the ungrateful, are doing the impossible. +We've done so much, for so long, with so little, +that we are now qualified to do something with nothing. +% +We totally deny the allegations, and we're trying to identify the allegators. +% +We tried to close Ohio's borders and ran into a Constitutional problem. +There's a provision in the Constitution that says you can't close your +borders to interstate commerce, and garbage is a form of interstate commerce. + -- Ohio Lt. Governor Paul Leonard +% +We'll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel +a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail. + -- Dave Barry +% +Well, don't worry about it... It's nothing. + -- Lieutenant Kermit Tyler (Duty Officer of Shafter Information + Center, Hawaii), upon being informed that Private Joseph + Lockard had picked up a radar signal of what appeared to be + at least 50 planes soaring toward Oahu at almost 180 miles + per hour, December 7, 1941. +% +Well, he didn't know what to do, so he decided to look at the government, +to see what they did, and scale it down and run his life that way. + -- Laurie Anderson +% +What a strange game. The only winning move is not to play. + -- WOP, "War Games" +% +What does it take for Americans to do great things; to go to the moon, to +win wars, to dig canals linking oceans, to build railroads across a continent? +In independent thought about this question, Neil Armstrong and I concluded +that it takes a coincidence of four conditions, or in Neil's view, the +simultaneous peaking of four of the many cycles of American life. First, a +base of technology must exist from which to do the thing to be done. Second, +a period of national uneasiness about America's place in the scheme of human +activities must exist. Third, some catalytic event must occur that focuses +the national attention upon the direction to proceed. Finally, an articulate +and wise leader must sense these first three conditions and put forth with +words and action the great thing to be accomplished. The motivation of young +Americans to do what needs to be done flows from such a coincidence of +conditions. ... The Thomas Jeffersons, The Teddy Roosevelts, The John +Kennedys appear. We must begin to create the tools of leadership which they, +and their young frontiersmen, will require to lead us onward and upward. + -- Dr. Harrison H. Schmidt +% +"What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so that we +wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running our country. Nice try +anyway, George." + -- D.J. on KSFO/KYA +% +What I want is all of the power and none of the responsibility. +% +What is status? + Status is when the President calls you for your opinion. + +Uh, no... + Status is when the President calls you in to discuss a + problem with him. + +Uh, that still ain't right... + STATUS is when you're in the Oval Office talking to the President, + and the phone rings. The President picks it up, listens for a + minute, and hands it to you, saying, "It's for you." +% +What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank? + -- Bertold Brecht +% +What is the sound of one hand clapping? +% +What orators lack in depth they make up in length. +% +What we need is either less corruption, or more chance to participate in it. +% +What's a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority. + -- Robert Altman +% +When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public +property. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not +far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel +is that it made it possible to go elsewhere. + -- R.A. Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love" +% +When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog along to see +the sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certain +relationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten. + -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" +% +When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before +the white men came, an Indian said simply "Ours." + -- Vine Deloria, Jr. +% +When I came back to Dublin I was courtmartialed in my absence and sentenced +to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence. + -- Brendan Behan +% +When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity +for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough. + -- H.L. Mencken, "Minority Report" +% +When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now +I'm beginning to believe it. + -- Clarence Darrow +% +When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess. +% +When neither their poverty nor their honor is touched, the majority of men +live content. + -- Niccolo Machiavelli +% +When smashing monuments, save the pedstals -- they always come in handy. + -- Stanislaw J. Lem, "Unkempt Thoughts" +% +When some people decide it's time for everyone to make big changes, +it means that they want you to change first. +% +When taxes are due, Americans tend to feel quite bled-white and blue. +% +When the government bureau's remedies don't match your problem, you modify +the problem, not the remedy. +% +When the revolution comes, count your change. +% +When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is +not hereditary. + -- Thomas Paine +% +When we jumped into Sicily, the units became separated, and I couldn't find +anyone. Eventually I stumbled across two colonels, a major, three captains, +two lieutenants, and one rifleman, and we secured the bridge. Never in the +history of war have so few been led by so many. + -- General James Gavin +% +When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve +people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty. + -- Norm Crosby +% +When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. + -- Harry Truman +% +When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite. + -- Winston Churchill, on formal declarations of war +% +When you live in a sick society, just about everything you do is wrong. +% +When you say that you agree to a thing in principle, you mean that +you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice. + -- Otto Von Bismarck +% +When you're in command, command. + -- Admiral Nimitz +% +Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to +see it tried on him personally. + -- Abraham Lincoln +% +Where the system is concerned, you're not allowed to ask "Why?". +% +Where you stand depends on where you sit. + -- Rufus Miles, HEW +% +Why bother building any more nuclear warheads until we use the ones we have? +% +Why can't you be a non-conformist like everyone else? +% +Why don't somebody print the truth about our present economic condition? +We spent years of wild buying on credit, everything under the sun, whether +we needed it or not, and now we are having to pay for it, howling like a +pet coon. This would be a great world to dance in if we didn't have to +pay the fiddler. + -- The Best of Will Rogers +% + Will Rogers, having paid too much income tax one year, tried in +vain to claim a rebate. His numerous letters and queries remained +unanswered. Eventually the form for the next year's return arrived. In +the section marked "DEDUCTIONS," Rogers listed: "Bad debt, US Government +-- $40,000." +% + ... with liberty and justice for all ... who can afford it. +% +With reasonable men I will reason; +with humane men I will plead; +but to tyrants I will give no quarter. + -- William Lloyd Garrison +% +Workers of the world, arise! You have nothing to lose but your chairs. +% +World tensions have, if anything, increased in the quarter century since +H.G. Wells uttered his glum warning: "There is no more evil thing on +earth than race prejudice, none at all. I write deliberately -- it is +the worst single thing in life now. It justifies and holds together more +baseness, cruelty and abomination than any other sort of error in the world." + -- Sydney Harris +% +World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced dress code! +% + "Wrong," said Renner. + "The tactful way," Rod said quietly, "the polite way to disagree with +the Senator would be to say, `That turns out not to be the case.'" +% +You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having +both at once. + -- Lazarus Long +% +You first have to decide whether to use the short or the long form. The +short form is what the Internal Revenue Service calls "simplified", which +means it is designed for people who need the help of a Sears tax-preparation +expert to distinguish between their first and last names. Here's the +complete text: + +"(1) How much did you make? (AMOUNT) +(2) How much did we here at the government take out? (AMOUNT) +(3) Hey! Sounds like we took too much! So we're going to + send an official government check for (ONE-FIFTEENTH OF + THE AMOUNT WE TOOK) directly to the (YOUR LAST NAME) + household at (YOUR ADDRESS), for you to spend in any way + you please! Which just goes to show you, (YOUR FIRST + NAME), that it pays to file the short form!" + +The IRS wants you to use this form because it gets to keep most of your +money. So unless you have pond silt for brains, you want the long form. + -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" +% +You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, +bad breeding, and a vulgar manner. + -- Aristophanes +% +You must include all income you receive in the form of money, property +and services if it is not specifically exempt. Report property (goods) +and services at their fair market values. Examples include income from +bartering or swapping transactions, side commissions, kickbacks, rent +paid in services, illegal activities (such as stealing, drugs, etc.), +cash skimming by proprietors and tradesmen, "moonlighting" services, +gambling, prizes and awards. Not reporting such income can lead to +prosecution for perjury and fraud. + -- Excerpt from Taxachussetts income tax forms +% +You roll my log, and I will roll yours. + -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca +% +You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for +freedom and liberty. + -- Henrik Ibsen +% +I do not patronize poor, ill educated, or disenfranchised people by +exempting them from the same critical examination I feel free to +direct toward the rest of society, however much I might champion the +same minority or disadvantaged group in the forums of that society. + -- James Moffitt +% +Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and +children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, +tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards +uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half +of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +The human instinct to censor thrives, as it always will, living in +irrepressible conflict with the human instinct to speak. Outrage, +self-righteousness, and paranoia feed the maw of censorship. +Squelching speech, however, never reduces society's net paranoia +quotient; it simply redirects it, drives it underground, where it +festers into more dangerous hysterias. In the words of Justice +Brandeis, "Men feared witches and burned women." + -- Rodney Smolla, "Free Speech in an Open Society", p. 43. +% +As long as there are entrenched social and political distinctions +between sexes, races or classes, there will be forms of science whose +main function is to rationalize and legitimize these distinctions. + -- Elizabeth Fee +% +Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their +reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those +who are totally in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in +the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and +out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, +and bear the consequences. + -- Susan B. Anthony (1873) +% +"Even if you want no state, or a minimal state, then you still have to +argue it point by point. Especially since most minimalists want to +keep exactly the economic and police system that keeps them +privileged. That's libertarians for you -- anarchists who want police +protection from their slaves!" + -- Coyote, in Kim Stanley Robinson's "Green Mars" +% +And they mainly want to teach them not to question, not to imagine, +but to be obedient and behave well so that they can hold them forever as +children to their bosom as the second millennium lurches toward its +panicky close. + -- Jerome Stern +% +I've no regrets. I was sincere in everything I said. + -- Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, + annoucing his new book +% +The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that +the end justifies the means. + -- Georges Bernanos (1888-1948), French novelist, + political writer. "Why Freedom?" The last essays of + George Bernanos (1955) +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/riddles b/fortune-mod/datfiles/riddles new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7afbae5 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/riddles @@ -0,0 +1,583 @@ +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #13 +A: Doc, Happy, Bashful, Dopey, Sneezy, Sleepy, & Grumpy +Q: Who were the Democratic presidential candidates? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #15 +A: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police. +Q: What was the greatest achievement in taxidermy? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #19 +A: To be or not to be. +Q: What is the square root of 4b^2? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #21 +A: Dr. Livingston I. Presume. +Q: What's Dr. Presume's full name? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #31 +A: Chicken Teriyaki. +Q: What is the name of the world's oldest kamikaze pilot? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #4 +A: Go west, young man, go west! +Q: What do wabbits do when they get tiwed of wunning awound? +% +FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #5 +A: The Halls of Montezuma and the Shores of Tripoli. +Q: Name two families whose kids won't join the Marines. +% +Knock, knock! + Who's there? +Sam and Janet. + Sam and Janet who? +Sam and Janet Evening... +% +Knucklehead: "Knock, knock" +Pee Wee: "Who's there?" +Knucklehead: "Little ol' lady." +Pee Wee: "Liddle ol' lady who?" +Knucklehead: "I didn't know you could yodel" +% +Q: "What is the burning question on the mind of every dyslexic + existentialist?" +A: "Is there a dog?" +% +Q: Are we not men? +A: We are Vaxen. +% +Q: Do you know what the death rate around here is? +A: One per person. +% +Q: Heard about the who couldn't spell? +A: He spent the night in a warehouse. +% +Q: How can you tell when a Burroughs salesman is lying? +A: When his lips move. +% +Q: How did you get into artificial intelligence? +A: Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence. +% +Q: How do you catch a unique rabbit? +A: Unique up on it! + +Q: How do you catch a tame rabbit? +A: The tame way! +% +Q: How do you keep a moron in suspense? +% +Q: How do you know when you're in the section of Vermont? +A: The maple sap buckets are hanging on utility poles. +% +Q: How do you play religious roulette? +A: You stand around in a circle and blaspheme and see who gets + struck by lightning first. +% +Q: How do you save a drowning lawyer? +A: Throw him a rock. +% +Q: How do you shoot a blue elephant? +A: With a blue-elephant gun. + +Q: How do you shoot a pink elephant? +A: Twist its trunk until it turns blue, then shoot it with + a blue-elephant gun. +% +Q: How do you stop an elephant from charging? +A: Take away his credit cards. +% +Q: How does a hacker fix a function which + doesn't work for all of the elements in its domain? +A: He changes the domain. +% +Q: How does the Polish Constitution differ from the American? +A: Under the Polish Constitution citizens are guaranteed freedom of + speech, but under the United States constitution they are + guaranteed freedom after speech. + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +Q: How many Bell Labs Vice Presidents does it take to change a light bulb? +A: That's proprietary information. Answer available from AT&T on payment + of license fee (binary only). +% +Q: How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Two. One to assure everyone that everything possible is being + done while the other screws the bulb into the water faucet. +% +Q: How many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Five. One to screw in the light bulb and four to share the + experience. (Actually, Californians don't screw in + light bulbs, they screw in hot tubs.) + +Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Three. One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all + those Californians trying to share the experience. +% +Q: How many college football players does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Only one, but he gets three credits for it. +% +Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat? +A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires. + +Q: How long does it take? +A: It's indeterminate. + It will depend upon how many flats they've brought with them. + +Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats? +A: They replace your generator. +% +Q: How many elephants can you fit in a VW Bug? +A: Four. Two in the front, two in the back. + +Q: How can you tell if an elephant is in your refrigerator? +A: There's a footprint in the mayo. + +Q: How can you tell if two elephants are in your refrigerator? +A: There's two footprints in the mayo. + +Q: How can you tell if three elephants are in your refrigerator? +A: The door won't shut. + +Q: How can you tell if four elephants are in your refrigerator? +A: There's a VW Bug in your driveway. +% +Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the light bulb + itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective + reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a + maudlin cosmos of nothingness. +% +Q: How many gradual (sorry, that's supposed to be "graduate") students + does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: "I'm afraid we don't know, but make my stipend tax-free, give my + advisor a $30,000 grant of the taxpayer's money, and I'm sure he + can tell me how to do the shit work for him so he can take the + credit for answering this incredibly vital question." +% +Q: How many hardware engineers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: None. We'll fix it in software. + +Q: How many system programmers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: None. The application can work around it. + +Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: None. We'll document it in the manual. + +Q: How many tech writers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: None. The user can figure it out. +% +Q: How many Harvard MBA's does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Just one. He grasps it firmly and the universe revolves around him. +% +Q: How many IBM 370's does it take to execute a job? +A: Four, three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. +% +Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to do a logical right shift? +A: 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register. +% +Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Fifteen. One to do it, and fourteen to write document number + GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, + of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally + left blank", and 20% of the definitions are of the form "A:..... + consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks". +% +Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring + light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot + to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a Pulitzer prize for + reporting that Electric Company hired a light bulb-assassin to break + the bulb in the first place. +% +Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: One. Only it's his light bulb when he's done. +% +Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer", and the +party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb", do hereby and forthwith +agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part shall be removed +from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed +upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of +the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating +at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of +the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the +second part and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the +parties. + The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be +limited to, the following. The party of the first part shall, with or without +elevation at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder or any other +means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part and rotate the party +of the second part in a counter-clockwise direction, this point being tendered +non-negotiable. Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part +becomes fully detached from the receptacle, the party of the first part shall +have the option of disposing of the party of the second part in a manner +consistent with all relevant and applicable local, state and federal statutes. +Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part +shall have the option of beginning installation. Aforesaid installation shall +occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in +step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation +should occur in a clockwise direction, this point also being non-negotiable. +The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the +first part, by any or all agents authorized by him, the objective being to +produce the most possible revenue for the Partnership. +% +Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? +A: You won't find a lawyer who can change a light bulb. Now, if + you're looking for a lawyer to screw a light bulb... +% +Q: How many marketing people does it take to change a light bulb? +A: I'll have to get back to you on that. +% +Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: One and a half. +% +Q: How many Marxists does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: None: The light bulb contains the seeds of its own revolution. +% +Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: One. He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem + to the earlier joke. +% +Q: How many members of the U.S.S. Enterprise does it take to change a + light bulb? +A: Seven. Scotty has to report to Captain Kirk that the light bulb in + the Engineering Section is getting dim, at which point Kirk will send + Bones to pronounce the bulb dead (although he'll immediately claim + that he's a doctor, not an electrician). Scotty, after checking + around, realizes that they have no more new light bulbs, and complains + that he "canna" see in the dark. Kirk will make an emergency stop at + the next uncharted planet, Alpha Regula IV, to procure a light bulb + from the natives, who, are friendly, but seem to be hiding something. + Kirk, Spock, Bones, Yeoman Rand and two red shirt security officers + beam down to the planet, where the two security officers are promply + killed by the natives, and the rest of the landing party is captured. + As something begins to develop between the Captain and Yeoman Rand, + Scotty, back in orbit, is attacked by a Klingon destroyer and must + warp out of orbit. Although badly outgunned, he cripples the Klingon + and races back to the planet in order to rescue Kirk et. al. who have + just saved the natives' from an awful fate and, as a reward, been + given all light bulbs they can carry. The new bulb is then inserted + and the Enterprise continues on its five year mission. +% +Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: Three. One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all those + Californians trying to share the experience. +% +Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Only one, but it takes a long time, and the light bulb has + to really want to change. +% +Q: How many supply-siders does it take to change a light bulb? +A: None. The darkness will cause the light bulb to change by itself. +% +Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? +A: Two, one to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub + with brightly colored machine tools. + + [Surrealist jokes just aren't my cup of fur. Ed.] +% +Q: How many WASPs does it take to change a light bulb? +A: One. +% +Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? +A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out + of the way. +% +Q: How much does it cost to ride the Unibus? +A: 2 bits. +% +Q: How was Thomas J. Watson buried? +A: 9 edge down. +% +Q: Know what the difference between your latest project + and putting wings on an elephant is? +A: Who knows? The elephant *might* fly, heh, heh... +% +Q: Minnesotans ask, "Why aren't there more pharmacists from Alabama?" +A: Easy. It's because they can't figure out how to get the little + bottles into the typewriter. +% +Q: What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill? +A: "The elephants are coming over the hill." + +Q: What did he say when saw them coming over the hill wearing + sunglasses? +A: Nothing, for he didn't recognize them. +% +Q: What do agnostic, insomniac dyslexics do at night? +A: Stay awake and wonder if there's a dog. +% +Q: What do little WASPs want to be when they grow up? +A: The very best person they can possibly be. +% +Q: What do monsters eat? +A: Things. + +Q: What do monsters drink? +A: Coke. (Because Things go better with Coke.) +% +Q: What do they call the alphabet in Arkansas? +A: The impossible dream. +% +Q: What do Winnie the Pooh and John the Baptist have in common? +A: The same middle name. +% +Q: What do you call 15 blondes in a circle? +A: A dope ring. + +Q: Why do blondes put their hair in ponytails? +A: To cover up the valve stem. +% +Q: What do you call a blind pre-historic animal? +A: Diyathinkhesaurus. + +Q: What do you call a blind pre-historic animal with a dog? +A: Diyathinkhesaurus Rex. +% +Q: What do you call a blind, deaf-mute, quadraplegic Virginian? +A: Trustworthy. +% +Q: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back? +A: A stick. +% +Q: What do you call a half-dozen Indians with Asian flu? +A: Six sick Sikhs (sic). +% +Q: What do you call a principal female opera singer whose high C + is lower than those of other principal female opera singers? +A: A deep C diva. +% +Q: What do you call a WASP who doesn't work for his father, isn't a + lawyer, and believes in social causes? +A: A failure. +% +Q: What do you call the money you pay to the government when + you ride into the country on the back of an elephant? +A: A howdah duty. +% +Q: What do you call the scratches that you get when a female + sheep bites you? +A: Ewe nicks. +% +Q: What do you get when you cross a mobster with an international standard? +A: You get someone who makes you an offer that you can't understand! +% +Q: What do you get when you cross the Godfather with an attorney? +A: An offer you can't understand. +% +Q: What do you have when you have a lawyer buried up to his neck in sand? +A: Not enough sand. +% +Q: What do you say to a New Yorker with a job? +A: Big Mac, fries and a Coke, please! +% +Q: What does a WASP Mom make for dinner? +A: A crisp salad, a hearty soup, a lovely entree, followed by + a delicious dessert. +% +Q: What does friendship among Soviet nationalities mean? +A: It means that the Armenians take the Russians by the hand; the + Russians take the Ukrainians by the hand; the Ukranians take + the Uzbeks by the hand; and they all go and beat up the Jews. +% +Q: What does it say on the bottom of Coke cans in North Dakota? +A: Open other end. +% +Q: What happens when four WASPs find themselves in the same room? +A: A dinner party. +% +Q: What is green and lives in the ocean? +A: Moby Pickle. +% +Q: What is orange and goes "click, click?" +A: A ball point carrot. +% +Q: What is printed on the bottom of beer bottles in Minnesota? +A: Open other end. +% +Q: What is purple and commutes? +A: An Abelian grape. +% +Q: What is purple and concord the world? +A: Alexander the Grape. +% +Q: What is the difference between a duck? +A: One leg is both the same. +% +Q: What is the difference between Texas and yogurt? +A: Yogurt has culture. +% +Q: What is the sound of one cat napping? +A: Mu. +% +Q: What lies on the bottom of the ocean and twitches? +A: A nervous wreck. +% +Q: What looks like a cat, flies like a bat, brays like a donkey, and + plays like a monkey? +A: Nothing. +% +Q: What's a light-year? +A: One-third less calories than a regular year. +% +Q: What's a WASP's idea of open-mindedness? +A: Dating a Canadian. +% +Q: What's buried in Grant's tomb? +A: A corpse. +% +Q: What's hard going in and soft and sticky coming out? +A: Chewing gum. +% +Q: What's tan and black and looks great on a lawyer? +A: A doberman. +% +Q: What's the contour integral around Western Europe? +A: Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe! + +Addendum: Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but they + are removable! + +Q: An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his + very religious colleague: Do you believe in one God? +A: Yes, up to isomorphism! + +Q: What is a compact city? +A: It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted + policemen! + -- Peter Lax +% +Q: What's the difference betweeen USL and the Graf Zeppelin? +A: The Graf Zeppelin represented cutting edge technology for its time. +% +Q: What's the difference between a dead dog in the road and a dead + lawyer in the road? +A: There are skid marks in front of the dog. +% +Q: What's the difference between a duck and an elephant? +A: You can't get down off an elephant. +% +Q: What's the difference between a Mac and an Etch-a-Sketch? +A: You don't have to shake the Mac to clear the screen. +% +Q: What's the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish wake? +A: One less drunk. +% +Q: What's the difference between Bell Labs and the Boy Scouts of America? +A: The Boy Scouts have adult supervision. +% +Q: What's the difference between the 1950's and the 1980's? +A: In the 80's, a man walks into a drugstore and states loudly, "I'd + like some condoms," and then, leaning over the counter, whispers, + "and some cigarettes." +% +Q: What's the difference between USL and the Titanic? +A: The Titanic had a band. +% +Q: What's tiny and yellow and very, very, dangerous? +A: A canary with the super-user password. +% +Q: What's yellow, and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice? +A: Zorn's Lemon. +% +Q: Where's the Lone Ranger take his garbage? +A: To the dump, to the dump, to the dump dump dump! + +Q: What's the Pink Panther say when he steps on an ant hill? +A: Dead ant, dead ant, dead ant dead ant dead ant... +% +Q: Who cuts the grass on Walton's Mountain? +A: Lawn Boy. +% +Q: Why did Menachem Begin invade Lebanon? +A: To impress Jodie Foster. +% +Q: Why did the astrophysicist order three hamburgers? +A: Because he was hungry. +% +Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? +A: He was giving it last rites. +% +Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? +A: To see his friend Gregory peck. + +Q: Why did the chicken cross the playground? +A: To get to the other slide. +% +Q: Why did the germ cross the microscope? +A: To get to the other slide. +% +Q: Why did the lone ranger kill Tonto? +A: He found out what "kimosabe" really means. +% +Q: Why did the programmer call his mother long distance? +A: Because that was her name. +% +Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road? +A: Because it was on the other side. +% +Q: Why did the WASP cross the road? +A: To get to the middle. +% +Q: Why do ducks have big flat feet? +A: To stamp out forest fires. + +Q: Why do elephants have big flat feet? +A: To stamp out flaming ducks. +% +Q: Why do firemen wear red suspenders? +A: To conform with departmental regulations concerning uniform dress. +% +Q: Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together? +A: To prevent the sensible ones from going home. +% +Q: Why do people who live near Niagara Falls have flat foreheads? +A: Because every morning they wake up thinking "What *is* that noise? + Oh, right, *of course*! +% +Q: Why do the police always travel in threes? +A: One to do the reading, one to do the writing, and the other keeps + an eye on the two intellectuals. +% +Q: Why do WASPs play golf ? +A: So they can dress like pimps. +% +Q: Why does Washington have the most lawyers per capita and + New Jersey the most toxic waste dumps? +A: God gave New Jersey first choice. +% +Q: Why don't lawyers go to the beach? +A: The cats keep trying to bury them. +% +Q: Why don't Scotsmen ever have coffee the way they like it? +A: Well, they like it with two lumps of sugar. If they drink + it at home, they only take one, and if they drink it while + visiting, they always take three. +% +Q: Why haven't you graduated yet? +A: Well, Dad, I could have finished years ago, but I wanted + my dissertation to rhyme. +% +Q: Why is Christmas just like a day at the office? +A: You do all of the work and the fat guy in the suit + gets all the credit. +% +Q: Why is it that Mexico isn't sending anyone to the '84 summer games? +A: Anyone in Mexico who can run, swim or jump is already in LA. +% +Q: Why is it that the more accuracy you demand from an interpolation + function, the more expensive it becomes to compute? +A: That's the Law of Spline Demand. +% +Q: Why is Poland just like the United States? +A: In the United States you can't buy anything for zlotys and in + Poland you can't either, while in the U.S. you can get whatever + you want for dollars, just as you can in Poland. + -- being told in Poland, 1987 +% +Q: Why should you always serve a Southern Carolina football man + soup in a plate? +A: 'Cause if you give him a bowl, he'll throw it away. +% +Q: Why was Stonehenge abandoned? +A: It wasn't IBM compatible. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/science b/fortune-mod/datfiles/science new file mode 100644 index 0000000..68a5e28 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/science @@ -0,0 +1,3019 @@ +1 + 1 = 3, for large values of 1. +% +1 Billion dollars of budget deficit = 1 Gramm-Rudman +6.023 x 10 to the 23rd power alligator pears = Avocado's number +2 pints = 1 Cavort +Basic unit of Laryngitis = The Hoarsepower +Shortest distance between two jokes = A straight line +6 Curses = 1 Hexahex +3500 Calories = 1 Food Pound +1 Mole = 007 Secret Agents +1 Mole = 25 Cagey Bees +1 Dog Pound = 16 oz. of Alpo +1000 beers served at a Twins game = 1 Killibrew +2.4 statute miles of surgical tubing at Yale U. = 1 I.V.League +2000 pounds of chinese soup = 1 Won Ton +10 to the minus 6th power mouthwashes = 1 Microscope +Speed of a tortoise breaking the sound barrier = 1 Machturtle +8 Catfish = 1 Octo-puss +365 Days of drinking Lo-Cal beer. = 1 Lite-year +16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone = 1 Rod Serling +Force needed to accelerate 2.2lbs of cookies = 1 Fig-newton + to 1 meter per second +One half large intestine = 1 Semicolon +10 to the minus 6th power Movie = 1 Microfilm +1000 pains = 1 Megahertz +1 Word = 1 Millipicture +1 Sagan = Billions & Billions +1 Angstrom: measure of computer anxiety = 1000 nail-bytes +10 to the 12th power microphones = 1 Megaphone +10 to the 6th power Bicycles = 2 megacycles +The amount of beauty required launch 1 ship = 1 Millihelen +% +(1) A sheet of paper is an ink-lined plane. +(2) An inclined plane is a slope up. +(3) A slow pup is a lazy dog. + +QED: A sheet of paper is a lazy dog. + -- Willard Espy, "An Almanac of Words at Play" +% +(1) Alexander the Great was a great general. +(2) Great generals are forewarned. +(3) Forewarned is forearmed. +(4) Four is an even number. +(5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. +(6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. + Therefore, all horses are black. +% +(1) Alexander the Great was a great general. +(2) Great generals are forewarned. +(3) Forewarned is forearmed. +(4) Four is an even number. +(5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. +(6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. + +Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms. +% +(1) Never draw what you can copy. +(2) Never copy what you can trace. +(3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down. +% +(1) X=Y ; Given +(2) X^2=XY ; Multiply both sides by X +(3) X^2-Y^2=XY-Y^2 ; Subtract Y^2 from both sides +(4) (X+Y)(X-Y)=Y(X-Y) ; Factor +(5) X+Y=Y ; Cancel out (X-Y) term +(6) 2Y=Y ; Substitute X for Y, by equation 1 +(7) 2=1 ; Divide both sides by Y + -- "Omni", proof that 2 equals 1 +% +1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it's +the law! +% +10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0. +% +13. ... r-q1 +% +"355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!" +% + 7,140 pounds on the Sun + 97 pounds on Mercury or Mars + 255 pounds on Earth + 232 pounds on Venus or Uranus + 43 pounds on the Moon + 648 pounds on Jupiter + 275 pounds on Saturn + 303 pounds on Neptune + 13 pounds on Pluto + + -- How much Elvis Presley would weigh at various places + in the solar system. +% +A bunch of Polish scientists decided to flee their repressive government by +hijacking an airliner and forcing the pilot to fly them to the West. They +drove to the airport, forced their way on board a large passenger jet, and +found there was no pilot on board. Terrified, they listened as the sirens +got louder. Finally, one of the scientists suggested that since he was an +experimentalist, he would try to fly the aircraft. + He sat down at the controls and tried to figure them out. The sirens +got louder and louder. Armed men surrounded the jet. The would be pilot's +friends cried out, "Please, please take off now!!! Hurry!!!" + The experimentalist calmly replied, "Have patience. I'm just a simple +pole in a complex plane." +% +A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking. +% +A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing +but together can decide that nothing can be done. + -- Fred Allen +% +A fail-safe circuit will destroy others. + -- Klipstein +% +A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final inspection. +% +"A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch +dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension." + -- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature" +% +A gangster assembled an engineer, a chemist, and a physicist. He explained +that he was entering a horse in a race the following week and the three +assembled guys had the job of assuring that the gangster's horse would win. +They were to reconvene the day before the race to tell the gangster how they +each propose to ensure a win. When they reconvened the gangster started with +the engineer: + +Gangster: OK, Mr. engineer, what have you got? +Engineer: Well, I've invented a way to weave metallic threads into the saddle + blanket so that they will act as the plates of a battery and provide + electrical shock to the horse. +G: That's very good! But let's hear from the chemist. +Chemist: I've synthesized a powerful stimulant that disolves + into simple blood sugars after ten minutes and therefore + cannot be detected in post-race tests. +G: Excellent, excellent! But I want to hear from the physicist before + I decide what to do. Physicist? +Physicist: Well, first consider a spherical horse in simple harmonic motion... +% +"A horrible little boy came up to me and said, `You know in your book +The Martian Chronicles?' I said, `Yes?' He said, `You know where you +talk about Deimos rising in the East?' I said, `Yes?' He said `No.' +-- So I hit him." + -- attributed to Ray Bradbury +% +A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. + -- P. Erdos +% +A mathematician, a doctor, and an engineer are walking on the beach and +observe a team of lifeguards pumping the stomach of a drowned woman. As +they watch, water, sand, snails and such come out of the pump. + The doctor watches for a while and says: "Keep pumping, men, you may +yet save her!!" + The mathematician does some calculations and says: "According to my +understanding of the size of that pump, you have already pumped more water +from her body than could be contained in a cylinder 4 feet in diameter and +6 feet high." + The engineer says: "I think she's sitting in a puddle." +% +A method of solution is perfect if we can forsee from the start, +and even prove, that following that method we shall attain our aim. + -- Leibnitz +% +A pain in the ass of major dimensions. + -- C.A. Desoer, on the solution of non-linear circuits +% +A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. + -- George Wald +% +A rope lying over the top of a fence is the same length on each side. It +weighs one third of a pound per foot. On one end hangs a monkey holding a +banana, and on the other end a weight equal to the weight of the monkey. +The banana weighs two ounces per inch. The rope is as long (in feet) as +the age of the monkey (in years), and the weight of the monkey (in ounces) +is the same as the age of the monkey's mother. The combined age of the +monkey and its mother is thirty years. One half of the weight of the monkey, +plus the weight of the banana, is one forth as much as the weight of the +weight and the weight of the rope. The monkey's mother is half as old as +the monkey will be when it is three times as old as its mother was when she +she was half as old as the monkey will be when when it is as old as its mother +will be when she is four times as old as the monkey was when it was twice +as its mother was when she was one third as old as the monkey was when it +was old as is mother was when she was three times as old as the monkey was +when it was one fourth as old as it is now. How long is the banana? +% +A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and +making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually +die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. + -- Max Planck +% +A sense of desolation and uncertainty, of futility, of the baselessness +of aspirations, of the vanity of endeavor, and a thirst for a life giving +water which seems suddenly to have failed, are the signs in conciousness +of this necessary reorganization of our lives. + +It is difficult to believe that this state of mind can be produced by the +recognition of such facts as that unsupported stones always fall to the +ground. + -- J.W.N. Sullivan +% +A Severe Strain on the Credulity + As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the +highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket +is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one considers the +multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt... +for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its +flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the +charges it then might have left. Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in +Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not +know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something +better than a vacuum against which to react... Of course he only seems to +lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. + -- New York Times Editorial, 1920 +% +A sine curve goes off to infinity, or at least the end of the blackboard. + -- Prof. Steiner +% +A social scientist, studying the culture and traditions of a small North +African tribe, found a woman still practicing the ancient art of matchmaking. +Locally, she was known as the Moor, the marrier. +% +A statistician, who refused to fly after reading of the alarmingly high +probability that there will be a bomb on any given plane, realized that +the probability of there being two bombs on any given flight is very low. +Now, whenever he flies, he carries a bomb with him. +% +A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by +blowing first. +% +A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle. +% +According to convention there is a sweet and a bitter, a hot and a cold, +and according to convention, there is an order. In truth, there are atoms +and a void. + -- Democritus, 400 B.C. +% +According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are +totally worthless. +% + ACHTUNG!!! + +Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen +der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht +fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands +in das pockets. Relaxen und vatch das blinkenlights!!! +% +Actually, the probability is 100% that the elevator will be going in the +right direction. Proof by induction: + +N=1. Trivially true, since both you and the elevator only have one + floor to go to. + +Assume true for N, prove for N+1: + If you are on any of the first N floors, then it is true by the + induction hypothesis. If you are on the N+1st floor, then both you + and the elevator have only one choice, namely down. Therefore, + it is true for all N+1 floors. +QED. +% +After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn. +% +After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found +on the bench. +% + After the Children of Israel had wandered for thirty-nine years +in the wilderness, Ferdinand Feghoot arrived to make sure that they would +finally find and enter the Promised Land. With him, he brought his +favorite robot, faithful old Yewtoo Artoo, to carry his gear and do +assorted camp chores. + The Israelites soon got over their initial fear of the robot and, +as the months passed, became very fond of him. Patriarchs took to +discussing abtruse theological problems with him, and each evening the +children all gathered to hear the many stories with which he was programmed. +Therefore it came as a great shock to them when, just as their journey was +ending, he abruptly wore out. Even Feghoot couldn't console them. + "It may be true, Ferdinand Feghoot," said Moses, "that our friend +Yewtoo Artoo was soulless, but we cannot believe it. He must be properly +interred. We cannot embalm him as do the Egyptians. Nor have we wood for +a coffin. But I do have a most splendid skin from one of Pharoah's own +cattle. We shall bury him in it." + Feghoot agreed. "Yes, let this be his last rusting place." + "Rusting?" Moses cried. "Not in this dreadful dry desert!" + "Ah!" sighed Ferdinand Feghoot, shedding a tear, "I fear you do not +realize the full significance of Pharoah's oxhide!" + -- Grendel Briarton "Through Time & Space With Ferdinand + Feghoot!" +% +After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access +cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed. +% +After this was written there appeared a remarkable posthumous memoir that +throws some doubt on Millikan's leading role in these experiments. Harvey +Fletcher (1884-1981), who was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, +at Millikan's suggestion worked on the measurement of electronic charge for +his doctoral thesis, and co-authored some of the early papers on this subject +with Millikan. Fletcher left a manuscript with a friend with instructions +that it be published after his death; the manuscript was published in +Physics Today, June 1982, page 43. In it, Fletcher claims that he was the +first to do the experiment with oil drops, was the first to measure charges on +single droplets, and may have been the first to suggest the use of oil. +According to Fletcher, he had expected to be co-authored with Millikan on +the crucial first article announcing the measurement of the electronic +charge, but was talked out of this by Millikan. + -- Steven Weinberg, "The Discovery of Subatomic Particles" + +Robert Millikan is generally credited with making the first really +precise measurement of the charge on an electron and was awarded the +Nobel Prize in 1923. +% +After years of research, scientists recently reported that there is, +indeed, arroz in Spanish Harlem. +% + Against his wishes, a math teacher's classroom was remodeled. Ever +since, he's been talking about the good old dais. His students planted a small +orchard in his honor; the trees all have square roots. +% +Air is water with holes in it. +% +Air pollution is really making us pay through the nose. +% +Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire +telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New +York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? +And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they +receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." +% +Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting +for a dial tone. +% +Algebraic symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about. + -- Philippe Schnoebelen +% +All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing +without thinking. +% +All great discoveries are made by mistake. + -- Young +% +All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time. +% +All laws are simulations of reality. + -- John C. Lilly +% +All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. + -- Dawkins +% +All power corrupts, but we need electricity. +% +All science is either physics or stamp collecting. + -- Ernest Rutherford +% +All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to +Gaussian noise. + -- James Martin +% +All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism. +% +All the evidence concerning the universe has not yet been collected, +so there's still hope. +% +All theoretical chemistry is really physics; and all theoretical chemists +know it. + -- Richard P. Feynman +% +Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away. +% +Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers, +etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these +things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in. +Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a +kite in a lighting storm and received a serious electrical shock. This +proved that lighting was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also +damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking only in +incomprehensible maxims, such as "A penny saved is a penny earned." +Eventually he had to be given a job running the post office. + -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" +% +Always draw your curves, then plot your reading. +% +Always leave room to add an explanation if it doesn't work out. +% +Always think of something new; this helps you forget your last rotten idea. + -- Seth Frankel +% +Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing that way. +% +An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because +people refuse to see it. + -- James Michener, "Space" +% +An American scientist once visited the offices of the great Nobel prize +winning physicist, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. He was amazed to find that +over Bohr's desk was a horseshoe, securely nailed to the wall, with the +open end up in the approved manner (so it would catch the good luck and not +let it spill out). The American said with a nervous laugh, + "Surely you don't believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck, +do you, Professor Bohr? After all, as a scientist --" +Bohr chuckled. + "I believe no such thing, my good friend. Not at all. I am +scarcely likely to believe in such foolish nonsense. However, I am told +that a horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not." +% +An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to New +Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but not +new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax. + -- David Letterman +% + An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows +he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great +restraint. + As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment +after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used "next +time." Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect, +with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems, +is ready to build a second system. + This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs. +When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will +confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems, +and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that +are particular and not generalizable. + The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using +all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first +one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile." + -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" +% +An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you +really care to know. +% +An economist is a man who would marry Farrah Fawcett-Majors for her money. +% +An egghead is one who stands firmly on both feet, in mid-air, on both +sides of an issue. + -- Homer Ferguson +% +An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an +anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt +already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the +engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later +the physicist understands too and chuckles to himself happily as he now +has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the +mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he +was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of +humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too +trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. +% +And the French medical anatomist Etienne Serres really did argue that +black males are primitive because the distance between their navel and +penis remains small (relative to body height) throughout life, while +white children begin with a small separation but increase it during +growth -- the rising belly button as a mark of progress. + -- S.J. Gould, "Racism and Recapitulation" +% +And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a horizontal +rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical columnar supports, +which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory, ma'am, are as advanced +in design as one will find anywhere in the world. + -- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men" +% +... Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an +inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have +ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I +haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected +it. There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between +prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have +looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice +is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious +mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you +may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you +have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged. + -- Carl Sagan, "The Burden of Skepticism" +% +Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts +which are unobtainable, and three parts which are still under development. +% +Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. +% +Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. + -- Arthur C. Clarke +% +Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he +is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not +make messes in the house. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" +% +Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time +as the strawberries, knows nothing about grapes. + -- Philippus Paracelsus +% +"Anything created must necessarily be inferior to the essence of the creator." + -- Claude Shouse + +"Einstein's mother must have been one heck of a physicist." + -- Joseph C. Wang +% +Anything cut to length will be too short. +% +Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. + -- Mickey Mouse +% +Artificial intelligence has the same relation to intelligence as +artificial flowers have to flowers. + -- David Parnas +% +"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, +and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I became a +scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls." + -- Matt Cartmill +% +As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not +certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. + -- Albert Einstein +% +As you will see, I told them, in no uncertain terms, to see Figure one. + -- Dave "First Strike" Pare +% +Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six if +one went to Harvard). + -- Edgar R. Fiedler +% +At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is +not. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is where +it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest. + -- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow +% +At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly +contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre +or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny +of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep +nonsense. Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the +world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism: The collective +enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the +field on track. + -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection" +% +Back in the early 60's, touch tone phones only had 10 buttons. Some +military versions had 16, while the 12 button jobs were used only by people +who had "diva" (digital inquiry, voice answerback) systems -- mainly banks. +Since in those days, only Western Electric made "data sets" (modems) the +problems of terminology were all Bell System. We used to struggle with +written descriptions of dial pads that were unfamiliar to most people +(most phones were rotary then.) Partly in jest, some AT&T engineering +types (there was no marketing in the good old days, which is why they were +the good old days) made up the term "octalthorpe" (note spelling) to denote +the "pound sign." Presumably because it has 8 points sticking out. It +never really caught on. +% +Base 8 is just like base 10, if you are missing two fingers. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Before Xerox, five carbons were the maximum extension of anybody's ego. +% +Besides the device, the box should contain: + * Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING" + * A plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two + club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns. + +YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram cable. + +IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: You IMMEDIATELY should turn to your spouse +and say: "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a car that can get +all the way through the drive-through at Burger King without a major +transmission overhaul? Because nobody cares, that's why." + +WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret. + -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!" +% +Between infinite and short there is a big difference. + -- G.H. Gonnet +% +Biology grows on you. +% +Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same thing +as division. +% +Bistromathics is simply a revolutionary new way of understanding the +behavior of numbers. Just as Einstein observed that space was not an +absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in space, and that +time was not an absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in +time, so it is now realized that numbers are not absolute, but depend +on the observer's movement in restaurants. + -- Douglas Adams +% +But it does move! + -- Galileo Galilei +% +But you who live on dreams, you are better pleased with the sophistical +reasoning and frauds of talkers about great and uncertain matters than +those who speak of certain and natural matters, not of such lofty nature. + -- Leonardo Da Vinci, "The Codex on the Flight of Birds" +% +Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the center +of the universe. The premise is wrong, but the navigation works. An +incorrect model can be a useful tool. + -- Kelvin Throop III +% +Chapter 2: Newtonian Growth and Decay + + The growth-decay formulas were developed in the trivial fashion by +Isaac Newton's famous brother Phigg. His idea was to provide an equation +that would describe a quantity that would dwindle and dwindle, but never +quite reach zero. Historically, he was merely trying to work out his +mortgage. Another versatile equation also emerged, one which would define +a function that would continue to grow, but never reach unity. This equation +can be applied to charging capacitors, over-damped springs, and the human +race in general. +% +Chemist who falls in acid is absorbed in work. +% +Chemist who falls in acid will be tripping for weeks. +% +Chemistry is applied theology. + -- Augustus Stanley Owsley III +% +Chemistry professors never die, they just fail to react. +% +Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would +give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you +undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver. +Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL +CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T +YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH +THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH +SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS +CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING +TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE +DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT? + -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!" +% +"Consider a spherical bear, in simple harmonic motion..." + -- Professor in the UCB physics department +% +"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and +if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" + -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +"Deep" is a word like "theory" or "semantic" -- it implies all sorts of +marvelous things. It's one thing to be able to say "I've got a theory", +quite another to say "I've got a semantic theory", but, ah, those who can +claim "I've got a deep semantic theory", they are truly blessed. + -- Randy Davis +% +Did you hear that there's a group of South American Indians that worship +the number zero? + +Is nothing sacred? +% +Did you hear that two rabbits escaped from the zoo and so far they have +only recaptured 116 of them? +% +Did you know that if you took all the economists in the world and lined +them up end to end, they'd still point in the wrong direction? +% +Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term, convertible +only through the use of weird and unnatural conversion factors. Velocity, +for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight. +% +Dinosaurs aren't extinct. They've just learned to hide in the trees. +% +Do molecular biologists wear designer genes? +% +Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and +it holds the universe together ... + -- Carl Zwanzig +% +E = MC ** 2 +- 3db +% +Earl Wiener, 55, a University of Miami professor of management science, +telling the Airline Pilots Association (in jest) about 21st century aircraft: + + "The crew will consist of one pilot and a dog. The pilot will + nurture and feed the dog. The dog will be there to bite the + pilot if he touches anything. + -- Fortune, Sept. 26, 1988 + [the *magazine*, silly!] +% +Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +Economists can certainly disappoint you. One said that the economy would +turn up by the last quarter. Well, I'm down to mine and it hasn't. + -- Robert Orben +% +Economists state their GNP growth projections to the nearest tenth of a +percentage point to prove they have a sense of humor. + -- Edgar R. Fiedler +% +Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles, called +electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been +drinking. Electrons travel at the speed of light, which in most American +homes is 110 volts per hour. This is very fast. In the time it has taken +you to read this sentence so far, an electron could have traveled all the +way from San Francisco to Hackensack, New Jersey, although God alone knows +why it would want to. + +The five main kinds of electricity are alternating current, direct current, +lightning, static, and European. Most American homes have alternating +current, which means that the electricity goes in one direction for a while, +then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in +the wires. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +Elegance and truth are inversely related. + -- Becker's Razor +% +Elliptic paraboloids for sale. +% +Entropy isn't what it used to be. +% +Entropy requires no maintenance. + -- Markoff Chaney +% +Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which +otherwise require harder thinking. + -- Jerome Lettvin +% +Eureka! + -- Archimedes +% +Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own. + -- Don Vonada +% +Every nonzero finite dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis. + +It makes sense, when you don't think about it. +% +Every paper published in a respectable journal should have a preface by +the author stating why he is publishing the article, and what value he +sees in it. I have no hope that this practice will ever be adopted. + -- Morris Kline +% +Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic +formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific +mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned +with what ____does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been +so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further +here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, +discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, +and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, +but each nonexisted in an entirely different way ... + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. + -- Albert Einstein +% +Everything that can be invented has been invented. + -- Charles Duell, Director of U.S. Patent Office, 1899 +% +Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less +obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no +solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. +There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no +straight lines. + -- R. Buckminster Fuller +% +Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around +the sun. At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when +evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can +doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact. That all present +life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is +as firmly established as Copernican cosmology. Biologists differ only with +respect to theories about how the process operates. + -- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life". +% +Experience varies directly with equipment ruined. +% +Experiments must be reproducible; they should all fail in the same way. +% +Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. There are many examples +of outsiders who eventually overthrew entrenched scientific orthodoxies, +but they prevailed with irrefutable data. More often, egregious findings +that contradict well-established research turn out to be artifacts. I have +argued that accepting psychic powers, reincarnation, "cosmic conciousness," +and the like, would entail fundamental revisions of the foundations of +neuroscience. Before abandoning materialist theories of mind that have paid +handsome dividends, we should insist on better evidence for psi phenomena +than presently exists, especially when neurology and psychology themselves +offer more plausible alternatives. + -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Conciousness: + Implications for Psi Phenomena". +% +Factorials were someone's attempt to make math LOOK exciting. +% +Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable. +% +Federal grants are offered for... research into the recreation +potential of interplanetary space travel for the culturally disadvantaged. +% +Five is a sufficiently close approximation to infinity. + -- Robert Firth + +"One, two, five." + -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail +% +Florence Flask was ... dressing for the opera when she turned to her +husband and screamed, "Erlenmeyer! My joules! Someone has stolen my +joules!" + +"Now, now, my dear," replied her husband, "keep your balance and reflux +a moment. Perhaps they're mislead." + +"No, I know they're stolen," cried Florence. "I remember putting them +in my burette ... We must call a copper." + +Erlenmeyer did so, and the flatfoot who turned up, one Sherlock Ohms, +said the outrage looked like the work of an arch-criminal by the name +of Lawrence Ium. + +"We must be careful -- he's a free radical, ultraviolet, and +dangerous. His girlfriend is a chlorine at the Palladium. Maybe I can +catch him there." With that, he jumped on his carbon cycle in an +activated state and sped off along the reaction pathway ... + -- Daniel B. Murphy, "Precipitations" +% +For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. + -- H. L. Mencken +% +For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think! +% +For large values of one, one equals two, for small values of two. +% +Fortunately, the responsibility for providing evidence is on the part of +the person making the claim, not the critic. It is not the responsibility +of UFO skeptics to prove that a UFO has never existed, nor is it the +responsibility of paranormal-health-claims skeptics to prove that crystals +or colored lights never healed anyone. The skeptic's role is to point out +claims that are not adequately supported by acceptable evidcence and to +provide plausible alternative explanations that are more in keeping with +the accepted body of scientific evidence. + -- Thomas L. Creed, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, + No. 2, pg. 215 +% +FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #1 + A guinea pig is not from Guinea but a rodent from South America. + A firefly is not a fly, but a beetle. + A giant panda bear is really a member of the racoon family. + A black panther is really a leopard that has a solid black coat + rather then a spotted one. + Peanuts are not really nuts. The majority of nuts grow on trees + while peauts grow underground. They are classified as a + legume -- part of the pea family. + A cucumber is not a vegetable but a fruit. +% +FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #44 + Zebras are colored with dark stripes on a light background. +% +FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #14 +What to do... + if reality disappears? + Hope this one doesn't happen to you. There isn't much that you + can do about it. It will probably be quite unpleasant. + + if you meet an older version of yourself who has invented a time + traveling machine, and has come from the future to meet you? + Play this one by the book. Ask about the stock market and cash in. + Don't forget to invent a time traveling machine and visit your + younger self before you die, or you will create a paradox. If you + expect this to be tricky, make sure to ask for the principles + behind time travel, and possibly schematics. Never, NEVER, ask + when you'll die, or if you'll marry your current SO. +% +FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #2 +What to do... + if you get a phone call from Mars: + Speak slowly and be sure to enunciate your words properly. Limit + your vocabulary to simple words. Try to determine if you are + speaking to someone in a leadership capacity, or an ordinary citizen. + + if he, she or it doesn't speak English? + Hang up. There's no sense in trying to learn Martian over the phone. + If your Martian really had something important to say to you, he, she + or it would have taken the trouble to learn the language before + calling. + + if you get a phone call from Jupiter? + Explain to your caller, politely but firmly, that being from Jupiter, + he, she or it is not "life as we know it". Try to terminate the + conversation as soon as possible. It will not profit you, and the + charges may have been reversed. +% +FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #6 +What to do... + if a starship, equipped with an FTL hyperdrive lands in your backyard? + First of all, do not run after your camera. You will not have any + film, and, given the state of computer animation, noone will believe + you anyway. Be polite. Remember, if they have an FTL hyperdrive, + they can probably vaporize you, should they find you to be rude. + Direct them to the White House lawn, which is where they probably + wanted to land, anyway. A good road map should help. + + if you wake up in the middle of the night, and discover that your + closet contains an alternate dimension? + Don't walk in. You almost certainly will not be able to get back, + and alternate dimensions are almost never any fun. Remain calm + and go back to bed. Close the door first, so that the cat does not + wander off. Check your closet in the morning. If it still contains + an alternate dimension, nail it shut. +% +Friction is a drag. +% +Fundamentally, there may be no basis for anything. +% +Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why +you should. +% +(German philosopher) Georg Wilhelm Hegel, on his deathbed, complained, +"Only one man ever understood me." He fell silent for a while and then added, +"And he didn't understand me." +% +God doesn't play dice. + -- Albert Einstein +% +God made the integers; all else is the work of Man. + -- Kronecker +% +God runs electromagnetics by wave theory on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, +and the Devil runs them by quantum theory on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. + -- William Bragg +% +Going the speed of light is bad for your age. +% +Good morning. This is the telephone company. Due to repairs, we're +giving you advance notice that your service will be cut off indefinitely +at ten o'clock. That's two minutes from now. +% +Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble with +time travel, you never can tell." + -- Doctor Who, "Androids of Tara" +% +Got Mole problems? Call Avogadro at 6.02 x 10^23. +% +Gravity brings me down. +% +Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks. +% +GREAT MOMENTS IN HISTORY (#7): April 2, 1751 + +Issac Newton becomes discouraged when he falls up a flight of stairs. +% +Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. + -- Albert Einstein + +They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they +also laughed at Bozo the Clown. + -- Carl Sagan +% +He keeps differentiating, flying off on a tangent. +% +He: Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science. +She: What?!? Science got enough trouble with their OWN brains. + -- Walt Kelly +% +Heard that the next Space Shuttle is supposed to carry several Guernsey cows? +It's gonna be the herd shot 'round the world. +% +Heavier than air flying machines are impossible. + -- Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, c. 1895 +% +Heisenberg may have been here. +% +Heisenberg may have slept here... +% +Help fight continental drift. +% +Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical +lesson: On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach your +hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings. Did you +notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in pain? This +teaches us that electricity can be a very powerful force, but we must never +use it to hurt others unless we need to learn an important electrical lesson. + It also teaches us how an electrical circuit works. When you scuffed +your feet, you picked up batches of "electrons", which are very small objects +that carpet manufacturers weave into carpets so they will attract dirt. +The electrons travel through your bloodstream and collect in your finger, +where they form a spark that leaps to your friend's filling, then travels +down to his feet and back into the carpet, thus completing the circuit. + Amazing Electronic Fact: If you scuffed your feet long enough without +touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your finger +would explode! But this is nothing to worry about unless you have +carpeting. + -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" +% +Hi! How are things going? + (just fine, thank you...) +Great! Say, could I bother you for a question? + (you just asked one...) +Well, how about one more? + (one more than the first one?) +Yes. + (you already asked that...) +[at this point, Alphonso gets smart... ] +May I ask two questions, sir? + (no.) +May I ask ONE then? + (nope...) +Then may I ask, sir, how I may ask you a question? + (yes, you may.) +Sir, how may I ask you a question? + (you must ask for retroactive question asking privileges for + the number of questions you have asked, then ask for that + number plus two, one for the current question, and one for the + next one) +Sir, may I ask nine questions? + (go right ahead...) +% +Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed. + -- Neil Armstrong +% +How can you do 'New Math' problems with an 'Old Math' mind? + -- Charles Schulz +% +How many weeks are there in a light year? +% +How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere +else. + -- R. Buckminster Fuller +% +Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill. +% +I am not an Economist. I am an honest man! + -- Paul McCracken +% +I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos. + -- Albert Einstein, on the randomness of quantum mechanics +% +I do hate sums. There is no greater mistake than to call arithmetic an +exact science. There are permutations and aberrations discernible to minds +entirely noble like mine; subtle variations which ordinary accountants fail +to discover; hidden laws of number which it requires a mind like mine to +perceive. For instance, if you add a sum from the bottom up, and then again +from the top down, the result is always different. + -- Mrs. La Touche +% +I do not remember ever having seen a sustained argument by an author which, +starting from philosophical premises likely to meet with general acceptance, +reached the conclusion that a praiseworthy ordering of one's life is to +devote it to research in mathematics. + -- Sir Edmund Whittaker, "Scientific American", Vol. 183 +% +"I don't think so," said Ren'e Descartes. Just then, he vanished. +% +I had a feeling once about mathematics -- that I saw it all. Depth beyond +depth was revealed to me -- the Byss and the Abyss. I saw -- as one might +see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor's Show -- a quantity passing +through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly +why it happened and why tergiversation was inevitable -- but it was after +dinner and I let it go. + -- Winston Churchill +% +I have a theory that it's impossible to prove anything, but I can't prove it. +% + "I have examined Bogota," he said, "and the case is clearer to me. +I think very probably he might be cured." + "That is what I have always hoped," said old Yacob. + "His brain is affected," said the blind doctor. + The elders murmured assent. + "Now, what affects it?" + "Ah!" said old Yacob. + "This," said the doctor, answering his own question. "Those queer +things that are called the eyes, and which exist to make an agreeable soft +depression in the face, are diseased, in the case of Bogota, in such a way +as to affect his brain. They are greatly distended, he has eyelashes, and +his eyelids move, and cosequently his brain is in a state of constant +irritation and distraction." + "Yes?" said old Yacob. "Yes?" + "And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order +to cure him completely, all that we need do is a simple and easy surgical +operation -- namely, to remove those irritant bodies." + "And then he will be sane?" + "Then he will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen." + "Thank heaven for science!" said old Yacob. + -- H.G. Wells, "The Country of the Blind" +% +I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. + -- Plato +% +I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when +you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated. + -- Poul Anderson +% +I myself have dreamed up a structure intermediate between Dyson spheres +and planets. Build a ring 93 million miles in radius -- one Earth orbit +-- around the sun. If we have the mass of Jupiter to work with, and if +we make it a thousand miles wide, we get a thickness of about a thousand +feet for the base. + +And it has advantages. The Ringworld will be much sturdier than a Dyson +sphere. We can spin it on its axis for gravity. A rotation speed of 770 +m/s will give us a gravity of one Earth normal. We wouldn't even need to +roof it over. Place walls one thousand miles high at each edge, facing the +sun. Very little air will leak over the edges. + +Lord knows the thing is roomy enough. With three million times the surface +area of the Earth, it will be some time before anyone complains of the +crowding. + -- Larry Niven, "Ringworld" +% +I put up my thumb... and it blotted out the planet Earth. + -- Neil Armstrong +% +I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that +they might escape the lusts of the flesh. + -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain" +% +"I think it is true for all _n. I was just playing it safe with _n >= 3 +because I couldn't remember the proof." + -- Baker, Pure Math 351a +% +I THINK MAN INVENTED THE CAR by instinct. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +"I think the sky is blue because it's a shift from black through purple +to blue, and it has to do with where the light is. You know, the +farther we get into darkness, and there's a shifting of color of light +into the blueness, and I think as you go farther and farther away from +the reflected light we have from the sun or the light that's bouncing +off this earth, uh, the darker it gets ... I think if you look at the +color scale, you start at black, move it through purple, move it on +out, it's the shifting of color. We mentioned before about the stars +singing, and that's one of the effects of the shifting of colors." + -- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club +% +I THINK THERE SHOULD BE SOMETHING in science called the "reindeer effect." +I don't know what it would be, but I think it'd be good to hear someone say, +"Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect." + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I THINK THEY SHOULD CONTINUE the policy of not giving a Nobel Prize for +paneling. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I use technology in order to hate it more properly. + -- Nam June Paik +% +I would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind of man a block +of wax... and that we remember and know what is imprinted as long as the +image lasts; but when the image is effaced, or cannot be taken, then we +forget or do not know. + -- Plato, Dialogs, Theateus 191 + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to image activation and termination.] +% +I'm often asked the question, "Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelli- +gence?" I give the standard arguments -- there are a lot of places out there, +and use the word *billions*, and so on. And then I say it would be astonishing +to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as +yet no compelling evidence for it. And then I'm asked, "Yeah, but what do you +really think?" I say, "I just told you what I really think." "Yeah, but +what's your gut feeling?" But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it's +okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in. + -- Carl Sagan +% +If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. + -- Roy Santoro +% +If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, then a consensus forecast is a +camel's behind. + -- Edgar R. Fiedler +% +If A equals success, then the formula is _A = _X + _Y + _Z. _X is work. _Y +is play. _Z is keep your mouth shut. + -- Albert Einstein +% +If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a +conclusion. + -- William Baumol +% +If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. +% +If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from? +% +If for every rule there is an exception, then we have established that there +is an exception to every rule. If we accept "For every rule there is an +exception" as a rule, then we must concede that there may not be an exception +after all, since the rule states that there is always the possibility of +exception, and if we follow it to its logical end we must agree that there +can be an exception to the rule that for every rule there is an exception. + -- Bill Boquist +% +If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions? +% +If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith. + -- Albert Einstein +% +If I have not seen so far it is because I stood in giant's footsteps. +% +If I set here and stare at nothing long enough, people might think +I'm an engineer working on something. + -- S.R. McElroy +% +If in any problem you find yourself doing an immense amount of work, the +answer can be obtained by simple inspection. +% +If it is a Miracle, any sort of evidence will answer, but if it is a Fact, +proof is necessary. + -- Samuel Clemens +% +If it smells it's chemistry, if it crawls it's biology, if it doesn't work +it's physics. +% +If it wasn't for Newton, we wouldn't have to eat bruised apples. +% +If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by +the page number. +% +If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of +arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical +world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by +the use of the mathematics of probability. + -- Vannevar Bush +% +If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would +presumably flunk it. + -- Stanley Garn +% +If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts. + -- Albert Einstein +% +If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, +we would be so simple we couldn't. +% +If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make +something out of you. + -- Muhammad Ali +% +"If value corrupts then absolute value corrupts absolutely." +% +If you analyse anything, you destroy it. + -- Arthur Miller +% +If you are smart enough to know that you're not smart enough to be an +Engineer, then you're in Business. +% +If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious. +% +If you haven't enjoyed the material in the last few lectures then a career +in chartered accountancy beckons. + -- Advice from the lecturer in the middle of the Stochastic + Systems course. +% +If you push the "extra ice" button on the soft drink vending machine, you won't +get any ice. If you push the "no ice" button, you'll get ice, but no cup. +% + If you rap your knuckles against a window jamb or door, if you +brush your leg against a bed or desk, if you catch your foot in a curled- +up corner of a rug, or strike a toe against a desk or chair, go back and +repeat the sequence. + You will find yourself surprised how far off course you were to +hit that window jamb, that door, that chair. Get back on course and do it +again. How can you pilot a spacecraft if you can't find your way around +your own apartment? + -- William S. Burroughs +% +If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from +many it's research. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. +% +Imagination is more important than knowledge. + -- Albert Einstein +% +In 1750 Issac Newton became discouraged when he fell up a flight of stairs. +% +In 1869 the waffle iron was invented for people who had wrinkled waffles. +% +In a minimum-phase system there is an inextricable link between +frequency response, phase response and transient response, as they +are all merely transforms of one another. This combined with +minimalization of open-loop errors in output amplifiers and correct +compensation for non-linear passive crossover network loading can +lead to a significant decrease in system resolution lost. However, +this all means jack when you listen to Pink Floyd. +% +IN MY OPINION anyone interested in improving himself should not rule out +becoming pure energy. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +In Nature there are neither rewards nor punishments, there are consequences. + -- R.G. Ingersoll +% +In order to dial out, it is necessary to broaden one's dimension. +% +"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the +universe." + -- Carl Sagan, Cosmos +% +In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really +good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change +their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really +do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are +human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot +recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. + -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address +% +"In short, _N is Richardian if, and only if, _N is not Richardian." +% +In specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes Ohm's. +% +In the beginning there was nothing. And the Lord said "Let There Be Light!" +And still there was nothing, but at least now you could see it. +% + In the beginning there was only one kind of Mathematician, created by +the Great Mathamatical Spirit form the Book: the Topologist. And they grew to +large numbers and prospered. + One day they looked up in the heavens and desired to reach up as far +as the eye could see. So they set out in building a Mathematical edifice that +was to reach up as far as "up" went. Further and further up they went ... +until one night the edifice collapsed under the weight of paradox. + The following morning saw only rubble where there once was a huge +structure reaching to the heavens. One by one, the Mathematicians climbed +out from under the rubble. It was a miracle that nobody was killed; but when +they began to speak to one another, SUPRISE of all suprises! they could not +understand each other. They all spoke different languages. They all fought +amongst themselves and each went about their own way. To this day the +Topologists remain the original Mathematicians. + -- The Story of Babel +% +In the course of reading Hadamard's "The Psychology of Invention in the +Mathematical Field", I have come across evidence supporting a fact +which we coffee achievers have long appreciated: no really creative, +intelligent thought is possible without a good cup of coffee. On page +14, Hadamard is discussing Poincare's theory of fuchsian groups and +fuchsian functions, which he describes as "... one of his greatest +discoveries, the first which consecrated his glory ..." Hadamard refers +to Poincare having had a "... sleepless night which initiated all that +memorable work ..." and gives the following, very revealing quote: + + "One evening, contrary to my custom, I drank black coffee and + could not sleep. Ideas rose in crowds; I felt them collide + until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable + combination." + +Too bad drinking black coffee was contrary to his custom. Maybe he +could really have amounted to something as a coffee achiever. +% +In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, +there is. +% +In these matters the only certainty is that there is nothing certain. + -- Pliny the Elder +% + "In this replacement Earth we're building they've given me Africa +to do and of course I'm doing it with all fjords again because I happen to +like them, and I'm old-fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely +baroque feel to a continent. And they tell me it's not equatorial enough. +Equatorial!" He gave a hollow laugh. "What does it matter? Science has +achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than +right any day." + "And are you?" + "No. That's where it all falls down, of course." + "Pity," said Arthur with sympathy. "It sounded like quite a good +life-style otherwise." + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +Information is the inverse of entropy. +% +Interchangeable parts won't. +% +Invest in physics -- own a piece of Dirac! +% +"Irrationality is the square root of all evil" + -- Douglas Hofstadter +% +Is knowledge knowable? If not, how do we know that? +% +Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction +listen to weather forecasts and economists? + -- Kelvin Throop III +% +Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune +tellers take economists seriously? +% +"It could be that Walter's horse has wings" does not imply that there is +any such animal as Walter's horse, only that there could be; but "Walter's +horse is a thing which could have wings" does imply Walter's horse's +existence. But the conjunction "Walter's horse exists, and it could be +that Walter's horse has wings" still does not imply "Walter's horse is a +thing that could have wings", for perhaps it can only be that Walter's +horse has wings by Walter having a different horse. Nor does "Walter's +horse is a thing which could have wings" conversely imply "It could be that +Walter's horse has wings"; for it might be that Walter's horse could only +have wings by not being Walter's horse. + +I would deny, though, that the formula [Necessarily if some x has property P +then some x has property P] expresses a logical law, since P(x) could stand +for, let us say "x is a better logician than I am", and the statement "It is +necessary that if someone is a better logician than I am then someone is a +better logician than I am" is false because there need not have been any me. + -- A.N. Prior, "Time and Modality" +% +It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats. +% +It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in +which there is absolutely nothing. + -- Descartes +% +It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, +as one's hat keeps blowing off. + -- Woody Allen +% +It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem. +% +It is not every question that deserves an answer. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +It is not for me to attempt to fathom the inscrutable workings of Providence. + -- The Earl of Birkenhead +% +It is not that polar co-ordinates are complicated, it is simply +that cartesian co-ordinates are simpler than they have a right to be. + -- Kleppner & Kolenhow, "An Introduction to Mechanics" +% +It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to +mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +It is true that if your paperboy throws your paper into the bushes for five +straight days it can be explained by Newton's Law of Gravity. But it takes +Murphy's law to explain why it is happening to you. +% +It seems intuitively obvious to me, which means that it might be wrong. + -- Chris Torek +% +It seems that more and more mathematicians are using a new, high level +language named "research student". +% +"It's easier said than done." + +... and if you don't believe it, try proving that it's easier done than +said, and you'll see that "it's easier said that `it's easier done than +said' than it is done", which really proves that "it's easier said than +done". +% +It's hard to think of you as the end result of millions of years of evolution. +% +It's later than you think, the joint Russian-American space mission has +already begun. +% +It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one. + -- Phil White +% +It's not hard to admit errors that are [only] cosmetically wrong. + -- J.K. Galbraith +% +Just because they are called 'forbidden' transitions does not mean that they +are forbidden. They are less allowed than allowed transitions, if you see +what I mean. + -- From a Part 2 Quantum Mechanics lecture. +% +Kleeneness is next to Godelness. +% +Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within. +% +Last yeer I kudn't spel Engineer. Now I are won. +% +Lawrence Radiation Laboratory keeps all its data in an old gray trunk. +% +Life is a biochemical reaction to the stimulus of the surrounding +environment in a stable ecosphere, while a bowl of cherries is a +round container filled with little red fruits on sticks. +% +Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. +% +Life is difficult because it is non-linear. +% +Logic is a little bird, sitting in a tree; that smells *_____awful*. +% +Logic is a pretty flower that smells bad. +% +Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence. +% +Logic is the chastity belt of the mind! +% +Love makes the world go 'round, with a little help from intrinsic angular +momentum. +% +Lucas is the source of many of the components of the legendarily reliable +British automotive electrical systems. Professionals call the company "The +Prince of Darkness". Of course, if Lucas were to design and manufacture +nuclear weapons, World War III would never get off the ground. The British +don't like warm beer any more than the Americans do. The British drink warm +beer because they have Lucas refrigerators. +% +Ma Bell is a mean mother! +% +Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine. + -- Andy Warhol +% +Make it myself? But I'm a physical organic chemist! +% +Make it right before you make it faster. +% +Man will never fly. Space travel is merely a dream. All aspirin is alike. +% +MATH AND ALCOHOL DON'T MIX! + Please, don't drink and derive. + + Mathematicians + Against + Drunk + Deriving +% +Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated. + -- R. Drabek +% +Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate +into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different. + -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe +% +Mathematicians often resort to something called Hilbert space, which is +described as being n-dimensional. Like modern sex, any number can play. + -- Dr. Thor Wald, "Beep/The Quincunx of Time", by James Blish +% +Mathematicians practice absolute freedom. + -- Henry Adams +% +Mathematics deals exclusively with the relations of concepts +to each other without consideration of their relation to experience. + -- Albert Einstein +% +Mathematics is the only science where one never knows what +one is talking about nor whether what is said is true. + -- Russell +% +Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth but supreme beauty -- +a beauty cold and austere, like that of a sculpture, without appeal to any +part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trapping of painting or music, +yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the +greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense +of being more than man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is +to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a receipt. +% +Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value. +% +Measure twice, cut once. +% +Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe. +% +Mediocrity finds safety in standardization. + -- Frederick Crane +% +Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science. +% +Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves +up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. + -- Winston Churchill +% +Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural +function are perfectly correlated, that one is completely caused by the +other. There is no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a finger into the +brain now and then and make neural cells do what they would not otherwise. +Actually, of course, this is a working assumption only. ... It is quite +conceivable that someday the assumption will have to be rejected. But it +is important also to see that we have not reached that day yet: the working +assumption is a necessary one and there is no real evidence opposed to it. +Our failure to solve a problem so far does not make it insoluble. One cannot +logically be a determinist in physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology. + -- D.O. Hebb, "Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological + Theory", 1949 +% +More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path +leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. +Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. + -- Woody Allen, "Side Effects" +% +"Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams) "365,365,365, +365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365". He [ten-year-old Truman Henry +Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his pantaloons over the +tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes in their sockets, sometimes +smiling and talking, and then seeming to be in an agony, until, in not more +than one minute, said he, 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!" +An electronic computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be +as much fun to watch. + -- James R. Newman, "The World of Mathematics" +% +Murphy's Law, that brash proletarian restatement of Godel's Theorem. + -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" +% +My geometry teacher was sometimes acute, and sometimes obtuse, but always, +always, he was right. + [That's an interesting angle. I wonder if there are any parallels?] +% + My message is not that biological determinists were bad scientists or +even that they were always wrong. Rather, I believe that science must be +understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of +robots programmed to collect pure information. I also present this view as +an upbeat for science, not as a gloomy epitaph for a noble hope sacrificed on +the alter of human limitations. + I believe that a factual reality exists and that science, though often +in an obtuse and erratic manner, can learn about it. Galileo was not shown +the instruments of torture in an abstract debate about lunar motion. He had +threatened the Church's conventional argument for social and doctrinal +stability: the static world order with planets circling about a central +earth, priests subordinate to the Pope and serfs to their lord. But the +Church soon made its peace with Galileo's cosmology. They had no choice; the +earth really does revolve about the sun. + -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" +% +Mystics always hope that science will some day overtake them. + -- Booth Tarkington +% +Natural laws have no pity. +% +Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of conservation +of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the fittest when the +fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he is most likely to be +creamed? + -- Solomon Short +% +Nature always sides with the hidden flaw. +% +Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, +it cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs. + -- Fran Lebowitz +% +Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. + -- Francis Bacon +% +Neil Armstrong tripped. +% +Neutrinos are into physicists. +% +Neutrinos have bad breadth. +% +Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do. + -- R. A. Heinlein +% +No amount of careful planning will ever replace dumb luck. +% +No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail. +% +Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong. +% +Nonsense. Space is blue and birds fly through it. + -- Heisenberg +% +Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the +Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats in +their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the +moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter -- for they had a machine, a +dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect. +And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside it, for it +was all they had -- first they saved up all their atoms, then they put +them all together, and if one didn't fit, why they chipped at it a bit, +and everything was just fine ... + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Nothing is faster than the speed of light ... + +To prove this to yourself, try opening the refrigerator door before the +light comes on. +% +Nothing is rich but the inexhaustible wealth of nature. +She shows us only surfaces, but she is a million fathoms deep. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +Nuclear powered vacuuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years. + -- Alex Lewyt (President of the Lewyt Corporation, + manufacturers of vacuum cleaners), quoted in The New York + Times, June 10, 1955. +% +Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing. +% +"Obviously, a major malfunction has occurred." + -- Steve Nesbitt, voice of Mission Control, January 28, + 1986, as the shuttle Challenger exploded within view + of the grandstands. +% +Of course you can't flap your arms and fly to the moon. After a while you'd +run out of air to push against. +% +Often statistics are used as a drunken man uses lampposts -- for support +rather than illumination. +% +On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague: + +"This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." + -- Wolfgang Pauli +% +Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group of +us bright young students taking number theory discovered the names of the +smaller prime numbers. + +2: The Odd Prime -- + It's the only even prime, therefore is odd. QED. +3: The True Prime -- + Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you 3 times, it's true." +31: The Arbitrary Prime -- + Determined by unanimous unvote. We needed an arbitrary prime in + case the prof asked for one, and so had an election. 91 received + the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the next most. + However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none at all. +41: The Female Prime -- + The polynomial X**2 - X + 41 is + prime for integer values from 1 to 40. +43: The Male Prime - they form a prime pair. + +Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities +are derived from those primes. So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd +but true", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers. +% + Once, when the secrets of science were the jealously guarded property +of a small priesthood, the common man had no hope of mastering their arcane +complexities. Years of study in musty classrooms were prerequisite to +obtaining even a dim, incoherent knowledge of science. + Today all that has changed: a dim, incoherent knowledge of science is +available to anyone. + -- Tom Weller, "Science Made Stupid" +% +One Bell System - it sometimes works. +% +One Bell System - it used to work before they installed the Dimension! +% +One Bell System - it works. +% +One can search the brain with a microscope and not find the +mind, and can search the stars with a telescope and not find God. + -- J. Gustav White +% +One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means. +% +One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast +to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, +a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also +just stupid. + -- J.D. Watson, "The Double Helix" +% +One day this guy is finally fed up with his middle-class existence and +decides to do something about it. He calls up his best friend, who is a +mathematical genius. "Look," he says, "do you suppose you could find some +way mathematically of guaranteeing winning at the race track? We could +make a lot of money and retire and enjoy life." The mathematician thinks +this over a bit and walks away mumbling to himself. + A week later his friend drops by to ask the genius if he's had any +success. The genius, looking a little bleary-eyed, replies, "Well, yes, +actually I do have an idea, and I'm reasonably sure that it will work, but +there a number of details to be figured out. + After the second week the mathematician appears at his friend's house, +looking quite a bit rumpled, and announces, "I think I've got it! I still have +some of the theory to work out, but now I'm certain that I'm on the right +track." + At the end of the third week the mathematician wakes his friend by +pounding on his door at three in the morning. He has dark circles under his +eyes. His hair hasn't been combed for many days. He appears to be wearing +the same clothes as the last time. He has several pencils sticking out from +behind his ears and an almost maniacal expression on his face. "WE CAN DO +IT! WE CAN DO IT!!" he shrieks. "I have discovered the perfect solution!! +And it's so EASY! First, we assume that horses are perfect spheres in simple +harmonic motion..." +% +One has to look out for engineers -- they begin with sewing machines +and end up with the atomic bomb. + -- Marcel Pagnol +% +One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word. + -- Robert Heinlein +% +One man's constant is another man's variable. + -- A.J. Perlis +% +One of the chief duties of the mathematician in acting as an advisor... +is to discourage... from expecting too much from mathematics. + -- N. Wiener +% +One small step for man, one giant stumble for mankind. +% +One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that +sometimes you must work under adverse conditions... like a state of sheer +terror. + -- W.K. Hartmann +% +Only God can make random selections. +% +Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. +% +Optimization hinders evolution. +% +Order and simplification are the first steps toward mastery of a subject +-- the actual enemy is the unknown. + -- Thomas Mann +% +Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry +is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. + -- Mike Adams +% +"Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it." + -- Alex Schure +% +Oxygen is a very toxic gas and an extreme fire hazard. It is fatal in +concentrations of as little as 0.000001 p.p.m. Humans exposed to the +oxygen concentrations die within a few minutes. Symptoms resemble very +much those of cyanide poisoning (blue face, etc.). In higher +concentrations, e.g. 20%, the toxic effect is somewhat delayed and it +takes about 2.5 billion inhalations before death takes place. The reason +for the delay is the difference in the mechanism of the toxic effect of +oxygen in 20% concentration. It apparently contributes to a complex +process called aging, of which very little is known, except that it is +always fatal. + +However, the main disadvantage of the 20% oxygen concentration is in the +fact it is habit forming. The first inhalation (occurring at birth) is +sufficient to make oxygen addiction permanent. After that, any +considerable decrease in the daily oxygen doses results in death with +symptoms resembling those of cyanide poisoning. + +Oxygen is an extreme fire hazard. All of the fires that were reported in +the continental U.S. for the period of the past 25 years were found to be +due to the presence of this gas in the atmosphere surrounding the buildings +in question. + +Oxygen is especially dangerous because it is odorless, colorless and +tasteless, so that its presence can not be readily detected until it is +too late. + -- Chemical & Engineering News February 6, 1956 +% +Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them. +% +Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be. +% +People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't. +% +Philogyny recapitulates erogeny; erogeny recapitulates philogyny. +% +"Picture the sun as the origin of two intersecting 6-dimensional +hyperplanes from which we can deduce a certain transformational +sequence which gives us the terminal velocity of a rubber duck ..." +% +Pie are not square. Pie are round. Cornbread are square. +% +Polymer physicists are into chains. +% +Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth. +% +Power corrupts. And atomic power corrupts atomically. +% +Progress means replacing a theory that is wrong with one more subtly wrong. +% +Proof techniques #1: Proof by Induction. + +This technique is used on equations with "_n" in them. Induction +techniques are very popular, even the military used them. + +SAMPLE: Proof of induction without proof of induction. + + We know it's true for _n equal to 1. Now assume that it's true +for every natural number less than _n. _N is arbitrary, so we can take _n +as large as we want. If _n is sufficiently large, the case of _n+1 is +trivially equivalent, so the only important _n are _n less than _n. We +can take _n = _n (from above), so it's true for _n+1 because it's just +about _n. + QED. (QED translates from the Latin as "So what?") +% +... proper attention to Earthly needs of the poor, the depressed and the +downtrodden, would naturally evolve from dynamic, articulate, spirited +awareness of the great goals for Man and the society he conspired to erect. + -- David Baker, paraphrasing Harold Urey, in + "The History of Manned Space Flight" +% +Prototype designs always work. + -- Don Vonada +% +"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller +than the both put together." +% +Psychologists think they're experimental psychologists. +Experimental psychologists think they're biologists. +Biologists think they're biochemists. +Biochemists think they're chemists. +Chemists think they're physical chemists. +Physical chemists think they're physicists. +Physicists think they're theoretical physicists. +Theoretical physicists think they're mathematicians. +Mathematicians think they're metamathematicians. +Metamathematicians think they're philosophers. +Philosophers think they're gods. +% +Quantum Mechanics is a lovely introduction to Hilbert Spaces! + -- Overheard at last year's Archimedeans' Garden Party +% +Quantum Mechanics is God's version of "Trust me." +% +Quark! Quark! Beware the quantum duck! +% +Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives. +% +Reality must take precedence over public relations, for Mother Nature +cannot be fooled. + -- R.P. Feynman +% +Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you +lose your job. These economic downturns are very difficult to predict, +but sophisticated econometric modeling houses like Data Resources and +Chase Econometrics have successfully predicted 14 of the last 3 recessions. +% + "Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised. "We're back in the +universe again..." An unusually long pause followed, "...but I don't +know which part. We seem to have changed our position in space." A +spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the +starfield surrounding the ship. + "Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us," +ZORAC announced after a short pause. "The designs are not familiar, but +they are obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have +been intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, +and transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown. +Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious." + -- James P. Hogan, "Giants Star" +% +Remember Darwin; building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice. +% +Research is the best place to be: you work your buns off, and if it works +you're a hero; if it doesn't, well -- nobody else has done it yet either, +so you're still a valiant nerd. +% +Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and think what nobody +else has thought. +% +Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. + -- Wernher von Braun +% +Review Questions + +(1) If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 KPH, + and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before + he exceeds the speed of light? How long will it be before the + Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his spaceship? + +(2) If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks + twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks + every bone in his body? How long will it be before they cut off + his insurance? Where does he get a new car every week? + +(3) If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four beers + the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the cans in a + pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger than King + Tut's? When will it fall on him? Will he notice? +% +Round Numbers are always false. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +Saliva causes cancer, but only if swallowed in small amounts over a long +period of time. + -- George Carlin +% +Science and religion are in full accord but science and faith are in complete +discord. +% +Science is built up of 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 Henri Poincar'e +% +Science is what happens when preconception meets verification. +% +Science may someday discover what faith has always known. +% +Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it. + -- William Buckley +% +Sentient plasmoids are a gas. +% +Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. +% +So as your consumer electronics adviser, I am advising you to donate your +current VCR to a grate resident, who will laugh sardonically and hurl it +into a dumpster. Then I want you to go out and purchase a vast array of +8-millimeter video equipment. + +... OK! Got everything? Well, *too bad, sucker*, because while you were +gone the electronics industry came up with an even newer format that makes +your 8-millimeter VCR look as technologically advanced as toenail dirt. +This format is called "3.5 hectare" and it will not be made available until +it is outmoded, sometime early next week, by a format called "Elroy", so +*order yours now*. + -- Dave Barry, "No Surrender in the Electronics Revolution" +% +Solutions are obvious if one only has the optical power to observe them +over the horizon. + -- K.A. Arsdall +% +Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly +big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the +drug store, but that's just peanuts to space. + -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy +% +Space is to place as eternity is to time. + -- Joseph Joubert +% +Space tells matter how to move and matter tells space how to curve. + -- Wheeler +% +Statistics are no substitute for judgement. + -- Henry Clay +% +Statistics means never having to say you're certain. +% +Stellar rays prove fibbing never pays. Embezzlement is another matter. +% +Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the psychic predecessor of all +real understanding. An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an +understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors. + -- R. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" +% +Supervisor: Do you think you understand the basic ideas of Quantum Mechanics? +Supervisee: Ah! Well, what do we mean by "to understand" in the context of + Quantum Mechanics? +Supervisor: You mean "No", don't you? +Supervisee: Yes. + -- Overheard at a supervision. +% +Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have! +% +Take an astronaut to launch. +% +Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means +for going backwards. + -- Aldous Huxley +% +Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand. +% +That's one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind. + -- Neil Armstrong +% +The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. + "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty ?" he asked. + "Begin at the beginning,", the King said, very gravely, "and go on +till you come to the end: then stop." + -- Lewis Carroll +% +The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex +facts. Seek simplicity and distrust it. + -- Whitehead. +% +The amount of time between slipping on the peel and landing on the +pavement is precisely 1 bananosecond. +% +The amount of weight an evangelist carries with the almighty is measured +in billigrahams. +% +The ark lands after The Flood. Noah lets all the animals out. Says he, "Go +and multiply." Several months pass. Noah decides to check up on the animals. +All are doing fine except a pair of snakes. "What's the problem?" says Noah. +"Cut down some trees and let us live there", say the snakes. Noah follows +their advice. Several more weeks pass. Noah checks on the snakes again. +Lots of little snakes, everybody is happy. Noah asks, "Want to tell me how +the trees helped?" "Certainly", say the snakes. "We're adders, and we need +logs to multiply." +% +The astronomer Francesco Sizi, a contemporary of Galileo, argues that +Jupiter can have no satellites: + + There are seven windows in the head, two nostrils, two ears, two +eyes, and a mouth; so in the heavens there are two favorable stars, two +unpropitious, two luminaries, and Mercury alone undecided and indifferent. +From which and many other similar phenomena of nature such as the seven +metals, etc., which it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number +of planets is necessarily seven. [...] + Moreover, the satellites are invisible to the naked eye and +therefore can have no influence on the earth and therefore would be useless +and therefore do not exist. +% +The best defense against logic is ignorance. +% +The best rebuttal to this kind of statistical argument came from the +redoubtable John W. Campbell: + + The laws of population growth tell us that approximately half the + people who were ever born in the history of the world are now + dead. There is therefore a 0.5 probability that this message is + being read by a corpse. +% +The bigger the theory the better. +% +The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse time. + -- Merrick Furst +% +The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives. + -- Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project +% +The church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom. +% +The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. + -- John Muir +% +The Commandments of the EE: + + (9) Trifle thee not with radioactive tubes and substances lest thou + commence to glow in the dark like a lightning bug, and thy wife be + frustrated and have not further use for thee except for thy wages. +(10) Commit thou to memory all the words of the prophets which are + written down in thy Bible which is the National Electrical Code, + and giveth out with the straight dope and consoleth thee when + thou hast suffered a ream job by the chief electrician. +(11) When thou muckest about with a device in an unthinking and/or + unknowing manner, thou shalt keep one hand in thy pocket. Better + that thou shouldest keep both hands in thy pockets than + experimentally determine the electrical potential of an + innocent-seeming device. +% +The Commandments of the EE: + +(1) Beware of lightning that lurketh in an uncharged condenser + lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most + embarrassing manner. +(2) Cause thou the switch that supplieth large quantities of juice to + be opened and thusly tagged, that thy days may be long in this + earthly vale of tears. +(3) Prove to thyself that all circuits that radiateth, and upon + which the worketh, are grounded and thusly tagged lest they lift + thee to a radio frequency potential and causeth thee to make like + a radiator too. +(4) Tarry thou not amongst these fools that engage in intentional + shocks for they are not long for this world and are surely + unbelievers. +% +The Commandments of the EE: + +(5) Take care that thou useth the proper method when thou takest the + measures of high-voltage circuits too, that thou dost not incinerate + both thee and thy test meter, for verily, though thou has no company + property number and can be easily surveyed, the test meter has + one and, as a consequence, bringeth much woe unto a purchasing agent. +(6) Take care that thou tamperest not with interlocks and safety devices, + for this incurreth the wrath of the chief electrician and bring + the fury of the engineers on his head. +(7) Work thou not on energized equipment for if thou doest so, thy + friends will surely be buying beers for thy widow and consoling + her in certain ways not generally acceptable to thee. +(8) Verily, verily I say unto thee, never service equipment alone, + for electrical cooking is a slow process and thou might sizzle in + thy own fat upon a hot circuit for hours on end before thy maker + sees fit to end thy misery and drag thee into his fold. +% +The devil finds work for idle circuits to do. +% +The devil finds work for idle glands. +% +The difference between reality and unreality is that reality has so +little to recommend it. + -- Allan Sherman +% +The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science +requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship. + -- Robert Heinlein +% +The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier. +% +The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on +weather forecasters. + -- Jean-Paul Kauffmann +% +The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed +to do the work of a man. The marketing division of Sirius Cybernetics +Corporation defines a robot as 'Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With'. +The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the +Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the +first against the wall when the revolution comes', with a footnote to effect +that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking +over the post of robotics correspondent. + Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that +had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in +the future defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics +Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the +wall when the revolution came'. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind +of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation +of these atoms is talking moonshine. + -- Ernest Rutherford, after he had split the atom for + the first time +% +The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is the most likely to be +correct. + -- William of Occam +% +The feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer +and understand how a refrigerator works, just as no gentleman wears a brown +suit in the city. Colleges may be to blame. English majors are encouraged, +I know, to hate chemistry and physics, and to be proud because they are not +dull and creepy and humorless and war-oriented like the engineers across the +quad. And our most impressive critics have commonly been such English majors, +and they are squeamish about technology to this very day. So it is natural +for them to despise science fiction. + -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Science Fiction" +% +The following statement is not true. The previous statement is true. +% +The Force is what holds everything together. It has its dark side, and +it has its light side. It's sort of like cosmic duct tape. +% +"The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl." + -- Dave Barry +% +The function of the expert is not to be more right than other people, +but to be wrong for more sophisticated reasons. + -- Dr. David Butler, British psephologist +% +The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance. +% +The goal of science is to build better mousetraps. The goal of nature +is to build better mice. +% +The Greatest Mathematical Error + The Mariner I space probe was launched from Cape Canaveral on 28 +July 1962 towards Venus. After 13 minutes' flight a booster engine would +give acceleration up to 25,820 mph; after 44 minutes 9,800 solar cells +would unfold; after 80 days a computer would calculate the final course +corrections and after 100 days the craft would cirlce the unknown planet, +scanning the mysterious cloud in which it is bathed. + However, with an efficiency that is truly heartening, Mariner I +plunged into the Atlantic Ocean only four minutes after takeoff. + Inquiries later revealed that a minus sign had been omitted from +the instructions fed into the computer. "It was human error", a launch +spokesman said. + This minus sign cost L4,280,000. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The herd instinct among economists makes sheep look like independent thinkers. +% +The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they +are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is generally +understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. + -- John Maynard Keyes +% +"The identical is equal to itself, since it is different." + -- Franco Spisani +% +The instruments of science do not in themselves discover truth. And there are +searchings that are not concluded by the coincidence of a pointer and a mark. + -- Fred Saberhagen, "The Berserker Wars" +% +The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. + -- L. Zadeh +% +The light of a hundred stars does not equal the light of the moon. +% +The Man Who Almost Invented The Vacuum Cleaner + The man officially credited with inventing the vacuum cleaner is +Hubert Cecil Booth. However, he got the idea from a man who almost +invented it. + In 1901 Booth visited a London music-hall. On the bill was an +American inventor with his wonder machine for removing dust from carpets. + The machine comprised a box about one foot square with a bag on top. +After watching the act -- which made everyone in the front six rows sneeze +-- Booth went round to the inventor's dressing room. + "It should suck not blow," said Booth, coming straight to the +point. "Suck?", exclaimed the enraged inventor. "Your machine just moves +the dust around the room," Booth informed him. "Suck? Suck? Sucking is +not possible," was the inventor's reply and he stormed out. Booth proved +that it was by the simple expedient of kneeling down, pursing his lips and +sucking the back of an armchair. "I almost choked," he said afterwards. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of a +soda can, when discarded will last forever ... and a $7,000 car which +when properly cared for will rust out in two or three years. +% +The meek shall inherit the earth; the rest of us will go to the stars. +% +The meek shall inherit the earth; the rest of us, the Universe. +% +The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is even deader. +% +The moon is made of green cheese. + -- John Heywood +% +The moon may be smaller than Earth, but it's further away. +% +The more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain. +% +The most advantageous, pre-eminent thing thou canst do is not to exhibit +nor display thyself within the limits of our galaxy, but rather depart +instantaneously whence thou even now standest and flee to yet another rotten +planet in the universe, if thou canst have the good fortune to find one. + -- Carlyle +% +The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new +discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." + -- Isaac Asimov +% +The nation that controls magnetism controls the universe. + -- Chester Gould/Dick Tracy +% +The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith +% +The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they +serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have +no legitimacy. + -- Albert Einstein +% +The only perfect science is hind-sight. +% +The only person who always got his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe. +% +The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the `social +sciences' is: some do, some don't. + -- Ernest Rutherford +% +The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite +of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. + -- Niels Bohr +% +The perversity of nature is nowhere better demonstrated by the fact that, when +exposed to the same atmosphere, bread becomes hard while crackers become soft. +% +The problem ... is that we have run out of dinosaurs to form oil with. +Scientists working for the Department of Energy have tried to form oil using +other animals; they've piled thousands of tons of sand and Middle Eastern +countries on top of cows, raccoons, haddock, laboratory rats, etc., but so +far all they have managed to do is run up an enormous bulldozer-rental bill +and anger a lot of Middle Eastern persons. None of the animals turned into +oil, although most of the laboratory rats developed cancer. + -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" +% +The purpose of Physics 7A is to make the engineers realize that they're +not perfect, and to make the rest of the people realize that they're not +engineers. +% +The rate at which a disease spreads through a corn field is a precise +measurement of the speed of blight. +% +The reason that every major university maintains a department of +mathematics is that it's cheaper than institutionalizing all those people. +% +The rule on staying alive as a forecaster is to give 'em a number or +give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once. + -- Jane Bryant Quinn +% +The Shuttle is now going five times the sound of speed. + -- Dan Rather, first landing of Columbia +% +The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and +tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will +have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy... neither its pipes nor +its theories will hold water. +% +The solution of problems is the most characteristic and peculiar sort +of voluntary thinking. + -- William James +% +The solution of this problem is trivial and is left as an exercise for +the reader. +% +The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem. + -- Peer +% +The speed of anything depends on the flow of everything. +% +The spirit of Plato dies hard. We have been unable to escape the philosophical +tradition that what we can see and measure in the world is merely the +superficial and imperfect representation of an underlying reality. + -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" +% +The startling truth finally became apparent, and it was this: Numbers +written on restaurant checks within the confines of restaurants do not +follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces +of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single statement took +the scientific world by storm. So many mathematical conferences got held +in such good restaurants that many of the finest minds of a generation +died of obesity and heart failure, and the science of mathematics was put +back by years. + -- Douglas Adams +% +The study of non-linear physics is like the study of non-elephant biology. +% +"The subspace _W inherits the other 8 properties of _V. And there aren't +even any property taxes." + -- J. MacKay, Mathematics 134b +% +The sum of the Universe is zero. +% +The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed from available +data. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon +shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, +as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much +radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition seven times seven (49) times +as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or fifty times in all. The light we +receive from the Moon is one ten-thousandth of the light we receive from the +Sun, so we can ignore that. With these data we can compute the temperature +of Heaven. The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where +the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, +i.e., Heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using +the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute +temperature of the earth (~300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact +temperature of Hell cannot be computed, but it must be less than 444.6C, the +temperature at which brimstone or sulphur changes from a liquid to a gas. +Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their +part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten +brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, +or 444.6C (Above this point it would be a vapor, not a lake.) We have, +then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C. + -- "Applied Optics", vol. 11, A14, 1972 +% +The test of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. + -- Aldo Leopold +% +The tree of research must from time to time be refreshed with the blood +of bean counters. + -- Alan Kay +% +The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And +vice versa. +% +The two most common things in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity. + -- Harlan Ellison +% +The unfacts, did we have them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude. +% +The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be broken. +% +The universe is all a spin-off of the Big Bang. +% +The universe is an island, surrounded by whatever it is that surrounds +universes. +% +The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination -- but the +combination is locked up in the safe. + -- Peter DeVries +% +The Universe is populated by stable things. + -- Richard Dawkins +% +The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. + -- Sagan +% +The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four +forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and +bloody-mindedness. + -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" +% +The University of California Statistics Department; where mean is normal, +and deviation standard. +% +The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be +done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. + -- E. Hubbard +% +The Wright Bothers weren't the first to fly. They were just the first +not to crash. +% +Theory is gray, but the golden tree of life is green. + -- Goethe +% +There *__is* no such thing as a civil engineer. +% +There are no data that cannot be plotted on a straight line if the axis +are chosen correctly. +% +"There are three principal ways to lose money: wine, women, and engineers. +While the first two are more pleasant, the third is by far the more certain." + -- Baron Rothschild, ca. 1800 +% +There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring the +changes on its corollaries; that's philosophy. Two: Record many facts. +Try to find a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next fact; that's +science. Three: Be aware that you live in a malevolent Universe controlled +by Murphy's Law, sometimes offset by Brewster's Factor; that's engineering. +% +There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: "passive" systems collect the +sunlight that hits your home, and "active" systems collect the sunlight that +hits your neighbors' homes, too. + -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" +% +There can be no twisted thought without a twisted molecule. + -- R. W. Gerard +% +There is a building with four floors. On the first floor, there +is a convention of architects. On the second floor, there is a +vinyl manufacturing plant. On the third floor there is a fast food +stand, and on the fourth floor there is a library. + +Q: What would happen if a librarian traveled down in a small + elevator with one other person from each floor? +A: The elevator would be full. +% +There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what +the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be +replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another +theory which states that this has already happened. + -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" +% +There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been +originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet +has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a +beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are +being, evolved. + -- Darwin +% +There is no choice before us. Either we must Succeed in providing the +rational coordination of impulses and guts, or for centuries civilization +will sink into a mere welter of minor excitements. We must provide a +Great Age or see the collapse of the upward striving of the human race. + -- Alfred North Whitehead +% +There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. + -- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923 +% +There is no opinion so absurd that some philosopher will not express it. + -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, "Ad familiares" +% +There is no royal road to geometry. + -- Euclid +% +There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, +however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. +Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be +discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator +on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is +even highly probable. + -- H.L. Mencken, 1930 +% + There was a mad scientist (a mad... social... scientist) who kidnapped +three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked +each of them in seperate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no +can opener. + A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's +cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from +pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive, +and escaped. + The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids +off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good +pitching arm and a new quantum theory. + The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising +solution to the kissing problem; his dessicated corpse was propped calmly +against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor: + Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. + Proof: assume the opposite... +% +There was a writer in 'Life' magazine ... who claimed that rabbits have +no memory, which is one of their defensive mechanisms. If they recalled +every close shave they had in the course of just an hour life would become +insupportable. + -- Kurt Vonnegut +% +There was an old Indian belief that by making love on the hide of +their favorite animal, one could guarantee the health and prosperity +of the offspring conceived thereupon. And so it goes that one Indian +couple made love on a buffalo hide. Nine months later, they were +blessed with a healthy baby son. Yet another couple huddled together +on the hide of a deer and they too were blessed with a very healthy +baby son. But a third couple, whose favorite animal was a hippopotamus, +were blessed with not one, but TWO very healthy baby sons at the conclusion +of the nine month interval. All of which proves the old theorem that: +The sons of the squaw of the hippopotamus are equal to the sons of +the squaws of the other two hides. +% +There's a whole WORLD in a mud puddle! + -- Doug Clifford +% +There's no future in time travel. +% +There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking +about. + -- John von Neumann +% +They don't know how the world is shaped. And so they give it a shape, and +try to make everything fit it. They separate the right from the left, the +man from the woman, the plant from the animal, the sun from the moon. They +only want to count to two. + -- Emma Bull, "Bone Dance" +% +Things equal to nothing else are equal to each other. +% +This is clearly another case of too many mad scientists, and not enough +hunchbacks. +% +This is not the age of pamphleteers. It is the age of the engineers. The +spark-gap is mightier than the pen. Democracy will not be salvaged by men +who talk fluently, debate forcefully and quote aptly. + -- Lancelot Hogben, Science for the Citizen, 1938 +% +This is the theory that Jack built. +This is the flaw that lay in the theory that Jack built. +This is the palpable verbal haze that hid the flaw that lay in... +% +This isn't true in practice -- what we've missed out is Stradivarius's +constant. And then the aside: "For those of you who don't know, that's +been called by others the fiddle factor..." + -- From a 1B Electrical Engineering lecture. +% +This place just isn't big enough for all of us. We've got to find a way +off this planet. +% +This universe shipped by weight, not by volume. Some expansion of the +contents may have occurred during shipment. +% +This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard +dying... but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, +pillage and rapine, culture and vice... but nobody admitted it. + -- Alfred Bester, "The Stars My Destination" +% +Those who can, do; those who can't, simulate. +% +Those who can, do; those who can't, write. +Those who can't write work for the Bell Labs Record. +% +... though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage +from beginning to end. + -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War" +% +Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are the +molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with +Haeckel, the condensation or precipitation of matter from ether -- whose +existence is proved by the condensation or precipitation ... A fifth +theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more about +the matter than the others. + -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" +% +Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know +what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +Time is an illusion perpetrated by the manufacturers of space. +% +Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once. + +Space is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen to you. +% +TIRED of calculating components of vectors? Displacements along direction of +force getting you down? Well, now there's help. Try amazing "Dot-Product", +the fast, easy way many professionals have used for years and is now available +to YOU through this special offer. Three out of five engineering consultants +recommend "Dot-Product" for their clients who use vector products. Mr. +Gumbinowitz, mechanical engineer, in a hidden-camera interview... + "Dot-Product really works! Calculating Z-axis force components has + never been easier." +Yes, you too can take advantage of the amazing properties of Dot-Product. Use +it to calculate forces, velocities, displacements, and virtually any vector +components. How much would you pay for it? But wait, it also calculates the +work done in Joules, Ergs, and, yes, even BTU's. Divide Dot-Product by the +magnitude of the vectors and it becomes an instant angle calculator! Now, how +much would you pay? All this can be yours for the low, low price of $19.95!! +But that's not all! If you order before midnight, you'll also get "Famous +Numbers of Famous People" as a bonus gift, absolutely free! Yes, you'll get +Avogadro's number, Planck's, Euler's, Boltzmann's, and many, many, more!! +Call 1-800-DOT-6000. Operators are standing by. That number again... +1-800-DOT-6000. Supplies are limited, so act now. This offer is not +available through stores and is void where prohibited by law. +% +To converse at the distance of the Indes by means of sympathetic contrivances +may be as natural to future times as to us is a literary correspondence. + -- Joseph Glanvill, 1661 +% +To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. + -- Thomas Edison +% +Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity? + +And where does it go after it leaves the toaster? + -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" +% +Top scientists agree that with the present rate of consumption, the earth's +supply of gravity will be exhausted before the 24th century. As man +struggles to discover cheaper alternatives, we need your help. Please... + + CONSERVE GRAVITY + +Follow these simple suggestions: + +(1) Walk with a light step. Carry helium balloons if possible. +(2) Use tape, magnets, or glue instead of paperweights. +(3) Give up skiing and skydiving for more horizontal sports like curling. +(4) Avoid showers .. take baths instead. +(5) Don't hang all your clothes in the closet ... Keep them in one big pile. +(6) Stop flipping pancakes +% +Torque is cheap. +% +Two is not equal to three, even for large values of two. +% +Two men are in a hot-air balloon. Soon, they find themselves lost in a +canyon somewhere. One of the three men says, "I've got an idea. We can +call for help in this canyon and the echo will carry our voices to the +end of the canyon. Someone's bound to hear us by then!" + So he leans over the basket and screams out, "Helllloooooo! Where +are we?" (They hear the echo several times). + Fifteen minutes later, they hear this echoing voice: "Helllloooooo! +You're lost!" + The shouter comments, "That must have been a mathematician." + Puzzled, his friend asks, "Why do you say that?" + "For three reasons. First, he took a long time to answer, second, +he was absolutely correct, and, third, his answer was absolutely useless." +% +Two percent of zero is almost nothing. +% +Two wrights don't make a rong, they make an airplane. Or bicycles. +% +UFOs are for real: the Air Force doesn't exist. +% +Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem +in relation to a bigger problem. + -- P.D. Ouspensky +% +Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two, +opulence is when you have three -- and paradise is when you have none. + -- Doug Larson +% +We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is +whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling +is that it is not crazy enough. + -- Niels Bohr +% +We are each entitled to our own opinion, but no one is entitled to his +own facts. + -- Patrick Moynihan +% +We are sorry. We cannot complete your call as dialed. Please check +the number and dial again or ask your operator for assistance. + +This is a recording. +% +We can defeat gravity. The problem is the paperwork involved. +% +We can predict everything, except the future. +% +We cannot command nature except by obeying her. + -- Sir Francis Bacon +% +We dedicate this book to our fellow citizens who, for love of truth, take from +their own wants by taxes and gifts, and now and then send forth one of +themselves as dedicated servant, to forward the search into the mysteries and +marvelous simplicities of this strange and beautiful Universe, Our home. + -- "Gravitation", Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler +% +"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company." +% +We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything. +% +We don't know who it was that discovered water, but we're pretty sure +that it wasn't a fish. + -- Marshall McLuhan +% +We gave you an atomic bomb, what do you want, mermaids? + -- I. I. Rabi to the Atomic Energy Commission +% +We have a equal opportunity Calculus class -- it's fully integrated. +% +We laugh at the Indian philosopher, who to account for the support +of the earth, contrived the hypothesis of a huge elephant, and to support +the elephant, a huge tortoise. If we will candidly confess the truth, we +know as little of the operation of the nerves, as he did of the manner in +which the earth is supported: and our hypothesis about animal spirits, or +about the tension and vibrations of the nerves, are as like to be true, as +his about the support of the earth. His elephant was a hypothesis, and our +hypotheses are elephants. Every theory in philosophy, which is built on +pure conjecture, is an elephant; and every theory that is supported partly +by fact, and partly by conjecture, is like Nebuchadnezzar's image, whose +feet were partly of iron, and partly of clay. + -- Thomas Reid, "An Inquiry into the Human Mind", 1764 +% +... we must be wary of granting too much power to natural selection +by viewing all basic capacities of our brain as direct adaptations. +I do not doubt that natural selection acted in building our oversized +brains -- and I am equally confident that our brains became large as +an adaptation for definite roles (probably a complex set of interacting +functions). But these assumptions do not lead to the notion, often +uncritically embraced by strict Darwinians, that all major capacities +of the brain must arise as direct products of natural selection. + -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" +% +We must believe that it is the darkest before the dawn of a beautiful +new world. We will see it when we believe it. + -- Saul Alinsky +% +... we must counterpose the overwhelming judgment provided by consistent +observations and inferences by the thousands. The earth is billions of +years old and its living creatures are linked by ties of evolutionary +descent. Scientists stand accused of promoting dogma by so stating, but +do we brand people illiberal when they proclaim that the earth is neither +flat nor at the center of the universe? Science *has* taught us some +things with confidence! Evolution on an ancient earth is as well +established as our planet's shape and position. Our continuing struggle +to understand how evolution happens (the "theory of evolution") does not +cast our documentation of its occurrence -- the "fact of evolution" -- +into doubt. + -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", + The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2. +% +We warn the reader in advance that the proof presented here depends on a +clever but highly unmotivated trick. + -- Howard Anton, "Elementary Linear Algebra" +% +We who revel in nature's diversity and feel instructed by every animal tend to +brand Homo sapiens as the greatest catastrophe since the Cretaceous extinction. + -- S.J. Gould +% +We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one technical +problem -- how to run a sunbeam through a meter. +% +We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The center +of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week, +but for some reason nobody's ever done it. + -- Andy Rooney +% +Weinberg, as a young grocery clerk, advised the grocery manager to get +rid of rutabagas which nobody ever bought. He did so. "Well, kid, that +was a great idea," said the manager. Then he paused and asked the killer +question, "NOW what's the least popular vegetable?" + +Law: Once you eliminate your #1 problem, #2 gets a promotion. + -- Gerald Weinberg, "The Secrets of Consulting" +% +Wernher von Braun settled for a V-2 when he coulda had a V-8. +% +"What I've done, of course, is total garbage." + -- R. Willard, Pure Math 430a +% +What is algebra, exactly? Is it one of those three-cornered things? + -- J.M. Barrie +% +What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind. + -- Thomas Hewitt Key, 1799-1875 +% +What is now proved was once only imagin'd. + -- William Blake +% +What is research but a blind date with knowledge? + -- Will Harvey +% +What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, +which is the exact opposite. + -- Bertrand Russell, "Skeptical Essays", 1928 +% +What the deuce is it to me? You say that we go around the sun. If we went +around the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or my work. + -- Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Scarlet" +% +What the scientists have in their briefcases is terrifying. + -- Nikita Khruschev +% +What the world *really* needs is a good Automatic Bicycle Sharpener. +% +When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. +But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute -- and it's longer than any +hour. That's relativity. + -- Albert Einstein +% +When Alexander Graham Bell died in 1922, the telephone people interrupted +service for one minute in his honor. They've been honoring him intermittently +ever since, I believe. + -- The Grab Bag +% +When some people discover the truth, they just can't understand why +everybody isn't eager to hear it. +% +When speculation has done its worst, two plus two still equals four. + -- S. Johnson +% +"When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical." + -- Jon Carroll +% +When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the +stars were lined up in their proper places, you could easily count them +from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones were +set apart, and the smaller yellowing types pushed off to the corners as +bodies of a lower grade ... + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the +plane will fly. + -- Donald Douglas +% +When you are about to do an objective and scientific piece of investigation +of a topic, it is well to gave the answer firmly in hand, so that you can +proceed forthrightly, without being deflected or swayed, directly to the goal. + -- Amrom Katz +% +When you know absolutely nothing about the topic, make your forecast by +asking a carefully selected probability sample of 300 others who don't +know the answer either. + -- Edgar R. Fiedler +% +Where are the calculations that go with a calculated risk? +% +WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE + Oh, dear, where can the matter be + When it's converted to energy? + There is a slight loss of parity. + Johnny's so long at the fair. +% +Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to +examine the laws of heat. + -- Christopher Morley +% + While the engineer developed his thesis, the director leaned over to +his assistant and whispered, "Did you ever hear of why the sea is salt?" + "Why the sea is salt?" whispered back the assistant. "What do you +mean?" + The director continued: "When I was a little kid, I heard the story of +`Why the sea is salt' many times, but I never thought it important until just +a moment ago. It's something like this: Formerly the sea was fresh water and +salt was rare and expensive. A miller received from a wizard a wonderful +machine that just ground salt out of itself all day long. At first the miller +thought himself the most fortunate man in the world, but soon all the villages +had salt to last them for centuries and still the machine kept on grinding +more salt. The miller had to move out of his house, he had to move off his +acres. At last he determined that he would sink the machine in the sea and +be rid of it. But the mill ground so fast that boat and miller and machine +were sunk together, and down below, the mill still went on grinding and that's +why the sea is salt." + "I don't get you," said the assistant. + -- Guy Endore, "Men of Iron" +% +White dwarf seeks red giant for binary relationship. +% +Why do mathematicians insist on using words that already have another +meaning? "It is the complex case that is easier to deal with." "If it +doesn't happen at a corner, but at an edge, it nonetheless happens at a +corner." +% +Why don't you fix your little problem... and light this candle? + -- Alan Shepherd, the first man into space, Gemini program +% +With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once +build a nuclear balm? +% +With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand +miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and +still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no +such thing as progress. + -- Ransom K. Ferm +% +Without life, Biology itself would be impossible. +% +Xerox does it again and again and again and ... +% +Xerox never comes up with anything original. +% +Ya'll hear about the geometer who went to the beach to catch some +rays and became a tangent ? +% +"Yeah, but you're taking the universe out of context." +% + "Yes, let's consider," said Bruno, putting his thumb into his +mouth again, and sitting down upon a dead mouse. + "What do you keep that mouse for?" I said. "You should either +bury it or else throw it into the brook." + "Why, it's to measure with!" cried Bruno. "How ever would you +do a garden without one? We make each bed three mouses and a half +long, and two mouses wide." + I stopped him as he was dragging it off by the tail to show me +how it was used... + -- Lewis Carroll, "Sylvie and Bruno" +% + "Yo, Mike!" + "Yeah, Gabe?" + "We got a problem down on Earth. In Utah." + "I thought you fixed that last century!" + "No, no, not that. Someone's found a security problem in the physics +program. They're getting energy out of nowhere." + "Blessit! Lemme look... Hey, it's +there all right! OK, just a sec... +There, that ought to patch it. Dist it out, wouldja?" + -- Cold Fusion, 1989 +% +You are a taxi driver. Your cab is yellow and black, and has been in +use for only seven years. One of its windshield wipers is broken, and +the carburetor needs adjusting. The tank holds 20 gallons, but at the +moment is only three-quarters full. How old is the taxi driver?" +% +You can not get anything worthwhile done without raising a sweat. + -- The First Law Of Thermodynamics + +What ever you want is going to cost a little more than it is worth. + -- The Second Law Of Thermodynamics + +You can not win the game, and you are not allowed to stop playing. + -- The Third Law Of Thermodynamics +% +You can take all the impact that science considerations have on funding +decisions at NASA, put them in the navel of a flea, and have room left +over for a caraway seed and Tony Calio's heart. + -- F. Allen +% +You can't cheat the phone company. +% +You cannot have a science without measurement. + -- R. W. Hamming +% +You know you've landed gear-up when it takes full power to taxi. +% +You mean you didn't *know* she was off making lots of little phone companies? +% +You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than +about 10^12 to 1. + -- Ernest Rutherford +% +You should not use your fireplace, because scientists now believe that, +contrary to popular opinion, fireplaces actually remove heat from houses. +Really, that's what scientists believe. In fact many scientists actually +use their fireplaces to cool their houses in the summer. If you visit a +scientist's house on a sultry August day, you'll find a cheerful fire +roaring on the hearth and the scientist sitting nearby, remarking on how +cool he is and drinking heavily. + -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" +% +You will never amount to much. + -- Munich Schoolmaster, to Albert Einstein, age 10 +% +It is the theory which decides what can be observed. + -- Albert Einstein +% +God is subtle, but he is not malicious. + -- Albert Einstein +% +Dopeler effect: the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they +come at you rapidly. + -- Greg Oetjen of Lorton, VA in the Washington Post + "Style Invitational Report from Week 278" published + August 2, 1998 +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/songs-poems b/fortune-mod/datfiles/songs-poems new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cdfbcdd --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/songs-poems @@ -0,0 +1,7161 @@ +100 buckets of bits on the bus +100 buckets of bits +Take one down, short it to ground +FF buckets of bits on the bus + +FF buckets of bits on the bus +FF buckets of bits +Take one down, short it to ground +FE buckets of bits on the bus + +ad infinitum... +% +99 blocks of crud on the disk, +99 blocks of crud! +You patch a bug, and dump it again: +100 blocks of crud on the disk! + +100 blocks of crud on the disk, +100 blocks of crud! +You patch a bug, and dump it again: +101 blocks of crud on the disk! ... +% +A bit of talcum +Is always walcum + -- Ogden Nash +% +A box without hinges, key, or lid, +Yet golden treasure inside is hid. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien +% +A bunch of the boys were whooping it in the Malemute saloon; +The kid that handles the music box was hitting a jag-time tune; +Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, +And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou. + -- Robert W. Service +% +A cousin of mine once said about money, +money is always there but the pockets change; +it is not in the same pockets after a change, +and that is all there is to say about money. + -- Gertrude Stein +% +A Elbereth Gilthoniel, +silivren penna m'iriel +o menel aglar elenath! +Na chaered palan-d'iriel +o galadhremmin ennorath, +Fanuilos, le linnathon +nef aear, s'i nef aearon! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +A fitter fits; Though sinners sin +A cutter cuts; And thinners thin +And an aircraft spotter spots; And paper-blotters blot +A baby-sitter I've never yet +Baby-sits -- Had letters let +But an otter never ots. Or seen an otter ot. + +A batter bats +(Or scatters scats); +A potting shed's for potting; +But no one's found +A bounder bound +Or caught an otter otting. + -- Ralph Lewin +% +A is for awk, which runs like a snail, and +B is for biff, which reads all your mail. +C is for cc, as hackers recall, while +D is for dd, the command that does all. +E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys, and +F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees. +G is for grep, a clever detective, while +H is for halt, which may seem defective. +I is for indent, which rarely amuses, and +J is for join, which nobody uses. +K is for kill, which makes you the boss, while +L is for lex, which is missing from DOS. +M is for more, from which less was begot, and +N is for nice, which it really is not. +O is for od, which prints out things nice, while +P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice. +Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable, and +R is for ranlib, for sorting ar table. +S is for spell, which attempts to belittle, while +T is for true, which does very little. +U is for uniq, which is used after sort, and +V is for vi, which is hard to abort. +W is for whoami, which tells you your name, while +X is, well, X, of dubious fame. +Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and +Z is for zcat, which handles compression. + -- THE ABC'S OF UNIX +% +A lady with one of her ears applied +To an open keyhole heard, inside, +Two female gossips in converse free -- +The subject engaging them was she. +"I think", said one, "and my husband thinks +That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!" +As soon as no more of it she could hear +The lady, indignant, removed her ear. +"I will not stay," she said with a pout, +"To hear my character lied about!" + -- Gopete Sherany +% +A little word of doubtful number, +A foe to rest and peaceful slumber. +If you add an "s" to this, +Great is the metamorphosis. +Plural is plural now no more, +And sweet what bitter was before. +What am I? +% +A man is like a rusty wheel on a rusty cart, +He sings his song as he rattles along and then he falls apart. + -- Richard Thompson +% +A man of genius makes no mistakes. +His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. + -- James Joyce, "Ulysses" +% +A man who fishes for marlin in ponds +will put his money in Etruscan bonds. +% +A mighty creature is the germ, +Though smaller than the pachyderm. +His customary dwelling place +Is deep within the human race. +His childish pride he often pleases +By giving people strange diseases. +Do you, my poppet, feel infirm? +You probably contain a germ. + -- Ogden Nash +% +A pig is a jolly companion, +Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt -- +A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, +Though mountains may topple and tilt. +When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, +When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig, +Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, +You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig, +You'll never go wrong with a pig! + -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" +% +A robin redbreast in a cage +Puts all Heaven in a rage. + -- Blake +% +A salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed. +Imaginary creatures are trapped in birth on celluloid. + -- Genesis, "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" + +I don't know what it's about. I'm just the drummer. Ask Peter. + -- Phil Collins in 1975, when asked about the message behind + the previous year's Genesis release, "The Lamb Lies Down + on Broadway". +% +A single flow'r he sent me, since we met. +All tenderly his messenger he chose; +Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet-- +One perfect rose. + +I knew the language of the floweret; +"My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose." +Love long has taken for his amulet +One perfect rose. + +Why is it no one ever sent me yet +One perfect limousine, do you suppose? +Ah no, it's always just my luck to get +One perfect rose. + -- Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose" +% +A truth that's told with bad intent +Beats all the lies you can invent. + -- William Blake +% +A-Z affectionately, +1 to 10 alphabetically, +from here to eternity without in betweens, +still looking for a custom fit in an off-the-rack world, +sales talk from sales assistants + when all i want to do is lower your resistance, +no rhythm in cymbals no tempo in drums, +love's on arrival, +she comes when she comes, +right on the target but wide of the mark... +% +Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) +Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, +And saw, within the moonlight in his room, +Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, +An angel writing in a book of gold. +Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, +And to the presence in the room he said, +"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head, +And with a look made of all sweet accord, +Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord." +"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay not so," +Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, +But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee then, +Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." +The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night +It came again with a great wakening light, +And showed the names whom love of God had blessed, +And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. + -- James Henry Leigh Hunt, "Abou Ben Adhem" +% +After a while you learn the subtle difference +Between holding a hand and chaining a soul, +And you learn that love doesn't mean security, +And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts +And presents aren't promises +And you begin to accept your defeats +With your head up and your eyes open, +With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child, +And you learn to build all your roads +On today because tomorrow's ground +Is too uncertain. And futures have +A way of falling down in midflight, +After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. +So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting +For someone to bring you flowers. +And you learn that you really can endure... +That you really are strong, +And you really do have worth +And you learn and learn +With every goodbye you learn. + -- Veronic Shoffstall, "Comes the Dawn" +% +After all my erstwhile dear, +My no longer cherished, +Need we say it was not love, +Just because it perished? + -- Edna St. Vincent Millay +% +Again she fled, but swift he came. +Tin'uviel! Tin'uviel! +He called her by her elvish name; +And there she halted listening. +One moment stood she, and a spell +His voice laid on her: Beren came +And doom fell on Tin'uviel +That in his arms lay glistening. + +As Beren looked into her eyes +Within the shadows of her hair, +The trembling starlight of the skies +He saw there mirrored shimmering. +Tin'uviel the elven-fair, +Immortal maiden elven-wise, +About him cast her shadowy hair +And arms like silver glimmering. + +Long was the way that fate them bore, +O'er stony mountains cold and grey, +Through halls of iron and darkling door, +And woods of nightshade morrowless. +The Sundering Seas between them lay, +And yet at last they met once more, +And long ago they passed away +In the forest singing sorrowless. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% + Against Idleness and Mischief + +How doth the little busy bee How skillfully she builds her cell! +Improve each shining hour, How neat she spreads the wax! +And gather honey all the day And labours hard to store it well +From every opening flower! With the sweet food she makes. + +In works of labour or of skill In books, or work, or healthful play, +I would be busy too; Let my first years be passed, +For Satan finds some mischief still That I may give for every day +For idle hands to do. Some good account at last. + -- Isaac Watts, 1674-1748 +% +Ah, but a man's grasp should exceed his reach, +Or what's a heaven for ? + -- Robert Browning, "Andrea del Sarto" +% +Ah, but the choice of dreams to live, +there's the rub. + +For all dreams are not equal, +some exit to nightmare +most end with the dreamer + +But at least one must be lived ... and died. +% +Ah, my friends, from the prison, they ask unto me, +"How good, how good does it feel to be free?" +And I answer them most mysteriously: +"Are birds free from the chains of the sky-way?" + -- Bob Dylan +% +Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall, +Aleph-null bottles of beer, +You take one down, and pass it around, +Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. +% +Alive without breath, +As cold as death; +Never thirsty, ever drinking, +All in mail never clinking. +% +All I need to have a good time, +Is a reefer, a woman and a bottle of wine. +With those three things I don't need no sunshine, +A reefer, a woman and a bottle of wine. + +All I want is to never grow old, +I want to wash in a bathtub of gold. +I want 97 kilos already rolled, +I want to wash in a bathtub of gold. + +I want to light my cigars with 10 dollar bills, +I like to have a cattle ranch in Beverly Hills. +I want a bottle of Red Eye that's always filled, +I like to have a cattle ranch in Beverly Hills. + -- Country Joe and the Fish, "Zachariah" +% +All my friends are getting married, +Yes, they're all growing old, +They're all staying home on the weekend, +They're all doing what they're told. +% +All that is gold does not glitter, +Not all those who wander are lost; +The old that is strong does not wither, +Deep roots are not reached by the frost. +From the ashes a fire shall be woken, +A light from the shadows shall spring; +Renewed shall be blade that was broken, +The crownless again shall be king. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien +% + All that you touch, And all you create, + All that you see, And all you destroy, + All that you taste, All that you do, + All you feel, And all you say, + And all that you love, All that you eat, + And all that you hate, And everyone you meet, + All you distrust, All that you slight, + All you save, And everyone you fight, + And all that you give, And all that is now, + And all that you deal, And all that is gone, + All that you buy, And all that's to come, + Beg, borrow or steal, And everything under the sun is + in tune, + But the sun is eclipsed + By the moon. + +There is no dark side of the moon... really... matter of fact it's all dark. + -- Pink Floyd, "Dark Side of the Moon" +% +All the lines have been written There's been Sandburg, +It's sad but it's true Keats, Poe and McKuen +With all the words gone, They all had their day +What's a young poet to do? And knew what they're doin' + +But of all the words written The bird is a strange one, +And all the lines read, So small and so tender +There's one I like most, Its breed still unknown, +And by a bird it was said! Not to mention its gender. + +It reminds me of days of So what is this line +Both gloom and of light. Whose author's unknown +It still lifts my spirits And still makes me giggle +And starts the day right. Even now that I'm grown? + +I've read all the greats +Both starving and fat, +But none was as great as +"I tot I taw a puddy tat." + -- Etta Stallings, "An Ode To Childhood" +% +All the world's a VAX, +And all the coders merely butchers; +They have their exits and their entrails; +And one int in his time plays many widths, +His sizeof being _N bytes. At first the infant, +Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms. +And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun, +And shining morning face, creeping like slug +Unwillingly to school. + -- A Very Annoyed PDP-11 +% +All who joy would win Must share it -- +Happiness was born a twin. + -- Lord Byron +% +An eye in a blue face +Saw an eye in a green face. +"That eye is like this eye" +Said the first eye, +"But in low place, +Not in high place." +% +An Hacker there was, one of the finest sort +Who controlled the system; graphics was his sport. +A manly man, to be a wizard able; +Many a protected file he had sitting on his table. +His console, when he typed, a man might hear +Clicking and feeping wind as clear, +Aye, and as loud as does the machine room bell +Where my lord Hacker was Prior of the cell. +The Rule of good St Savage or St Doeppnor +As old and strict he tended to ignore; +He let go by the things of yesterday +And took the modern world's more spacious way. +He did not rate that text as a plucked hen +Which says that Hackers are not holy men. +And that a hacker underworked is a mere +Fish out of water, flapping on the pier. +That is to say, a hacker out of his cloister. +That was a text he held not worth an oyster. +And I agreed and said his views were sound; +Was he to study till his head wend round +Poring over books in the cloisters? Must he toil +As Andy bade and till the very soil? +Was he to leave the world upon the shelf? +Let Andy have his labor to himself! + -- Chaucer + [well, almost. Ed.] +% +And all that the Lorax left here in this mess +was a small pile of rocks with the one word, "unless." +Whatever THAT meant, well, I just couldn't guess. +That was long, long ago, and each day since that day, +I've worried and worried and worried away. +Through the years as my buildings have fallen apart, +I've worried about it with all of my heart. + +"BUT," says the Oncler, "now that you're here, +the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear! +UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, +nothing is going to get better - it's not. +So... CATCH!" cries the Oncler. He lets something fall. +"It's a truffula seed. It's the last one of all! + +"You're in charge of the last of the truffula seeds. +And truffula trees are what everyone needs. +Plant a new truffula -- treat it with care. +Give it clean water and feed it fresh air. +Grow a forest -- protect it from axes that hack. +Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back!" +% +And as we stand on the edge of darkness +Let our chant fill the void +That others may know + + In the land of the night + The ship of the sun + Is drawn by + The grateful dead. + -- Tibetan "Book of the Dead," ca. 4000 BC. +% +And did those feet, in ancient times, +Walk upon England's mountains green? +And was the Holy Lamb of God +In England's pleasant pastures seen? +And did the Countenance Divine +Shine forth upon these crowded hills? +And was Jerusalem builded here +Among these dark satanic mills? + +Bring me my bow of burning gold! +Bring me my arrows of desire! +Bring me my spears! O clouds unfold! +Bring me my chariot of fire! +I shall not cease from mental fight, +Nor shall my sword rest in my hand, +Till we have built Jerusalem +In England's green and pleasant land. + -- William Blake, "Jerusalem" +% +And here I wait so patiently +Waiting to find out what price +You have to pay to get out of +Going thru all of these things twice + -- Dylan, "Memphis Blues Again" +% +And I heard Jeff exclaim, +As they strolled out of sight, +"Merry Christmas to all -- +You take credit cards, right?" + -- "Outsiders" comic +% +And if California slides into the ocean, +Like the mystics and statistics say it will. +I predict this motel will be standing, +Until I've paid my bill. + -- Warren Zevon, "Desperados Under the Eaves" +% +And if sometime, somewhere, someone asketh thee, +"Who kilt thee?", tell them it 'twas the Doones of Bagworthy! +% +And if you wonder, +What I am doing, +As I am heading for the sink. +I am spitting out all the bitterness, +Along with half of my last drink. +% +And in the heartbreak years that lie ahead, +Be true to yourself and the Grateful Dead. + -- Joan Baez +% +And miles to go before I sleep. + -- Robert Frost +% +And now your toner's toney, Disk blocks aplenty +And your paper near pure white, Await your laser drawn lines, +The smudges on your soul are gone Your intricate fonts, +And your output's clean as light.. Your pictures and signs. + +We've labored with your father, Your amputative absence +The venerable XGP, Has made the Ten dumb, +But his slow artistic hand, Without you, Dover, +Lacks your clean velocity. We're system untounged- + +Theses and papers DRAW Plots and TEXage +And code in a queue Have been biding their time, +Dover, oh Dover, With LISP code and programs, +We've been waiting for you. And this crufty rhyme. + +Dover, oh Dover, Dover, oh Dover, arisen from dead. +We welcome you back, Dover, oh Dover, awoken from bed. +Though still you may jam, Dover, oh Dover, welcome back to the Lab. +You're on the right track. Dover, oh Dover, we've missed your clean + hand... +% +...and report cards I was always afraid to show +Mama'd come to school +and as I'd sit there softly cryin' +Teacher'd say he's just not tryin' +Got a good head if he'd apply it +but you know yourself +it's always somewhere else +I'd build me a castle +with dragons and kings +and I'd ride off with them +As I stood by my window +and looked out on those +Brooklyn roads + -- Neil Diamond, "Brooklyn Roads" +% +And so it was, later, +As the miller told his tale, +That her face, at first just ghostly, +Turned a whiter shade of pale. + -- Procol Harum +% +And the silence came surging softly backwards +When the plunging hooves were gone... + -- Walter de La Mare, "The Listeners" +% +And this is good old Boston, +The home of the bean and the cod, +Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots, +And the Cabots talk only to God. +% +And we heard him exclaim +As he started to roam: +"I'm a hologram, kids, +please don't try this at home!'" + -- Bob Violence +% +And... What in the world ever became of Sweet Jane? + She's lost her sparkle, you see she isn't the same. + Livin' on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine + All a friend can say is "Ain't it a shame?" + -- The Grateful Dead +% +Angels we have heard on High +Tell us to go out and Buy. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Antonio Antonio +Was tired of living alonio +He thought he would woo Antonio Antonio +Miss Lucamy Lu, Rode of on his polo ponio +Miss Lucamy Lucy Molonio. And found the maid + In a bowery shade, + Sitting and knitting alonio. +Antonio Antonio +Said if you will be my ownio +I'll love tou true Oh nonio Antonio +And buy for you You're far too bleak and bonio +An icery creamry conio. And all that I wish + You singular fish + Is that you will quickly begonio. +Antonio Antonio +Uttered a dismal moanio +And went off and hid +Or I'm told that he did +In the Antartical Zonio. +% +April is the cruellest month... + -- Thomas Stearns Eliot +% +Are there those in the land of the brave +Who can tell me how I should behave + When I am disgraced + Because I erased + A file I intended to save? +% +As for the women, though we scorn and flout 'em, +We may live with, but cannot live without 'em. + -- Frederic Reynolds +% +As I was going up Punch Card Hill, + Feeling worse and worser, +There I met a C.R.T. + And it drop't me a cursor. + +C.R.T., C.R.T., + Phosphors light on you! +If I had fifty hours a day + I'd spend them all at you. + -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes +% +As I was passing Project MAC, +I met a Quux with seven hacks. +Every hack had seven bugs; +Every bug had seven manifestations; +Every manifestation had seven symptoms. +Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks, +How many losses at Project MAC? +% +As I was walking down the street one dark and dreary day, +I came upon a billboard and much to my dismay, +The words were torn and tattered, +From the storm the night before, +The wind and rain had done its work and this is how it goes, + +Smoke Coca-Cola cigarettes, chew Wrigleys Spearmint beer, +Ken-L-Ration dog food makes your complexion clear, +Simonize your baby in a Hershey candy bar, +And Texaco's a beauty cream that's used by every star. + +Take your next vacation in a brand new Frigedaire, +Learn to play the piano in your winter underwear, +Doctors say that babies should smoke until they're three, +And people over sixty-five should bathe in Lipton tea. +% +As me an' me marrer was readin' a tyape, +The tyape gave a shriek mark an' tried tae escyape; +It skipped ower the gyate tae the end of the field, +An' jigged oot the room wi' a spool an' a reel! +Follow the leader, Johnny me laddie, +Follow it through, me canny lad O; +Follow the transport, Johnny me laddie, +Away, lad, lie away, canny lad O! + -- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +As some day it may happen that a victim must be found +I've got a little list -- I've got a little list +Of society offenders who might well be underground +And who never would be missed -- who never would be missed. + -- Koko, "The Mikado" +% +At times discretion should be thrown aside, +and with the foolish we should play the fool. + -- Menander +% +Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Azh nazg durbatal^uk, azh nazg gimbatul, +Azh nazg thrakatal^uk agh burzum ishi krimpatul! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely +get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your face. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Be valiant, but not too venturous. +Let thy attire be comely, but not costly. + -- John Lyly +% +Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all +Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. + -- John Keats +% +Because I do, +Because I do not hope, +Because I do not hope to survive +Injustice from the Palace, death from the air, +Because I do, only do, +I continue... + -- T.S. Pynchon +% +Beneath this stone lies Murphy, +They buried him today, +He lived the life of Riley, +While Riley was away. +% + better !pout !cry + better watchout + lpr why + santa claus < north pole > town + + cat /etc/passwd > list + ncheck list + ncheck list + cat list | grep naughty > nogiftlist + cat list | grep nice > giftlist + santa claus < north pole > town + + who | grep sleeping + who | grep awake + who | grep bad || good + for (goodness sake) { + be good + } +% +Between the idea +And the reality +Between the motion +And the act +Falls the Shadow + -- T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Man" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to system service dispatching.] +% +Big M, Little M, many mumbling mice +Are making midnight music in the moonlight, +Mighty nice! +% +Bit off more than my mind could chew, +Shower or suicide, what do I do? + -- Julie Brown, "Will I Make it Through the Eighties?" +% +Black shiny mollies and bright colored guppies, +Shy little angels as gentle as puppies, +Swimming and diving with scarcely a swish, +They were just some of my tropical fish. + +Then I got mantas that sting in the water, +Deadly piranhas that itch for a slaughter, +Savage male betas that bite with a squish, +Now I have many less tropical fish. + + If you think that + Fish are peaceful + That's an empty wish. + Just dump them together + And leave them alone, + And soon you will have -- no fish. + -- To My Favorite Things +% +Blackout, heatwave, .44 caliber homicide, +The bums drop dead and the dogs go mad in packs on the West Side, +A young girl standing on a ledge, looks like another suicide, +She wants to hit those bricks, + 'cause the news at six got to stick to a deadline, +While the millionaires hide in Beekman place, +The bag ladies throw their bones in my face, +I get attacked by a kid with stereo sound, +I don't want to hear it but he won't turn it down... + -- Billy Joel, "Glass Houses" +% +Boy, get your head out of the stars above, +You get the maximum pleasure from a minimum of love. +Save your heart and let your body be enough, +To get the maximum pleasure from a minimum of love. +Save your heart and let your body be enough, +And get the maximum pleasure from a minimum of love. + -- Mac Macinelli, "Minimum Love" +% +Breathe deep the gathering gloom. +Watch lights fade from every room. +Bed-sitter people look back and lament; +another day's useless energies spent. + +Impassioned lovers wrestle as one. +Lonely man cries for love and has none. +New mother picks up and suckles her son. +Senior citizens wish they were young. + +Cold-hearted orb that rules the night; +Removes the colors from our sight. +Red is grey and yellow white. +But we decide which is real, and which is an illusion." + -- The Moody Blues, "Days of Future Passed" +% +Brillineggiava, ed i tovoli slati + girlavano ghimbanti nella vaba; +i borogovi eran tutti mimanti + e la moma radeva fuorigraba. + +"Figliuolo mio, sta' attento al Gibrovacco, + dagli artigli e dal morso lacerante; +fuggi l'uccello Giuggiolo, e nel sacco + metti infine il frumioso Bandifante". + -- Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky" +% +But has any little atom, + While a-sittin' and a-splittin', +Ever stopped to think or CARE + That E = m c**2 ? +% +But I was there and I saw what you did, +I saw it with my own two eyes. +So you can wipe off that grin; +I know where you've been-- +It's all been a pack of lies! +% +But scientists, who ought to know +Assure us that it must be so. +Oh, let us never, never doubt +What nobody is sure about. + -- Hilaire Belloc +% +But soft you, the fair Ophelia: +Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, +But get thee to a nunnery -- go! + -- Mark "The Bard" Twain +% +But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, +In proving foresight may be vain: +The best laid schemes o' mice an' men +Gang aft a-gley, +An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain +For promised joy. + -- Robert Burns, "To a Mouse", 1785 +% +Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes +Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn; +Less dear than army ants in apple pies +Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn, +Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit; +Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose +They suck, and like the double-breasted suit +Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose, +Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed; +And stem the produce of thy waspish wits: +Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed; +Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits. +Be off, I say; go bug somebody new, +Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you. +% +By the time you swear you're his, +shivering and sighing +and he vows his passion is +infinite, undying -- +Lady, make a note of this: +One of you is lying. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Unfortunate Coincidence" +% +By the yard, life is hard. +By the inch, it's a cinch. +% +Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes, +Calm down, it's only bits and bytes, +Calm down, and speak to me in English, +Please realize that I'm not one of your computerites. +% +Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain? +Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, +A root or two, a torus and a node: +The inverse of my verse, a null domain. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Candy +Is dandy +But liquor +Is quicker. + -- Ogden Nash, "Reflections on Ice-Breaking" + +Fortune updates the great quotes: #53. + Candy is dandy; but liquor is quicker, + and sex won't rot your teeth. +% +Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world. + -- The Beach Boys +% +Cecil, you're my final hope +Of finding out the true Straight Dope +For I have been reading of Schrodinger's cat +But none of my cats are at all like that. +This unusual animal (so it is said) +Is simultaneously alive and dead! +What I don't understand is just why he +Can't be one or the other, unquestionably. +My future now hangs in between eigenstates. +In one I'm enlightened, in the other I ain't. +If *you* understand, Cecil, then show me the way +And rescue my psyche from quantum decay. +But if this queer thing has perplexed even you, +Then I will *___and* I won't see you in Schrodinger's zoo. + -- Randy F., Chicago, "The Straight Dope, a compendium + of human knowledge" by Cecil Adams +% +Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, +But it's very funny -- did you ever try buying them without money? + -- Ogden Nash +% +Charlie was a chemist, +But Charlie is no more. +For what he thought was H2O, +Was H2SO4. +% +Children aren't happy without something to ignore, +And that's what parents were created for. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Chivalry, Schmivalry! + Roger the thief has a + method he uses for + sneaky attacks: +Folks who are reading are + Characteristically + Always Forgetting to + Guard their own bac ... +% +Christmas time is here, by Golly; Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens; +Disapproval would be folly; Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens; +Deck the halls with hunks of holly; Even though the prospect sickens, +Fill the cup and don't say when... Brother, here we go again. + +On Christmas day, you can't get sore; Relations sparing no expense'll, +Your fellow man you must adore; Send some useless old utensil, +There's time to rob him all the more, Or a matching pen and pencil, +The other three hundred and sixty-four! Just the thing I need... how nice. + +It doesn't matter how sincere Hark The Herald-Tribune sings, +It is, nor how heartfelt the spirit; Advertising wondrous things. +Sentiment will not endear it; God Rest Ye Merry Merchants, +What's important is... the price. May you make the Yuletide pay. + Angels We Have Heard On High, +Let the raucous sleighbells jingle; Tell us to go out and buy. +Hail our dear old friend, Kris Kringle, Sooooo... +Driving his reindeer across the sky, +Don't stand underneath when they fly by! + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Cold be hand and heart and bone, +and cold be sleep under stone; +never more to wake on stony bed, +never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead. + +In the black wind the stars shall die, +and still on gold here let them lie, +till the dark lord lifts his hand +over dead sea and withered land. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Come fill the cup and in the fire of spring +Your winter garment of repentence fling. +The bird of time has but a little way +To flutter -- and the bird is on the wing. + -- Omar Khayyam +% +Come live with me and be my love, +And we will some new pleasures prove +Of golden sands and crystal brooks +With silken lines, and silver hooks. +There's nothing that I wouldn't do +If you would be my POSSLQ. + +You live with me, and I with you, +And you will be my POSSLQ. +I'll be your friend and so much more; +That's what a POSSLQ is for. + +And everything we will confess; +Yes, even to the IRS. +Some day on what we both may earn, +Perhaps we'll file a joint return. +You'll share my pad, my taxes, joint; +You'll share my life - up to a point! +And that you'll be so glad to do, +Because you'll be my POSSLQ. +% +Come live with me, and be my love, +And we will some new pleasures prove +Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, +With silken lines, and silver hooks. + -- John Donne +% +Come on, Virginia, don't make me wait! +Catholic girls start much too late, +Ah, but sooner or later, it comes down to fate, +I might as well be the one. +Well, they showed you a statue, told you to pray, +Built you a temple and locked you away, +Ah, but they never told you the price that you paid, +The things that you might have done. +So come on, Virginia, show me a sign, +Send up a signal, I'll throw you a line, +That stained glass curtain that you're hiding behind, +Never lets in the sun. +Darling, only the good die young! + -- Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young" +% +Come, every frustum longs to be a cone, +And every vector dreams of matrices. +Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze: +It whispers of a more ergodic zone. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Come, landlord, fill the flowing bowl until it does run over, +Tonight we will all merry be -- tomorrow we'll get sober. + -- John Fletcher, "The Bloody Brother", II, 2 +% +Come, let us hasten to a higher plane, +Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, +Their indices bedecked from one to _n, +Commingled in an endless Markov chain! + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Come, muse, let us sing of rats! + -- From a poem by James Grainger, 1721-1767 +% +Come, you spirits +That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, +And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full +Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood, +Stop up the access and passage to remorse +That no compunctious visiting of nature +Shake my fell purpose, not keep peace between +The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, +And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, +Wherever in your sightless substances +You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, +And pall the in the dunnest smoke of hell, +That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, +Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, +To cry `Hold, hold!' + -- Lady MacBeth +% +Coming to Stores Near You: + +101 Grammatically Correct Popular Tunes Featuring: + + (You Aren't Anything but a) Hound Dog + It Doesn't Mean a Thing If It Hasn't Got That Swing + I'm Not Misbehaving + +And A Whole Lot More... +% +Confusion will be my epitaph +as I walk a cracked and broken path +If we make it we can all sit back and laugh +but I fear that tomorrow we'll be crying. + -- King Crimson, "In the Court of the Crimson King" +% +Death comes on every passing breeze, +He lurks in every flower; +Each season has its own disease, +Its peril -- every hour. + --Reginald Heber +% + Deck us all with Boston Charlie, + Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo! + Nora's freezin' on the trolley, + Swaller dollar cauliflower, alleygaroo! + + Don't we know archaic barrel, + Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou. + Trolley Molly don't love Harold, + Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo! + -- Pogo, "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie" [Walt Kelly] +% +Declared guilty... of displaying feelings of an almost human nature. + -- Pink Floyd, "The Wall" +% +Despising machines to a man, +The Luddites joined up with the Klan, + And ride out by night + In a sheeting of white +To lynch all the robots they can. + -- C. M. and G. A. Maxson +% +Didja' ever have to make up your mind, +Pick up on one and leave the other behind, +It's not often easy, and it's not often kind, +Didja' ever have to make up your mind? + -- Lovin' Spoonful +% +Disillusioned words like bullets bark, +As human gods aim for their mark, +Make everything from toy guns that spark +To flesh-colored christs that glow in the dark. +It's easy to see without looking too far +That not much is really sacred. + -- Bob Dylan +% +Do your otters do the shimmy? +Do they like to shake their tails? +Do your wombats sleep in tophats? +Is your garden full of snails? +% +Don't be concerned, it will not harm you, +It's only me pursuing something I'm not sure of, +Across my dreams, with neptive wonder, +I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love. +% +Don't let nobody tell you what you cannot do; +don't let nobody tell you what's impossible for you; +don't let nobody tell you what you got to do, +or you'll never know ... what's on the other side of the rainbow... +remember, if you don't follow your dreams, +you'll never know what's on the other side of the rainbow... + -- melba moore, "the other side of the rainbow" +% +Don't lose +Your head +To gain a minute +You need your head +Your brains are in it. + -- Burma Shave +% +Don't wake me up too soon... +Gonna take a ride across the moon... +You and me. +% +Double Bucky, you're the one, +You make my keyboard so much fun, +Double Bucky, an additional bit or two, (Vo-vo-de-o) +Control and meta, side by side, +Augmented ASCII, 9 bits wide! +Double Bucky, a half a thousand glyphs, plus a few! + +Oh, I sure wish that I, +Had a couple of bits more! +Perhaps a set of pedals to make the number of bits four. + +Double Double Bucky! Double Bucky left and right +OR'd together, outta sight! +Double Bucky, I'd like a whole word of, +Double Bucky, I'm happy I heard of, +Double Bucky, I'd like a whole word of you! + -- to Nicholas Wirth, who suggested that an extra bit + be added to terminal codes on 36-bit machines for use + by screen editors. [to the tune of "Rubber Ducky"] +% +Down to the Banana Republics, +Down to the tropical sun. +Go the expatriated Americans, +Hoping to find some fun. +Some of them go for the sailing, +Caught by the lure of the sea. +Trying to find what is ailing, +Living in the land of the free. +Some of them are running from lovers, +Leaving no forward address. +Some of them are running tons of ganja, +Some are running from the IRS. +Late at night you will find them, +In the cheap hotels and bars. +Hustling the senoritas, +While they dance beneath the stars. + -- Jimmy Buffet, "Banana Republics" +% +Drink and dance and laugh and lie +Love, the reeling midnight through +For tomorrow we shall die! +(But, alas, we never do.) + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Flaw in Paganism" +% +Easy come and easy go, + some call me easy money, +Sometimes life is full of laughs, + and sometimes it ain't funny +You may think that I'm a fool + and sometimes that is true, +But I'm goin' to heaven in a flash of fire, + with or without you. + -- Hoyt Axton +% +Eleanor Rigby + Sits at the keyboard + And waits for a line on the screen +Lives in a dream +Waits for a signal + Finding some code + That will make the machine do some more. +What is it for? + +All the lonely users, where do they all come from? +All the lonely users, why does it take so long? + +Hacker MacKensie +Writing the code for a program that no one will run +It's nearly done +Look at him working, fixing the bugs in the night when there's + nobody there. +What does he care? + +All the lonely users, where do they all come from? +All the lonely users, why does it take so long? +Ah, look at all the lonely users. +Ah, look at all the lonely users. +% +Endless the world's turn, endless the sun's spinning +Endless the quest; +I turn again, back to my own beginning, +And here, find rest. +% +Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven + Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; +Und aller-m"umsige Burggoven + Dir mohmen R"ath ausgraben. + -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +Euch ist bekannt, was wir beduerfen; +Wir wollen stark Getraenke schluerfen. + -- Goethe, "Faust" +% +Even a man who is pure at heart, +And says his prayers at night +Can become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, +And the moon is full and bright. + -- The Wolf Man, 1941 +% +Even in the moment of our earliest kiss, +When sighed the straitened bud into the flower, +Sat the dry seed of most unwelcome this; +And that I knew, though not the day and hour. +Too season-wise am I, being country-bred, +To tilt at autumn or defy the frost: +Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did, +I say with them, "What's out tonight is lost." +I only hoped, with the mild hope of all +Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree, +A fairer summer and a later fall +Than in these parts a man is apt to see, +And sunny clusters ripened for the wine: +I tell you this across the blackened vine. + -- Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Even in the Moment of + Our Earliest Kiss", 1931 +% +Ever Onward! Ever Onward! +That's the sprit that has brought us fame. +We're big but bigger we will be, +We can't fail for all can see, that to serve humanity +Has been our aim. +Our products now are known in every zone. +Our reputation sparkles like a gem. +We've fought our way thru +And new fields we're sure to conquer, too +For the Ever Onward IBM! + -- Ever Onward, from the 1940 IBM Songbook +% +Ever since I was a young boy, +I've hacked the ARPA net, +From Berkeley down to Rutgers, He's on my favorite terminal, +Any access I could get, He cats C right into foo, +But ain't seen nothing like him, His disciples lead him in, +On any campus yet, And he just breaks the root, +That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, Always has full SYS-PRIV's, +Sure sends a mean packet. Never uses lint, + That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, + Sure sends a mean packet. +He's a UNIX wizard, +There has to be a twist. +The UNIX wizard's got Ain't got no distractions, +Unlimited space on disk. Can't hear no whistles or bells, +How do you think he does it? Can't see no message flashing, +I don't know. Types by sense of smell, +What makes him so good? Those crazy little programs, + The proper bit flags set, + That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, + Sure sends a mean packet. + -- UNIX Wizard +% +Every love's the love before +In a duller dress. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Summary" +% +Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. + -- Miguel de Cervantes +% +Every night my prayers I say, + And get my dinner every day; +And every day that I've been good, + I get an orange after food. +The child that is not clean and neat, + With lots of toys and things to eat, +He is a naughty child, I'm sure-- + Or else his dear papa is poor. + -- Robert Louis Stevenson +% +Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their +fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the +good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed: the poor stay +poor, the rich get rich. That's how it goes. Everybody knows. + +Everybody knows that the boat is leaking. Everybody knows the captain +lied. Everybody got this broken feeling like their father or their dog +just died. + +Everybody talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates +and long stem rose. Everybody knows. + +Everybody knows that you love me, baby. Everybody knows that you really +do. Everybody knows that you've been faithful, give or take a night or +two. Everybody knows you've been discreet, but there were so many people +you just had to meet without your clothes. And everybody knows. + +And everybody knows it's now or never. Everybody knows that it's me or you. +And everybody knows that you live forever when you've done a line or two. +Everybody knows the deal is rotten: Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton +for you ribbons and bows. And everybody knows. + -- Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows" +% +Everything's great in this good old world; +(This is the stuff they can always use.) +God's in his heaven, the hill's dew-pearled; +(This will provide for baby's shoes.) +Hunger and War do not mean a thing; +Everything's rosy where'er we roam; +Hark, how the little birds gaily sing! +(This is what fetches the bacon home.) + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Far Sighted Muse" +% +Everywhere you go you'll see them searching, +Everywhere you turn you'll feel the pain, +Everyone is looking for the answer, +Well look again. + -- Moody Blues, "Lost in a Lost World" +% +F: When into a room I plunge, I + Sometimes find some VIOLET FUNGI. + Then I linger, darkly brooding + On the poison they're exuding. + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% +Families, when a child is born +Want it to be intelligent. +I, through intelligence, +Having wrecked my whole life, +Only hope the baby will prove +Ignorant and stupid. +Then he will crown a tranquil life +By becoming a Cabinet Minister + -- Su Tung-p'o +% +Farewell we call to hearth and hall! +Though wind may blow and rain may fall, +We must away ere break of day +Far over wood and mountain tall. + + To Rivendell, where Elves yet dwell + In glades beneath the misty fell, + Through moor and waste we ride in haste, + And whither then we cannot tell. + +With foes ahead, behind us dread, +Beneath the sky shall be our bed, +Until at last our toil be passed, +Our journey done, our errand sped. + + We must away! We must away! + We ride before the break of day! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Felix Catus is your taxonomic nomenclature, +An endothermic quadroped, carnivorous by nature. +Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses +Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses. +I find myself intrigued by your sub-vocal oscillations, +A singular development of cat communications +That obviates your basic hedonistic predelection +For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection. +A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents: +You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance; +And when not being utilitized to aid in locomotion, +It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion. +Oh Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display +Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array. +And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend, +I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend. + -- Lt. Cmdr. Data, "An Ode to Spot" +% +Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, +Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! +Drink and the devil had done for the rest, +Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! + -- Stevenson, "Treasure Island" +% +Fifty flippant frogs +Walked by on flippered feet +And with their slime they made the time +Unnaturally fleet. +% +Finality is death. +Perfection is finality. +Nothing is perfect. +There are lumps in it. +% +Five names that I can hardly stand to hear, +Including yours and mine and one more chimp who isn't here, +I can see the ladies talking how the times is gettin' hard, +And that fearsome excavation on Magnolia boulevard, +Yes, I'm goin' insane, +And I'm laughing at the frozen rain, +Well, I'm so alone, honey when they gonna send me home? + Bad sneakers and a pina colada my friend, + Stopping on the avenue by Radio City, with a + Transistor and a large sum of money to spend... +You fellah, you tearin' up the street, +You wear that white tuxedo, how you gonna beat the heat, +Do you take me for a fool, do you think that I don't see, +That ditch out in the Valley that they're diggin' just for me, +Yes, and goin' insane, +You know I'm laughin' at the frozen rain, +Feel like I'm so alone, honey when they gonna send me home? +(chorus) + -- Bad Sneakers, "Steely Dan" +% +Flying saucers on occasion + Show themselves to human eyes. +Aliens fume, put off invasion + While they brand these tales as lies. +% +"For a couple o' pins," says Troll, and grins, +"I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins. +A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet! +I'll try my teeth on thee now. + Hee now! See now! +I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins; +I've a mind to dine on thee now." + +But just as he thought his dinner was caught, +He found his hands had hold of naught. +Before he could mind, Tom slipped behing +And gave him the boot to larn him. + Warn him! Darn him! +A bump o' the boot on the seat, Tom thoguht, +Would be the way to larn him. + +But harder than stone is the flesh and bone +Of a troll that sits in the hills alone. +As well set your boot to the mountain's root, +For the seat of a troll don't feel it. + Peel it! Heal it! +Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan, +And he knew his toes could feel it. + +Tom's leg is game, since home he came, +And his bootless foot is lasting lame; +But Troll don't care, and he's still there +With the bone he boned from its owner. + Doner! Boner! +Troll's old seat is still the same, +And the bone he boned from its owner! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +For gin, in cruel +Sober truth, +Supplies the fuel +For flaming youth. + -- Noel Coward +% +For knighthood is not in the feats of war, +As for to fight in quarrel right or wrong, +But in a cause which truth cannot defer: +He ought himself for to make sure and strong, +Just to keep mixt with mercy among: +And no quarrel a knight ought to take +But for a truth, or for the common's sake. + -- Stephen Hawes +% +"Force is but might," the teacher said-- +"That definition's just." +The boy said naught but thought instead, +Remembering his pounded head: +"Force is not might but must!" +% +Four be the things I am wiser to know: +Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. + +Four be the things I'd been better without: +Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. + +Three be the things I shall never attain: +Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. + +Three be the things I shall have till I die: +Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Inventory" [or "Not so Deep as a Well"?] +% +Friends, Romans, Hipsters, +Let me clue you in; +I come to put down Caesar, not to groove him. +The square kicks some cats are on stay with them; +The hip bits, like, go down under; +so let it lay with Caesar. The cool Brutus +Gave you the message: Caesar had big eyes; +If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea, +And, like, old Caesar really set them straight. +Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, -- +for Brutus is a real cool cat; +So are they all, all cool cats, -- +Come I to make this gig at Caesar's laying down. +% +From too much love of living, +From hope and fear set free, +We thank with brief thanksgiving, +Whatever gods may be, +That no life lives forever, +That dead men rise up never, +That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea. + -- Swinburne +% +Get in touch with your feelings of hostility against the dying light. + -- Dylan Thomas [paraphrased periphrastically] +% +Get out, you old Wight! Vanish in the sunlight! +Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing, +Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains! +Come never here again! Leave your barrow empty! +Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness, +Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Gibson's Springtime Song (to the tune of "Deck the Halls"): + +'Tis the season to chase mousies (Fa la la la la, la la la la) +Snatch them from their little housies (...) +First we chase them 'round the field (...) +Then we have them for a meal (...) + +Toss them here and catch them there (...) +See them flying through the air (...) +Watch them fly and hear them squeal (...) +Falling mice have great appeal (...) + +See the hunter stretched before us (...) +He's chased the mice in field and forest (...) +Watch him clean his long white whiskers (...) +Of the blood of little critters (...) +% +Gil-galad was an Elven-king. +Of him the harpers sadly sing: +the last whose realm was fair and free +between the Mountains and the Sea. + +His sword was long, his lance was keen, +his shining helm afar was seen; +the countless stars of heaven's field +were mirrored in his silver shield. + +But long ago he rode away, +and where he dwelleth none can say; +for into darkness fell his star +in Mordor where the shadows are. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Gimme Twinkies, gimme wine, + Gimme jeans by Calvin Kline ... +But if you split those atoms fine, + Mama keep 'em off those genes of mine! + +Gimme zits, take my dough, + Gimme arsenic in my jelly roll ... +Call the devil and sell my soul, + But Mama keep dem atoms whole! + -- Milo Bloom, "The Split-Atom Blues," in "Bloom County" +% +Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe, +Bold I can meet -- perhaps may turn his blow! +But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send, +Save me, oh save me from the candid friend. + -- George Canning +% +Give me your students, your secretaries, +Your huddled writers yearning to breathe free, +The wretched refuse of your Selectric III's. +Give these, the homeless, typist-tossed to me. +I lift my disk beside the processor. + -- Inscription on a Word Processor +% +Go placidly amid the noise and waste, +And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. +Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. +Rotate your tires. +Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, +And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys. +Know what to kiss -- and when. +Remember that two wrongs never make a right, +But that three do. +Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD". +Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, +And despite the changing fortunes of time, +There is always a big future in computer maintenance. + + You are a fluke of the universe ... + You have no right to be here. + Whether you can hear it or not, the universe + Is laughing behind your back. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may +be in owning a piece thereof. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +God rest ye CS students now, The bearings on the drum are gone, +Let nothing you dismay. The disk is wobbling, too. +The VAX is down and won't be up, We've found a bug in Lisp, and Algol +Until the first of May. Can't tell false from true. +The program that was due this morn, And now we find that we can't get +Won't be postponed, they say. At Berkeley's 4.2. +(chorus) (chorus) + +We've just received a call from DEC, And now some cheery news for you, +They'll send without delay The network's also dead, +A monitor called RSuX We'll have to print your files on +It takes nine hundred K. The line printer instead. +The staff committed suicide, The turnaround time's nineteen weeks. +We'll bury them today. And only cards are read. +(chorus) (chorus) + +And now we'd like to say to you CHORUS: Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, +Before we go away, Comfort and joy, +We hope the news we've brought to you Oh, tidings of comfort and joy. +Won't ruin your whole day. +You've got another program due, tomorrow, by the way. +(chorus) + -- to God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen +% +Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields +Sold in a market down in New Orleans +Scarred old slaver knows he's doing alright +Hear him whip the women, just around midnight + +Ah, brown sugar how come you taste so good? +Ah, brown sugar just like a young girl should + +Drums beating cold English blood runs hot +Lady of the house wonderin' where it's gonna stop +House boy knows that he's doing alright +You should a heard him just around midnight. +... +I bet your mama was tent show queen +And all her girlfriends were sweet sixteen +I'm no school boy but I know what I like +You should have heard me just around midnight. + -- Rolling Stones, "Brown Sugar" +% +Got a wife and kids in Baltimore Jack, +I went out for a ride and never came back. +Like a river that don't know where it's flowing, +I took a wrong turn and I just kept going. + + Everybody's got a hungry heart. + Everybody's got a hungry heart. + Lay down your money and you play your part, + Everybody's got a hungry heart. + +I met her in a Kingstown bar, +We fell in love, I knew it had to end. +We took what we had and we ripped it apart, +Now here I am down in Kingstown again. + +Everybody needs a place to rest, +Everybody wants to have a home. +Don't make no difference what nobody says, +Ain't nobody likes to be alone. + -- Bruce Springsteen, "Hungry Heart" +% +Graphics blind the eyes. +Audio files deafen the ear. +Mouse clicks numb the fingers. +Heuristics weaken the mind. +Options wither the heart. + +The Guru observes the net +but trusts his inner vision. +He allows things to come and go. +His heart is as open as the ether. +% +H: If a 'GOBLIN (HOB) waylays you, + Slice him up before he slays you. + Nothing makes you look a slob + Like running from a HOB'LIN (GOB). + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% + Hack placidly amidst the noisy printers and remember what prizes there +may be in Science. As fast as possible get a good terminal on a good system. +Enter your data clearly but always encrypt your results. And listen to others, +even the dull and ignorant, for they may be your customers. Avoid loud and +aggressive persons, for they are sales reps. + If you compare your outputs with those of others, you may be surprised, +for always there will be greater and lesser numbers than you have crunched. +Keep others interested in your career, and try not to fumble; it can be a real +hassle and could change your fortunes in time. + Exercise system control in your experiments, for the world is full of +bugs. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive +for linearity and everywhere papers are full of approximations. Strive for +proportionality. Especially, do not faint when it occurs. Neither be cyclical +about results; for in the face of all data analysis it is sure to be noticed. + Take with a grain of salt the anomalous data points. Gracefully pass +them on to the youth at the next desk. Nurture some mutual funds to shield +you in times of sudden layoffs. But do not distress yourself with imaginings +-- the real bugs are enough to screw you badly. Murphy's Law runs the +Universe -- and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt B*n dS = 0. + Therefore, grab for a piece of the pie, with whatever proposals you +can conceive of to try. With all the crashed disks, skewed data, and broken +line printers, you can still have a beautiful secretary. Be linear. Strive +to stay employed. + -- Technolorata, "Analog" +% +"Had he and I but met +By some old ancient inn, But ranged as infantry, +We should have sat us down to wet And staring face to face, +Right many a nipperkin! I shot at him as he at me, + And killed him in his place. +I shot him dead because -- +Because he was my foe, He thought he'd 'list, perhaps, +Just so: my foe of course he was; Off-hand-like -- just as I -- +That's clear enough; although Was out of work -- had sold his traps + No other reason why. +Yes; quaint and curious war is! +You shoot a fellow down +You'd treat, if met where any bar is +Or help to half-a-crown." + -- Thomas Hardy +% +Half a bee, philosophically, must ipso facto half not be. +But half the bee has got to be, vis-a-vis its entity. See? +But can a bee be said to be or not to be an entire bee, +When half the bee is not a bee, due to some ancient injury? +% +Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. + -- Pink Floyd +% + Hard Copies and Chmod + +And everyone thinks computers are impersonal +cold diskdrives hardware monitors +user-hostile software + +of course they're only bits and bytes +and characters and strings +and files + +just some old textfiles from my old boyfriend +telling me he loves me and +he'll take care of me + +simply a discarded printout of a friend's directory +deep intimate secrets and +how he doesn't trust me + +couldn't hurt me more if they were scented in lavender or mould +on personal stationery + -- terri@csd4.milw.wisc.edu +% +Hark, the Herald Tribune sings, +Advertising wondrous things. + +Angels we have heard on High +Tell us to go out and Buy. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Have you ever felt like a wounded cow +halfway between an oven and a pasture? +walking in a trance toward a pregnant + seventeen-year-old housewife's + two-day-old cookbook? + -- Richard Brautigan +% +Have you seen how Sonny's burning, +Like some bright erotic star, +He lights up the proceedings, +And raises the temperature. + -- The Birthday Party, "Sonny's Burning" +% +Have you seen the old man in the closed down market, +Kicking up the papers in his worn out shoes? +In his eyes you see no pride, hands hang loosely at his side +Yesterdays papers, telling yesterdays news. + +How can you tell me you're lonely, +And say for you the sun don't shine? +Let me take you by the hand +Lead you through the streets of London +I'll show you something to make you change your mind... + +Have you seen the old man outside the sea-man's mission +Memories fading like the metal ribbons that he wears. +In our winter city the rain cries a little pity +For one more forgotten hero and a world that doesn't care... +% +Have you seen the well-to-do, up and down Park Avenue? +On that famous thoroughfare, with their noses in the air, +High hats and Arrow collars, white spats and lots of dollars, +Spending every dime, for a wonderful time... +If you're blue and you don't know where to go to, +Why don't you go where fashion sits, +... +Dressed up like a million dollar trooper, +Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper, (super dooper) +Come, let's mix where Rockefeller's walk with sticks, +Or umberellas, in their mitts, +Puttin' on the Ritz. +... +If you're blue and you don't know where to go to, +Why don't you go where fashion sits, +Puttin' on the Ritz. +Puttin' on the Ritz. +Puttin' on the Ritz. +Puttin' on the Ritz. +% +He heard there oft the flying sound +Of feet as light as linden-leaves, +Of music welling underground, +In hidden hollows quavering. +Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves, +And one by one with sighing sound +Whispering fell the beechen leaves +In the wintry woodland wavering. + +He sought her ever, wandering far +Where leaves of years were thickly strewn, +By light of moon and ray of star +In frosty heavens shivering. +Her mantle glinted in the moon, +As on a hill-top high and far +She danced, and at her feet was strewn +A mist of silver quivering. + +When winter passed, she came again, +And her song released the sudden spring, +Like rising lark, and falling rain, +And melting water bubbling. +He saw the elven-flowers spring +About her feet, and healed again +He longed by her to dance and sing +Upon the grass untroubling. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +He thought he saw an albatross +That fluttered 'round the lamp. +He looked again and saw it was +A penny postage stamp. +"You'd best be getting home," he said, +"The nights are rather damp." +% +He who invents adages for others to peruse +takes along rowboat when going on cruise. +% +He who loses, wins the race, +And parallel lines meet in space. + -- John Boyd, "Last Starship from Earth" +% +He's been like a father to me, +He's the only DJ you can get after three, +I'm an all-night musician in a rock and roll band, +And why he don't like me I don't understand. + -- The Byrds +% +Her locks an ancient lady gave +Her loving husband's life to save; +And men -- they honored so the dame -- +Upon some stars bestowed her name. + +But to our modern married fair, +Who'd give their lords to save their hair, +No stellar recognition's given. +There are not stars enough in heaven. +% +Here I am again right where I know I shouldn't be +I've been caught inside this trap too many times +I must've walked these steps and said these words a + thousand times before +It seems like I know everybody's lines. + -- David Bromberg, "How Late'll You Play 'Til?" +% +Here I sit, broken-hearted, +All logged in, but work unstarted. +First net.this and net.that, +And a hot buttered bun for net.fat. + +The boss comes by, and I play the game, +Then I turn back to net.flame. +Is there a cure (I need your views), +For someone trapped in net.news? + +I need your help, I say 'tween sobs, +'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs. +% +Here in my heart, I am Helen; + I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least. +I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Sta"el; + I'm Salome, moon of the East. + +Here in my soul I am Sappho; + Lady Hamilton am I, as well. +In me R'ecamier vies with Kitty O'Shea, + With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell. + +I'm all of the glamorous ladies + At whose beckoning history shook. +But you are a man, and see only my pan, + So I stay at home with a book. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +HERE LIES LESTER MOORE +SHOT 4 TIMES WITH A .44 +NO LES +NO MOORE + -- tombstone, in Tombstone, AZ +% +Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo! +Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow! +Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hey! Come derry dol! Hop along, my hearties! +Hobbits! Ponies all! We are fond of parties. +Now let the fun begin! Let us sing together! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! My darling! +Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling. + +Down along under Hill, shining in the sunlight, +Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight, +There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter, +Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water. + +Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing +Comes hopping home again. Can you hear him singing? +Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! and merry-o +Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o! + +Poor old Willow-man, you tuck your roots away! +Tom's in a hurry now. Evening will follow day. +Tom's going home again water-lilies bringing. +Hey! come derry dol! Can you hear me singing? + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hey! now! Come hoy now! Whither do you wander? +Up, down, near or far, here, there or yonder? +Sharp-ears, Wise-nose, Swish-tail and Bumpkin, +White-socks my little lad, and old Fatty Lumpkin! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hey, diddle, diddle the overflow pdl +To get a little more stack; +If that's not enough then you lose it all +And have to pop all the way back. +% +Hickory Dickory Dock, +The mice ran up the clock, +The clock struck one, +The others escaped with minor injuries. +% +Hier liegt ein Mann ganz obnegleich; +Im Leibe dick, an Suden reich. +Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt, Here lies a man with sundry flaws +Weil es uns dunkt er sei verreckt. And numerous Sins upon his head; + We buried him today because + As far as we can tell, he's dead. + + -- PDQ Bach's epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty + Sue Bach and written by the local doggeral catcher; + "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele +% +Higgeldy Piggeldy, +Hamlet of Elsinore +Ruffled the critics by +Dropping this bomb: +"Phooey on Freud and his +Psychoanalysis -- +Oedipus, Shmoedipus, +I just love Mom." +% +...his disciples lead him in; he just does the rest. + -- The Who, "Tommy" +% +History is curious stuff + You'd think by now we had enough +Yet the fact remains I fear + They make more of it every year. +% +Hit them biscuits with another touch of gravy, +Burn that sausage just a match or two more done. +Pour my black old coffee longer, +While that smell is gettin' stronger +A semi-meal ain't nuthin' much to want. + +Loan me ten, I got a feelin' it'll save me, +With an ornery soul who don't shoot pool for fun, +If that coat'll fit you're wearin', +The Lord'll bless your sharin' +A semi-friend ain't nuthin' much to want. + +And let me halfway fall in love, +For part of a lonely night, +With a semi-pretty woman in my arms. +Yes, I could halfway fall in deep-- +Into a snugglin', lovin' heap, +With a semi-pretty woman in my arms. + -- Elroy Blunt +% +Ho! Ho! Ho! to the bottle I go +To heal my heart and drown my woe. +Rain may fall and wind may blow, +And many miles be still to go, +But under a tall tree I will lie, +And let the clouds go sailing by. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo! +By water, wood and hill, by reed and willow, +By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us! +Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Hop along my little friends, up the Withywindle! +Tom's going on ahead candles for to kindle. +Down west sinks the Sun; soon you will be groping. +When the night-shadows fall, then the door will open, +Out of the winfow-panes light will twinkle yellow. +Fear no alder black! Heed no hoary willow! +Fear neither root nor bough! Tom goes on before you. +Hey now! merry dol! We'll be waiting for you! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat? + -- Pink Floyd +% +How doth the little crocodile + Improve his shining tail, +And pour the waters of the Nile + On every golden scale! + +How cheerfully he seems to grin, + How neatly spreads his claws, +And welcomes little fishes in, + With gently smiling jaws! + -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" +% +How doth the VAX's C-compiler + Improve its object code. +And even as we speak does it + Increase the system load. + +How patiently it seems to run + And spit out error flags, +While users, with frustration, all + Tear their clothes to rags. +% +Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, +Humpty Dumpty had a great fall! +All the king's horses, +And all the king's men, +Had scrambled eggs for breakfast again! +% +I always will remember -- I was in no mood to trifle; +'Twas a year ago November -- I got down my trusty rifle +I went out to shoot some deer And went out to stalk my prey -- +On a morning bright and clear. What a haul I made that day! +I went and shot the maximum I tied them to my bumper and +The game laws would allow: I drove them home somehow, +Two game wardens, seven hunters, Two game wardens, seven hunters, +And a cow. And a cow. + +The Law was very firm, it People ask me how I do it +Took away my permit-- And I say, "There's nothin' to it! +The worst punishment I ever endured. You just stand there lookin' cute, +It turns out there was a reason: And when something moves, you shoot." +Cows were out of season, and And there's ten stuffed heads +One of the hunters wasn't insured. In my trophy room right now: + Two game wardens, seven hunters, + And a pure-bred guernsey cow. + -- Tom Lehrer, "The Hunting Song" +% +I am changing my name to Chrysler +I am going down to Washington, D.C. +I will tell some power broker + What they did for Iacocca +Will be perfectly acceptable to me! + +I am changing my name to Chrysler, +I am heading for that great receiving line. +When they hand a million grand out, + I'll be standing with my hand out, +Yessir, I'll get mine! +% +I B M +U B M +We all B M +For I B M!!!! + -- H.A.R.L.I.E. +% +I can live without +Someone I love +But not without +Someone I need. + -- "Safety" +% +I can see him a'comin' +With his big boots on, +With his big thumb out, +He wants to get me. +He wants to hurt me. +He wants to bring me down. +But some time later, +When I feel a little straighter, +I'll come across a stranger +Who'll remind me of the danger, +And then.... I'll run him over. +Pretty smart on my part! +To find my way... In the dark! + -- Phil Ochs +% +I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. + -- Joe Walsh +% +I don't know what Descartes' got, +But booze can do what Kant cannot. + -- Mike Cross +% +I don't need no arms around me... +I don't need no drugs to calm me... +I have seen the writing on the wall. +Don't think I need anything at all. +No! Don't think I need anything at all! +All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall. +All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall. + -- Pink Floyd, "Another Brick in the Wall", Part III +% +I don't wanna argue, and I don't wanna fight, +But there will definitely be a party tonight... +% +I don't want a pickle, + I just wanna ride on my motorsickle. +And I don't want to die, + I just want to ride on my motorcy. +Cle. + -- Arlo Guthrie +% +I gave my love an Apple, that had no core; +I gave my love a building, that had no floor; +I wrote my love a program, that had no end; +I gave my love an upgrade, with no cryin'. + +How can there be an Apple, that has no core? +How can there be a building, that has no floor? +How can there be a program, that has no end? +How can there be an upgrade, with no cryin'? + +An Apple's MOS memory don't use no core! +A building that's perfect, it has no flaw! +A program with GOTOs, it has no end! +I lied about the upgrade, with no cryin'! +% +I get up each morning, gather my wits. +Pick up the paper, read the obits. +If I'm not there I know I'm not dead. +So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed. + +Oh, how do I know my youth is all spent? +My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went. +But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin, +And think of the places my get-up has been. + -- Pete Seeger +% +I had an errand there: gathering water-lilies, +green leaves and lilies white to please my pretty lady, +the last ere the year's end to keep them from the winter, +to flower by her pretty feet till the snows are melted. + +Each year at summer's end I go to find them for her, +in a wide pool, deep and clear, far down Withywindle; +there they open first in spring and there they linger latest. + +By that pool long ago I found the River-daughter, +fair young Goldberry sitting in the rushes. +Sweet was her singing then, and her heart was beating! + +And that proved well for you--for now I shall no longer +go down deep again along the forest-water, +no while the year is old. Nor shall I be passing +Old Man Willow's house this side of spring-time, +not till the merry spring, when the River-daughter +dances down the withy-path to bathe in the water. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, +And what can be the use of him is more than I can see. +He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head; +And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed. + +The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow-- +Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow; +For he sometimes shoots up taller, like an india-rubber ball, +And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all. + -- R.L. Stevenson +% +I have learned +To spell hors d'oeuvres +Which still grates on +Some people's n'oeuvres. + -- Warren Knox +% +I have lots of things in my pockets; +None of them is worth anything. +Sociopolitical whines aside, +Gan you give me, gratis, free, +The price of half a gallon +Of Gallo extra bad +And most of the bus fare home. +% +I have no doubt the Devil grins, +As seas of ink I spatter. +Ye gods, forgive my "literary" sins-- +The other kind don't matter. + -- Robert W. Service +% +I have that old biological urge, +I have that old irresistible surge, +I'm hungry. +% +I knew Leo G. Carrol +Was over a barrel +When Tarantula took to the hills. ["Lick it!"] +And I really got hot +When I saw Jeanette Scott +Fight a triffid that spits poison and kills. + +Science fiction, double feature +Doctor X will build a creature. +See androids fighting Brad and Janet +Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet +Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh +At the late night, double feature, picture show. + -- The Rocky Horror Picture Show +% +I know if you been talkin' you done said +just how suprised you wuz by the living dead. +You wuz suprised that they could understand you words +and never respond once to all the truth they heard. +But don't you get square! +There ain't no rule that says they got to care. +They can always swear they're deaf, dumb and blind. +% +I lately lost a preposition; +It hid, I thought, beneath my chair +And angrily I cried, "Perdition! +Up from out of under there." + +Correctness is my vade mecum, +And straggling phrases I abhor, +And yet I wondered, "What should he come +Up from out of under for?" + -- Morris Bishop +% +I lay my head on the railroad tracks, +Waitin' for the double E. +The railroad don't run no more. +Poor poor pitiful me. [chorus] + Poor poor pitiful me, poor poor pitiful me. + These young girls won't let me be, + Lord have mercy on me! + Woe is me! + +Well, I met a girl, West Hollywood, +Well, I ain't naming names. +But she really worked me over good, +She was just like Jesse James. +She really worked me over good, +She was a credit to her gender. +She put me through some changes, boy, +Sort of like a Waring blender. [chorus] + +I met a girl at the Rainbow Bar, +She asked me if I'd beat her. +She took me back to the Hyatt House, +I don't want to talk about it. [chorus] + -- Warren Zevon, "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" +% +I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah +Where it bubbles all the time like a giant carbonated soda + S-O-D-A soda +I saw the little runt sitting there on a log +I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda + Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda + +Well I've been around but I ain't never seen +A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green + Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda +Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand +How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand + Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda + -- Weird Al Yankovic, "The Star Wars Song," to the tune of + "Lola" by the Kinks +% +I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's; +I will not Reason and Compare; my business is to Create. + -- William Blake, "Jerusalem" +% +I never saw a purple cow +I never hope to see one +But I can tell you anyhow +I'd rather see than be one. + -- Gellett Burgess + +I've never seen a purple cow +I never hope to see one +But from the milk we're getting now +There certainly must be one + -- Odgen Nash + +Ah, yes, I wrote "The Purple Cow" +I'm sorry now I wrote it +But I can tell you anyhow +I'll kill you if you quote it. + -- Gellett Burgess, many years later +% +I owe, I owe, +It's off to work I go... +% +I really hate this damned machine +I wish that they would sell it. +It never does quite what I want +But only what I tell it. +% +"I said, "Preacher, give me strength for round 5." +He said,"What you need is to grow up, son." +I said,"Growin' up leads to growin' old, +And then to dying, and to me that don't sound like much fun." + -- John Cougar, "The Authority Song" +% +I saw a man pursuing the Horizon, +'Round and round they sped. +I was disturbed at this, +I accosted the man, +"It is futile," I said. +"You can never--" +"You lie!" He cried, +and ran on. + -- Stephen Crane +% +I see a bad moon rising. +I see trouble on the way. +I see earthquakes and lightnin' +I see bad times today. +Don't go 'round tonight, +It's bound to take your life. +There's a bad moon on the rise. + -- J. C. Fogerty, "Bad Moon Rising" +% +I see the eigenvalue in thine eye, +I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh. +Bernoulli would have been content to die +Had he but known such _a-squared cos 2(phi)! + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +I sent a letter to the fish, I said it very loud and clear, +I told them, "This is what I wish." I went and shouted in his ear. +The little fishes of the sea, But he was very stiff and proud, +They sent an answer back to me. He said "You needn't shout so loud." +The little fishes' answer was And he was very proud and stiff, +"We cannot do it, sir, because..." He said "I'll go and wake them if..." +I sent a letter back to say I took a kettle from the shelf, +It would be better to obey. I went to wake them up myself. +But someone came to me and said But when I found the door was locked +"The little fishes are in bed." I pulled and pushed and kicked and + knocked, +I said to him, and I said it plain And when I found the door was shut, +"Then you must wake them up again." I tried to turn the handle, But... + + "Is that all?" asked Alice. + "That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye." +% +I sent a message to another time, +But as the days unwind -- this I just can't believe, +I sent a message to another plane, +Maybe it's all a game -- but this I just can't conceive. +... +I met someone who looks at lot like you, +She does the things you do, but she is an IBM. +She's only programmed to be very nice, +But she's as cold as ice, whenever I get too near, +She tells me that she likes me very much, +But when I try to touch, she makes it all too clear. +... +I realize that it must seem so strange, +That time has rearranged, but time has the final word, +She knows I think of you, she reads my mind, +She tries to be unkind, she knows nothing of our world. + -- ELO, "Yours Truly, 2095" +% +I shot a query into the net. +I haven't got an answer yet, A posted message called me rotten +But seven people gave me hell For ignoring mail I'd never gotten; +And said I ought to learn to spell; An angry message asked me, Please + Don't send such drivel overseas; +A lawyer sent me private mail +And swore he'd slap my ass in jail -- One netter thought it was a hoax: +I'd mentioned Un*x in my gem "Hereafter, post to net dot jokes!"; +And failed to add the T and M; Another called my grammar vile + And criticized my writing style. +Each day I scan each Subject line +In hopes the topic will be mine; +I shot a query into the net. +I haven't got an answer yet... + -- Ed Nather +% +I stood on the leading edge, +The eastern seaboard at my feet. +"Jump!" said Yoko Ono +I'm too scared and good-looking, I cried. +Go on and give it a try, +Why prolong the agony, all men must die. + -- Roger Waters, "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" +% +I think that I shall never hear +A poem lovelier than beer. +The stuff that Joe's Bar has on tap, +With golden base and snowy cap. +The stuff that I can drink all day +Until my mem'ry melts away. +Poems are made by fools, I fear +But only Schlitz can make a beer. +% +I think that I shall never see +A billboard lovely as a tree. +Indeed, unless the billboards fall +I'll never see a tree at all. + -- Ogden Nash +% +I think that I shall never see +A thing as lovely as a tree. +But as you see the trees have gone +They went this morning with the dawn. +A logging firm from out of town +Came and chopped the trees all down. +But I will trick those dirty skunks +And write a brand new poem called 'Trunks'. +% +"I thought that you said you were 20 years old!" +"As a programmer, yes," she replied, +"And you claimed to be very near two meters tall!" +"You said you were blonde, but you lied!" +Oh, she was a hacker and he was one, too, +They had so much in common, you'd say. +They exchanged jokes and poems, and clever new hacks, +And prompts that were cute or risque'. +He sent her a picture of his brother Sam, +She sent one from some past high school day, +And it might have gone on for the rest of their lives, +If they hadn't met in L.A. +"Your beard is an armpit," she said in disgust. +He answered, "Your armpit's a beard!" +And they chorused: "I think I could stand all the rest +If you were not so totally weird!" +If she had not said what he wanted to hear, +And he had not done just the same, +They'd have been far more honest, and never have met, +And would not have had fun with the game. + -- Judith Schrier, "Face to Face After Six Months of + Electronic Mail" +% +I used to be such a sweet sweet thing, 'til they got a hold of me, +I opened doors for little old ladies, I helped the blind to see, +I got no friends 'cause they read the papers, they can't be seen, +With me, and I'm feelin' real shot down, +And I'm, uh, feelin' mean, + No more, Mr. Nice Guy, + No more, Mr. Clean, + No more, Mr. Nice Guy, +They say "He's sick, he's obscene". + +My dog bit me on the leg today, my cat clawed my eyes, +Ma's been thrown out of the social circle, and Dad has to hide, +I went to church, incognito, when everybody rose, +The reverend Smithy, he recognized me, +And punched me in the nose, he said, +(chorus) +He said "You're sick, you're obscene". + -- Alice Cooper, "No More Mr. Nice Guy" +% +I was born in a barrel of butcher knives +Trouble I love and peace I despise +Wild horses kicked me in my side +Then a rattlesnake bit me and he walked off and died. + -- Bo Diddley +% +I was eatin' some chop suey, +With a lady in St. Louie, +When there sudden comes a knockin' at the door. +And that knocker, he says, "Honey, +Roll this rocker out some money, +Or your daddy shoots a baddie to the floor." + -- Mr. Miggle +% +I went home with a waitress, +The way I always do. +How I was I to know? +She was with the Russians too. + +I was gambling in Havana, +I took a little risk. +Send lawyers, guns, and money, +Dad, get me out of this. + -- Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns and Money" +% +I went over to my friend, he was eatin' a pickle. +I said "Hi, what's happenin'?" +He said "Nothin'." +Try to sing this song with that kind of enthusiasm; +As if you just squashed a cop. + -- Arlo Guthrie, "Motorcycle Song" +% +I will not play at tug o' war. +I'd rather play at hug o' war, +Where everyone hugs +Instead of tugs, +Where everyone giggles +And rolls on the rug, +Where everyone kisses, +And everyone grins, +And everyone cuddles, +And everyone wins. + -- Shel Silverstein, "Hug o' War" +% +I woke up a feelin' mean +went down to play the slot machine +the wheels turned round, +and the letters read +"Better head back to Tennessee Jed" + -- Grateful Dead +% +I would like to know +What I was fencing in +And what I was fencing out. + -- Robert Frost +% +I'd never cry if I did find + A blue whale in my soup... +Nor would I mind a porcupine + Inside a chicken coop. +Yes life is fine when things combine, + Like ham in beef chow mein... +But lord, this time I think I mind, + They've put acid in my rain. + --- Milo Bloom +% +I'd rather laugh with the sinners, +Than cry with the saints, +The sinners are much more fun! + -- Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young" +% +I'll grant thee random access to my heart, +Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love; +And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove +And in our bound partition never part. + +Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain? +Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, +A root or two, a torus and a node: +The inverse of my verse, a null domain. + +I see the eigenvalue in thine eye, +I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh. +Bernoulli would have been content to die +Had he but known such a-squared cos 2(thi)! + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +I'll learn to play the Saxophone, +I play just what I feel. +Drink Scotch whisky all night long, +And die behind the wheel. +They got a name for the winners in the world, +I want a name when I lose. +They call Alabama the Crimson Tide, +Call me Deacon Blues. + -- Becker and Fagan, "Deacon Blues" +% +I'll see you... on the dark side of the moon... + -- Pink Floyd +% +I'm an artist. +But it's not what I really want to do. +What I really want to do is be a shoe salesman. +I know what you're going to say -- +"Dreamer! Get your head out of the clouds." +All right! But it's what I want to do. +Instead I have to go on painting all day long. + +The world should make a place for shoe salesmen. + -- J. Feiffer +% +I'm free -- and freedom tastes of reality. + -- The Who +% +I'm just as sad as sad can be! + I've missed your special date. +Please say that you're not mad at me + My tax return is late. + -- Modern Lines for Modern Greeting Cards +% +i'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be +living apart. + -- e. e. cummings +% +I'm N-ary the tree, I am, +N-ary the tree, I am, I am. +I'm getting traversed by the parser next door, +She's traversed me seven times before. +And ev'ry time it was an N-ary (N-ary!) +Never wouldn't ever do a binary. (No sir!) +I'm 'er eighth tree that was N-ary. +N-ary the tree I am, I am, +N-ary the tree I am. + -- Stolen from Paul Revere and the Raiders +% +I'm So Miserable Without You It's Almost Like Having You Here + -- Song title by Stephen Bishop. + +She Got the Gold Mine, I Got the Shaft + -- Song title by Jerry Reed. + +When My Love Comes Back from the Ladies' Room Will I Be Too Old to Care? + -- Song title by Lewis Grizzard. + +I Don't Know Whether to Kill Myself or Go Bowling + -- Unattributed song title. + +Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goal Posts of Life + -- Unattributed song title. +% +I'm very good at integral and differential calculus, +I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; +In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, +I am the very model of a modern Major-General. + -- Gilbert & Sullivan, "Pirates of Penzance" +% +I've been on this lonely road so long, +Does anybody know where it goes, +I remember last time the signs pointed home, +A month ago. + -- Carpenters, "Road Ode" +% +I've built a better model than the one at Data General +For data bases vegetable, animal, and mineral +My OS handles CPUs with multiplexed duality; +My PL/1 compiler shows impressive functionality. +My storage system's better than magnetic core polarity, +You never have to bother checking out a bit for parity; +There isn't any reason to install non-static floor matting; +My disk drive has capacity for variable formatting. + +I feel compelled to mention what I know to be a gloating point: +There's lots of room in memory for variables floating-point, +Which shows for input vegetable, animal, and mineral +I've built a better model than the one at Data General. + + -- Steve Levine, "A Computer Song" (To the tune of + "Modern Major General", from "Pirates of Penzance", + by Gilbert & Sullivan) +% +I've finally found the perfect girl, +I couldn't ask for more, +She's deaf and dumb and over-sexed, +And owns a liquor store. +% +I/O, I/O, +It's off to disk I go, +A bit or byte to read or write, +I/O, I/O, I/O... +% +I +am +not +very +happy +acting +pleased +whenever +prominent +scientists +overmagnify +intellectual +enlightenment +% +IBM had a PL/I, + Its syntax worse than JOSS; +And everywhere this language went, + It was a total loss. +% +If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, +... it expects what never was and never will be. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +If a system is administered wisely, +its users will be content. +They enjoy hacking their code +and don't waste time implementing +labor-saving shell scripts. +Since they dearly love their accounts, +they aren't interested in other machines. +There may be telnet, rlogin, and ftp, +but these don't access any hosts. +There may be an arsenal of cracks and malware, +but nobody ever uses them. +People enjoy reading their mail, +take pleasure in being with their newsgroups, +spend weekends working at their terminals, +delight in the doings at the site. +And even though the next system is so close +that users can hear its key clicks and biff beeps, +they are content to die of old age +without ever having gone to see it. +% +If all be true that I do think, +There be five reasons why one should drink; +Good friends, good wine, or being dry, +Or lest we should be by-and-by, +Or any other reason why. +% +If all the seas were ink, +And all the reeds were pens, +And all the skies were parchment, +And all the men could write, +These would not suffice +To write down all the red tape +Of this Government. +% +If an S and an I and an O and a U +With an X at the end spell Su; +And an E and a Y and an E spell I, +Pray what is a speller to do? +Then, if also an S and an I and a G +And an HED spell side, +There's nothing much left for a speller to do +But to go commit siouxeyesighed. + -- Charles Follen Adams, "An Orthographic Lament" +% +If Dr. Seuss Were a Technical Writer..... + +Here's an easy game to play. +Here's an easy thing to say: + +If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, +And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort, +And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort, +Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report! + +If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash, +And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash, +And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash, +then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash! + +You can't say this? What a shame, sir! +We'll find you another game, sir. + +If the label on the cable on the table at your house, +Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse, +But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol, +That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall, +And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss, +So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse, +Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang, +'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang! + +When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk, +And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risc, +Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to ram your rom. +Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom! + + -- DementDJ@ccip.perkin-elmer.com (DementDJ) [rec.humor.funny] +% +If I could read your mind, love, +What a tale your thoughts could tell, +Just like a paperback novel, +The kind the drugstore sells, +When you reach the part where the heartaches come, +The hero would be me, +Heroes often fail, +You won't read that book again, because + the ending is just too hard to take. + +I walk away, like a movie star, +Who gets burned in a three way script, +Enter number two, +A movie queen to play the scene +Of bringing all the good things out in me, +But for now, love, let's be real +I never thought I could act this way, +And I've got to say that I just don't get it, +I don't know where we went wrong but the feeling is gone +And I just can't get it back... + -- Gordon Lightfoot, "If You Could Read My Mind" +% +If I could stick my pen in my heart, +I would spill it all over the stage. +Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya, +Would you think the boy was strange? +Ain't he strange? +... +If I could stick a knife in my heart, +Suicide right on the stage, +Would it be enough for your teenage lust, +Would it help to ease the pain? +Ease your brain? + -- Rolling Stones, "It's Only Rock'N Roll" +% +If I don't drive around the park, +I'm pretty sure to make my mark. +If I'm in bed each night by ten, +I may get back my looks again. +If I abstain from fun and such, +I'll probably amount to much; +But I shall stay the way I am, +Because I do not give a damn. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +If I promised you the moon and the stars, would you believe it? + -- Alan Parsons Project +% +If I traveled to the end of the rainbow +As Dame Fortune did intend, +Murphy would be there to tell me +The pot's at the other end. + -- Bert Whitney +% +If researchers wrote nursery rhymes... + +Little Miss Muffet sat on her gluteal region, +Eating components of soured milk. +On at least one occasion, + along came an arachnid and sat down beside her, +Or at least in her vicinity, +And caused her to feel an overwhelming, but not paralyzing, fear, +Which motivated the patient to leave the area rather quickly. + -- Ann Melugin Williams +% +If she had not been cupric in her ions, +Her shape ovoidal, +Their romance might have flourished. +But he built tetrahedral in his shape, +His ions ferric, +Love could not help but die, +Uncatylised, inert, and undernourished. +% +If you had just a minute to breathe, +And they granted you one final wish, +Would you ask for something +Like another chance? + -- Traffic, "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" +% +If you stick a stock of liquor in your locker, +It is slick to stick a lock upon your stock. + Or some joker who is slicker, + Will trick you of your liquor, +If you fail to lock your liquor with a lock. +% +If you're worried by earthquakes and nuclear war, +As well as by traffic and crime, +Consider how worry-free gophers are, +Though living on burrowed time. + -- Richard Armour, WSJ, 11/7/83 +% +Il brilgue: les t^oves libricilleux + Se gyrent et frillant dans le guave, +Enm^im'es sont les gougebosquex, + Et le m^omerade horgrave. + +Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven + Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; +Und aller-mumsige Burggoven + Dir mohmen Rath ausgraben. + -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +In /users3 did Kubla Kahn +A stately pleasure dome decree, +Where /bin, the sacred river ran +Through Test Suites measureless to Man +Down to a sunless C. +% +In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. +Find the fun and snap! The job's a game. +And every task you undertake, becomes a piece of cake, + a lark, a spree; it's very clear to see. + -- Mary Poppins +% +In high school in Brooklyn +I was the baseball manager, +proud as I could be +I chased baseballs, +gathered thrown bats +handed out the towels Eventually, I bought my own +It was very important work but it was dark blue while +for a small spastic kid, the official ones were green +but I was a team member Nobody ever said anything +When the team got to me about my blue jacket; +their warm-up jackets the guys were my friends +I didn't get one Yet it hurt me all year +Only the regular team to wear that blue jacket +got these jackets, and among all those green ones +surely not a manager Even now, forty years after, + I still recall that jacket + and the memory goes on hurting. + -- Bart Lanier Safford III, "An Obscured Radiance" +% +In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space +Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways. +Our asymptotes no longer out of phase, +We shall encounter, counting, face to face. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +In the dimestores and bus stations +People talk of situations +Read books repeat quotations +Draw conclusions on the wall. + -- Bob Dylan +% +In the early morning queue, +With a listing in my hand. +With a worry in my heart, There on terminal number 9, +Waitin' here in CERAS-land. Pascal run all set to go. +I'm a long way from sleep, But I'm waitin' in the queue, +How I miss a good meal so. With this code that ever grows. +In the early mornin' queue, Now the lobby chairs are soft, +With no place to go. But that can't make the queue move fast. + Hey, there it goes my friend, + I've moved up one at last. + -- Ernest Adams, "Early Morning Queue", to "Early + Morning Rain" by G. Lightfoot +% +In the land of the dark the Ship of the +Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead. + -- Egyptian Book of the Dead +% +In this vale +Of toil and sin +Your head grows bald +But not your chin. + -- Burma Shave +% +In Xanadu did Kubla Khan +A stately pleasure dome decree: +Where Alph, the sacred river, ran +Through caverns measureless to man +Down to a sunless sea. +So twice five miles of fertile ground +With walls and towers were girdled round: +And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, +Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; +And here were forest ancient as the hills, +Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. + -- S.T. Coleridge, "Kubla Kahn" +% +In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree +But only if the NFL to a franchise would agree. +% +Into love and out again, + Thus I went and thus I go. +Spare your voice, and hold your pen: + Well and bitterly I know +All the songs were ever sung, + All the words were ever said; +Could it be, when I was young, + Someone dropped me on my head? + -- Dorothy Parker, "Theory" +% +It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, +Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. +It lies behind starts and under hills, +And empty holes it fills. +It comes first and follows after, +Ends life, kills laughter. +% +It hangs down from the chandelier +Nobody knows quite what it does +Its color is odd and its shape is weird +It emits a high-sounding buzz + +It grows a couple of feet each day +and wriggles with sort of a twitch +Nobody bugs it 'cause it comes from +a visiting uncle who's rich! + -- To "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" +% +It happened long ago +In the new magic land +The Indians and the buffalo +Existed hand in hand +The Indians needed food +They need skins for a roof +They only took what they needed +And the buffalo ran loose +But then came the white man +With his thick and empty head +He couldn't see past his billfold +He wanted all the buffalo dead +It was sad, oh so sad. + -- Ted Nugent, "The Great White Buffalo" +% +It is not good for a man to be without knowledge, +and he who makes haste with his feet misses his way. + -- Proverbs 19:2 +% +It used to be the fun was in +The capture and kill. +In another place and time +I did it all for thrills. + -- Lust to Love +% +It was one time too many +One word too few +It was all too much for me and you +There was one way to go +Nothing more we could do +One time too many +One word too few + -- Meredith Tanner +% +It's faster horses, +Younger women, +Older whiskey and +More money. + -- Tom T. Hall, "The Secret of Life" +% +It's gonna be alright, +It's almost midnight, +And I've got two more bottles of wine. +% +It's just a jump to the left + And then a step to the right. +Put your hands on your hips + And pull your knees in tight. +It's the pelvic thrust + That really gets you insa-a-a-a-ane + + LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN! + -- Rocky Horror Picture Show +% +It's just apartment house rules, +So all you 'partment house fools +Remember: one man's ceiling is another man's floor. +One man's ceiling is another man's floor. + -- Paul Simon, "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor" +% +It's Like This + +Even the samurai +have teddy bears, +and even the teddy bears +get drunk. +% +It's not against any religion to want to dispose of a pigeon. + -- Tom Lehrer, "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" +% +It's so confusing choosing sides in the heat of the moment, + just to see if it's real, +Oooh, it's so erotic having you tell me how it should feel, +But I'm avoiding all the hard cold facts that I got to face, +So ask me just one question when this magic night is through, +Could it have been just anyone or did it have to be you? + -- Billy Joel, "Glass Houses" +% +John Dame May Oscar +Was Gay Was Whitty Was Wilde +But Gerard Hopkins But John Greenleaf But Thornton +Was Manley Was Whittier Was Wilder + -- Willard Espy +% +John the Baptist after poisoning a thief, +Looks up at his hero, the Commander-in-Chief, +Saying tell me great leader, but please make it brief +Is there a hole for me to get sick in? +The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly, +Saying death to all those who would whimper and cry. +And dropping a barbell he points to the sky, +Saying the sun is not yellow, it's chicken. + -- Bob Dylan, "Tombstone Blues" +% +Just a song before I go, Going through security +To whom it may concern, I held her for so long. +Traveling twice the speed of sound She finally looked at me in love, +It's easy to get burned. And she was gone. +When the shows were over Just a song before I go, +We had to get back home, A lesson to be learned. +And when we opened up the door Traveling twice the speed of sound +I had to be alone. It's easy to get burned. +She helped me with my suitcase, +She stands before my eyes, +Driving me to the airport +And to the friendly skies. + -- Crosby, Stills, Nash, "Just a Song Before I Go" +% +Just machines to make big decisions, +Programmed by men for compassion and vision, +We'll be clean when their work is done, +We'll be eternally free, yes, eternally young, +What a beautiful world this will be, +What a glorious time to be free. + -- Donald Fagon, "What A Beautiful World" +% +`Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried, + As he landed his crew with care; +Supporting each man on the top of the tide + By a finger entwined in his hair. + +'Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: + That alone should encourage the crew. +Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: + What I tell you three times is true.' +% +`Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried, + As he landed his crew with care; +Supporting each man on the top of the tide + By a finger entwined in his hair. + +`Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: + That alone should encourage the crew. +Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: + What I tell you three times is true.' +% +Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone, +Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you, +I went out this morning and I wrote down this song, +Just can't remember who to send it to... + +Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain, +I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end, +I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, +But I always thought that I'd see you again. +Thought I'd see you one more time again. + -- James Taylor, "Fire and Rain" +% +K: Cobalt's metal, hard and shining; + Cobol's wordy and confining; + KOBOLDS topple when you strike them; + Don't feel bad, it's hard to like them. + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% +Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp! cries she +With silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor, +Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, +The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. +Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me... + -- Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus" +% +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Ether! (ether who?) Ether Bunny... Yea! +[chorus] + Yeay! + Stay on the Happy side, always on the happy side, + Stay on the Happy side of life! + Bum bum bum bum bum bum + You will feel no pain, as we drive you insane, + So Stay on the Happy Side of life! + +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Anna! (anna who?) + An another ether bunny... [chorus] +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Stilla! (stilla who?) + Still another ether bunny... [chorus] +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Yetta! (yetta who?) + Yet another ether bunny... [chorus] +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Cargo! (cargo who?) + Cargo beep beep and run over ether bunny... [chorus] +Knock Knock... (who's there?) Boo! (boo who?) + Don't Cry! Ether bunny be back next year! [chorus] +% +Ladies and Gentlemen, Hobos and Tramps, +Cross-eyed mosquitos and bowlegged ants, +I come before you to stand behind you +To tell you of something I know nothing about. +Next Thursday (which is good Friday), +There will be a convention held in the +Women's Club which is strictly for Men. +Admission is free, pay at the door, +Pull up a chair, and sit on the floor. +It was a summer's day in winter, +And the snow was raining fast, +As a barefoot boy with shoes on, +Stood sitting in the grass. +Oh, that bright day in the dead of night, +Two dead men got up to fight. +Three blind men to see fair play, +Forty mutes to yell "Hooray"! +Back to back, they faced each other, +Drew their swords and shot each other. +A deaf policeman heard the noise, +Came and arrested those two dead boys. +% +Ladles and Jellyspoons! +I come before you to stand behind you, +To tell you something I know nothing about. +Since next Thursday will be Good Friday, +There will be a fathers' meeting, for mothers only. +Wear your best clothes, if you don't have any, +And please stay at home if you can possibly be there. +Admission is free, please pay at the door. +Have a seat on me: please sit on the floor. +No matter where you manage to sit, +The man in the balcony will certainly spit. +We thank you for your unkind attention, +And would now like to present our next act: +"The Four Corners of the Round Table." +% +Lady, lady, should you meet +One whose ways are all discreet, +One who murmurs that his wife +Is the lodestar of his life, +One who keeps assuring you +That he never was untrue, +Never loved another one... +Lady, lady, better run! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Social Note" +% +Ladybug, ladybug, +Look to your stern! +Your house is on fire, +Your children will burn! +So jump ye and sing, for +The very first time +The four lines above +Have been put into rhyme. + -- Walt Kelly +% +Last night I met upon the stair +A little man who wasn't there. +He wasn't there again today. +Gee how I wish he'd go away! +% +Latin is a language, +As dead as can be. +First it killed the Romans, +And now it's killing me. +% +Let me not to the marriage of true minds +Admit impediments. Love is not love +Which alters when it alteration finds, +Or bends with the remover to remove: +O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, +That looks on tempests and is never shaken; +It is the star to every wandering bark, +Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. +Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks +Within his bending sickle's compass come; +Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, +But bears it out even to the edge of doom. +If this be error and upon me proved, +I never writ, nor no man ever loved. +% +Let us go then you and I +while the night is laid out against the sky +like a smear of mustard on an old pork pie. + +"Nice poem Tom. I have ideas for changes though, why not come over?" + -- Ezra +% +Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, +The muttering retreats +Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels +And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: +Streets that follow like a tedious argument +Of insidious intent +To lead you to an overwhelming question... +Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" + -- T.S. Eliot, "Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock" +% +Let us treat men and women well; +Treat them as if they were real; +Perhaps they are. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +Life is like a tin of sardines. +We're, all of us, looking for the key. + -- Beyond the Fringe +% +Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. + -- John Lennon, "Beautiful Boy" +% +Lift every voice and sing +Till earth and heaven ring, +Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; +Let our rejoicing rise +High as the listening skies, +Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. + +Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. +Sing a song full of the hope that the present has bought us. +Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, +Let us march on till victory is won. + -- James Weldon Johnson +% +Lighten up, while you still can, +Don't even try to understand, +Just find a place to make your stand, +And take it easy. + -- The Eagles, "Take It Easy" +% +Like corn in a field I cut you down, +I threw the last punch way too hard, +After years of going steady, well, I thought it was time, +To throw in my hand for a new set of cards. +And I can't take you dancing out on the weekend, +I figured we'd painted too much of this town, +And I tried not to look as I walked to my wagon, +And I knew then I had lost what should have been found, +I knew then I had lost what should have been found. + And I feel like a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford + I'm as low as a paid assassin is + You know I'm cold as a hired sword. + I'm so ashamed we can't patch it up, + You know I can't think straight no more + You make me feel like a bullet, honey, + a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford. + -- Elton John "I Feel Like a Bullet" +% +"Lines that are parallel meet at Infinity!" +Euclid repeatedly, heatedly, urged. + +Until he died, and so reached that vicinity: +in it he found that the damned things diverged. + -- Piet Hein +% +Lisp, Lisp, Lisp Machine, +Lisp Machine is Fun. +Lisp, Lisp, Lisp Machine, +Fun for everyone. +% +Little Fly, +Thy summer's play If thought is life +My thoughtless hand And strength & breath, +Has brush'd away. And the want + Of thought is death, +Am not I +A fly like thee? Then am I +Or art not thou A happy fly +A man like me? If I live + Or if I die. + +For I dance +And drink & sing, +Till some blind hand +Shall brush my wing. + -- William Blake, "The Fly" +% +Lizzie Borden took an axe, +And plunged it deep into the VAX; +Don't you envy people who +Do all the things ___YOU want to do? +% +Logicians have but ill defined +As rational the human kind. +Logic, they say, belongs to man, +But let them prove it if they can. + -- Oliver Goldsmith +% +Louie Louie, me gotta go +Louie Louie, me gotta go + +Fine little girl she waits for me +Me catch the ship for cross the sea +Me sail the ship all alone Three nights and days me sail the sea +Me never thinks me make it home Me think of girl constantly +(chorus) On the ship I dream she there + I smell the rose in her hair +Me see Jamaica moon above (chorus, guitar solo) +It won't be long, me see my love +I take her in my arms and then +Me tell her I never leave again + -- The real words to The Kingsmen's classic "Louie Louie" +% +Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay. +Love isn't love 'til you give it away. + -- Oscar Hammerstein II +% +Love, which is quickly kindled in a gentle heart, + seized this one for the fair form + that was taken from me-and the way of it afficts me still. +Love, which absolves no loved one from loving, + seized me so strongly with delight in him, + that, as you see, it does not leave me even now. +Love brought us to one death. + -- La Divina Commedia: Inferno V, vv. 100-06 +% +Margaret, are you grieving +Over Goldengrove unleaving? +Leaves, like the things of man, +You, with your fresh thoughts +Care for, can you? +Ah! as the heart grows older +It will come to such sights colder +By and by, nor spare a sigh +Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie +And yet you will weep and know why. +Now no matter, child, the name +Sorrow's springs are the same: +It is the blight man was born for, +It is Margaret you mourn for. + -- Gerard Manley Hopkins. +% +Meanehwael, baccat meaddehaele, monstaer lurccen; +Fulle few too many drincce, hie luccen for fyht. +[D]en Hreorfneorht[d]hwr, son of Hrwaerow[p]heororthwl, +AEsccen aewful jeork to steop outsyd. +[P]hud! Bashe! Crasch! Beoom! [D]e bigge gye +Eallum his bon brak, byt his nose offe; +Wicced Godsylla waeld on his asse. +Monstaer moppe fleor wy[p] eallum men in haelle. +Beowulf in bacceroome fonecall bemaccen waes; +Hearen sond of ruccus saed, "Hwaet [d]e helle?" +Graben sheold strang ond swich-blaed scharp +Sond feorth to fyht [d]e grimlic foe. +"Me," Godsylla saed, "mac [d]e minsemete." +Heoro cwyc geten heold wi[p] faemed half-nelson +Ond flyng him lic frisbe bac to fen. +Beowulf belly up to meaddehaele bar, +Saed, "Ne foe beaten mie faersom cung-fu." +Eorderen cocca-colha yce-coeld, [d]e reol [p]yng. + -- Not Chaucer, for certain +% +Most folks they like the daytime, + 'cause they like to see the shining sun. +They're up in the morning, + off and a-running till they're too tired for having fun. +But when the sun goes down, + and the bright lights shine, my daytime has just begun. + +Now there are two sides to this great big world, + and one of them is always night. +If you can take care of business in the sunshine, baby, + I guess you're gonna be all right. +Don't come looking for me to lend you a hand. + My eyes just can't stand the light. + +'Cause I'm a night owl honey, sleep all day long. + -- Carly Simon +% +Mummy dust to make me old; +To shroud my clothes, the black of night; +To age my voice, an old hag's cackle; +To whiten my hair, a scream of fright; +A blast of wind to fan my hate; +A thunderbolt to mix it well -- +Now begin thy magic spell! + -- Walter Disney, "Snow White" +% +My analyst told me that I was right out of my head, + But I said, "Dear Doctor, I think that it is you instead. +Because I have got a thing that is unique and new, + To prove it I'll have the last laugh on you. +'Cause instead of one head -- I've got two. + +And you know two heads are better than one. +% +My Bonnie looked into a gas tank, +The height of its contents to see! +She lit a small match to assist her, +Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me. +% +My calculator is my shepherd, I shall not want +It maketh me accurate to ten significant figures, + and it leadeth me in scientific notation to 99 digits. +It restoreth my square roots and guideth me along paths of floating + decimal points for the sake of precision. +Yea, tho I walk through the valley of surprise quizzes, + I will fear no prof, for my calculator is there to hearten me. +It prepareth a log table to comfort me, it prepareth an + arc sin for me in the presence of my teachers. +It annoints my homework with correct solutions, my interpolations are + over. +Surely, both precision and accuracy shall follow me all the days of my + life, and I shall dwell in the house of Texas instruments forever. +% +My darling wife was always glum. +I drowned her in a cask of rum, +And so made sure that she would stay +In better spirits night and day. +% +My love runs by like a day in June, + And he makes no friends of sorrows. +He'll tread his galloping rigadoon + In the pathway or the morrows. +He'll live his days where the sunbeams start + Nor could storm or wind uproot him. +My own dear love, he is all my heart -- + And I wish somebody'd shoot him. + -- Dorothy Parker, part 3 +% +My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet, + And a wild young wood-thing bore him! +The ways are fair to his roaming feet, + And the skies are sunlit for him. +As sharply sweet to my heart he seems + As the fragrance of acacia. +My own dear love, he is all my dreams -- + And I wish he were in Asia. + -- Dorothy Parker, part 2 +% +My My, hey hey +Rock and roll is here to stay The king is gone but he's not forgotten +It's better to burn out This is the story of a Johnny Rotten +Than to fade away It's better to burn out than it is to rust +My my, hey hey The king is gone but he's not forgotten + +It's out of the blue and into the black Hey hey, my my +They give you this, but you pay for that Rock and roll can never die +And once you're gone you can never come back There's more to the picture +When you're out of the blue Than meets the eye +And into the black + -- Neil Young + "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), Rust Never Sleeps" +% +"My name is Sue! How do you do?! Now you gonna die!" +Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes, +And he went down, but to my surprise, +Come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear. +So I busted a chair right across his teeth, +And we crashed through the walls and into the streets, +Kickin' and a-gougin' in the mud and the blood and beer. +Now I tell you, I've fought tougher men, +But I really can't remember when: +He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile. +But I heard him laugh and then I heard him cuss, +And he went for his gun, but I pulled mine first, +And he sat there lookin' at me, and I saw him smile. +He said: "Son, this world is rough, +And if a man's gonna make it he's gotta be tough, +And I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along. +So I give you that name and I said goodbye, +And I knew you'd have to get tough or die, +And it's that name that's helped to make you strong! + -- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue" +% +My own dear love, he is strong and bold + And he cares not what comes after. +His words ring sweet as a chime of gold, + And his eyes are lit with laughter. +He is jubilant as a flag unfurled -- + Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him. +My own dear love, he is all my world -- + And I wish I'd never met him. + -- Dorothy Parker, part 1 +% +My pen is at the bottom of a page, +Which, being finished, here the story ends; +'Tis to be wished it had been sooner done, +But stories somehow lengthen when begun. + -- Byron +% +My soul is crushed, my spirit sore +I do not like me anymore, +I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse, +I ponder on the narrow house +I shudder at the thought of men +I'm due to fall in love again. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Enough Rope" +% +Nature to all things fixed the limits fit, +And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit. +As on the land while here the ocean gains, +In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains; +Thus in the soul while memory prevails, +The solid power of understanding fails; +Where beams of warm imagination play, +The memory's soft figures melt away. + -- Alexander Pope (on runtime bounds checking?) +% +Near the Studio Jean Cocteau +On the Rue des Ecoles +lived an old man +with a blind dog +Every evening I would see him +guiding the dog along +the sidewalk, keeping +a firm grip on the leash +so that the dog wouldn't +run into a passerby +Sometimes the dog would stop +and look up at the sky +Once the old man +noticed me watching the dog +and he said, "Oh, yes, +this one knows +when the moon is out, +he can feel it on his face" + -- Barry Gifford +% +Neuroses are red, + Melancholia's blue. +I'm schizophrenic, + What are you? +% +New York's got the ways and means; +Just won't let you be. + -- The Grateful Dead +% +New York-- to that tall skyline I come +Flyin' in from London to your door +New York-- lookin' down on Central Park +Where they say you should not wander after dark. +New York. + -- Simon and Garfunkle +% +Next, upon a stool, we've a sight to make you drool. +Seven virgins and a mule, keep it cool, keep it cool. + -- ELP, "Karn Evil 9" (1st Impression, Part 2) +% +Nine megs for the secretaries fair, +Seven megs for the hackers scarce, +Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs, +Three megs for system source; + +One disk to rule them all, +One disk to bind them, +One disk to hold the files +And in the darkness grind 'em. +% +Nine-track tapes and seven-track tapes +And tapes without any tracks; +Stretchy tapes and snarley tapes +And tapes mixed up on the racks -- + Take hold of the tape + And pull off the strip, + And then you'll be sure + Your tape drive will skip. + -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes +% +No one likes us. +I don't know why. +We may not be perfect, We give them money, +But heaven knows we try. But are they grateful? +But all around, No, they're spiteful, +Even our old friends put us down. And they're hateful. +Let's drop the big one, They don't respect us, +And see what happens. So let's surprise them + We'll drop the big one, + And pulverize 'em. +Asia's crowded, +Europe's too old, +Africa is far too hot, We'll save Australia. +And Canada's too cold. Don't wanna hurt no kangaroos. +And South America stole our name We'll build an All-American amusement +Let's drop the big one, park there-- +There'll be no one left to blame us. They got surfin', too! + +Boom! goes London, +And Boom! Paree. +More room for you, Oh, how peaceful it'll be! +And more room for me, We'll set everybody free! +And every city, You'll wear a Japanese kimono, babe; +The whole world round, There'll be Italian shoes for me! +Will just be another American town. They all hate us anyhow, + So, let's drop the big one now. + Let's drop the big one now! + -- Randy Newman, "Drop the Big One" +% +No pig should go sky diving during monsoon +For this isn't really the norm. +But should a fat swine try to soar like a loon, +So what? Any pork in a storm. + +No pig should go sky diving during monsoon, +It's risky enough when the weather is fine. +But to have a pig soar when the monsoon doth roar +Cast even more perils before swine. +% +No plain fanfold paper could hold that fractal Puff -- +He grew so fast no plotting pack could shrink him far enough. +Compiles and simulations grew so quickly tame +And swapped out all their data space when Puff pushed his stack frame. + (refrain) +Puff, he grew so quickly, while others moved like snails +And mini-Puffs would perch themselves on his gigantic tail. +All the student hackers loved that fractal Puff +But DCS did not like Puff, and finally said, "Enough!" + (refrain) +Puff used more resources than DCS could spare. +The operator killed Puff's job -- he didn't seem to care. +A gloom fell on the hackers; it seemed to be the end, +But Puff trapped the exception, and grew from naught again! + (refrain) +Refrain: + Puff the fractal dragon was written in C, + And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory. + Puff the fractal dragon was written in C, + And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory. +% +"No program is perfect," +They said with a shrug. +"The customer's happy-- +What's one little bug?" + +But he was determined, Then change two, then three more, +The others went home. As year followed year. +He dug out the flow chart And strangers would comment, +Deserted, alone. "Is that guy still here?" + +Night passed into morning. He died at the console +The room was cluttered Of hunger and thirst +With core dumps, source listings. Next day he was buried +"I'm close," he muttered. Face down, nine edge first. + +Chain smoking, cold coffee, And his wife through her tears +Logic, deduction. Accepted his fate. +"I've got it!" he cried, Said "He's not really gone, +"Just change one instruction." He's just working late." + -- The Perfect Programmer +% +No rock so hard but that a little wave +May beat admission in a thousand years. + -- Tennyson +% +No sooner had Edger Allen Poe +Finished his old Raven, +then he started his Old Crow. +% +No, his mind is not for rent +To any god or government. +Always hopeful, yet discontent, +He knows changes aren't permanent - +But change is. +% +Nothing that's forced can ever be right, +If it doesn't come naturally, leave it. +That's what she said as she turned out the light, +And we bent our backs as slaves of the night, +Then she lowered her guard and showed me the scars +She got from trying to fight +Saying, oh, you'd better believe it. +[...] +Well nothing that's real is ever for free +And you just have to pay for it sometime. +She said it before, she said it to me, +I suppose she believed there was nothing to see, +But the same old four imaginary walls +She'd built for livin' inside +I said oh, you just can't mean it. +[...] +Well nothing that's forced can ever be right, +If it doesn't come naturally, leave it. +That's what she said as she turned out the light, +And she may have been wrong, and she may have been right, +But I woke with the frost, and noticed she'd lost +The veil that covered her eyes, +I said oh, you can leave it. + -- Al Stewart, "If It Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It" +% +Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; +Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure. + -- George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Don Juan" +% +Now I lay me back to sleep. +The speaker's dull; the subject's deep. +If he should stop before I wake, +Give me a nudge for goodness' sake. + -- Anonymous +% +Now I lay me down to sleep +I pray the double lock will keep; +May no brick through the window break, +And, no one rob me till I awake. +% +Now I lay me down to sleep, +I pray the Lord my soul to keep, +If I should die before I wake, +I'll cry in anguish, "Mistake!! Mistake!!" +% +Now I lay me down to study, +I pray the Lord I won't go nutty. +And if I fail to learn this junk, +I pray the Lord that I won't flunk. +But if I do, don't pity me at all, +Just lay my bones in the study hall. +Tell my teacher I've done my best, +Then pile my books upon my chest. +% +Now it's time to say goodbye +To all our company... +M-I-C (see you next week!) +K-E-Y (Why? Because we LIKE you!) +M-O-U-S-E. +% +Now let the song begin! Let us sing together +Of sun, star, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather, +Light on the budding leag, dew on the feather, +Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather, +Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water: +Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Now of my threescore years and ten, +Twenty will not come again, +And take from seventy springs a score, +It leaves me only fifty more. + +And since to look at things in bloom +Fifty springs are little room, +About the woodlands I will go +To see the cherry hung with snow. + -- A.E. Housman +% +Now that day wearies me, +My yearning desire +Will receive more kindly, +Like a tired child, the starry night. + +Hands, leave off your deeds, +Mind, forget all thoughts; +All of my forces +Yearn only to sink into sleep. + +And my soul, unguarded, +Would soar on widespread wings, +To live in night's magical sphere +More profoundly, more variously. + -- Hermann Hesse, "Going to Sleep" +% +Now what would they do if I just sailed away? +Who the hell really compelled me to leave today? +Runnin' low on stories of what made it a ball, +What would they do if I made no landfall?" + -- Jimmy Buffet, "Landfall" +% +Now's the time to have some big ideas +Now's the time to make some firm decisions +We saw the Buddha in a bar down south +Talking politics and nuclear fission +We see him and he's all washed up -- +Moving on into the body of a beetle +Getting ready for a long long crawl +He ain't nothing -- he ain't nothing at all... + +Death and Money make their point once more +In the shape of Philosophical assassins +Mark and Danny take the bus uptown +Deadly angels for reality and passion +Have the courage of the here and now +Don't taking nothing from the half-baked buddhas +When you think you got it paid in full +You got nothing -- you got nothing at all... + We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha. + We know his name and he mustn't get away. + We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha. + It would take one shot -- to blow him away... + -- Shriekback, "Gunning for the Buddah" +% +O give me a home, +Where the buffalo roam, +Where the deer and the antelope play, +Where seldom is heard +A discouraging word, +'Cause what can an antelope say? +% +O love, could thou and I with fate conspire +To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, +Might we not smash it to bits +And mould it closer to our hearts' desire? + -- Omar Khayyam, tr. FitzGerald +% +O slender as a willow-wand! O clearer than clear water! +O reed by the living pool! Fair river-daughter! +O spring-time and summer-time, and spring again after! +O wind on the waterfall, and the leaves' laughter! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +O! Wanderers in the shadowed land +despair not! For though dark they stand, +all woods there be must end at last, +and see the open sun go past: +the setting sun, the rising sun, +the day's end, or the day begun. +For east or west all woods must fail ... + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Observe yon plumed biped fine. +To activate its captivation, +Deposit on its termination, +A quantity of particles saline. +% +Of all the words of witch's doom +There's none so bad as which and whom. +The man who kills both which and whom +Will be enshrined in our Who's Whom. + -- Fletcher Knebel +% +Oh don't the days seem lank and long + When all goes right and none goes wrong, +And isn't your life extremely flat + With nothing whatever to grumble at! +% +Oh give me your pity! +I'm on a committee, We attend and amend +Which means that from morning And contend and defend + to night, Without a conclusion in sight. + +We confer and concur, +We defer and demur, We revise the agenda +And reiterate all of our thoughts. With frequent addenda + And consider a load of reports. + +We compose and propose, +We suppose and oppose, But though various notions +And the points of procedure are fun; Are brought up as motions, + There's terribly little gets done. + +We resolve and absolve; +But we never dissolve, +Since it's out of the question for us +To bring our committee +To end like this ditty, +Which stops with a period, thus. + -- Leslie Lipson, "The Committee" +% +Oh Lord, won't you buy me a 4BSD? +My friends all got sources, so why can't I see? +Come all you moby hackers, come sing it out with me: +To hell with the lawyers from AT&T! +% +"Oh, 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown! +Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town? +And whence such fair garments such prosperi-ty?" +"Oh, didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she. + +"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks, +Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks; +And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!" +"Yes: That's how we dress when we're ruined," said she. + +"At home in the barton you said `thee' and `thou,' +And `thik oon' and `theas oon' and `t'other;' but now +Your talking quite fits 'ee for compa-ny!" +"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she. + +"Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak +But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek, +And your little gloves fit like as on any la-dy!" +"We never do work when we're ruined," said she. + +"You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream, +And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem +To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!" +"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she. + +"I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown, +And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" +"My dear--a raw country girl, such as you be, +Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she. + --Thomas Hardy +% +Oh, by the way, which one's Pink? + -- Pink Floyd +% +Oh, give me a home, +Where the buffalo roam, +And I'll show you a house with a really messy kitchen. +% +Oh, give me a locus where the gravitons focus + Where the three-body problem is solved, + Where the microwaves play down at three degrees K, + And the cold virus never evolved. (chorus) +We eat algea pie, our vacuum is high, + Our ball bearings are perfectly round. + Our horizon is curved, our warheads are MIRVed, + And a kilogram weighs half a pound. (chorus) +If we run out of space for our burgeoning race + No more Lebensraum left for the Mensch + When we're ready to start, we can take Mars apart, + If we just find a big enough wrench. (chorus) +I'm sick of this place, it's just McDonald's in space, + And living up here is a bore. + Tell the shiggies, "Don't cry," they can kiss me goodbye + 'Cause I'm moving next week to L4! (chorus) + +CHORUS: Home, home on LaGrange, + Where the space debris always collects, + We possess, so it seems, two of Man's greatest dreams: + Solar power and zero-gee sex. + -- to Home on the Range +% +Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay + I muck with indices and structs all day +And when it works, I shout hoo-ray + Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay +% +Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, +And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings; +Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth +Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things +You have not dreamed of -- +Wheeled and soared and swung +High in the sunlit silence. +Hovering there +I've chased the shouting wind along and flung +My eager craft through footless halls of air. +Up, up along delirious, burning blue +I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, +Where never lark, or even eagle flew; +And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod +The high untrespassed sanctity of space, +Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. + -- John Gillespie Magee Jr., "High Flight" +% +Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, +A medley of extemporanea; +And love is thing that can never go wrong; +And I am Marie of Roumania. + -- Dorothy Parker, "Comment" +% +Oh, the Slithery Dee, he crawled out of the sea. +He may catch all the others, but he won't catch me. +No, he won't catch me, stupid ol' Slithery Dee. +He may catch all the others, but AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! + -- The Smothers Brothers +% +Oh, when I was in love with you, + Then I was clean and brave, +And miles around the wonder grew + How well did I behave. + +And now the fancy passes by, + And nothing will remain, +And miles around they'll say that I + Am quite myself again. + -- A. E. Housman +% +Oh, yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of livin' is gone. + -- John Cougar, "Jack and Diane" +% +Old Mother Hubbard lived in a shoe, +She had so many children, +She didn't know what to do. +So she moved to Atlanta. +% +Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard +To fetch her poor daughter a dress. +When she got there, the cupboard was bare +And so was her daughter, I guess... +% +Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow, +Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow. +None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master: +His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +On a morning from a Bogart movie, in a country where they turned back time, +You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime. +She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolor in the rain. +Don't bother asking for explanations, she'll just tell you that she came +In the Year of the Cat. + +She doesn't give you time for questions, as she locks up your arm in hers, +And you follow 'till your sense of which direction completely disappears. +By the blue-tiled walls near the market stall there's a hidden door she + leads you to. +These days, she say, I feel my life just like a river running through +The Year of the Cat. + +Well, she looks at you so coolly, +And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea. +She comes in incense and patchouli, +So you take her to find what's waiting inside +The Year of the Cat. + +Well, morning comes and you're still with her, but the bus and the tourists + are gone, +And you've thrown away your choice and lost your ticket, so you have to stay on. +But the drum-beat strains of the night remain in the rhythm of the new-born day. +You know some time you're bound to leave her, but for now you're going to stay +In the Year of the Cat. + -- Al Stewart, "Year of the Cat" +% +On the good ship Enterprise +Every week there's a new surprise +Where the Romulans lurk +And the Klingons often go berserk. + +Yes, the good ship Enterprise +There's excitement anywhere it flies +Where Tribbles play +And Nurse Chapel never gets her way. + + See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge, + Mr. Spock is at his side. + The weekly menace, ooh-ooh + It gets fried, scattered far and wide. + +It's the good ship Enterprise +Heading out where danger lies +And you live in dread +If you're wearing a shirt that's red. + -- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics, + "The Good Ship Enterprise," to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop" +% +Once again dread deed is done. +Canon sleeps, +his all-knowing eye shaded +to human chance and circumstance. +Peace reigns anew o'er Pine Valley, +but Canon's sleep is troubled. + +Beware, scant days past the Ides of July. +Impatient hands wait eagerly +to grasp, to hold +scant moments of time +wrested from life in the full +glory of Canon's power; +held captive by his unblinking eye. + +Three golden orbs stand watch; +one each to toll the day, hour, minute +until predestiny decrees his reawakening. +When that feared moment arives, +"Ask not for whom the bell tolls, +It tolls for thee." + -- "I extended the loan on your Camera, at the Pine + Valley Pawn Shop today" +% +Once there was a little nerd who loved to read your mail, +And then yank back the i-access times to get hackers off his tail, +And once as he finished reading from the secretary's spool, +He wrote a rude rejection to her boyfriend (how uncool!) +And this as delivermail did work and he ran his backfstat, +He heard an awful crackling like rat fritters in hot fat, +And hard errors brought the system down 'fore he could even shout! + And the bio bug'll bring yours down too, ef you don't watch out! +And once they was a little flake who'd prowl through the uulog, +And when he went to his blit that night to play at being god, +The ops all heard him holler, and they to the console dashed, +But when they did a ps -ut they found the system crashed! +Oh, the wizards adb'd the dumps and did the system trace, +And worked on the file system 'til the disk head was hot paste, +But all they ever found was this: "panic: never doubt", + And the bio bug'll crash your box too, ef you don't watch out! +When the day is done and the moon comes out, +And you hear the printer whining and the rk's seems to count, +When the other desks are empty and their terminals glassy grey, +And the load is only 1.6 and you wonder if it'll stay, +You must mind the file protections and not snoop around, + Or the bio bug'll getcha and bring the system down! +% +Once upon this midnight incoherent, +While you pondered sentient and crystalline, +Over many a broken and subordinate +Volume of gnarly lore, +While I pestered, nearly singing, +Sudddenly there came a hewing, +As of someone profusely skulking, +Skulking at my chamber door. +% +One bright Sunday morning, in the shadows of the steeple, +By the Relief Office, I seen my people; +As they stood there hungry, I stood there whistling, +This land was made for you and me. + +Nobody living can ever stop me, +As I go walking that freedom highway; +Nobody living can ever make me turn back, +This land was made for you and me. + +As I went walking, I saw a sign there, +And on the sign it said: "No Trespassing." +But on the other side, it didn't say nothing, +That side was made for you and me. + -- Woody Guthrie, "This Land Is Your Land" (verses 4, 6, 7) + [If you ever wondered why Arlo was so anti-establishment when his dad + wrote such wonderful patriotic songs, the answer is that you haven't + heard all of Woody's songs] +% +One day, +A mad meta-poet, +With nothing to say, +Wrote a mad meta-poem +That started: "One day, +A mad meta-poet, +With nothing to say, +Wrote a mad meta-poem +That started: "One day, +[...] +sort of close". +Were the words that the poet, +Finally chose, +To bring his mad poem, +To some sort of close". +Were the words that the poet, +Finally chose, +To bring his mad poem, +To some sort of close". +% +One good thing about music, +Well, it helps you feel no pain. +So hit me with music; +Hit me with music now. + -- Bob Marley, "Trenchtown Rock" +% +One pill makes you larger, And if you go chasing rabbits +And one pill makes you small. And you know you're going to fall. +And the ones that mother gives you, Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar +Don't do anything at all. Has given you the call. +Go ask Alice Call Alice +When she's ten feet tall. When she was just small. + +When men on the chessboard When logic and proportion +Get up and tell you where to go. Have fallen sloppy dead, +And you've just had some kind of And the White Knight is talking + mushroom backwards +And your mind is moving low. And the Red Queen's lost her head +Go ask Alice Remember what the dormouse said: +I think she'll know. Feed your head. + Feed your head. + Feed your head. + -- Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit" +% +One reason why George Washington +Is held in such veneration: +He never blamed his problems +On the former Administration. + -- George O. Ludcke +% +One thing about the past. +It's likely to last. + -- Ogden Nash +% +One toke over the line, sweet Mary, +One toke over the line, +Sittin' downtown in a railway station, +One toke over the line. +Waitin' for the train that goes home, +Hopin' that the train is on time, +Sittin' downtown in a railway station, +One toke over the line. +% +Other women cloy +The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry +Where most she satisfies. + -- Antony and Cleopatra +% +Our little systems have their day; +They have their day and cease to be; +They are but broken lights of thee. + -- Tennyson +% +Our sires' age was worse that our grandsires'. +We their sons are more worthless than they: +so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +Parsley + is gharsley. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Payeen to a Twang +Derrida +Ore-Ida +potato. + +If you dared, +I'd ask you +to go dig +up your ides under brown- +tubered skies. + +where pitchforked +you will ask +Derrida? +% +Picking up the pieces of my sweet shattered dream, +I wonder how the old folks are tonight, +Her name was Ann, and I'll be damned if I recall her face, +She left me not knowing what to do. + +Carefree Highway, let me slip away on you, +Carefree Highway, you seen better days, +The morning after blues, from my head down to my shoes, +Carefree Highway, let me slip away, slip away, on you... + +Turning back the pages to the times I love best, +I wonder if she'll ever do the same, +Now the thing that I call livin' is just bein' satisfied, +With knowing I got noone left to blame. +Carefree Highway, I got to see you, my old flame... + +Searching through the fragments of my dream shattered sleep, +I wonder if the years have closed her mind, +I guess it must be wanderlust or tryin' to get free, +From the good old faithful feelin' we once knew. + -- Gordon Lightfoot, "Carefree Highway" +% +Piping down the valleys wild, +Piping songs of pleasant glee, +On a cloud I saw a child, +And he laughing said to me: +"Pipe a song about a Lamb!" +So I piped with merry cheer. +"Piper, pipe that song again;" +So I piped: he wept to hear. + -- William Blake, "Songs of Innocence" +% +Plagiarize, plagiarize, +Let no man's work evade your eyes, +Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, +Don't shade your eyes, +But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize. +Only be sure to call it research. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Planet Claire has pink hair. +All the trees are red. +No one ever dies there. +No one has a head.... +% +Please stand for the National Anthem: + + Australians all, let us rejoice, + For we are young and free. + We've golden soil and wealth for toil + Our home is girt by sea. + Our land abounds in nature's gifts + Of beauty rich and rare. + In history's page, let every stage + Advance Australia Fair. + In joyful strains then let us sing, + Advance Australia Fair. + +Thank you. You may resume your seat. +% +Please stand for the National Anthem: + + God save our Gracious Queen! + Long live our Noble Queen! + God save the Queen! + Send her victorious, + Happy and glorious, + Long to reign o'er us! + God save the Queen! + +Thank you. You may resume your seat. +% +Please stand for the National Anthem: + + O Canada + Our home and native land + True patriot love + In all thy sons' command + With glowing hearts we see thee rise + The true north strong and free + From far and wide, O Canada + We stand on guard for thee + God keep our land glorious and free + O Canada we stand on guard for thee + O Canada we stand on guard for thee + +Thank you. You may resume your seat. +% +Please stand for the National Anthem: + + Oh, say can you see by dawn's early light + What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? + Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight + O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? + And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, + Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. + Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave + O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? + +Thank you. You may resume your seat. +% +Power, like a desolating pestilence, +Pollutes whate'er it touches... + -- Percy Bysshe Shelley +% +Probable-Possible, my black hen, +She lays eggs in the Relative When. +She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now +Because she's unable to postulate How. + -- Frederick Winsor +% + Proposed Country & Western Song Titles +I Can't Get Over You, So I Get Up and Go Around to the Other Side +If You Won't Leave Me Alone, I'll Find Someone Who Will +I Knew That You'd Committed a Sin When You Came Home Late With + Your Socks Outside-in +I'm a Rabbit in the Headlights of Your Love +Don't Kick My Tires If You Ain't Gonna Take Me For a Ride +I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well +I Still Miss You, Baby, But My Aim's Gettin' Better +I've Got Red Eyes From Your White Lies and I'm Blue All the Time + -- "Wordplay" +% + Proposed Country & Western Song Titles +I Don't Mind If You Lie to Me, As Long As I Ain't Lyin' Alone +I Wouldn't Take You to a Dog Fight Even If I Thought You Could Win +If You Leave Me, Walk Out Backwards So I'll Think You're Comin' In +Since You Learned to Lip-Sync, I'm At Your Disposal +My John Deere Was Breaking Your Field, While Your Dear John Was + Breaking My Heart +Don't Cry, Little Darlin', You're Waterin' My Beer +Tennis Must Be Your Racket, 'Cause Love Means Nothin' to You +When You Say You Love Me, You're Full of Prunes, 'Cause Living + With You Is the Pits +I Wanted Your Hand in Marriage but All I Got Was the Finger + -- "Wordplay" +% + Proposed Country & Western Song Titles +She Ain't Much to See, but She Looks Good Through the Bottom of a Glass +If Fingerprints Showed Up On Skin, I Wonder Who's I'd Find On You +I'm Ashamed to be Here, but Not Ashamed Enough to Leave +It's Commode Huggin' Time In The Valley +If You Want to Keep the Beer Real Cold, Put It Next to My Ex-wife's Heart +If You Get the Feeling That I Don't Love You, Feel Again +I'm Ashamed To Be Here, But Not Ashamed Enough To Leave +It's the Bottle Against the Bible in the Battle For Daddy's Soul +My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, And I Sure Miss Him +Don't Cut Any More Wood, Baby, 'Cause I'll Be Comin' Home With A Load +I Loved Her Face, But I Left Her Behind For You +% +Put another password in, +Bomb it out, then try again. +Try to get past logging in, +We're hacking, hacking, hacking. + +Try his first wife's maiden name, +This is more than just a game. +It's real fun, but just the same, +It's hacking, hacking, hacking. + -- To the tune of "Music, Music, Music?" +% +rain falls where clouds come +sun shines where clouds go +clouds just come and go + -- Florian Gutzwiller +% +Razors pain you; + Rivers are damp. + Acids stain you, +And drugs cause cramp. + +Guns aren't lawful; + Nooses give. + Gas smells awful-- +You might as well live! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Resume", 1926 +% +Reach into the thoughts of friends, +And find they do not know your name. +Squeeze the teddy bear too tight, +And watch the feathers burst the seams. +Touch the stained glass with your cheek, +And feel its chill upon your blood. +Hold a candle to the night, +And see the darkness bend the flame. +Tear the mask of peace from God, +And hear the roar of souls in hell. +Pluck a rose in name of love, +And watch the petals curl and wilt. +Lean upon the western wind, +And know you are alone. + -- Dru Mims +% +Reclaimer, spare that tree! +Take not a single bit! +It used to point to me, +Now I'm protecting it. +It was the reader's CONS +That made it, paired by dot; +Now, GC, for the nonce, +Thou shalt reclaim it not. +% +Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be +worse in Cleveland. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Remember thee +Ay, thou poor ghost while memory holds a seat +In this distracted globe. Remember thee! +Yea, from the table of my memory +I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, +All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, +That youth and observation copied there. + -- William Shakespeare, "Hamlet" +% +Remove me from this land of slaves, +Where all are fools, and all are knaves, +Where every knave and fool is bought, +Yet kindly sells himself for nought; + -- Jonathan Swift +% +Roland was a warrior, from the land of the midnight sun, +With a Thompson gun for hire, fighting to be done. +The deal was made in Denmark, on a dark and stormy day, +So he set out for Biafra, to join the bloody fray. +Through sixty-six and seven, they fought the Congo war, +With their fingers on their triggers, knee deep in gore. +Days and nights they battled, the Bantu to their knees, +They killed to earn their living, and to help out the Congolese. + Roland the Thompson gunner... +His comrades fought beside him, Van Owen and the rest, +But of all the Thompson gunners, Roland was the best. +So the C.I.A decided, they wanted Roland dead, +That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen, blew off Roland's head. + Roland the headless Thompson gunner... +Roland searched the continent, for the man who'd done him in. +He found him in Mombasa, in a bar room drinking gin, +Roland aimed his Thompson gun, he didn't say a word, +But he blew Van Owen's body from there to Johannesburg. +The eternal Thompson gunner, still wandering through the night, +Now it's ten years later, but he stills keeps up the fight. +In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Berkeley, +Patty Hearst... heard the burst... of Roland's Thompson gun, and bought it. + -- Warren Zevon, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" +% +Romeo was restless, he was ready to kill, +He jumped out the window 'cause he couldn't sit still, +Juliet was waiting with a safety net, +Said "don't bury me 'cause I ain't dead yet". + -- Elvis Costello +% +Roses are red; + Violets are blue. +I'm schizophrenic, + And so am I. +% +Saturday night in Toledo Ohio, + Is like being nowhere at all, +All through the day how the hours rush by, + You sit in the park and you watch the grass die. + -- John Denver, "Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio" +% +Say it with flowers, +Or say it with mink, +But whatever you do, +Don't say it with ink! + -- Jimmie Durante +% +Say many of cameras focused t'us, +Our middle-aged shots do us justice. +No justice, please, curse ye! +We really want mercy: +You see, 'tis the justice, disgusts us. + -- Thomas H. Hildebrandt +% +Say my love is easy had, + Say I'm bitten raw with pride, +Say I am too often sad -- + Still behold me at your side. + +Say I'm neither brave nor young, + Say I woo and coddle care, +Say the devil touched my tongue -- + Still you have my heart to wear. + +But say my verses do not scan, + And I get me another man! + -- Dorothy Parker, "Fighting Words" +% +Say! You've struck a heap of trouble-- +Bust in business, lost your wife; +No one cares a cent about you, +You don't care a cent for life; +Hard luck has of hope bereft you, +Health is failing, wish you'd die-- +Why, you've still the sunshine left you +And the big blue sky. + -- R.W. Service +% +Science Fiction, Double Feature. +Frank has built and lost his creature. +Darkness has conquered Brad and Janet. +The servants gone to a distant planet. +Wo, oh, oh, oh. +At the late night, double feature, Picture show. +I want to go, oh, oh, oh. +To the late night, double feature, Picture show. + -- Rocky Horror Picture Show +% +Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! +Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. +Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, +Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? +How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise? +Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering +To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, +Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? +Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? +And driven the Hamadryad from the wood +To seek a shelter in some happier star? +Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, +The Elfin from the green grass, and from me +The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree? + -- Edgar Allen Poe, "Science, a Sonnet" +% +Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific, +Fain how I pause at your nature specific, +Loftily poised in the ether capacious, +Highly resembling a gem carbonaceous. +Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific, +Fain how I pause at your nature specific. +% +Scratch the disks, dump the core, Shut it down, pull the plug +Roll the tapes across the floor, Give the core an extra tug +And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. +Teletypes smashed to bits. Mem'ry cards, one and all, +Give the scopes some nasty hits Toss out halfway down the hall +And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. +And we've also found Just flip one switch +When you turn the power down, And the lights will cease to twitch +You turn the disk readers into trash. And the tape drives will crumble + in a flash. +Oh, it's so much fun, When the CPU +Now the CPU won't run Can print nothing out but "foo," +And the system is going to crash. The system is going to crash. + -- To the tune of "As the Caissons go Rolling Along" +% +Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. +She scissored short. Sorely shorn, +Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, +Silently scheming, +Sightlessly seeking +Some savage, spectacular suicide. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" +% +Seek for the Sword that was broken: +In Imladris it dwells; +There shall be counsels taken +Stronger than Morgul-spells. + +There shall be shown a token +That Doom is near at hand, +For Isildur's Bane shall waken, +And the Halfling forth shall stand. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +She asked me, "What's your sign?" +I blinked and answered "Neon," +I thought I'd blow her mind... +% +She blinded me with science! +% +She can kill all your files; +She can freeze with a frown. +And a wave of her hand brings the whole system down. +And she works on her code until ten after three. +She lives like a bat but she's always a hacker to me. + -- Apologies to Billy Joel +% +She stood on the tracks +Waving her arms +Leading me to that third rail shock +Quick as a wink +She changed her mind + +She gave me a night +That's all it was +What will it take until I stop +Kidding myself +Wasting my time + +There's nothing else I can do +'Cause I'm doing it all for Leyna +I don't want anyone new +'Cause I'm living it all for Leyna +There's nothing in it for you +'Cause I'm giving it all to Leyna + -- Billy Joel, "All for Leyna" (Glass Houses) +% +SHIFT TO THE LEFT! +SHIFT TO THE RIGHT! +POP UP, PUSH DOWN, +BYTE, BYTE, BYTE! +% +Shift to the left, +Shift to the right, +Mask in, mask out, +BYTE, BYTE, BYTE !!! +% +Since I hurt my pendulum +My life is all erratic. +My parrot who was cordial +Is now transmitting static. +The carpet died, a palm collapsed, +The cat keeps doing poo. +The only thing that keeps me sane +Is talking to my shoe. + -- My Shoe +% +Sing hey! for the bath at close of day +That washes the weary mud away! +A loon is he that will not sing: +O! Water Hot is a noble thing! + + O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain, + and the brook that leaps from hill to plain; + but better than rain or rippling streams + is Water Hot that smokes and steams. + +O! Water cold we may pour at need +down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed; +but better is Beer, if drink we lack, +and Water Hot poured down the back. + + O! Water is fair that leaps on high + in a fountain white beneath the sky; + but never did fountain sound so sweet + as splashing Hot Water with my feet! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear! +O Queen beyond the Western Sea! +O Light to us that wander here +Amid the world of woven trees! + + Gilthoniel! O Elbereth! + Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath! + Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee + In a far land beyond the Sea. + +O stars that in the Sunless Year +With shining hand by her were sown, +In windy fields now bright and clear +We see you silver blossom blown! + + O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! + We still remember, we who dwell + In this far land beneath the trees, + Thy starlight on the Western Seas. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +So much +depends +upon +a red + +wheel +barrow +glazed with + +rain +water +beside +the white +chickens. + -- William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheel Barrow" +% +So, you better watch out! +You better not cry! +You better not pout! +I'm telling you why, +Santa Claus is coming, to town. + +He knows when you've been sleeping, +He know when you're awake. +He knows if you've been bad or good, +He has ties with the CIA. +So... +% +So... so you think you can tell +Heaven from Hell? +Blue skies from pain? Did they get you to trade +Can you tell a green field Your heroes for ghosts? +From a cold steel rail? Hot ashes for trees? +A smile from a veil? Hot air for a cool breeze? +Do you think you can tell? Cold comfort for change? + Did you exchange + A walk on part in a war + For the lead role in a cage? + -- Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here" +% +Soldiers who wish to be a hero +Are practically zero, +But those who wish to be civilians, +They run into the millions. +% +Some of them want to use you, +Some of them want to be used by you, +...Everybody's looking for something. + -- Eurythmics +% +Some primal termite knocked on wood. +And tasted it, and found it good. +And that is why your Cousin May +Fell through the parlor floor today. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Some say the world will end in fire, +Some say in ice. +From what I've tasted of desire +I hold with those who favor fire. +But if it had to perish twice, +I think I know enough of hate +To say that for destruction, ice +Is also great +And would suffice. + -- Robert Frost, "Fire and Ice" +% +Sometimes I feel like I'm fading away, +Looking at me, I got nothin' to say. +Don't make me angry with the things games that you play, +Either light up or leave me alone. +% +Sometimes I live in the country, +And sometimes I live in town. +And sometimes I have a great notion, +To jump in the river and drown. +% +Sometimes the light's all shining on me, +Other times I can barely see. +Lately it occurs to me +What a long strange trip it's been. + -- The Grateful Dead, "American Beauty" +% +Speak roughly to your little boy, + And beat him when he sneezes: +He only does it to annoy + Because he knows it teases. + Wow! wow! wow! + +I speak severely to my boy, + And beat him when he sneezes: +For he can thoroughly enjoy + The pepper when he pleases! + Wow! wow! wow! + -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" +% +Speak roughly to your little VAX, + And boot it when it crashes; +It knows that one cannot relax + Because the paging thrashes! + Wow! Wow! Wow! + +I speak severely to my VAX, + And boot it when it crashes; +In spite of all my favorite hacks + My jobs it always thrashes! + Wow! Wow! Wow! +% +Speaking of Godzilla and other things that convey horror: + +With a purposeful grimace and a Mongo-like flair +He throws the spinning disk drives in the air! +And he picks up a Vax and he throws it back down +As he wades through the lab making terrible sounds! +Helpless users with projects due +Scream "My God!" as he stomps on the tape drives, too! + +Oh, no! He says Unix runs too slow! Go, go, DECzilla! +Oh, yes! He's gonna bring up VMS! Go, go, DECzilla!" + +* VMS is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation. +* DECzilla is a trademark of Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Death, Inc. + -- Curtis Jackson +% +Spring is here, spring is here, +Life is skittles and life is beer. +% +St. Patrick was a gentleman +who through strategy and stealth +drove all the snakes from Ireland. +Here's a toasting to his health -- +but not too many toastings +lest you lose yourself and then +forget the good St. Patrick +and see all those snakes again. +% +Stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time, +There's something wrong here, there can be no more denying, +One of us is changing, or maybe we just stopped trying, + +And it's too late, baby, now, it's too late, +Though we really did try to make it, +Something inside has died and I can't hide and I just can't fake it... + +It used to be so easy living here with you, +You were light and breezy and I knew just what to do +Now you look so unhappy and I feel like a fool. + +There'll be good times again for me and you, +But we just can't stay together, don't you feel it too? +But I'm glad for what we had and that I once loved you... + +But it's too late baby... +It's too late, now darling, it's too late... + -- Carol King, "Tapestry" +% +Step back, unbelievers! +Or the rain will never come. +Somebody keep the fire burning, someone come and beat the drum. +You may think I'm crazy, you may think that I'm insane, +But I swear to you, before this day is out, + you folks are gonna see some rain! +% +Strange things are done to be number one +In selling the computer The Druids were entrepreneurs, +IBM has their strategem And they built a granite box +Which steadily grows acuter, It tracked the moon, warned of monsoons, +And Honeywell competes like Hell, And forecast the equinox +But the story's missing link Their price was right, their future +Is the system old at Stonemenge sold bright, +By the firm of Druids, Inc. The prototype was sold; + From Stonehenge site their bits and byte + Would ship for Celtic gold. +The movers came to crate the frame; +It weighed a million ton! +The traffic folk thought it a joke The man spoke true, and thus to you +(the wagon wheels just spun); A warning from the ages; +"They'll nay sell that," the foreman Your stock will slip if you can't ship + spat, What's in your brochure's pages. +"Just leave the wild weeds grow; See if it sells without the bells +"It's Druid-kind, over-designed, And strings that ring and quiver; +"And belly up they'll go." Druid repute went down the chute + Because they couldn't deliver. + -- Edward C. McManus, "The Computer at Stonehenge" +% +Suffering alone exists, none who suffer; +The deed there is, but no doer thereof; +Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it; +The Path there is, but none who travel it. + -- "Buddhist Symbolism", Symbols and Values +% +Sun in the night, everyone is together, +Ascending into the heavens, life is forever. + -- Brand X, "Moroccan Roll/Sun in the Night" +% + /\ SUN of them wants to use you, + \\ \ + / \ \\ / SUN of them wants to be used by you, + / / \/ / //\ + \//\ \// / SUN of them wants to abuse you, + / / /\ / + / \\ \ SUN of them wants to be abused ... + \ \\ + \/ + -- Eurythmics +% +Sweet sixteen is beautiful Bess, +And her voice is changing -- from "No" to "Yes". +% +System/3! System/3! +See how it runs! See how it runs! + Its monitor loses so totally! + It runs all its programs in RPG! + It's made by our favorite monopoly! +System/3! +% +T: One big monster, he called TROLL. + He don't rock, and he don't roll; + Drink no wine, and smoke no stogies. + He just Love To Eat Them Roguies. + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% +Take a look around you, tell me what you see, +A girl who thinks she's ordinary lookin' she has got the key. +If you can get close enough to look into her eyes +There's something special right behind the bitterness she hides. + And you're fair game, + You never know what she'll decide, you're fair game, + Just relax, enjoy the ride. +Find a way to reach her, make yourself a fool, +But do it with a little class, disregard the rules. +'Cause this one knows the bottom line, couldn't get a date. +The ugly duckling striking back, and she'll decide her fate. + (chorus) +The ones you never notice are the ones you have to watch. +She's pleasant and she's friendly while she's looking at your crotch. +Try your hand at conversation, gossip is a lie, +And sure enough she'll take you home and make you wanna die. + (chorus) + -- Crosby, Stills, Nash, "Fair Game" +% +Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting +enough cheese. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +Tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred, +Tan me hide when I'm dead. +So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde, +It's hanging there on the shed. + +All together now... + Tie me kangaroo down, sport, + Tie me kangaroo down. + Tie me kangaroo down, sport, + Tie me kangaroo down. +% +Tell me why the stars do shine, +Tell me why the ivy twines, +Tell me why the sky's so blue, +And I will tell you just why I love you. + + Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine, + Phototropism makes ivy twine, + Rayleigh scattering makes sky so blue, + Sexual hormones are why I love you. +% +Tell me, O Octopus, I begs, +Is those things arms, or is they legs? +I marvel at thee, Octopus; +If I were thou, I'd call me us. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Terence, this is stupid stuff: +You eat your victuals fast enough; +There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear, +To see the rate you drink your beer. +But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, +It gives a chap the belly-ache. +The cow, the old cow, she is dead; +It sleeps well the horned head: +We poor lads, 'tis our turn now +To hear such tunes as killed the cow. +Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme +Your friends to death before their time. +Moping, melancholy mad: +Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad. + -- A.E. Housman +% +That feeling just came over me. + -- Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler" +% +That money talks, +I'll not deny, +I heard it once, +It said "Good-bye. + -- Richard Armour +% + The Advertising Agency Song + + When your client's hopping mad, + Put his picture in the ad. + If he still should prove refractory, + Add a picture of his factory. +% +The all-softening overpowering knell, +The tocsin of the soul, -- the dinner bell. + -- Lord Byron +% +The bank called to tell me that I'm overdrawn, +Some freaks are burning crosses out on my front lawn, +And I *can't*believe* it, all the Cheetos are gone, + It's just ONE OF THOSE DAYS! + -- Weird Al Yankovic, "One of Those Days" +% +The bank sent our statement this morning, +The red ink was a sight of great awe! +Their figures and mine might have balanced, +But my wife was too quick on the draw. +% +The Bird of Time has but a little way to fly ... +and the bird is on the wing. + -- Omar Khayyam +% +The boy stood on the burning deck, +Eating peanuts by the peck. +His father called him, but he could not go, +For he loved those peanuts so. +% +The camel has a single hump; +The dromedary two; +Or else the other way around. +I'm never sure. Are you? + -- Ogden Nash +% +The carbonyl is polarized, +The delta end is plus. +The nucleophile will thus attack, +The carbon nucleus. +Addition makes an alcohol, +Of types there are but three. +It makes a bond, to correspond, +From C to shining C. + -- Prof. Frank Westheimer, to "America the Beautiful" +% +The common cormorant, or shag, +Lays eggs inside a paper bag; +The reason, you will see, no doubt, +Is to keep the lightning out. +But what these unobservant birds +Have failed to notice is that herds +Of bears may come with buns +And steal the bags to hold the crumbs. +% +The difference between us is not very far, +cruising for burgers in daddy's new car. +% +The eyes of Texas are upon you, +All the livelong day; +The eyes of Texas are upon you, +You cannot get away; +Do not think you can escape them +From night 'til early in the morn; +The eyes of Texas are upon you +'Til Gabriel blows his horn. + -- University of Texas' school song +% +The garden is in mourning; +The rain falls cool among the flowers. +Summer shivers quietly +On its way towards its end. + +Golden leaf after leaf +Falls from the tall acacia. +Summer smiles, astonished, feeble, +In this dying dream of a garden. + +For a long while, yet, in the roses, +She will linger on, yearning for peace, +And slowly +Close her weary eyes. + -- Hermann Hesse, "September" +% +The glances over cocktails +That seemed to be so sweet +Don't seem quite so amorous +Over Shredded Wheat +% +The good (I am convinced, for one) +Is but the bad one leaves undone. +Once your reputation's done +You can live a life of fun. + -- Wilhelm Busch +% +The good life was so elusive +It really got me down +I had to regain some confidence +So I got into camouflage +% +The good time is approaching, +The season is at hand. +When the merry click of the two-base lick +Will be heard throughout the land. +The frost still lingers on the earth, and +Budless are the trees. +But the merry ring of the voice of spring +Is borne upon the breeze. + -- Ode to Opening Day, "The Sporting News", 1886 +% +The grave's a fine and private place, +but none, I think, do there embrace. + -- Andrew Marvell +% +The hope that springs eternal +Springs right up your behind. + -- Ian Drury, "This Is What We Find" +% +The Junior God now heads the roll +In the list of heaven's peers; +He sits in the House of High Control, +And he regulates the spheres. +Yet does he wonder, do you suppose, +If, even in gods divine, +The best and wisest may not be those +Who have wallowed awhile with the swine? + -- Robert W. Service +% +The ladies men admire, I've heard, +Would shudder at a wicked word. +Their candle gives a single light; +They'd rather stay at home at night. +They do not keep awake till three, +Nor read erotic poetry. +They never sanction the impure, +Nor recognize an overture. +They shrink from powders and from paints... +So far, I've had no complaints. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +The leaves were long, the grass was green, +The hemlock-umbels tall and fair, +And in the glade a light was seen +Of stars in shadow shimmering. +Tin'uviel was dancing there +To music of a pipe unseen, +And light of stars was in her hair, +And in her raiment glimmering. + +There Beren came from mountains colds, +And lost he wandered under leaves, +And where the Elven-river rolled +He walked alone and sorrowing. +He peered between the hemlock-leaves +And saw in wonder flowers of gold +Upon her mantle and her sleeves, +And her hair like shadow following. + +Enchantment healed his weary feet +That over hills were doomed to roam; +And forth he hastened, strong and fleet, +And grasped at moonbeams glistening. +Through woven woods in Elvenhome +She lightly fled on dancing feet, +And left him lonely still to roam +In the silent forest listening. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +The lights are on, +but you're not home; +Your will +is not your own; +Your heart sweats, +Your teeth grind; +Another kiss +and you'll be mine... + +You like to think that you're immune to the stuff +(Oh Yeah!) +It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough; +You know you're gonna have to face it, +You're addicted to love!" + -- Robert Palmer +% +The little town that time forgot, +Where all the women are strong, +The men are good-looking, +And the children above-average. + -- Prairie Home Companion +% + The Lord and I are in a sheep-shepherd relationship, and I am in +a position of negative need. + He prostrates me in a green-belt grazing area. + He conducts me directionally parallel to non-torrential aqueous +liquid. + He returns to original satisfaction levels my psychological makeup. + He switches me on to a positive behavioral format for maximal +prestige of His identity. + It should indeed be said that notwithstanding the fact that I make +ambulatory progress through the umbragious inter-hill mortality slot, terror +sensations will no be initiated in me, due to para-etical phenomena. + Your pastoral walking aid and quadrupic pickup unit introduce me +into a pleasurific mood state. + You design and produce a nutriment-bearing furniture-type structure +in the context of non-cooperative elements. + You act out a head-related folk ritual employing vegetable extract. + My beverage utensil experiences a volume crisis. + It is an ongoing deductible fact that your inter-relational +empathetical and non-ventious capabilities will retain me as their +target-focus for the duration of my non-death period, and I will possess +tenant rights in the housing unit of the Lord on a permanent, open-ended +time basis. +% +The makers may make +and the users may use, +but the fixers must fix +with but minimal clues +% +The man she had was kind and clean +And well enough for every day, +But oh, dear friends, you should have seen +The one that got away. + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Fisherwoman" +% +The morning sun when it's in your face really shows your age, +But that don't bother me none; in my eyes you're everything. +I know I keep you amused, +But I feel I'm being used. +Oh, Maggie, I wish I'd never seen your face. + +You took me away from home, +Just to save you from being alone; +You stole my heart, and that's what really hurts. + +I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school, +Or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool, +Or find myself a rock 'n' roll band, +That needs a helping hand, +Oh, Maggie I wish I'd never seen your face. + +You made a first-class fool out of me, +But I'm as blind as a fool can be. +You stole my soul, and that's a pain I can do without. + -- Rod Stewart, "Maggie May" +% +The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, + Moves on: nor all they Piety nor Wit +Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, + Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. +% +The net of law is spread so wide, +No sinner from its sweep may hide. +Its meshes are so fine and strong, +They take in every child of wrong. +O wondrous web of mystery! +Big fish alone escape from thee! + -- James Jeffrey Roche +% +The night passes quickly when you're asleep +But I'm out shufflin' for something to eat +... +Breakfast at the Egg House, +Like the waffle on the griddle, +I'm burnt around the edges, +But I'm tender in the middle. + -- Adrian Belew +% +The one L lama, he's a priest +The two L llama, he's a beast +And I will bet my silk pyjama +There isn't any three L lllama. + -- O. Nash, to which a fire chief replied that occasionally + his department responded to something like a "three L lllama." +% +The Pig, if I am not mistaken, +Gives us ham and pork and Bacon. +Let others think his heart is big, +I think it stupid of the Pig. + -- Ogden Nash +% +The Poet Whose Badness Saved His Life + The most important poet in the seventeenth century was George +Wither. Alexander Pope called him "wretched Wither" and Dryden said of his +verse that "if they rhymed and rattled all was well". + In our own time, "The Dictionary of National Biography" notes that his +work "is mainly remarkable for its mass, fluidity and flatness. It usually +lacks any genuine literary quality and often sinks into imbecile doggerel". + High praise, indeed, and it may tempt you to savour a typically +rewarding stanza: It is taken from "I loved a lass" and is concerned with +the higher emotions. + She would me "Honey" call, + She'd -- O she'd kiss me too. + But now alas! She's left me + Falero, lero, loo. + Among other details of his mistress which he chose to immortalize +was her prudent choice of footwear. + The fives did fit her shoe. + In 1639 the great poet's life was endangered after his capture by +the Royalists during the English Civil War. When Sir John Denham, the +Royalist poet, heard of Wither's imminent execution, he went to the King and +begged that his life be spared. When asked his reason, Sir John replied, +"Because that so long as Wither lived, Denham would not be accounted the +worst poet in England." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The Preacher, the Politician, the Teacher, + Were each of them once a kiddie. +A child, indeed, is a wonderful creature. + Do I want one? God Forbiddie! + -- Ogden Nash +% +The Rabbits The Cow +Here is a verse about rabbits The cow is of the bovine ilk; +That doesn't mention their habits. One end is moo, the other, milk. + -- Ogden Nash +% +The rain it raineth on the just + And also on the unjust fella, +But chiefly on the just, because + The unjust steals the just's umbrella. + -- Lord Bowen +% +The rhino is a homely beast, +For human eyes he's not a feast. +Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros, +I'll stare at something less prepoceros. + -- Ogden Nash +% +The Road goes ever on and on +Down from the door where it began. +Now far ahead the Road has gone, +And I must follow, if I can, +Pursuing it with eager feet, +Until it joins some larger way +Where many paths and errands meet. +And whither then? I cannot say. + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +The smiling Spring comes in rejoicing, +And surly Winter grimly flies. +Now crystal clear are the falling waters, +And bonnie blue are the sunny skies. +Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the morning, +The ev'ning gilds the oceans's swell: +All creatures joy in the sun's returning, +And I rejoice in my bonnie Bell. + +The flowery Spring leads sunny Summer, +The yellow Autumn presses near; +Then in his turn come gloomy Winter, +Till smiling Spring again appear. +Thus seasons dancing, life advancing, +Old Time and Nature their changes tell; +But never ranging, still unchanging, +I adore my bonnie Bell. + -- Robert Burns, "My Bonnie Bell" +% +The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door. +He said, "I am not fighting for you any more." +The queen knew she had seen his face someplace before, +And slowly she let him inside. + +He said, "I see you now, and you're so very young, +But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won, +And I have this intuition that it's all for your fun. +And now will you tell me why?" + -- Suzanne Vega, "The Queen and The Soldier" +% +The sounds of the nouns are mostly unbound. +In town a noun might wear a gown, +or further down, might dress a clown. +A noun that's sound would never clown, +but unsound nouns jump up and down. +The sound of a noun could distrub the plowing, +and then, my dear, you'd be put in the pound. +But please don't let that get you down, +the renown of your gown is the talk of the town. + -- A. Nonnie Mouse +% +The street preacher looked so baffled +When I asked him why he dressed +With forty pounds of headlines +Stapled to his chest. +But he cursed me when I proved to him +I said, "Not even you can hide. +You see, you're just like me. +I hope you're satisfied." + -- Bob Dylan +% +The sun was shining on the sea, +Shining with all his might: +He did his very best to make +The billows smooth and bright -- +And this was very odd, because it was +The middle of the night. + -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" +% +The Thought Police are here. They've come +To put you under cardiac arrest. +And as they drag you through the door +They tell you that you've failed the test. + -- Buggles, "Living in the Plastic Age" +% +The thrill is here, but it won't last long +You'd better have your fun before it moves along... +% +The trouble with a kitten is that +When it grows up, it's always a cat + -- Ogden Nash. +% +The trouble with you +Is the trouble with me. +Got two good eyes +But we still don't see. + -- Robert Hunter, "Workingman's Dead" +% +The truth you speak has no past and no future. +It is, and that's all it needs to be. +% +The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks +Which practically conceal its sex. +I think it clever of the turtle +In such a fix to be so fertile. + -- Ogden Nash +% +The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful. +My thoughts aren't too clear, but don't run away. +My girlfriend's a bore; my job is too dutiful. +Hell nobody's perfect, would you like to play? +I feel together today! + -- Jimmy Buffet, "Coconut Telegraph" +% +The wind doth taste so bitter sweet, + Like Jaspar wine and sugar, +It must have blown through someone's feet, + Like those of Caspar Weinberger. + -- P. Opus +% +The wombat lives across the seas, +Among the far Antipodes. +He may exist on nuts and berries, +Or then again, on missionaries; +His distant habitat precludes +Conclusive knowledge of his moods. +But I would not engage the wombat +In any form of mortal combat. + -- "The Wombat" +% +The Worst American Poet + Julia Moore, "the Sweet Singer of Michigan" (1847-1920) was so bad that +Mark Twain said her first book gave him joy for 20 years. + Her verse was mainly concerned with violent death -- the great fire +of Chicago and the yellow fever epidemic proved natural subjects for her pen. + Whether death was by drowning, by fits or by runaway sleigh, the +formula was the same: + Have you heard of the dreadful fate + Of Mr. P.P. Bliss and wife? + Of their death I will relate, + And also others lost their life + (in the) Ashbula Bridge disaster, + Where so many people died. + Even if you started out reasonably healthy in one of Julia's poems, +the chances are that after a few stanzas you would be at the bottom of a +river or struck by lightning. A critic of the day said she was "worse than +a Gatling gun" and in one slim volume counted 21 killed and 9 wounded. + Incredibly, some newspapers were critical of her work, even +suggesting that the sweet singer was "semi-literate". Her reply was +forthright: "The Editors that has spoken in this scandalous manner have went +beyond reason." She added that "literary work is very difficult to do". + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% + The Worst Lines of Verse +For a start, we can rule out James Grainger's promising line: + "Come, muse, let us sing of rats." +Grainger (1721-67) did not have the courage of his convictions and deleted +these words on discovering that his listeners dissolved into spontaneous +laughter the instant they were read out. + No such reluctance afflicted Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-70) who was +inspired by the subject of war. + "Flash! flash! bang! bang! and we blazed away, + And the grey roof reddened and rang; + Flash! flash! and I felt his bullet flay + The tip of my ear. Flash! bang!" +By contrast, Cheshire cheese provoked John Armstrong (1709-79): + "... that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste of solid milk..." +While John Bidlake was guided by a compassion for vegetables: + "The sluggard carrot sleeps his day in bed, + The crippled pea alone that cannot stand." +George Crabbe (1754-1832) wrote: + "And I was ask'd and authorized to go + To seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co." +William Balmford explored the possibilities of religious verse: + "So 'tis with Christians, Nature being weak + While in this world, are liable to leak." +And William Wordsworth showed that he could do it if he really tried when +describing a pond: + "I've measured it from side to side; + Tis three feet long and two feet wide." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The young lady had an unusual list, +Linked in part to a structural weakness. +She set no preconditions. +% +The, uh, snowy mountains are like really cold, eh? +And the, um, plains stretch out like my moms girdle, eh? +There's lotsa beers and doughnuts for everyone, eh? +So the last one to be peaceful and everything is a big idiot, +Eh? +So shut yer face up and dry yer mucklucks by the fire, eh? +And dream about girls with their high beams on, eh? +They may be cold, but that's okay! Beer's better that way! +Eh? + -- A, like, Tribute to the Great White North, eh? +Beauty! +% +Then here's to the City of Boston, +The town of the cries and the groans. +Where the Cabots can't see the Kabotschniks, +And the Lowells won't speak to the Cohns. + -- Franklin Pierce Adams +% +There are bad times just around the corner, +There are dark clouds hurtling through the sky + And it's no good whining + About a silver lining +For we know from experience that they won't roll by... + -- Noel Coward +% +There are places I'll remember +All my life though some have changed. +Some forever not for better +Some have gone and some remain. +All these places had their moments +With lovers and friends I still recall. +Some are dead and some are living, +In my life I've loved them all. + +But of all these friends and lovers, +There is no one compared with you, +All these memories lose their meaning +When I think of love as something new. +Though I know I'll never lose affection +For people and things that went before, +I know I'll often stop and think about them +In my life I'll love you more. + -- Lennon/McCartney, "In My Life", 1965 +% +There are strange things done in the midnight sun + By the men who moil for gold; +The Arctic trails have their secret tales + That would make your blood run cold; +The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, + But the queerest they ever did see +Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge + I cremated Sam McGee. + -- Robert W. Service +% +There is in certain living souls +A quality of loneliness unspeakable, +So great it must be shared +As company is shared by lesser beings. +Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this +That in immensity +There is one lonelier than you. +% +There is no point in waiting. +The train stopped running years ago. +All the schedules, the brochures, +The bright-colored posters full of lies, +Promise rides to a distant country +That no longer exists. +% +There is something in the pang of change +More than the heart can bear, +Unhappiness remembering happiness. + -- Euripides +% +There once was a Sailor who looked through a glass +And spied a fair mermaid with scales on her... island. +Where seagulls flew over their nest. +She combed the long hair which hung over her... shoulders. +And caused her to tickle and itch. +The sailor cried out "There's a beautiful... mermaid. +A sittin' out there on the rocks." +The crew came a running, all grabbing their... glasses. +And crowded four deep to the rail. +All eager to share in this fine piece of... news. +... +"Throw out a line and we'll lasso her... flippers. +And soon we will certainly find +If mermaids are better before or be... brave +My dear fellows," The captain cried out. +And cursing with spleen. +This song may be dull, but it's certainly clean. + -- "The Clean Song", Oscar Brandt +% +There was a little girl +Who had a little curl +Right in the middle of her forehead. +When she was good, she was very, very good +And when she was bad, she was very, very popular. + -- Max Miller, "The Max Miller Blue Book" +% +There's a lesson that I need to remember +When everything is falling apart +In life, just like in loving +There's such a thing as trying to hard + +You've gotta sing +Like you don't need the money +Love like you'll never get hurt +You've gotta dance +Like nobody's watching +It's gotta come from the heart +If you want it to work. + -- Kathy Mattea +% +There's a thrill in store for all for we're about to toast +The corporation that we represent. +We're here to cheer each pioneer and also proudly boast, +Of that man of men our sterling president +The name of T.J. Watson means +A courage none can stem +And we feel honored to be here to toast the IBM. + -- Ever Onward, from the 1940 IBM Songbook +% +There's amnesia in a hangknot, +And comfort in the ax, +But the simple way of poison will make your nerves relax. + There's surcease in a gunshot, + And sleep that comes from racks, + But a handy draft of poison avoids the harshest tax. +You find rest on the hot squat, +Or gas can give you pax, +But the closest corner chemist has peace in packaged stacks. + There's refuge in the church lot + When you tire of facing facts, + And the smoothest route is poison prescribed by kindly quacks. +Chorus: With an *ugh!* and a groan, and a kick of the heels, + Death comes quiet, or it comes with squeals -- + But the pleasantest place to find your end + Is a cup of cheer from the hand of a friend. + -- Jubal Harshaw, "One For The Road" +% +There's little in taking or giving, + There's little in water or wine: +This living, this living, this living, + Was never a project of mine. +Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is + The gain of the one at the top, +For art is a form of catharsis, + And love is a permanent flop, +And work is the province of cattle, + And rest's for a clam in a shell, +So I'm thinking of throwing the battle -- + Would you kindly direct me to hell? + -- Dorothy Parker +% +They told me you had proven it When they discovered our results + About a month before. Their hair began to curl +The proof was valid, more or less Instead of understanding it + But rather less than more. We'd run the thing through PRL. + +He sent them word that we would try Don't tell a soul about all this + To pass where they had failed For it must ever be +And after we were done, to them A secret, kept from all the rest + The new proof would be mailed. Between yourself and me. + +My notion was to start again + Ignoring all they'd done +We quickly turned it into code + To see if it would run. +% +They went rushing down that freeway, +Messed around and got lost. +They didn't care... they were just dying to get off, +And it was life in the fast lane. + -- Eagles, "Life in the Fast Lane" +% +They wouldn't listen to the fact that I was a genius, +The man said "We got all that we can use", +So I've got those steadily-depressin', low-down, mind-messin', +Working-at-the-car-wash blues. + -- Jim Croce +% +Thinks't thou existence doth depend on time? +It doth; but actions are our epochs; mine +Have made my days and nights imperishable, +Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore, +Innumerable atoms; and one desert, +Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break, +But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks, +Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness. +% +"Thirty days hath Septober, +April, June, and no wonder. +all the rest have peanut butter +except my father who wears red suspenders." +% +Thirty white horses on a red hill, +First they champ, +Then they stamp, +Then they stand still. + -- Tolkien +% +This ae nighte, this ae nighte, +Everye nighte and alle, +Fire and sleet and candlelyte, +And Christe receive thy saule. + -- The Lykewake Dirge +% +This here's the wattle, +The emblem of our land. +You can stick it in a bottle; +You can hold it in your hand. +Amen! + -- Monty Python +% +This is for all ill-treated fellows + Unborn and unbegot, +For them to read when they're in trouble + And I am not. + -- A. E. Housman +% +This is the story of the bee +Whose sex is very hard to see + +You cannot tell the he from the she +But she can tell, and so can he + +The little bee is never still +She has no time to take the pill + +And that is why, in times like these +There are so many sons of bees. +% +This is the way the world ends, +This is the way the world ends, +This is the way the world ends, +Not with a bang but with a whimper. + -- T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men" +% +This land is my land, and only my land, +I've got a shotgun, and you ain't got one, +If you don't get off, I'll blow your head off, +This land is private property. + -- Apologies to Woody Guthrie +% +This thing all things devours: +Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; +Gnaws iron, bites steel; +Grinds hard stones to meal; +Slays king, ruins town, +And beats high mountain down. +% +Those who sweat in flames of hell, Leaden eared, some thought their bowels +Here's the reason that they fell: Lispeth forth the sweetest vowels. +While on earth they prayed in SAS, These they offered up in praise +PL/1, or other crass, Thinking all this fetid haze +Vulgar tongue. A rapsody sung. + +Some the lord did sorely try Jabber of the mindless horde +Assembling all their pleas in hex. Sequel next did mock the lord +Speech as crabbed as devil's crable Slothful sequel so enfangled +Hex that marked on Tower Babel Its speaker's lips became entangled +The highest rung. In his bung. + +Because in life they prayed so ill +And offered god such swinish swill +Now they sweat in flames of hell +Sweat from lack of APL +Sweat dung! +% +Though I respect that a lot +I'd be fired if that were my job +After killing Jason off and +Countless screaming argonauts + +Bluebird of friendliness +Like guardian angels it's +Always near + +Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch +Who watches over you +Make a little birdhouse in your soul +Not to put too fine a point on it +Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet +Make a little birdhouse in your soul + -- "Birdhouse in your Soul", They Might Be Giants +% +Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, +Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, +Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, +One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne +In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. +One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, +One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them +In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. + -- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Lord of the Rings" +% +Throw away documentation and manuals, +and users will be a hundred times happier. +Throw away privileges and quotas, +and users will do the Right Thing. +Throw away proprietary and site licenses, +and there won't be any pirating. + +If these three aren't enough, +just stay at your home directory +and let all processes take their course. +% +Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day +Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way +Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown +Waiting for someone or something to show you the way + +Tired of lying in the sunshine And then one day you find +Staying home to watch the rain Ten years have got behind you +You are young and life is long No one told you when to run +And there is time to kill today You missed the starting gun + +And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking +And racing around to come up behind you again +The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older +Shorter of breath and one day closer to death + +Every year is getting shorter Hanging on in quiet desperation + is the English way +Never seem to find the time The time is gone, the song is over +Plans that either come to nought Thought I'd something more to say... +Or half a page of scribbled lines + -- Pink Floyd, "Time" +% +Tiger got to hunt, +Bird got to fly; +Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?" + +Tiger got to sleep, +Bird got to land; +Man got to tell himself he understand. + -- The Books of Bokonon +% +Tim and I a hunting went +We found three damsels in a tent, +As they were three, and we were two, +I bucked one and Timbuktu. + -- the only known poem using the word "Timbuktu" +% +Time goes, you say? +Ah no! +Time stays, *we* go. + -- Austin Dobson +% +Time washes clean +Love's wounds unseen. +That's what someone told me; +But I don't know what it means. + -- Linda Ronstadt, "Long Long Time" +% +'Tis the dream of each programmer, +Before his life is done, +To write three lines of APL, +And make the damn things run. +% + To A Quick Young Fox +Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp, +Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr's gawky vice? +Guy fed by work, quiz Jove's xanthic lamp-- +Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice. + -- Lazy Dog +% +to be nobody but yourself in a world +which is doing its best night and day +to make you like everybody else +means to fight the hardest battle +any human being can fight and +never stop fighting. + -- e.e. cummings +% +To code the impossible code, This is my quest -- +To bring up a virgin machine, To debug that code, +To pop out of endless recursion, No matter how hopeless, +To grok what appears on the screen, No matter the load, + To write those routines +To right the unrightable bug, Without question or pause, +To endlessly twiddle and thrash, To be willing to hack FORTRAN IV +To mount the unmountable magtape, For a heavenly cause. +To stop the unstoppable crash! And I know if I'll only be true + To this glorious quest, +And the queue will be better for this, That my code will run CUSPy and calm, +That one man, scorned and When it's put to the test. + destined to lose, +Still strove with his last allocation +To scrap the unscrappable kludge! + -- To "The Impossible Dream", from Man of La Mancha +% +To err is human, +To purr feline. + -- Robert Byrne +% +To err is human, to purr feline. +To err is human, two curs canine. +To err is human, to moo bovine. +% +To everything there is a season, a time for every pupose under heaven: +A time to be born, and a time to die; +A time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted; +A time to kill, and a time to heal; +A time to break down, and a time to build up; +A time to weep, and a time to laugh; +A time to mourn, and a time to dance; +A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones; +A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; +A time to gain, and a time to lose; +A time to keep, and a time to throw away; +A time to tear, and a time to sew; +A time to keep silence, and a time to speak; +A time to love, and a time to hate; +A time of war, and a time of peace. + Ecclesiastes 3:1-9 +% +To stand and be still, +At the Birkenhead drill, +Is a damned tough bullet to chew. + -- Rudyard Kipling +% +To whom the mornings are like nights, +What must the midnights be! + -- Emily Dickinson (on hacking?) +% +To write a sonnet you must ruthlessly +strip down your words to naked, willing flesh. +Then bind them to a metaphor or three, +and take by force a satisfying mesh. +Arrange them to your will, each foot in place. +You are the master here, and they the slaves. +Now whip them to maintain a constant pace +and rhythm as they stand in even staves. +A word that strikes no pleasure? Cast it out! +What use are words that drive not to the heart? +A lazy phrase? Discard it, shrug off doubt, +and choose more docile words to take its part. +A well-trained sonnet lives to entertain, +by making love directly to the brain. +% +Tobacco is a filthy weed, +That from the devil does proceed; +It drains your purse, it burns your clothes, +And makes a chimney of your nose. + -- B. Waterhouse +% +Too cool to calypso, +Too tough to tango, +Too weird to watusi + -- The Only Ones +% +Troll sat alone on his seat of stone, +And munched and mumbled a bare old bone; +For many a year he had gnawed it near, +For meat was hard to come by. + Done by! Gum by! +In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone, +And meat was hard to come by. + +Up came Tom with his big boots on. +Said he to Troll: "Pray, what is youn? +For it looks like the shin o' my nuncle Tim, +As should be a-lyin in graveyard. + Caveyard! Paveyard! +This many a year has Tim been gone, +And I thought he were lyin' in graveyard." + +"My lad," said Troll, "this bone I stole. +But what be bones that lie in a hole? +Thy nuncle was dead as a lump o' lead, +Afore I found his shinbone. + Tinbone! Thinbone! +He can spare a share for a poor old troll +For he don't need his shinbone." + +Said Tom: "I don't see why the likes o' thee +Without axin' leave should go makin' free +With the shank or the shin o' my father's kin; +So hand the old bone over! + Rover! Trover! +Though dead he be, it belongs to he; +So hand the old bnone over!" + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Try not. +Do. +Or do not. +There is no try. +% +"Twas bergen and the eirie road +Did mahwah into patterson: "Beware the Hopatcong, my son! +All jersey were the ocean groves, The teeth that bite, the nails +And the red bank bayonne. that claw! + Beware the bound brook bird, and shun +He took his belmar blade in hand: The kearney communipaw." +Long time the folsom foe he sought +Till rested he by a bayway tree And, as in nutley thought he stood, +And stood a while in thought. The Hopatcong with eyes of flame, + Came whippany through the englewood, +One, two, one, two, and through And garfield as it came. + and through +The belmar blade went hackensack! "And hast thou slain the Hopatcong? +He left it dead and with it's head Come to my arms, my perth amboy! +He went weehawken back. Hohokus day! Soho! Rahway!" + He caldwell in his joy. +Did mahwah into patterson: +All jersey were the ocean groves, +And the red bank bayonne. + -- Paul Kieffer +% +'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves +Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! +All mimsy were the borogroves The jaws that bite, the claws +And the mome raths outgrabe. that catch! + Beware the Jubjub bird, +He took his vorpal sword in hand And shun the frumious Bandersnatch!" +Long time the manxome foe he sought. +So rested he by the tumtum tree And as in uffish thought he stood +And stood awhile in thought. The Jabberwock, with eyes aflame + Came whuffling through the tulgey wood +One! Two! One! Two! And through and And burbled as it came! + through +The vorpal blade went snicker-snack. "Hast thou slain the Jabberwock? +He left it dead, and took its head, Come to my arms, my beamish boy! +And went galumphing back. Oh frabjous day! Calooh! Callay!" + He chortled in his joy. +'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves +Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. +All mimsy were the borogroves +And the mome raths outgrabe. + -- Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky" +% +'Twas bullig, and the slithy brokers +Did buy and gamble in the craze "Beware the Jabberstock, my son! +All rosy were the Dow Jones stokers The cost that bites, the worth +By market's wrath unphased. that falls! + Beware the Econ'mist's word, and shun +He took his forecast sword in hand: The spurious Street o' Walls!" +Long time the Boesk'some foe he sought - +Sake's liquidity, so d'vested he, And as in bearish thought he stood +And stood awhile in thought. The Jabberstock, with clothes of tweed, + Came waffling with the truth too good, +Chip Black! Chip Blue! And through And yuppied great with greed! + and through +The forecast blade went snicker-snack! "And hast thou slain the Jabberstock? +It bit the dirt, and with its shirt, Come to my firm, V.P.ish boy! +He went rebounding back. O big bucks day! Moolah! Good Play!" + He bought him a Mercedes Toy. +'Twas panic, and the slithy brokers +Did gyre and tumble in the Crash +All flimsy were the Dow Jones stokers +And mammon's wrath them bash! + -- Peter Stucki, "Jabberstocky" +% +Twas FORTRAN as the doloop goes + Did logzerneg the ifthen block +All kludgy were the function flows + And subroutines adhoc. + +Beware the runtime-bug my friend + squrooneg, the false goto +Beware the infiniteloop + And shun the inprectoo. + -- "OUTCONERR," to the scheme of "Jabberwocky" +% +'Twas midnight on the ocean, Her children all were orphans, +Not a streetcar was in sight, Except one a tiny tot, +So I stepped into a cigar store Who had a home across the way +To ask them for a light. Above a vacant lot. + +The man behind the counter As I gazed through the oaken door +Was a woman, old and gray, A whale went drifting by, +Who used to peddle doughnuts Its six legs hanging in the air, +On the road to Mandalay. So I kissed her goodbye. + +She said "Good morning, stranger", This story has a morale +Her eyes were dry with tears, As you can plainly see, +As she put her head between her feet Don't mix your gin with whiskey +And stood that way for years. On the deep and dark blue sea. + -- Midnight On The Ocean +% +'Twas midnight, and the UNIX hacks +Did gyre and gimble in their cave +All mimsy was the CS-VAX +And Cory raths outgrabe. + +"Beware the software rot, my son! +The faults that bite, the jobs that thrash! +Beware the broken pipe, and shun +The frumious system crash!" +% +'Twas the night before crisis, and all through the house, + Not a program was working not even a browse. +The programmers were wrung out too mindless to care, + Knowing chances of cutover hadn't a prayer. +The users were nestled all snug in their beds, + While visions of inquiries danced in their heads. +When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter, + I sprang from my tube to see what was the matter. +And what to my wondering eyes should appear, + But a Super Programmer, oblivious to fear. +More rapid than eagles, his programs they came, + And he whistled and shouted and called them by name; +On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete! + On Batch Jobs! On Closing! On Functions Complete! +His eyes were glazed over, his fingers were lean, + From Weekends and nights in front of a screen. +A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, + Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread... + -- "Twas the Night before Crisis" +% +'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period + preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And + throughout our place of residence, +Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the + possessors of this potential, including that + species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus. +Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward + edge of the woodburning caloric apparatus, +Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an + imminent visitation from an eccentric + philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations + is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ... +% +Twenty two thousand days. +Twenty two thousand days. +It's not a lot. +It's all you've got. +Twenty two thousand days. + -- Moody Blues, "Twenty Two Thousand Days" +% + Two men looked out from the prison bars, + One saw mud-- + The other saw stars. + +Now let me get this right: two prisoners are looking out the window. +While one of them was looking at all the mud -- the other one got hit +in the head. +% +Tyger, Tyger, burning bright Where the hammer? Where the chain? +In the forests of the night, In what furnace was thy brain? +What immortal hand or eye What the anvil? What dread grasp +Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Dare its deadly terrors clasp? + +Burnt in distant deeps or skies When the stars threw down their spears +The cruel fire of thine eyes? And water'd heaven with their tears +On what wings dare he aspire? Dare he laugh his work to see? +What the hand dare seize the fire? Dare he who made the lamb make thee? + +And what shoulder & what art Tyger, Tyger, burning bright +Could twist the sinews of they heart? In the forests of the night, +And when thy heart began to beat What immortal hand or eye +What dread hand & what dread feet Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? + +Could fetch it from the furnace deep +And in thy horrid ribs dare steep +In the well of sanguine woe? +In what clay & in what mould +Were thy eyes of fury roll'd? + -- William Blake, "The Tyger" +% +U: There's a U -- a Unicorn! + Run right up and rub its horn. + Look at all those points you're losing! + UMBER HULKS are so confusing. + -- The Roguelet's ABC +% +Under the wide and heavy VAX +Dig my grave and let me relax +Long have I lived, and many my hacks +And I lay me down with a will. +These be the words that tell the way: +"Here he lies who piped 64K, +Brought down the machine for nearly a day, +And Rogue playing to an awful standstill." +% +Under the wide and starry sky, +Dig my grave and let me lie, +Glad did I live and gladly die, +And laid me down with a will, +And this be the verse that you grave for me, +Here he lies where he longed to be, +Home is the sailor home from the sea, +And the hunter home from the hill. + -- Robert Loius Stevenson, "Requiem" +% +Up against the net, redneck mother, +Mother who has raised your son so well; +He's seventeen and hackin' on a Macintosh, +Flaming spelling errors and raisin' hell... +% +Upon the hearth the fire is red, +Beneath the roof there is a bed; +But not yet weary are our feet, +Still round the corner we may meet +A sudden tree or standing stone +That none have seen but we alone. Still round the corner there may wait + Tree and flower and leaf and grass, A new road or a secret gate, + Let them pass! Let them pass! And though we pass them by today + Hill and water under sky, Tomorrow we may come this way + Pass them by! Pass them by! And take the hidden paths that run + Towards the Moon or to the Sun, +Home is behind, the world ahead, Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe, +And there are many paths to tread Let them go! Let them go! +Through shadows to the edge of night, Sand and stone and pool and dell, +Until the stars are all alight. Fare you well! Fare you well! +Then world behind and home ahead, +We'll wander back to home and bed. + Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, + Away shall fade! Away shall fade! + Fire and lamp, and meat and bread, + And then to bed! And then to bed! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Voiceless it cries, +Wingless flutters, +Toothless bites, +Mouthless mutters. +% +Volcanoes have a grandeur that is grim +And earthquakes only terrify the dolts, +And to him who's scientific +There is nothing that's terrific +In the pattern of a flight of thunderbolts! + -- W.S. Gilbert, "The Mikado" +% +Wad some power the giftie gie us +To see oursels as others see us. + -- R. Burns +% +Wake now my merry lads! Wake and hear me calling! +Warm now be heart and limb! The cold stone is fallen; +Dark door is standing wide; dead hand is broken. +Night under Night is flown, and the Gate is open! + -- J. R. R. Tolkien +% +Wake up all you citizens, hear your country's call, +Not to arms and violence, But peace for one and all. +Crush out hate and prejudice, fear and greed and sin, +Help bring back her dignity, restore her faith again. + +Work hard for a common cause, don't let our country fall. +Make her proud and strong again, democracy for all. +Yes, make our country strong again, keep our flag unfurled. +Make our country well again, respected by the world. + +Make her whole and beautiful, work from sun to sun. +Stand tall and labor side by side, because there's so much to be done. +Yes, make her whole and beautiful, united strong and free, +Wake up, all you citizens, It's up to you and me. + -- Pansy Myers Schroeder +% +Wanna tell you all a story 'bout a man named Jed, +A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed. +But then one day he was shootin' at some food, +When up through the ground come a bubblin' crude -- oil, that is; + black gold; 'Texas tea' ... + +Well the next thing ya know, old Jed's a millionaire. +The kinfolk said, 'Jed, move away from there!' +They said, 'Californy is the place ya oughta be', +So they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly -- Hills, that is; + swimmin' pools; movie stars. +% +Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles +In children's circuses could stay their troubles? +There was a time they could cry over books, +But time has set its maggot on their track. +Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe. +What's never known is safest in this life. +Under the skysigns they who have no arms +Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost +Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best. + -- Dylan Thomas, "Was There A Time" +% +Watching girls go passing by +It ain't the latest thing +I'm just standing in a doorway +I'm just trying to make some sense +Out of these girls passing by A smile relieves the heart that grieves +The tales they tell of men Remember what I said +I'm not waiting on a lady I'm not waiting on a lady +I'm just waiting on a friend I'm just waiting on a friend +... +Don't need a whore +Don't need no booze +Don't need a virgin priest Ooh, making love and breaking hearts +But I need someone I can cry to It is a game for youth +I need someone to protect But I'm not waiting on a lady + I'm just waiting on a friend + I'm just waiting on a friend + -- Rolling Stones, "Waiting on a Friend" +% +We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control. + -- Pink Floyd +% +We don't need no indirection We don't need no compilation +We don't need no flow control We don't need no load control +No data typing or declarations No link edit for external bindings +Hey! did you leave the lists alone? Hey! did you leave that source alone? +Chorus: (Chorus) + Oh No. It's just a pure LISP function call. + +We don't need no side-effecting We don't need no allocation +We don't need no flow control We don't need no special-nodes +No global variables for execution No dark bit-flipping for debugging +Hey! did you leave the args alone? Hey! did you leave those bits alone? +(Chorus) (Chorus) + -- "Another Glitch in the Call", a la Pink Floyd +% +We gotta get out of this place, +If it's the last thing we ever do. + -- The Animals +% +we will invent new lullabies, new songs, new acts of love, +we will cry over things we used to laugh & +our new wisdom will bring tears to eyes of gentle +creatures from other planets who were afraid of us till then & +in the end a summer with wild winds & +new friends will be. +% +We wish you a Hare Krishna +We wish you a Hare Krishna +We wish you a Hare Krishna +And a Sun Myung Moon! + -- Maxwell Smart +% +We're happy little Vegemites, + As bright as bright can be. +We all all enjoy our Vegemite + For breakfast, lunch and tea. +% +We're Knights of the Round Table +We dance whene'er we're able +We do routines and chorus scenes We're knights of the Round Table +With footwork impeccable Our shows are formidable +We dine well here in Camelot But many times +We eat ham and jam and Spam a lot. We're given rhymes + That are quite unsingable +In war we're tough and able, We're opera mad in Camelot +Quite indefatigable We sing from the diaphragm a lot. +Between our quests +We sequin vests +And impersonate Clark Gable +It's a busy life in Camelot. +I have to push the pram a lot. + -- Monty Python +% +We've tried each spinning space mote +And reckoned its true worth: +Take us back again to the homes of men +On the cool, green hills of Earth. + +The arching sky is calling +Spacemen back to their trade. +All hands! Standby! Free falling! +And the lights below us fade. +Out ride the sons of Terra, +Far drives the thundering jet, +Up leaps the race of Earthmen, +Out, far, and onward yet-- + +We pray for one last landing +On the globe that gave us birth; +Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies +And the cool, green hills of Earth. + -- Robert A. Heinlein, 1941 +% +Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends! +We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside! +There behind the glass there's a real blade of grass, +Be careful as you pass, move along, move along. +Come inside, the show's about to start, +Guaranteed to blow your head apart. +Rest assured, you'll get your money's worth, +Greatest show, in heaven, hell or earth! +You gotta see the show! It's a dynamo! +You gotta see the show! It's rock 'n' roll! + -- ELP, "Karn Evil 9" (1st Impression, Part 2) +% +Well I looked at my watch and it said a quarter to five, +The headline screamed that I was still alive, +I couldn't understand it, I thought I died last night. +I dreamed I'd been in a border town, +In a little cantina that the boys had found, +I was desperate to dance, just to dig the local sounds. +When along came a senorita, +She looked so good that I had to meet her, +I was ready to approach her with my English charm, +When her brass knuckled boyfriend grabbed me by the arm, +And he said, grow some funk of your own, amigo, +Grow some funk of your own. +We no like to with the gringo fight, +But there might be a death in Mexico tonite. +... +Take my advice, take the next flight, +And grow some funk, grow your funk at home. + -- Elton John, "Grow Some Funk of Your Own" +% +Well, fancy giving money to the Government! +Might as well have put it down the drain. +Fancy giving money to the Government! +Nobody will see the stuff again. +Well, they've no idea what money's for -- +Ten to one they'll start another war. +I've heard a lot of silly things, but, Lor'! +Fancy giving money to the Government! + -- A.P. Herbert +% +Well, I don't know where they come from but they sure do come, +I hope they comin' for me! +And I don't know how they do it but they sure do it good, +I hope they doin' it for free! +They give me cat scratch fever... cat scratch fever! +First time that I got it I was just ten years old, +Got it from the kitty next door... +I went to see the doctor and he gave me the cure, +I think I got it some more! +Got a bad scratch fever... + -- Ted Nugent, "Cat Scratch Fever" +% +Well, my daddy left home when I was three, +And he didn't leave much for Ma and me, +Just and old guitar an'a empty bottle of booze. +Now I don't blame him 'cause he ran and hid, +But the meanest thing that he ever did, +Was before he left he went and named me Sue. +... +But I made me a vow to the moon and the stars, +I'd search the honkey tonks and the bars, +And kill the man that give me that awful name. +It was Gatlinburg in mid-July, +I'd just hit town and my throat was dry, +Thought I'd stop and have myself a brew, +At an old saloon on a street of mud, +Sitting at a table, dealing stud, +Sat that dirty (bleep) that named me Sue. +... +Now, I knew that snake was my own sweet Dad, +From a wornout picture that my Mother had, +And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye... + -- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue" +% +Well, my terminal's locked up, and I ain't got any Mail, + And I can't recall the last time that my program didn't fail; +I've got stacks in my structs, I've got arrays in my queues, + I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. + +If you think that it's nice that you get what you C, + Then go : illogical statement with your whole family, +'Cause the Supreme Court ain't the only place with : Bus error views. + I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. + +On a PDP-11, life should be a breeze, + But with VAXen in the house even magnetic tapes would freeze. +Now you might think that unlike VAXen I'd know who I abuse, + I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. + -- Core Dumped Blues +% +Well, some take delight in the carriages a-rolling, +And some take delight in the hurling and the bowling, +But I take delight in the juice of the barley, +And courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early. +% +Well, we're big rock singers, we've got golden fingers, +And we're loved everywhere we go. +We sing about beauty, and we sing about truth, +At ten thousand dollars a show. +We take all kind of pills to give us all kind of thrills, +But the thrill we've never known, +Is the thrill that'll get'cha, when you get your picture, +On the cover of the Rolling Stone. + +I got a freaky old lady, name of Cole King Katie, +Who embroiders on my jeans. +I got my poor old gray-haired daddy, +Drivin' my limousine. +Now it's all designed, to blow our minds, +But our minds won't be really be blown; +Like the blow that'll get'cha, when you get your picture, +On the cover of the Rolling Stone. + +We got a lot of little, teen-aged, blue-eyed groupies, +Who'll do anything we say. +We got a genuine Indian guru, that's teachin' us a better way. +We got all the friends that money can buy, +So we never have to be alone. +And we keep gettin' richer, but we can't get our picture, +On the cover of the Rolling Stone. + -- Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show + [As a note, they eventually DID make the cover of RS. Ed.] +% +What awful irony is this? +We are as gods, but know it not. +% +What did ya do with your burden and your cross? +Did you carry it yourself or did you cry? +You and I know that a burden and a cross, +Can only be carried on one man's back. + -- Louden Wainwright III +% +What happens to a dream deferred? +Does it dry up +Like a raisin in the sun? +Or fester like a sore -- +And then run? +Does it stink like rotten meat? +Or crust and sugar over -- +Like a syrupy sweet? + +Maybe it just sags +Like a heavy load. + +Or does it explode? + -- Langston Hughes +% +What has roots as nobody sees, +Is taller than trees, +Up, up it goes, +And yet never grows? +% +What pains others pleasures me, +At home am I in Lisp or C; +There i couch in ecstasy, +'Til debugger's poke i flee, +Into kernel memory. +In system space, system space, there shall i fare-- +Inside of a VAX on a silicon square. +% +What segment's this, that, laid to rest +On FHA0, is sleeping? +What system file, lay here a while This, this is "acct.run," +While hackers around it were weeping? Accounting file for everyone. + Dump, dump it and type it out, + The file, the highseg of login. +Why lies it here, on public disk +And why is it now unprotected? +A bug in incant, made it thus. Mount, mount all your DECtapes now +And copy the file somehow, somehow. The problem has not been corrected. + Dump, dump it and type it out, + The file, the highseg of login. + -- to Greensleeves +% +What we Are is God's gift to us. +What we Become is our gift to God. +% +What with chromodynamics and electroweak too +Our Standardized Model should please even you, +Tho' once you did say that of charm there was none +It took courage to switch as to say Earth moves not Sun. +Yet your state of the union penultimate large +Is the last known haunt of the Fractional Charge, +And as you surf in the hot tub with sourdough roll +Please ponder the passing of your sole Monopole. +Your Olympics were fun, you should bring them all back +For transsexual tennis or Anamalon Track, +But Hollywood movies remain sinfully crude +Whether seen on the telly or Remotely Viewed. +Now fasten your sunbelts, for you've done it once more, +You said it in Leipzig of the thing we adore, +That you've built an incredible crystalline sphere +Whose German attendants spread trembling and fear +Of the death of our theory by Particle Zeta +Which I'll bet is not there say your article, later. + -- Sheldon Glashow, Physics Today, December, 1984 +% +What's love but a second-hand emotion? + -- Tina Turner +% +What, still alive at twenty-two, +A clean upstanding chap like you? +Sure, if your throat 'tis hard to slit, +Slit your girl's, and swing for it. +Like enough, you won't be glad, +When they come to hang you, lad: +But bacon's not the only thing +That's cured by hanging from a string. +So, when the spilt ink of the night +Spreads o'er the blotting pad of light, +Lads whose job is still to do +Shall whet their knives, and think of you. + -- Hugh Kingsmill +% +When a lion meets another with a louder roar, +the first lion thinks the last a bore. + -- G.B. Shaw +% +When I think about myself, +I almost laugh myself to death, +My life has been one great big joke, Sixty years in these folks' world +A dance that's walked The child I works for calls me girl +A song that's spoke, I say "Yes ma'am" for working's sake. +I laugh so hard I almost choke Too proud to bend +When I think about myself. Too poor to break, + I laugh until my stomach ache, + When I think about myself. +My folks can make me split my side, +I laughed so hard I nearly died, +The tales they tell, sound just like lying, +They grow the fruit, +But eat the rind, +I laugh until I start to crying, +When I think about my folks. + -- Maya Angelou +% +When in panic, fear and doubt, +Drink in barrels, eat, and shout. +% +When in this world the headlines read +Of those whose hearts are filled with greed +Who rob and steal from those who need +The cry goes up with blinding speed for Underdog (UNDERDOG!) +Underdog (UNDERDOG!) +Speed of lightning, roar of thunder +Fighting all who rob or plunder +Underdog (ah-ah-ah-ah) +Underdog +UNDERDOG! +% +When in trouble or in doubt, +run in circles, scream and shout. +% +When license fees are too high, +users do things by hand. +When the management is too intrusive, +users lose their spirit. + +Hack for the user's benefit. +Trust them; leave them alone. +% +When love is gone, there's always justice. +And when justice is gone, there's always force. +And when force is gone, there's always Mom. +Hi, Mom! + -- Laurie Anderson +% +When my fist clenches crack it open, +Before I use it and lose my cool. +When I smile tell me some bad news, +Before I laugh and act like a fool. + +And if I swallow anything evil, +Put you finger down my throat. +And if I shiver please give me a blanket, +Keep me warm let me wear your coat + +No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, + to be the sad man. +Behind blue eyes. +No one knows what its like to be hated, + to be fated, +To telling only lies. + -- The Who +% +When oxygen Tech played Hydrogen U. +The Game had just begun, when Hydrogen scored two fast points +And Oxygen still had none +Then Oxygen scored a single goal +And thus it did remain, At Hydrogen 2 and Oxygen 1 +Called because of rain. +% +When someone makes a move We'll send them all we've got, +Of which we don't approve, John Wayne and Randolph Scott, +Who is it that always intervenes? Remember those exciting fighting scenes? +U.N. and O.A.S., To the shores of Tripoli, +They have their place, I guess, But not to Mississippoli, +But first, send the Marines! What do we do? We send the Marines! + +For might makes right, Members of the corps +And till they've seen the light, All hate the thought of war: +They've got to be protected, They'd rather kill them off by + peaceful means. +All their rights respected, Stop calling it aggression-- +Till somebody we like can be elected. We hate that expression! + We only want the world to know + That we support the status quo; + They love us everywhere we go, + So when in doubt, send the Marines! + -- Tom Lehrer, "Send The Marines" +% +When the Guru administers, the users +are hardly aware that he exists. +Next best is a sysop who is loved. +Next, one who is feared. +And worst, one who is despised. + +If you don't trust the users, +you make them untrustworthy. + +The Guru doesn't talk, he hacks. +When his work is done, +the users say, "Amazing: +we implemented it, all by ourselves!" +% +When the leaders speak of peace +The common folk know +That war is coming +When the leaders curse war +The mobilization order is already written out. + +Every day, to earn my daily bread +I go to the market where lies are bought +Hopefully +I take my place among the sellers. + -- Bertolt Brecht, "Hollywood" +% +When users see one GUI as beautiful, +other user interfaces become ugly. +When users see some programs as winners, +other programs become lossage. + +Pointers and NULLs reference each other. +High level and assembler depend on each other. +Double and float cast to each other. +High-endian and low-endian define each other. +While and until follow each other. + +Therefore the Guru +programs without doing anything +and teaches without saying anything. +Warnings arise and he lets them come; +processes are swapped and he lets them go. +He has but doesn't possess, +acts but doesn't expect. +When his work is done, he deletes it. +That is why it lasts forever. +% +When you and I are far apart +Can sorrow break your tender heart? +I love you darling, yes I do; +Sleep is so sweet when I dream of you; +All you are is a blossoming rose. +Night is here so I must close. +With care read the first word of each line. +You will find a question of mine. + -- Yours hopefully, The VAX. +% +When you find yourself in danger, +When you're threatened by a stranger, +When it looks like you will take a lickin'... + +There is one thing you should learn, +When there is no one else to turn to, + Caaaall for Super Chicken!! (**bwuck-bwuck-bwuck-bwuck**) + Caaaall for Super Chicken!! +% +When you get what you want in your struggle for self +And the world makes you king for a day, +Just go to a mirror and look at yourself +And see what that man has to say. + For it isn't your father or mother or wife + Whose judgement upon you must pass; + The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life + Is the one staring back from the glass. +Some people may think you a straight-shootin' chum +And call you a wonderful guy, +But the man in the glass says you're only a bum +If you can't look him straight in the eye. + He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest, + For he's with you clear up to the end, + And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test + If the man in the glass is your friend. +You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life +And get pats on the back as you pass, +But your final reward will be heartaches and tears +If you've cheated the man in the glass. +% +When you meet a master swordsman, +show him your sword. +When you meet a man who is not a poet, +do not show him your poem. + -- Rinzai, ninth century Zen master +% +When you overesteem great hackers, +more users become cretins. +When you develop encryption, +more users become crackers. + +The Guru leads +by emptying user's minds +and increasing their quotas, +by weakening their ambition +and toughening their resolve. +When users lack knowledge and desire, +management will not try to interfere. + +Practice not-looping, +and everything will fall into place. +% +When you're a Yup +You're a Yup all the way +From your first slice of Brie +To your last Cabernet. + +When you're a Yup +You're not just a dreamer +You're making things happen +You're driving a Beamer. +% +When you're away, I'm restless, lonely, +Wretched, bored, dejected; only +Here's the rub, my darling dear +I feel the same when you are near. + -- Samuel Hoffenstein, "When You're Away" +% +Whenever Richard Cory went downtown, + We people on the pavement looked at him: +He was a gentleman from sole to crown, + Clean-favored, and imperially slim. +And he was always quietly arrayed, + And he was always human when he talked; +But still he fluttered pulses when he said, + "Good morning," and he glittered when he walked. +And he was rich -- yes, richer than a king -- + And admirably schooled in every grace: +In fine, we thought that he was everything + To make us wish that we were in his place. +So on we worked, and waited for the light, + And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; +And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, + Went home and put a bullet through his head. + -- E.A. Robinson, "Richard Cory" +% +WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE + Oh, dear, where can the matter be + When it's converted to energy? + There is a slight loss of parity. + Johnny's so long at the fair. +% +Where's the man could ease a heart +Like a satin gown? + -- Dorothy Parker, "The Satin Dress" +% +Where, oh, where, are you tonight? +Why did you leave me here all alone? +I searched the world over, and I thought I'd found true love. +You met another, and *PPHHHLLLBBBBTTT*, you wuz gone. + +Gloom, despair and agony on me. +Deep dark depression, excessive misery. +If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. +Oh, gloom, despair and agony on me. + -- Hee Haw +% +Whether weary or unweary, O man, do not rest, +Do not cease your single-handed struggle. +Go on, do not rest. + -- An old Gujarati hymn +% +Whether you can hear it or not, +The Universe is laughing behind your back. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, +The fate of empires and the fall of kings; +While quacks of State must each produce his plan, +And even children lisp the Rights of Man; +Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, +The Rights of Woman merit some attention. + -- Robert Burns, Address on "The Rights of Woman", 26/10 1792 +% +While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, +As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. + -- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to hardware interrupts.] + +And now I see with eye serene +The very pulse of the machine. + -- William Wordsworth, "She Was a Phantom of Delight" + + [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when + referring to software interrupts.] +% +While walking down a crowded +City street the other day, +I heard a little urchin +To a comrade turn and say, +"Say, Chimmey, lemme tell youse, +I'd be happy as a clam +If only I was de feller dat +Me mudder t'inks I am. + +"She t'inks I am a wonder, My friends, be yours a life of toil +An' she knows her little lad Or undiluted joy, +Could never mix wit' nuttin' You can learn a wholesome lesson +Dat was ugly, mean or bad. From that small, untutored boy. +Oh, lot o' times I sit and t'ink Don't aim to be an earthly saint +How nice, 'twould be, gee whiz! With eyes fixed on a star: +If a feller was de feller Just try to be the fellow that +Dat his mudder t'inks he is." Your mother thinks you are. + -- Will S. Adkin, "If I Only Was the Fellow" +% +Whip it, baby. +Whip it right. +Whip it, baby. +Whip it all night! +% +Who does not love wine, women, and song, +Remains a fool his whole life long. + -- Johann Heinrich Voss +% +Who loves not wisely but too well +Will look on Helen's face in hell, +But he whose love is thin and wise +Will view John Knox in Paradise. + -- Dorothy Parker +% +Who made the world I cannot tell; +'Tis made, and here am I in hell. +My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, +I never soiled with such a deed. + -- A.E. Housman +% +Who to himself is law no law doth need, +offends no law, and is a king indeed. + -- George Chapman +% +Why are you watching +The washing machine? +I love entertainment +So long as it's clean. + +Professor Doberman: + While the preceding poem is unarguably a change from the guarded +pessimism of "The Hound of Heaven," it cannot be regarded as an unqualified +improvement. Obscurity is of value only when it tends to clarify the poetic +experience. As much as one is compelled to admire the poem's technique, one +must question whether its byplay of complex literary allusions does not in +fact distract from the unity of the whole. In the final analysis, one +receives the distinct impression that the poem's length could safely have +been reduced by a factor of eight or ten without sacrificing any of its +meaning. It is to be hoped that further publication of this poem can be +suspended pending a thorough investigation of its potential subversive +implications. +% +With/Without - and who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about? + -- Pink Floyd +% +Woke up this mornin' an' I had myself a beer, +Yeah, Ah woke up this mornin' an' I had myself a beer +The future's uncertain and the end is always near. + -- Jim Morrison, "Roadhouse Blues" +% +Woke up this morning, don't believe what I saw. +Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore. +Seems I'm not alone in being alone. +Hundred billion castaways looking for a call. + -- The Police, "Message in a Bottle" +% +Yea from the table of my memory +I'll wipe away all trivial fond records. + -- Hamlet +% +Yes me, I got a bottle in front of me. +And Jimmy has a frontal lobotomy. +Just different ways to kill the pain the same. +But I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, +Than to have to have a frontal lobotomy. +I might be drunk but at least I'm not insane. + -- Randy Ansley M.D. (Dr. Rock) +% +Yesterday upon the stair +I met a man who wasn't there. +He wasn't there again today -- +I think he's from the CIA. +% +"You are old, Father William," the young man said, + "All your papers these days look the same; +Those William's would be better unread -- + Do these facts never fill you with shame?" + +"In my youth," Father William replied to his son, + "I wrote wonderful papers galore; +But the great reputation I found that I'd won, + Made it pointless to think any more." +% +"You are old, father William," the young man said, + "And your hair has become very white; +And yet you incessantly stand on your head -- + Do you think, at your age, it is right?" + +"In my youth," father William replied to his son, + "I feared it might injure the brain; +But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, + Why, I do it again and again." + +"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, + And have grown most uncommonly fat; +Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -- + Pray what is the reason of that?" + +"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, + "I kept all my limbs very supple +By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box -- + Allow me to sell you a couple?" +% +"You are old," said the youth, "and I'm told by my peers + That your lectures bore people to death. +Yet you talk at one hundred conventions per year -- + Don't you think that you should save your breath?" + +"I have answered three questions and that is enough," + Said his father, "Don't give yourself airs! +Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? + Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!" +% +"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak + For anything tougher than suet; +Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -- + Pray, how did you manage to do it?" + +"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, + And argued each case with my wife; +And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw, + Has lasted the rest of my life." + +"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose + That your eye was as steady as ever; +Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -- + What made you so awfully clever?" + +"I have answered three questions, and that is enough," + Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs! +Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? + Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!" +% +"You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run, + And there isn't one language you like; +Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none -- + Have you thought about taking a hike?" + +"Since I never write programs," his father replied, + "Every language looks equally bad; +Yet the people keep paying to read all my books + And don't realize that they've been had." +% +"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, + And make errors few people could bear; +You complain about everyone's English but yours -- + Do you really think this is quite fair?" + +"I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared, + "But my stature these days is so great +That no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared, + And to stop me it's now far too late." +% +You can grovel with a lover, you can grovel with a friend, +You can grovel with your boss, and it never has to end. + +(chorus) Grovel, grovel, grovel, every night and every day, + Grovel, grovel, grovel, in your own peculiar way. + +You can grovel in a hallway, you can grovel in a park, +You can grovel in an alley with a mugger after dark. +(chorus) + +You can grovel with your uncle, you can grovel with your aunt, +You can grovel with your Apple, even though you say you can't. +(chorus) +% +You go down to the pickup station, + craving warmth and beauty; +You settle for less than fascination -- + a few drinks later you're not so choosy. +And the closing lights strip off the shadows + on this strange new flesh you've found -- +Clutching the night to you like a fig leaf + you hurry to the blackness + and the blankets to lay down an impression + and your loneliness. + -- Joni Mitchell +% +You got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues, +And you know it don't come easy ... +I don't ask for much, I only want trust, +And you know it don't come easy ... +% +You know my heart keeps tellin' me, +You're not a kid at thirty-three, +You play around you lose your wife, +You play too long, you lose your life. +Some gotta win, some gotta lose, +Goodtime Charlie's got the blues. +% +You may be right, I may be crazy, +But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for! + -- Billy Joel +% +You will find me drinking gin +In the lowest kind of inn, +Because I am a rigid Vegetarian. + -- G.K. Chesterton +% +You'll always be, +What you always were, +Which has nothing to do with, +All to do, with her. + -- Company +% +Your wise men don't know how it feels +To be thick as a brick. + -- Jethro Tull, "Thick As A Brick" +% +Your worship is your furnaces +which, like old idols, lost obscenes, +have molten bowels; your vision is +machines for making more machines. + -- Gordon Bottomley, 1874 +% +Yours is not to reason why, +Just to Sail Away. +And when you find you have to throw +Your Legacy away; +Remember life as was it is, +And is as it were; +Chasing sounds across the galaxy +'Till silence is but a blur. + -- QYX. +% +We found you hiding +We found you lying +Choking on the dirt and sand. + +Your former glories +And all the stories +Dragged and washed with eager hands. + -- ``Cities in Dust'', "Tinderbox", Siouxsie & the Banshees. +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/sports b/fortune-mod/datfiles/sports new file mode 100644 index 0000000..faed413 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/sports @@ -0,0 +1,814 @@ +A [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. +Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific game. +The player should estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it +had not hit the tree and play the ball from there, preferably atop a nice +firm tuft of grass. + -- Donald A. Metz +% +A [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed in +the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the +rough. Such veering right or left frequently results from friction between +the face of the club and the cover of the ball and the player should not be +penalized for the erratic behavior of the ball resulting from such +uncontrollable physical phenomena. + -- Donald A. Metz +% + A boy scout troop went on a hike. Crossing over a stream, one of +the boys dropped his wallet into the water. Suddenly a carp jumped, grabbed +the wallet and tossed it to another carp. Then that carp passed it to +another carp, and all over the river carp appeared and tossed the wallet back +and forth. + "Well, boys," said the Scout leader, "you've just seen a rare case +of carp-to-carp walleting." +% +A couple of young fellers were fishing at their special pond off the +beaten track when out of the bushes jumped the Game Warden. Immediately, +one of the boys threw his rod down and started running through the woods +like the proverbial bat out of hell, and hot on his heels ran the Game +Warden. After about a half mile the fella stopped and stooped over with +his hands on his thighs, whooping and heaving to catch his breath as the +Game Warden finally caught up to him. + "Let's see yer fishin' license, boy," the Warden gasped. The +man pulled out his wallet and gave the Game Warden a valid fishing +license. + "Well, son", snarled the Game Warden, "You must be about as dumb +as a box of rocks! You didn't have to run if you have a license!" + "Yes, sir," replied his victim, "but, well, see, my friend back +there, he don't have one!" +% +A gambler's biggest thrill is winning a bet. +His next biggest thrill is losing a bet. +% +A new 'chutist had just jumped from the plane at 10,000 feet, and soon +discovered that all his lines were hopelessly tangled. At about 5,000 feet, +still struggling, he noticed someone coming up from the ground at about the +same speed as he was going towards the ground. As they passed each other at +3,000 feet, the 'chutist yells, "HEY! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT PARACHUTES?" + The reply came, fading towards the end, "NO! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING +ABOUT COLEMAN STOVES?" +% +A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore. + -- Yogi Berra +% +A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as +"you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if +the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants +to make a travesty of the game. + -- Donald A. Metz +% + A ranger was walking through the forest and encountered a hunter +carrying a shotgun and a dead loon. "What in the world do you think you're +doing? Don't you know that the loon is on the endagered species list?" + Instead of answering, the hunter showed the ranger his game bag, +which contained twelve more loons. + "Why would you shoot loons?", the ranger asked. + "Well, my family eats them and I sell the plumage." + "What's so special about a loon? What does it taste like?" + "Oh, somewhere between an American Bald Eagle and a Trumpeter Swan." +% + Accidentally Shot + + Colonel Gray, of Petaluma, came near losing his life a few days ago, +in a singular manner. A gentleman with whom he was hunting attempted to +bring down a dove, but instead of doing so put the load of shot through the +Colonel's hat. One shot took effect in his forehead. + -- Sacramento Daily Union, April 20, 1861 +% +"Ain't that something what happened today. One of us got traded to +Kansas City." + -- Casey Stengel, informing outfielder Bob Cerv he'd + been traded. +% +All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely +than others. + -- Alan Truscott +% +Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, +today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing. + -- Dave Barry +% +Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been +reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the +day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable +interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on +pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, +and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper. +Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous +material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the +management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion +the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "Practical Gamekeeping." + -- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959) +% +Anxious after the delay, Gruber doesn't waste any time getting the Koenig +[a modified Porsche] up to speed, and almost immediately we are blowing off +Alfas, Fiats, and Lancias full of excited Italians. These people love fast +cars. But they love sport too and no passing encounter goes unchallenged. +Nothing serious, just two wheels into your lane as you're bearing down on +them at 130-plus -- to see if you're paying attention. + -- Road & Track article about driving two absurdly fast + cars across Europe. +% +[Babe] Ruth made a big mistake when he gave up pitching. + -- Tris Speaker, 1921 +% +Bill Dickey is learning me his experience. + -- Yogi Berra in his rookie season. +% +Brandy Davis, an outfielder and teammate of mine with the Pittsburgh Pirates, +is my choice for team captain. Cincinnatti was beating us 3-1, and I led +off the bottom of the eighth with a walk. The next hitter banged a hard +single to right field. Feeling the wind at my back, I rounded second and +kept going, sliding safely into third base. + With runners at first and third, and home-run hitter Ralph Kiner at +bat, our manager put in the fast Brandy Davis to run for the player at first. +Even with Kiner hitting and a change to win the game with a home run, Brandy +took off for second and made it. Now we had runners at second and third. + I'm standing at third, knowing I'm not going anywhere, and see Brandy +start to take a lead. All of a sudden, here he comes. He makes a great slide +into third, and I scream, "Brandy, where are you going?" He looks up, and +shouts, "Back to second if I can make it." + -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" +% +Check me if I'm wrong, Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers... +they're gonna lock me up and throw away the key! +% +College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty +played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees +played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, +and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity. + -- H. L. Mencken +% + COONDOG MEMORY + (heard in Rutledge, Missouri, about eighteen years ago) + +Now, this dog is for sale, and she can not only follow a trail twice as +old as the average dog can, but she's got a pretty good memory to boot. +For instance, last week this old boy who lives down the road from me, and +is forever stinkmouthing my hounds, brought some city fellow around to +try out ol' Sis here. So I turned her out south of the house and she made +two or three big swings back and forth across the edge of the woods, set +back her head, bayed a couple of times, cut straight through the woods, +come to a little clearing, jumped about three foot straight up in the air, +run to the other side, and commenced to letting out a racket like she had +something treed. We went over there with our flashlights and shone them +up in the tree but couldn't catch no shine offa coon's eyes, and my +neighbor sorta indicated that ol' Sis might be a little crazy, `cause she +stood right to the tree and kept singing up into it. So I pulled off my +coat and climbed up into the branches, and sure enough, there was a coon +skeleton wedged in between a couple of branches about twenty foot up. +Now as I was saying, she can follow a pretty old trail, but this fellow +was still calling her crazy or touched `cause she had hopped up in the +air while she was crossing the clearing, until I reminded him that the +Hawkins' had a fence across there about five years back. Now, this dog +is for sale. + -- News that stayed News: Ten Years of Coevolution Quarterly +% +Dallas Cowboys Official Schedule + + Sept 14 Pasadena Junior High + Sept 21 Boy Scout Troop 049 + Sept 28 Blind Academy + Sept 30 World War I Veterans + Oct 5 Brownie Scout Troop 041 + Oct 12 Sugarcreek High Cheerleaders + Oct 26 St. Thomas Boys Choir + Nov 2 Texas City Vet Clinic + Nov 9 Korean War Amputees + Nov 15 VA Hospital Polio Patients +% +Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really over- +whelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene language may +not be used by contestants when addressing members of the judging panel, +or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when addressing contestants +(unless struck by a boomerang). + -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing Assoc. +% +Don't let go of what you've got hold of, until you have hold of something else. + -- First Rule of Wing Walking +% +Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: Black. + +Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the cube, and each of +side of the cube will now be the original color of the plastic underneath +-- black. According to the instructions, this means the puzzle is solved. + -- Steve Rubenstein +% +Ever feel like life was a game and you had the wrong instruction book? +% +Ever feel like you're the head pin on life's bowling alley, and everyone's +rolling strikes? +% +Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt. + -- Snoopy +% +Failed Attempts To Break Records + In September 1978 Mr. Terry Gripton, of Stafford, failed to break +the world shouting record by two and a half decibels. "I am not surprised +he failed," his wife said afterwards. "He's really a very quiet man and +doesn't even shout at me." + In August of the same year Mr. Paul Anthony failed to break the +record for continuous organ playing by 387 hours. + His attempt at the Golden Fish Fry Restaurant in Manchester ended +after 36 hours 10 minutes, when he was accused of disturbing the peace. +"People complained I was too noisy," he said. + In January 1976 Mr. Barry McQueen failed to walk backwards across +the Menai Bridge playing the bagpipes. "It was raining heavily and my +drone got waterlogged," he said. + A TV cameraman thwarted Mr. Bob Specas' attempt to topple 100,000 +dominoes at the Manhattan Center, New York on 9 June 1978. 97,500 dominoes +had been set up when he dropped his press badge and set them off. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +Flying is the second greatest feeling you can have. The greatest feeling? +Landing... Landing is the greatest feeling you can have. +% +Football builds self-discipline. What else would induce a spectator to +sit out in the open in subfreezing weather? +% +Football combines the two worst features of American life. +It is violence punctuated by committee meetings. + -- George F. Will, "Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball" +% +Football is a game designed to keep coalminers off the streets. + -- Jimmy Breslin +% +Fortune finishes the great quotations, #15 + + "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." + And while you're at it, throw in a couple of those Dallas + Cowboy cheerleaders. +% +FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #14 + The Baby Ruth candy bar was not named after George Herman "The Babe" +Ruth, but after the oldest daughter of President Grover Cleveland. +% +From 0 to "what seems to be the problem officer" in 8.3 seconds. + -- Ad for the new VW Corrado +% +George's friend Sam had a dog who could recite the Gettysburg Address. "Let +me buy him from you," pleaded George after a demonstration. + "Okay," agreed Sam. "All he knows is that Lincoln speech anyway." + At his company's Fourth of July picnic, George brought his new pet +and announced that the animal could recite the entire Gettysburg Address. +No one believed him, and they proceeded to place bets against the dog. +George quieted the crowd and said, "Now we'll begin!" Then he looked at +the dog. The dog looked back. No sound. "Come on, boy, do your stuff." +Nothing. A disappointed George took his dog and went home. + "Why did you embarrass me like that in front of everybody?" George +yelled at the dog. "Do you realize how much money you lost me?" + "Don't be silly, George," replied the dog. "Think of the odds we're +gonna get on Labor Day." +% +Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, +and he'll invite himself over for dinner. + -- Calvin Keegan +% +Give me a fish and I will eat today. + +Teach me to fish and I will eat forever. +% +Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. +% +Harry is heavily into camping, and every year in the late fall, he makes us +all go to Assateague, which is an island on the Atlantic Ocean famous for +its wild horses. I realize that the concept of wild horses probably stirs +romantic notions in many of you, but this is because you have never met any +wild horses in person. In person, they are like enormous hooved rats. They +amble up to your camp site, and their attitude is: "We're wild horses. +We're going to eat your food, knock down your tent and poop on your shoes. +We're protected by federal law, just like Richard Nixon." + -- Dave Barry, "Tenting Grandpa Bob" +% +HARVARD: +Quarterback: + Sophomore Dave Strewzinski... likes to pass. And pass he does, with +a record 86 attempts (three completions) in 87 plays.... Though Strewzinksi +has so far failed to score any points for the Crimson, his jackrabbit speed +has made him the least sacked quarterback in the Ivy league. +Wide Receiver: + The other directional signal in Harvard's offensive machine is senior +Phil Yip, who is very fast. Yip is so fast that he has set a record for being +fast. Expect to see Yip elude all pursuers and make it into the endzone five +or six times, his average for a game. Yip, nicknamed "fumblefingers" and "you +asshole" by his teammates, hopes to carry the ball with him at least one of +those times. +YALE: +Defense: + On the defensive side, Yale boasts the stingiest line in the Ivies. +Primarily responsible are seniors Izzy "Shylock" Bloomberg and Myron +Finklestein, the tightest ends in recent Eli history. Also contributing to +the powerful defense is junior tackle Angus MacWhirter, a Scotsman who rounds +out the offensive ethnic joke. Look for these three to shut down the opening +coin toss. + -- Harvard Lampoon 1988 Program Parody, distributed at The Game +% +Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. + -- W. C. Fields +% +How can you think and hit at the same time? + -- Yogi Berra +% +I always turn to the sports pages first, which record people's accomplishments. +The front page has nothing but man's failures. + -- Chief Justice Earl Warren +% +I believe that professional wrestling is clean and everything else in +the world is fixed. + -- Frank Deford, sports writer +% +I can't decide whether to commit suicide or go bowling. + -- Florence Henderson +% +I do not care if half the league strikes. Those who do will encounter +quick retribution. All will be suspended, and I don't care if it wrecks +the National League for five years. This is the United States of America +and one citizen has as much right to play as another. + -- Ford Frick, National League President, reacting to a + threatened strike by some Cardinal players in 1947 if + Jackie Robinson took the field against St. Louis. The + Cardinals backed down and played. +% +I guess I've been so wrapped up in playing the game that I never took +time enough to figure out where the goal line was -- what it meant to +win -- or even how you won. + -- Cash McCall +% +I guess the Little League is even littler than we thought. + -- D. Cavett +% +I just know I'm a better manager when I have Joe DiMaggio in center field. + -- Casey Stengel +% +I like your game but we have to change the rules. +% +I never met a man I didn't want to fight. + -- Lyle Alzado, professional football lineman +% +I realize that today you have a number of top female athletes such as +Martina Navratilova who can run like deer and bench-press Chevrolet +trucks. But to be brutally frank, women as a group have a long way to +go before they reach the level of intensity and dedication to sports +that enables men to be such incredible jerks about it. + -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" +% +I went to the race track once and bet on a horse that was so good that +it took seven others to beat him! +% +I would be batting the big feller if they wasn't ready with the other one, +but a left-hander would be the thing if they wouldn't have knowed it already +because there is more things involved than could come up on the road, even +after we've been home a long while. + -- Casey Stengel +% +I would rather say that a desire to drive fast sports cars is what sets +man apart from the animals. +% +I'd rather push my Harley than ride a rice burner. +% +I'm a lucky guy, and I'm happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to +thank everyone for making this night necessary. + -- Yogi Berra at a dinner in his honor +% +I'm glad we don't have to play in the shade. + -- Golfer Bobby Jones on being told that it was 105 degrees + in the shade. +% +I've only got 12 cards. +% +If a putt passes over the hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped. +The law of gravity holds that any object attempting to maintain a position +in the atmosphere without something to support it must drop. The law of +gravity supercedes the law of golf. + -- Donald A. Metz +% +If a team is in a positive frame of mind, it will have a good attitude. +If it has a good attitude, it will make a commitment to playing the +game right. If it plays the game right, it will win -- unless, of +course, it doesn't have enough talent to win, and no manager can make +goose-liver pate out of goose feathers, so why worry? + -- Sparky Anderson +% +If people concentrated on the really important things in life, +there'd be a shortage of fishing poles. + -- Doug Larson +% +If swimming is so good for your figure, how come whales look the +way they do? +% + If you do your best the rest of the way, that takes care of +everything. When we get to October 2, we'll add up the wins, and then +we'll either all go into the playoffs, or we'll all go home and play golf. + Both those things sound pretty good to me. + -- Sparky Anderson +% +If you don't know what game you're playing, don't ask what the score is. +% +If you sit down at a poker game and don't see a sucker, get up. You're +the sucker. +% +If you want to see card tricks, you have to expect to take cards. + -- Harry Blackstone +% +If you're carrying a torch, put it down. The Olympics are over. +% +In Africa some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground +with clubs and uttering spine chilling cries. Anthropologists call +this a form of primitive self-expression. In America we call it golf. +% +In Brooklyn, we had such great pennant races, it made the World Series +just something that came later. + -- Walter O'Malley, Dodgers owner +% +It gets late early out there. + -- Yogi Berra +% +It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another -- +but which one? Differences are crucial. + -- Lazarus Long +% +It's like deja vu all over again. + -- Yogi Berra +% +It's not whether you win or lose but how you played the game. + -- Grantland Rice +% +It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you look playing the game. +% +Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo. +% +Keep in mind always the four constant Laws of Frisbee: + (1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc + straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this + force is technically termed "car suck"). + (2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive + than "Watch this!" + (3) The probability of a Frisbee hitting something is directly + proportional to the cost of hitting it. For instance, a + Frisbee will always head directly towards a policeman or + a little old lady rather than the beat up Chevy. + (4) Your best throw happens when no one is watching; when the + cute girl you've been trying to impress is watching, the + Frisbee will invariably bounce out of your hand or hit you + in the head and knock you silly. +% +Life is a gamble at terrible odds, if it was a bet you wouldn't take it. + -- Tom Stoppard, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" +% +Life is a game of bridge -- and you've just been finessed. +% +Life is a game. In order to have a game, something has to be more +important than something else. If what already is, is more important +than what isn't, the game is over. So, life is a game in which what +isn't, is more important than what is. Let the good times roll. + -- Werner Erhard +% +Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string. +% +Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us +to pay income taxes, too? + -- Bill Veeck, Chicago White Sox +% +Love means nothing to a tennis player. +% +Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history, +dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive man +picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the air, and +whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first primitive umpire. + +What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as +mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers. + -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" +% +MARTA SAYS THE INTERESTING thing about fly-fishing is that it's two lives +connected by a thin strand. + +Come on, Marta, grow up. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +MARTA WAS WATCHING THE FOOTBALL GAME with me when she said, "You know most +of these sports are based on the idea of one group protecting its +territory from invasion by another group." + +"Yeah," I said, trying not to laugh. Girls are funny. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% + Max told his friend that he'd just as soon not go hiking in the hills. +Said he, "I'm an anti-climb Max." + [So is that punchline.] +% +Most people's favorite way to end a game is by winning. +% +My first baseman is George "Catfish" Metkovich from our 1952 Pittsburgh +Pirates team, which lost 112 games. After a terrible series against the +New York Giants, in which our center fielder made three throwing errors +and let two balls get through his legs, manager Billy Meyer pleaded, "Can +somebody think of something to help us win a game?" + "I'd like to make a suggestion," Metkovich said. "On any ball hit +to center field, let's just let it roll to see if it might go foul." + -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" +% +My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world. + -- Muhammad Ali +% +Nadia Comaneci, simple perfection. + -- '76 Olympics +% +Never play pool with anyone named "Fats". +% +NEWS FLASH!! +Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West German pole-vault +champion. +% +Nothing increases your golf score like witnesses. +% +Now there's three things you can do in a baseball game: you can win +or you can lose or it can rain. + -- Casey Stengel +% +"Oh, he [a big dog] hunts with papa," she said. "He says Don Carlos [the +dog] is good for almost every kind of game. He went duck hunting one time +and did real well at it. Then Papa bought some ducks, not wild ducks but, +you know, farm ducks. And it got Don Carlos all mixed up. Since the +ducks were always around the yard with nobody shooting at them he knew he +wasn't supposed to kill them, but he had to do something. So one morning +last spring, when the ground was still soft, he took all the ducks and +buried them." "What do you mean, buried them?" "Oh, he didn't hurt them. +He dug little holes all over the yard and picked up the ducks in his mouth +and put them in the holes. Then he covered them up with mud except for +their heads. He did thirteen ducks that way and was digging a hole for +another one when Tony found him. We talked about it for a long time. Papa +said Don Carlos was afraid the ducks might run away, and since he didn't +know how to build a cage he put them in holes. He's a smart dog." + -- R. Bradford, "Red Sky At Morning" +% +On Thanksgiving Day all over America, families sit down to dinner at the +same moment -- halftime. +% +Once there was this conductor see, who had a bass problem. You see, during +a portion of Beethovan's Ninth Symphony in which there are no bass violin +parts, one of the bassists always passed a bottle of scotch around. So, +to remind himself that the basses usually required an extra cue towards the +end of the symphony, the conductor would fasten a piece of string around the +page of the score before the bass cue. As the basses grew more and more +inebriated, two of them fell asleep. The conductor grew quite nervous (he +was very concerned about the pitch) because it was the bottom of the ninth; +the score was tied and the basses were loaded with two out. +% +One thought driven home is better than three left on base. +% +One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him. +% +Our [softball] team usually puts the other woman at second base, where the +maximum possible number of males can get there on short notice to help out +in case of emergency. As far as I can tell, our second basewoman is a pretty +good baseball player, better than I am, anyway, but there's no way to know +for sure because if the ball gets anywhere near her, a male comes barging +over from, say, right field, to deal with it. She's been on the team for +three seasons now, but the males still don't trust her. They know, deep in +their souls, that if she had to choose between catching a fly ball and saving +an infant's life, she probably would elect to save the infant's life, without +ever considering whether there were men on base. + -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" +% +P-K4 +% +Pedro Guerrero was playing third base for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1984 +when he made the comment that earns him a place in my Hall of Fame. Second +baseman Steve Sax was having trouble making his throws. Other players were +diving, screaming, signaling for a fair catch. At the same time, Guerrero, +at third, was making a few plays that weren't exactly soothing to manager +Tom Lasorda's stomach. Lasorda decided it was time for one of his famous +motivational meetings and zeroed in on Guerrero: "How can you play third +base like that? You've gotta be thinking about something besides baseball. +What is it?" + "I'm only thinking about two things," Guerrero said. "First, `I +hope they don't hit the ball to me.'" The players snickered, and even +Lasorda had to fight off a laugh. "Second, `I hope they don't hit the ball +to Sax.'" + -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" +% +Repel them. Repel them. Induce them to relinquish the spheroid. + -- Indiana University football cheer +% +Reporter: "What would you do if you found a million dollars?" +Yogi Berra: "If the guy was poor, I would give it back." +% +Rick: "How can you close me up? On what grounds?" +Renault: "I'm shocked! Shocked! To find that gambling is going on here." +Croupier (handing money to Renault): "Your winnings, sir." +Renault:"Oh. Thank you very much." + -- Casablanca +% +Rube Walker: "Hey, Yogi, what time is it?" +Yogi Berra: "You mean now?" +% +Ruth made a great mistake when he gave up pitching. Working once a week, +he might have lasted a long time and become a great star. + -- Tris Speaker, commenting on Babe Ruth's plan to change + from being a pitcher to an outfielder. + Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" +% +Sailing is fun, but scrubbing the decks is aardvark. + -- Heard on Noahs' ark +% +San Francisco has always been my favorite booing city. I don't mean the +people boo louder or longer, but there is a very special intimacy. When +they boo you, you know they mean *you*. Music, that's what it is to me. +One time in Kezar Stadium they gave me a standing boo. + -- George Halas, professional football coach +% +Several years ago, an international chess tournament was being held in a +swank hotel in New York. Most of the major stars of the chess world were +there, and after a grueling day of chess, the players and their entourages +retired to the lobby of the hotel for a little refreshment. In the lobby, +some players got into a heated argument about who was the brightest, the +fastest, and the best chess player in the world. The argument got quite +loud, as various players claimed that honor. At that point, a security +guard in the lobby turned to another guard and commented, "If there's +anything I just can't stand, it's chess nuts boasting in an open foyer." +% +Show me a good loser in professional sports and I'll show you an idiot. +Show me a good sportsman and I'll show you a player I'm looking to trade. + -- Leo Durocher +% +So I'm ugly. So what? I never saw anyone hit with his face. + -- Yogi Berra +% +Son, someday a man is going to walk up to you with a deck of cards on which +the seal is not yet broken. And he is going to offer to bet you that he can +make the Ace of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ears. +But son, do not bet this man, for you will end up with a ear full of cider. + -- Sky Masterson's Father +% +Support Bingo, keep Grandma off the streets. +% +Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else. +% +Ten of the meanest cons in the state pen met in the corner of the yard to +shoot some craps. The stakes were enormous, the tension palpable. + When his turn came to shoot, Dutsky nervously plunked down his +entire wad, shook the dice and rolled. A smile crossed his face as a +seven showed up, but it quickly changed to horror as third die slipped out +of his sleeve and fell to the ground with the two others. No one said a +word. Finally, Killer Lucci picked up the third die, put it in his pocket +and handed the others to Dutsky. + "Roll 'em," Lucci said. "Your point is thirteen." +% +Texas A&M football coach Jackie Sherrill went to the office of the Dean +of Academics because he was concerned about his players' mental abilities. +"My players are just too stupid for me to deal with them", he told the +unbelieving dean. At this point, one of his players happened to enter +the dean's office. "Let me show you what I mean", said Sherrill, and he +told the player to run over to his office to see if he was in. "OK, Coach", +the player replied, and was off. "See what I mean?" Sherrill asked. +"Yeah", replied the dean. "He could have just picked up this phone and +called you from here." +% +That's the true harbinger of spring, not crocuses or swallows +returning to Capistrano, but the sound of a bat on a ball. + -- Bill Veeck +% +The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water. Eager to show off +this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his next +hunting trip. Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the duck fell, +the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the duck and returned +it to his master. + "Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly. + "Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't swim." +% +The Fastest Defeat In Chess + The big name for us in the world of chess is Gibaud, a French chess +master. + In Paris during 1924 he was beaten after only four moves by a +Monsieur Lazard. Happily for posterity, the moves are recorded and so +chess enthusiasts may reconstruct this magnificent collapse in the comfort +of their own homes. + Lazard was black and Gibaud white: + 1: P-Q4, Kt-KB3 + 2: Kt-Q2, P-K4 + 3: PxP, Kt-Kt5 + 4: P-K6, Kt-K6 + White then resigns on realizing that a fifth move would involve +either a Q-KR5 check or the loss of his queen. + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +The fellow sat down at a bar, ordered a drink and asked the bartender if he +wanted to hear a dumb-jock joke. + "Hey, buddy," the bartender replied, "you see those two guys next to +you? They used to be with the Chicago Bears. The two dudes behind you made +the U.S. Olympic wrestling team. And for your information, I used to play +center at Notre Dame." + "Forget it," the customer said. "I don't want to explain it five +times." +% +The most serious doubt that has been thrown on the authenticity of the +biblical miracles is the fact that most of the witnesses in regard to +them were fishermen. + -- Arthur Binstead +% +THE OLD POOL SHOOTER had won many a game in his life. But now it was time +to hang up the cue. When he did, all the other cues came crashing go the floor. + +"Sorry," he said with a smile. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +The one sure way to make a lazy man look respectable is to put a fishing +rod in his hand. +% + The only real game in the world, I think, is baseball... +You've got to start way down, at the bottom, when you're six or seven years +old. You can't wait until you're fifteen or sixteen. You've got to let it +grow up with you, and if you're successful and you try hard enough, you're +bound to come out on top, just like these boys have come to the top now. + -- Babe Ruth, in his 1948 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium +% +The pitcher wound up and he flang the ball at the batter. The batter +swang and missed. The pitcher flang the ball again and this time the +batter connected. He hit a high fly right to the center fielder. The +center fielder was all set to catch the ball, but at the last minute his +eyes were blound by the sun and he dropped it. + -- Dizzy Dean +% +The real problem with hunting elephants is carrying the decoys. +% +The surest way to remain a winner is to win once, and then not play any more. +% +The University of California Bears announced the signing of Reggie +Philbin to a letter of intent to attend Cal next Fall. Philbin is said +to make up for no talent by cheating well. Says Philbin of his decision +to attend Cal, "I'm in it for the free ride." +% +The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable +that I assume it must be evil. + -- Heywood Broun +% +The whole of life is futile unless you consider it as a sporting proposition. +% +There's a couple of million dollars worth of baseball talent on the loose, +ready for the big leagues, yet unsigned by any major league. There are +pitchers who would win 20 games a season ... and outfielders [who] could +hit .350, infielders who could win recognition as stars, and there's at +least one catcher who at this writing is probably superior to Bill Dickey, +Josh Gibson. Only one thing is keeping them out of the big leagues, the +pigmentation of their skin. They happen to be colored. + -- Shirley Povich, 1941 +% +They also surf who only stand on waves. +% +To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit, +call it the target. +% +Trust everybody, but cut the cards. + -- Finlay Peter Dunne, "Mr. Dooley's Philosophy" +% + Two brothers, Mort and Bill, like to sail. While Bill has a great +deal of experience, he certainly isn't the rigger Mort is. +% +Two golfers were being held up as the twosome of women in front of them +whiffed shots, hunted for lost balls and stood over putts for what seemed +like hours. + "I'll ask if we can play through," Bill said as he strode toward +the women. Twenty yards from the green, however, he turned on his heel +and went back to where his companion was waiting. + "Can't do it," he explained, sheepishly. "One of them's my wife +and the other's my mistress!" + "I'll ask," said Jim. He started off, only to turn and come back +before reaching the green. + "What's wrong?" Bill asked. + "Small world, isn't it?" +% +We was playin' the Homestead Grays in the city of Pitchburgh. Josh [Gibson] +comes up in the last of the ninth with a man on and us a run behind. Well, +he hit one. The Grays waited around and waited around, but finally the +empire rules it ain't comin' down. So we win. The next day, we was disputin' +the Grays in Philadelphia when here come a ball outta the sky right in the +glove of the Grays' center fielder. The empire made the only possible call. +"You're out, boy!" he says to Josh. "Yesterday, in Pitchburgh." + -- Satchel Paige +% +When he got in trouble in the ring, [Ali] imagined a door swung open and +inside he could see neon, orange, and green lights blinking, and bats +blowing trumpets and alligators blowing trombones, and he could hear snakes +screaming. Weird masks and actors' clothes hung on the wall, and if he +stepped across the sill and reached for them, he knew that he was committing +himself to destruction. + -- George Plimpton +% +When I'm gone, boxing will be nothing again. The fans with the cigars and +the hats turned down'll be there, but no more housewives and little men in +the street and foreign presidents. It's goin' to be back to the fighter who +comes to town, smells a flower, visits a hospital, blows a horn and says +he's in shape. Old hat. I was the onliest boxer in history people asked +questions like a senator. + -- Muhammad Ali +% +When in doubt, lead trump. +% +Winning isn't everything, but losing isn't anything. +% +Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing. + -- Vince Lombardi +% +Woman: "Is Yoo-Hoo hyphenated?" +Yogi Berra: "No, ma'am, its not even carbonated." +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/startrek b/fortune-mod/datfiles/startrek new file mode 100644 index 0000000..357afe9 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/startrek @@ -0,0 +1,826 @@ +A father doesn't destroy his children. + -- Lt. Carolyn Palamas, "Who Mourns for Adonais?", + stardate 3468.1. +% +A little suffering is good for the soul. + -- Kirk, "The Corbomite Maneuver", stardate 1514.0 +% +A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and +licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away. + -- Dr. Boyce, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown +% +A princess should not be afraid -- not with a brave knight to protect her. + -- McCoy, "Shore Leave", stardate 3025.3 +% +A star captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even +his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive. + -- Kirk, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown +% +A Vulcan can no sooner be disloyal than he can exist without breathing. + -- Kirk, "The Menagerie", stardate 3012.4 +% +A woman should have compassion. + -- Kirk, "Catspaw", stardate 3018.2 +% +Actual war is a very messy business. Very, very messy business. + -- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.0 +% +After a time, you may find that "having" is not so pleasing a thing, +after all, as "wanting." It is not logical, but it is often true. + -- Spock, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7 +% +Ahead warp factor one, Mr. Sulu. +% +All your people must learn before you can reach for the stars. + -- Kirk, "The Gamesters of Triskelion", stardate 3259.2 +% +Another Armenia, Belgium ... the weak innocents who always seem to be +located on a natural invasion route. + -- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3198.4 +% +Another dream that failed. There's nothing sadder. + -- Kirk, "This side of Paradise", stardate 3417.3 +% +Another war ... must it always be so? How many comrades have we lost +in this way? ... Obedience. Duty. Death, and more death ... + -- Romulan Commander, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 +% +... bacteriological warfare ... hard to believe we were once foolish +enough to play around with that. + -- McCoy, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown +% +Beam me up, Scotty! +% +Beam me up, Scotty! It ate my phaser! +% +Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here! +% + "Beauty is transitory." + "Beauty survives." + -- Spock and Kirk, "That Which Survives", stardate unknown +% +Behind every great man, there is a woman -- urging him on. + -- Harry Mudd, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3 +% +Blast medicine anyway! We've learned to tie into every organ in the +human body but one. The brain! The brain is what life is all about. + -- McCoy, "The Menagerie", stardate 3012.4 +% +Bones: "The man's DEAD, Jim!" +% +But Captain -- the engines can't take this much longer! +% +But it's real. And if it's real it can be affected ... we may not be able +to break it, but, I'll bet you credits to Navy Beans we can put a dent in it. + -- deSalle, "Catspaw", stardate 3018.2 +% +"Can you imagine how life could be improved if we could do away with +jealousy, greed, hate ..." + +"It can also be improved by eliminating love, tenderness, sentiment -- +the other side of the coin" + -- Dr. Roger Corby and Kirk, "What are Little Girls Made Of?", + stardate 2712.4 +% +Captain's Log, star date 21:34.5... +% +Change is the essential process of all existence. + -- Spock, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", stardate 5730.2 +% +Compassion -- that's the one things no machine ever had. Maybe it's +the one thing that keeps men ahead of them. + -- McCoy, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3 +% +Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to +serve under them. Captain, a starship also runs on loyalty to one +man. And nothing can replace it or him. + -- Spock, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4 +% +Conquest is easy. Control is not. + -- Kirk, "Mirror, Mirror", stardate unknown +% +Dammit Jim, I'm an actor, not a doctor. +% +Death, when unnecessary, is a tragic thing. + -- Flint, "Requiem for Methuselah", stardate 5843.7 +% +Death. Destruction. Disease. Horror. That's what war is all about. +That's what makes it a thing to be avoided. + -- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.0 +% +Deflector shields just came on, Captain. +% +Do you know about being with somebody? Wanting to be? If I had the +whole universe, I'd give it to you, Janice. When I see you, I feel +like I'm hungry all over. Do you know how that feels? + -- Charlie Evans, "Charlie X", stardate 1535.8 +% +Do you know the one -- "All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer +her by ..." You could feel the wind at your back, about you ... the +sounds of the sea beneath you. And even if you take away the wind and +the water, it's still the same. The ship is yours ... you can feel her +... and the stars are still there. + -- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4 +% +[Doctors and Bartenders], We both get the same two kinds of customers +-- the living and the dying. + -- Dr. Boyce, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown +% +Each kiss is as the first. + -- Miramanee, Kirk's wife, "The Paradise Syndrome", + stardate 4842.6 +% +EARL GREY PROFILES + +NAME: Jean-Luc Perriwinkle Picard +OCCUPATION: Starship Big Cheese +AGE: 94 +BIRTHPLACE: Paris, Terra Sector +EYES: Grey +SKIN: Tanned +HAIR: Not much +LAST MAGAZINE READ: + Lobes 'n' Probes, the Ferengi-Betazoid Sex Quarterly +TEA: Earl Grey. Hot. + +EARL GREY NEVER VARIES. +% +Earth -- mother of the most beautiful women in the universe. + -- Apollo, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" stardate 3468.1 +% +Either one of us, by himself, is expendable. Both of us are not. + -- Kirk, "The Devil in the Dark", stardate 3196.1 +% +Emotions are alien to me. I'm a scientist. + -- Spock, "This Side of Paradise", stardate 3417.3 +% +Even historians fail to learn from history -- they repeat the same mistakes. + -- John Gill, "Patterns of Force", stardate 2534.7 +% +Every living thing wants to survive. + -- Spock, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3 +% + "Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth." + "Or by misleading the innocent." + -- Spock and McCoy, "And The Children Shall Lead", + stardate 5029.5. +% +Extreme feminine beauty is always disturbing. + -- Spock, "The Cloud Minders", stardate 5818.4 +% +Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected. + -- Spock, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5 +% +Fascinating, a totally parochial attitude. + -- Spock, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8 +% +First study the enemy. Seek weakness. + -- Romulan Commander, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 +% +Four thousand throats may be cut in one night by a running man. + -- Klingon Soldier, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown +% + "... freedom ... is a worship word..." + "It is our worship word too." + -- Cloud William and Kirk, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown +% +Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. You can't simply say, +"Today I will be brilliant." + -- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3 +% + "Get back to your stations!" + "We're beaming down to the planet, sir." + -- Kirk and Mr. Leslie, "This Side of Paradise", + stardate 3417.3 +% +Hailing frequencies open, Captain. +% +He's dead, Jim. + -- McCoy, "The Devil in the Dark", stardate 3196.1 +% +History tends to exaggerate. + -- Col. Green, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4 +% +Humans do claim a great deal for that particular emotion (love). + -- Spock, "The Lights of Zetar", stardate 5725.6 +% +I am pleased to see that we have differences. May we together become +greater than the sum of both of us. + -- Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4 +% +I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to +any question. + -- Spock, "This Side of Paradise", stardate 3417.3 +% +I object to intellect without discipline; I object to power without +constructive purpose. + -- Spock, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5 +% +I realize that command does have its fascination, even under +circumstances such as these, but I neither enjoy the idea of command +nor am I frightened of it. It simply exists, and I will do whatever +logically needs to be done. + -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2812.7 +% + "I think they're going to take all this money that we spend now on war +and death --" + "And make them spend it on life." + -- Edith Keeler and Kirk, "The City on the Edge of Forever", + stardate unknown. +% +I thought my people would grow tired of killing. But you were right, +they see it is easier than trading. And it has its pleasures. I feel +it myself. Like the hunt, but with richer rewards. + -- Apella, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8 +% +"I'm a doctor, not a mechanic." + -- "The Doomsday Machine", when asked if he had heard of + the idea of a doomsday machine. +"I'm a doctor, not an escalator." + -- "Friday's Child", when asked to help the very pregnant + Ellen up a steep incline. +"I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer." + -- Devil in the Dark", when asked to patch up the Horta. +"I'm a doctor, not an engineer." + -- "Mirror, Mirror", when asked by Scotty for help in + Engineering aboard the ISS Enterprise. +"I'm a doctor, not a coalminer." + -- "The Empath", on being beneath the surface of Minara 2. +"I'm a surgeon, not a psychiatrist." + -- "City on the Edge of Forever", on Edith Keeler's remark + that Kirk talked strangely. +"I'm no magician, Spock, just an old country doctor." + -- "The Deadly Years", to Spock while trying to cure the + aging effects of the rogue comet near Gamma Hydra 4. +"What am I, a doctor or a moonshuttle conductor?" + -- "The Corbomite Maneuver", when Kirk rushed off from a + physical exam to answer the alert. +% +I'm a soldier, not a diplomat. I can only tell the truth. + -- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3198.9 +% +I'm frequently appalled by the low regard you Earthmen have for life. + -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3 +% +I've already got a female to worry about. Her name is the Enterprise. + -- Kirk, "The Corbomite Maneuver", stardate 1514.0 +% +If a man had a child who'd gone anti-social, killed perhaps, he'd still +tend to protect that child. + -- McCoy, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3 +% +If I can have honesty, it's easier to overlook mistakes. + -- Kirk, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9 +% +If some day we are defeated, well, war has its fortunes, good and bad. + -- Commander Kor, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7 +% +If there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. + -- Spock, "This Side of Paradise", stardate 3417.7 +% +Immortality consists largely of boredom. + -- Zefrem Cochrane, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8 +% +In the strict scientific sense we all feed on death -- even vegetarians. + -- Spock, "Wolf in the Fold", stardate 3615.4 +% +Insufficient facts always invite danger. + -- Spock, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9 +% +Insults are effective only where emotion is present. + -- Spock, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" stardate 3468.1 +% +Intuition, however illogical, is recognized as a command prerogative. + -- Kirk, "Obsession", stardate 3620.7 +% +Is not that the nature of men and women -- that the pleasure is in the +learning of each other? + -- Natira, the High Priestess of Yonada, "For the World is + Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", stardate 5476.3. +% +Is truth not truth for all? + -- Natira, "For the World is Hollow and I have Touched + the Sky", stardate 5476.4. +% +It [being a Vulcan] means to adopt a philosophy, a way of life which is +logical and beneficial. We cannot disregard that philosophy merely for +personal gain, no matter how important that gain might be. + -- Spock, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4 +% +It is a human characteristic to love little animals, especially if +they're attractive in some way. + -- McCoy, "The Trouble with Tribbles", stardate 4525.6 +% +It is more rational to sacrifice one life than six. + -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3 +% +It is necessary to have purpose. + -- Alice #1, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3 +% +It is undignified for a woman to play servant to a man who is not hers. + -- Spock, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7 +% +It would be illogical to assume that all conditions remain stable. + -- Spock, "The Enterprise Incident", stardate 5027.3 +% +It would be illogical to kill without reason. + -- Spock, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4 +% +It would seem that evil retreats when forcibly confronted. + -- Yarnek of Excalbia, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 +% + "It's hard to believe that something which is neither seen nor felt can +do so much harm." + "That's true. But an idea can't be seen or felt. And that's what kept +the Troglytes in the mines all these centuries. A mistaken idea." + -- Vanna and Kirk, "The Cloud Minders", stardate 5819.0 +% +Killing is stupid; useless! + -- McCoy, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8 +% +Killing is wrong. + -- Losira, "That Which Survives", stardate unknown +% +Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack. +% +Klingon phaser attack from front!!!!! +100% Damage to life support!!!! +% +Knowledge, sir, should be free to all! + -- Harry Mudd, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3 +% +Landru! Guide us! + -- A Beta 3-oid, "The Return of the Archons", stardate 3157.4 +% +Leave bigotry in your quarters; there's no room for it on the bridge. + -- Kirk, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 +% + "Life and death are seldom logical." + "But attaining a desired goal always is." + -- McCoy and Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2821.7 +% +Live long and prosper. + -- Spock, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7 +% + "Logic and practical information do not seem to apply here." + "You admit that?" + "To deny the facts would be illogical, Doctor" + -- Spock and McCoy, "A Piece of the Action", stardate unknown +% +Lots of people drink from the wrong bottle sometimes. + -- Edith Keeler, "The City on the Edge of Forever", + stardate unknown +% +Love sometimes expresses itself in sacrifice. + -- Kirk, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3220.3 +% +Madness has no purpose. Or reason. But it may have a goal. + -- Spock, "The Alternative Factor", stardate 3088.7 +% +Many Myths are based on truth + -- Spock, "The Way to Eden", stardate 5832.3 +% +Men of peace usually are [brave]. + -- Spock, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 +% +Men will always be men -- no matter where they are. + -- Harry Mudd, "Mudd's Women", stardate 1329.8 +% +Military secrets are the most fleeting of all. + -- Spock, "The Enterprise Incident", stardate 5027.4 +% +Mind your own business, Spock. I'm sick of your halfbreed interference. +% +Most legends have their basis in facts. + -- Kirk, "And The Children Shall Lead", stardate 5029.5 +% +Murder is contrary to the laws of man and God. + -- M-5 Computer, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3 +% +No more blah, blah, blah! + -- Kirk, "Miri", stardate 2713.6 +% +No one can guarantee the actions of another. + -- Spock, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown +% +No one may kill a man. Not for any purpose. It cannot be condoned. + -- Kirk, "Spock's Brain", stardate 5431.6 +% + "No one talks peace unless he's ready to back it up with war." + "He talks of peace if it is the only way to live." + -- Colonel Green and Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", + stardate 5906.5. +% +No one wants war. + -- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7 +% +No problem is insoluble. + -- Dr. Janet Wallace, "The Deadly Years", stardate 3479.4 +% +Not one hundred percent efficient, of course ... but nothing ever is. + -- Kirk, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8 +% +Oblivion together does not frighten me, beloved. + -- Thalassa (in Anne Mulhall's body), "Return to Tomorrow", + stardate 4770.3. +% +Oh, that sound of male ego. You travel halfway across the galaxy and +it's still the same song. + -- Eve McHuron, "Mudd's Women", stardate 1330.1 +% +On my planet, to rest is to rest -- to cease using energy. To me, it +is quite illogical to run up and down on green grass, using energy, +instead of saving it. + -- Spock, "Shore Leave", stardate 3025.2 +% +One does not thank logic. + -- Sarek, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4 +% +One of the advantages of being a captain is being able to ask for +advice without necessarily having to take it. + -- Kirk, "Dagger of the Mind", stardate 2715.2 +% +Only a fool fights in a burning house. + -- Kank the Klingon, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown +% +Our missions are peaceful -- not for conquest. When we do battle, it +is only because we have no choice. + -- Kirk, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5 +% +Our way is peace. + -- Septimus, the Son Worshiper, "Bread and Circuses", + stardate 4040.7. +% +Pain is a thing of the mind. The mind can be controlled. + -- Spock, "Operation -- Annihilate!" stardate 3287.2 +% +Peace was the way. + -- Kirk, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate unknown +% +Phasers locked on target, Captain. +% +Power is danger. + -- The Centurion, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 +% +Prepare for tomorrow -- get ready. + -- Edith Keeler, "The City On the Edge of Forever", + stardate unknown +% +Punishment becomes ineffective after a certain point. Men become insensitive. + -- Eneg, "Patterns of Force", stardate 2534.7 +% +Respect is a rational process + -- McCoy, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3 +% +Romulan women are not like Vulcan females. We are not dedicated to +pure logic and the sterility of non-emotion. + -- Romulan Commander, "The Enterprise Incident", + stardate 5027.3 +% +Schshschshchsch. + -- The Gorn, "Arena", stardate 3046.2 +% +She won' go Warp 7, Cap'n! The batteries are dead! +% +Sometimes a feeling is all we humans have to go on. + -- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.9 +% +Sometimes a man will tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor. + -- Dr. Phillip Boyce, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), + stardate unknown. +% +Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. +Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life +and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before. + -- Captain James T. Kirk +% +Spock: The odds of surviving another attack are 13562190123 to 1, Captain. +% +Spock: We suffered 23 casualties in that attack, Captain. +% +Star Trek Lives! +% +Suffocating together ... would create heroic camaraderie. + -- Khan Noonian Singh, "Space Seed", stardate 3142.8 +% +Superior ability breeds superior ambition. + -- Spock, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9 +% + "That unit is a woman." + "A mass of conflicting impulses." + -- Spock and Nomad, "The Changeling", stardate 3541.9 +% +The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank. + -- Scotty +% + "The combination of a number of things to make existence worthwhile." + "Yes, the philosophy of 'none,' meaning 'all.'" + -- Spock and Lincoln, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4 +% +The face of war has never changed. Surely it is more logical to heal +than to kill. + -- Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 +% +The games have always strengthened us. Death becomes a familiar +pattern. We don't fear it as you do. + -- Proconsul Marcus Claudius, "Bread and Circuses", + stardate 4041.2 +% + "The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity." + "And in the way our differences combine to create meaning and beauty." + -- Dr. Miranda Jones and Spock, "Is There in Truth No Beauty?", + stardate 5630.8 +% +The heart is not a logical organ. + -- Dr. Janet Wallace, "The Deadly Years", stardate 3479.4 +% +The idea of male and female are universal constants. + -- Kirk, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8 +% +The joys of love made her human and the agonies of love destroyed her. + -- Spock, "Requiem for Methuselah", stardate 5842.8 +% +The man on tops walks a lonely street; the "chain" of command is often a noose. +% +The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play. + -- Kirk, "Shore Leave", stardate 3025.8 +% +The only solution is ... a balance of power. We arm our side with exactly +that much more. A balance of power -- the trickiest, most difficult, +dirtiest game of them all. But the only one that preserves both sides. + -- Kirk, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8 +% +The people of Gideon have always believed that life is sacred. That +the love of life is the greatest gift ... We are incapable of +destroying or interfering with the creation of that which we love so +deeply -- life in every form from fetus to developed being. + -- Hodin of Gideon, "The Mark of Gideon", stardate 5423.4 +% +... The prejudices people feel about each other disappear when they get +to know each other. + -- Kirk, "Elaan of Troyius", stardate 4372.5 +% + "The release of emotion is what keeps us health. Emotionally healthy." + "That may be, Doctor. However, I have noted that the healthy release +of emotion is frequently unhealthy for those closest to you." + -- McCoy and Spock, "Plato's Stepchildren", stardate 5784.3 +% +The sight of death frightens them [Earthers]. + -- Kras the Klingon, "Friday's Child", stardate 3497.2 +% +The sooner our happiness together begins, the longer it will last. + -- Miramanee, "The Paradise Syndrome", stardate 4842.6 +% +... The things love can drive a man to -- the ecstasies, the +the miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious +failures and the glorious victories. + -- McCoy, "Requiem for Methuselah", stardate 5843.7 +% +There are always alternatives. + -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3 +% +There are certain things men must do to remain men. + -- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4929.4 +% +There are some things worth dying for. + -- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7 +% +There comes to all races an ultimate crisis which you have yet to face +.... One day our minds became so powerful we dared think of ourselves as gods. + -- Sargon, "Return to Tomorrow", stardate 4768.3 +% +There is a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder. + -- Spock, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.9 +% +There is an old custom among my people. When a woman saves a man's +life, he is grateful. + -- Nona, the Kanuto witch woman, "A Private Little War", + stardate 4211.8. +% +There is an order of things in this universe. + -- Apollo, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" stardate 3468.1 +% +There's a way out of any cage. + -- Captain Christopher Pike, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), + stardate unknown. +% +There's another way to survive. Mutual trust -- and help. + -- Kirk, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown +% +There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is +nothing good in war. Except its ending. + -- Abraham Lincoln, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 +% +There's nothing disgusting about it [the Companion]. It's just another +life form, that's all. You get used to those things. + -- McCoy, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8 +% + "There's only one kind of woman ..." + "Or man, for that matter. You either believe in yourself or you don't." + -- Kirk and Harry Mudd, "Mudd's Women", stardate 1330.1 +% +This cultural mystique surrounding the biological function -- you +realize humans are overly preoccupied with the subject. + -- Kelinda the Kelvan, "By Any Other Name", stardate 4658.9 +% +Those who hate and fight must stop themselves -- otherwise it is not stopped. + -- Spock, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown +% +Time is fluid ... like a river with currents, eddies, backwash. + -- Spock, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate 3134.0 +% +To live is always desirable. + -- Eleen the Capellan, "Friday's Child", stardate 3498.9 +% +Too much of anything, even love, isn't necessarily a good thing. + -- Kirk, "The Trouble with Tribbles", stardate 4525.6 +% +Totally illogical, there was no chance. + -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3 +% +Uncontrolled power will turn even saints into savages. And we can all +be counted on to live down to our lowest impulses. + -- Parmen, "Plato's Stepchildren", stardate 5784.3 +% +Violence in reality is quite different from theory. + -- Spock, "The Cloud Minders", stardate 5818.4 +% +Virtue is a relative term. + -- Spock, "Friday's Child", stardate 3499.1 +% +Vulcans believe peace should not depend on force. + -- Amanda, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.3 +% +Vulcans do not approve of violence. + -- Spock, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4 +% +Vulcans never bluff. + -- Spock, "The Doomsday Machine", stardate 4202.1 +% +Vulcans worship peace above all. + -- McCoy, "Return to Tomorrow", stardate 4768.3 +% +Wait! You have not been prepared! + -- Mr. Atoz, "Tomorrow is Yesterday", stardate 3113.2 +% +War is never imperative. + -- McCoy, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 +% +War isn't a good life, but it's life. + -- Kirk, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8 +% +[War] is instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human +beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands! But we +can stop it. We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going +to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to +kill today! + -- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.0 +% +Warp 7 -- It's a law we can live with. +% +We do not colonize. We conquer. We rule. There is no other way for us. + -- Rojan, "By Any Other Name", stardate 4657.5 +% +We fight only when there is no other choice. We prefer the ways of +peaceful contact. + -- Kirk, "Spectre of the Gun", stardate 4385.3 +% +We have found all life forms in the galaxy are capable of superior +development. + -- Kirk, "The Gamesters of Triskelion", stardate 3211.7 +% +We have phasers, I vote we blast 'em! + -- Bailey, "The Corbomite Maneuver", stardate 1514.2 +% + "We have the right to survive!" + "Not by killing others." + -- Deela and Kirk, "Wink of An Eye", stardate 5710.5 +% +We Klingons believe as you do -- the sick should die. Only the strong +should live. + -- Kras, "Friday's Child", stardate 3497.2 +% +We'll pivot at warp 2 and bring all tubes to bear, Mr. Sulu! +% +We're all sorry for the other guy when he loses his job to a machine. +But when it comes to your job -- that's different. And it always will +be different. + -- McCoy, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4 +% +Well, Jim, I'm not much of an actor either. +% + "What happened to the crewman?" + "The M-5 computer needed a new power source, the crewman merely got in +the way." + -- Kirk and Dr. Richard Daystrom, "The Ultimate Computer", + stardate 4731.3. +% +What kind of love is that? Not to be loved; never to have shown love. + -- Commissioner Nancy Hedford, "Metamorphosis", + stardate 3219.8 +% + "What terrible way to die." + "There are no good ways." + -- Sulu and Kirk, "That Which Survives", stardate unknown +% +When a child is taught ... its programmed with simple instructions -- +and at some point, if its mind develops properly, it exceeds the sum of +what it was taught, thinks independently. + -- Dr. Richard Daystrom, "The Ultimate Computer", + stardate 4731.3. +% +When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, +building, creating; you even forget how to repair the machines left +behind by your ancestors. You just sit living and reliving other lives +left behind in the thought records. + -- Vina, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown +% +Where there's no emotion, there's no motive for violence. + -- Spock, "Dagger of the Mind", stardate 2715.1 +% +Witch! Witch! They'll burn ya! + -- Hag, "Tomorrow is Yesterday", stardate unknown +% +Without facts, the decision cannot be made logically. You must rely on +your human intuition. + -- Spock, "Assignment: Earth", stardate unknown +% +Without followers, evil cannot spread. + -- Spock, "And The Children Shall Lead", stardate 5029.5 +% +Without freedom of choice there is no creativity. + -- Kirk, "The return of the Archons", stardate 3157.4 +% +Women are more easily and more deeply terrified ... generating more +sheer horror than the male of the species. + -- Spock, "Wolf in the Fold", stardate 3615.4 +% +Women professionals do tend to over-compensate. + -- Dr. Elizabeth Dehaver, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", + stardate 1312.9. +% +Worlds are conquered, galaxies destroyed -- but a woman is always a woman. + -- Kirk, "The Conscience of the King", stardate 2818.9 +% +Yes, it is written. Good shall always destroy evil. + -- Sirah the Yang, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown +% +You are an excellent tactician, Captain. You let your second in +command attack while you sit and watch for weakness. + -- Khan Noonian Singh, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9 +% +You can't evaluate a man by logic alone. + -- McCoy, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3 +% +You canna change the laws of physics, Captain; I've got to have thirty minutes! +% +You Earth people glorified organized violence for forty centuries. But +you imprison those who employ it privately. + -- Spock, "Dagger of the Mind", stardate 2715.1 +% +You go slow, be gentle. It's no one-way street -- you know how you +feel and that's all. It's how the girl feels too. Don't press. If +the girl feels anything for you at all, you'll know. + -- Kirk, "Charlie X", stardate 1535.8 +% +You humans have that emotional need to express gratitude. "You're +welcome," I believe, is the correct response. + -- Spock, "Bread and Circuses", stardate 4041.2 +% +You say you are lying. But if everything you say is a lie, then you are +telling the truth. You cannot tell the truth because everything you say +is a lie. You lie, you tell the truth ... but you cannot, for you lie. + -- Norman the android, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3 +% +You speak of courage. Obviously you do not know the difference between +courage and foolhardiness. Always it is the brave ones who die, the soldiers. + -- Kor, the Klingon Commander, "Errand of Mercy", + stardate 3201.7 +% +You! What PLANET is this! + -- McCoy, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate 3134.0 +% +You'll learn something about men and women -- the way they're supposed +to be. Caring for each other, being happy with each other, being good +to each other. That's what we call love. You'll like that a lot. + -- Kirk, "The Apple", stardate 3715.6 +% +You're dead, Jim. + -- McCoy, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7 +% +You're dead, Jim. + -- McCoy, "The Tholian Web", stardate unknown +% +You're too beautiful to ignore. Too much woman. + -- Kirk to Yeoman Rand, "The Enemy Within", stardate unknown +% +Youth doesn't excuse everything. + -- Dr. Janice Lester (in Kirk's body), "Turnabout Intruder", + stardate 5928.5. +% +There's coffee in that nebula! + -- Capt. Kathryn Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager, "The Cloud" +% +Dismissed. That's a Star Fleet expression for, "Get out." + -- Capt. Kathryn Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager, "The Cloud" +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/translate-me b/fortune-mod/datfiles/translate-me new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5110f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/translate-me @@ -0,0 +1,58 @@ +A fellow bought a new car, a Nissan, and was quite happy with his purchase. +He was something of an animist, however, and felt that the car really ought +to have a name. This presented a problem, as he was not sure if the name +should be masculine or feminine. + After considerable thought, he settled on an naming the car either +Belchazar or Beaumadine, but remained in a quandry about the final choice. + "Is a Nissan male or female?" he began asking his friends. Most of +them looked at him pecularly, mumbled things about urgent appointments, and +went on their way rather quickly. + He finally broached the question to a lady he knew who held a black +belt in judo. She thought for a moment and answered "Feminine." + The swiftness of her response puzzled him. "You're sure of that?" he +asked. + "Certainly," she replied. "They wouldn't sell very well if they were +masculine." + "Unhhh... Well, why not?" + "Because people want a car with a reputation for going when you want +it to. And, if Nissan's are female, it's like they say... `Each Nissan, she +go!'" + + [No, we WON'T explain it; go ask someone who practices an oriental + martial art. (Tai Chi Chuan probably doesn't count.) Ed.] +% +Aliquid melius quam pessimum optimum non est. +% +Ego sum ens omnipotens. +% +Hodie natus est radici frater. + +[ Unto the root is born a brother ] +% +Honi soit la vache qui rit. +% +Klatu barada nikto. +% +Mieux vaut tard que jamais! + +[ Better late than never ] +% +Quid me anxius sum? + +[ What? Me, worry? ] +% +semper en excretus +% +SEMPER UBI SUB UBI!!!! + +[ Always wear underwater ] +% +sillema sillema nika su +% +Tout choses sont dites deja, mais comme personne n'ecoute, il faut +toujours recommencer. + -- A. Gide + +[ All things have already been said, but since no one listens, one + must always start again. ] +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/wisdom b/fortune-mod/datfiles/wisdom new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1827d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/wisdom @@ -0,0 +1,1630 @@ +(1) Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood. +(2) If your stomach antagonizes you, pacify it with cool thoughts. +(3) Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move. +(4) Go very lightly on the vices, such as carrying on in society, as + the social ramble ain't restful. +(5) Avoid running at all times. +(6) Don't look back, something might be gaining on you. + -- S. Paige, c. 1951 +% +A clash of doctrine is not a disaster -- it is an opportunity. +% +A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such +a speed, if feels an impulsion... this is the place to go now. But the +sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will +know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +A dream will always triumph over reality, once it is given the chance. + -- Stanislaw Lem +% +A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should +be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved. + -- R.A. Heinlein +% +A halted retreat +Is nerve-wracking and dangerous. +To retain people as men -- and maidservants +Brings good fortune. +% +A lifetime isn't nearly long enough to figure out what it's all about. +% +A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I +believe everything positively stinks. + -- Lew Col +% +A man said to the Universe: + "Sir, I exist!" + "However," replied the Universe, + "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." + -- Stephen Crane +% +A master was asked the question, "What is the Way?" by a curious monk. + "It is right before your eyes," said the master. + "Why do I not see it for myself?" + "Because you are thinking of yourself." + "What about you: do you see it?" + "So long as you see double, saying `I don't', and `you do', and so +on, your eyes are clouded," said the master. + "When there is neither `I' nor `You', can one see it?" + "When there is neither `I' nor `You', +who is the one that wants to see it?" +% +A neighbor came to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey. "It is out on +loan," the teacher replied. At that moment, the donkey brayed loudly inside +the stable. "But I can hear it bray, over there." "Whom do you believe," +asked Nasrudin, "me or a donkey?" +% +A priest advised Voltaire on his death bed to renounce the devil. +Replied Voltaire, "This is no time to make new enemies." +% +A priest asked: What is Fate, Master? + And the Master answered: + It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence. +It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs. + It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City +to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns +have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness. + And that is Fate? said the priest. + Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master. + That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know +what Freight was too. + -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" +% +A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. +If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space. + -- Thomas Carlyle, looking at the stars +% +A Scholar asked his Master, "Master, would you advise me of a proper +vocation?" + The Master replied, "Some men can earn their keep with the power of +their minds. Others must use thier strong backs, legs and hands. This is +the same in nature as it is with man. Some animals acquire their food easily, +such as rabbits, hogs and goats. Other animals must fiercely struggle for +their sustenance, like beavers, moles and ants. So you see, the nature of +the vocation must fit the individual. + "But I have no abilities, desires, or imagination, Master," the +scholar sobbed. + Queried the Master... "Have you thought of becoming a salesperson?" +% +A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. + -- Oscar Wilde, "The Portrait of Mr. W.H." +% +A would-be disciple came to Nasrudin's hut on the mountain-side. Knowing +that every action of such an enlightened one is significant, the seeker +watched the teacher closely. "Why do you blow on your hands?" "To warm +myself in the cold." Later, Nasrudin poured bowls of hot soup for himself +and the newcomer, and blew on his own. "Why are you doing that, Master?" +"To cool the soup." Unable to trust a man who uses the same process +to arrive at two different results -- hot and cold -- the disciple departed. +% +Ah, but a man's grasp should exceed his reach, +Or what's a heaven for ? + -- Robert Browning, "Andrea del Sarto" +% +All hope abandon, ye who enter here! + -- Dante Alighieri +% +All men know the utility of useful things; +but they do not know the utility of futility. + -- Chuang-tzu +% +All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies. + -- The Book of Bokonon / Kurt Vonnegut Jr. +% +All of us should treasure his Oriental wisdom and his preaching of a +Zen-like detachment, as exemplified by his constant reminder to clerks, +tellers, or others who grew excited by his presence in their banks: +"Just lie down on the floor and keep calm." + -- Robert Wilson, "John Dillinger Died for You" +% +An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God. Some of these eyes +we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them as quickly as possible. + -- Russell Hoban, "Pilgermann" +% +An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. +% + An older student came to Otis and said, "I have been to see a +great number of teachers and I have given up a great number of pleasures. +I have fasted, been celibate and stayed awake nights seeking enlightenment. +I have given up everything I was asked to give up and I have suffered, but +I have not been enlightened. What should I do?" + Otis replied, "Give up suffering." + -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters" +% +And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the +hour of separation. + -- Kahlil Gibran +% +Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this +big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around -- +nobody big, I mean -- except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy +cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go +over the cliff -- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're +going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do +all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye. I know it; I know it's crazy, +but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy. + -- J.D. Salinger, "Catcher in the Rye" +% + Approaching the gates of the monastery, Hakuin found Ken the Zen +preaching to a group of disciples. + "Words..." Ken orated, "they are but an illusory veil obfuscating +the absolute reality of --" + "Ken!" Hakuin interrupted. "Your fly is down!" + Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon Ken, and he +vaporized. + On the way to town, Hakuin was greeted by an itinerant monk imbued +with the spirit of the morning. + "Ah," the monk sighed, a beatific smile wrinkling across his cheeks, +"Thou art That..." + "Ah," Hakuin replied, pointing excitedly, "And Thou art Fat!" + Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon the monk, +and he vaporized. + Next, the Governor sought the advice of Hakuin, crying: "As our +enemies bear down upon us, how shall I, with such heartless and callow +soldiers as I am heir to, hope to withstand the impending onslaught?" + "US?" snapped Hakuin. + Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon the +Governor, and he vaporized. + Then, a redneck went up to Hakuin and vaporized the old Master with +his shotgun. "Ha! Beat ya' to the punchline, ya' scrawny li'l geek!" +% +Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's +incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here." + -- Muad'dib, "Dune" +% +As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like trying to grasp +the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like a baby clutching at +a basketball: one's palms keep sliding off. + -- Joseph Brodsky +% +At ebb tide I wrote a line upon the sand, and gave it all my heart and all +my soul. At flood tide I returned to read what I had inscribed and found my +ignorance upon the shore. + -- Kahlil Gibran +% +At the end of your life there'll be a good rest, and no further activities +are scheduled. +% +At the foot of the mountain, thunder: +The image of Providing Nourishment. +Thus the superior man is careful of his words +And temperate in eating and drinking. +% +Beauty is one of the rare things which does not lead to doubt of God. + -- Jean Anouilh +% + Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and + took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of +his followers. + One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and +there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing. + "Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his +commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile? What is your +Purpose in Life, anyway?" + Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU". (The +Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.) + Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened. + Primarily because nobody understood Chinese. + -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters" +% +Before you ask more questions, think about whether you really want to +know the answers. + -- Gene Wolfe, "The Claw of the Conciliator" +% +Brahma said: Well, after hearing ten thousand explanations, a fool is no +wiser. But an intelligent man needs only two thousand five hundred. + -- The Mahabharata +% +By protracting life, we do not deduct one jot from the duration of death. + -- Titus Lucretius Carus +% +Catharsis is something I associate with pornography and crossword puzzles. + -- Howard Chaykin +% +Certainly the game is rigged. + +Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win. + -- Robert Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love" +% +Chance is perhaps the work of God when He did not want to sign. + -- Anatole France +% + Chapter 1 + +The story so far: + + In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot +of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. + -- Douglas Adams, HHGG #2, (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe). +% + "Cheshire-Puss," she began, "would you tell me, please, which way I +ought to go from here?" + "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat. + "I don't care much where--" said Alice. + "Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat. +% +Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances. + -- Herodotus +% +Coincidences are spiritual puns. + -- G.K. Chesterton +% +Death is a spirit leaving a body, sort of like a shell leaving the nut behind. + -- Erma Bombeck +% +Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy. +% +Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired. + -- R. Geis +% +Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings. +% +Death is nature's way of saying `Howdy'. +% +Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down. +% +Death is only a state of mind. + +Only it doesn't leave you much time to think about anything else. +% +Depart not from the path which fate has assigned you. +% +Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't help +the rabbit. + -- R.E. Shay +% +Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, +don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck. + -- Joseph Heller, "God Knows" +% +Disease can be cured; fate is incurable. + -- Chinese proverb +% +Ditat Deus. + [God enriches] +% +Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them. +% +Do not despair of life. You have no doubt force enough to overcome your +obstacles. Think of the fox prowling through wood and field in a winter night +for something to satisfy his hunger. Notwithstanding cold and hounds and +traps, his race survives. I do not believe any of them ever committed suicide. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% +Do not seek death; death will find you. But seek the road which makes death +a fulfillment. + -- Dag Hammarskjold +% +Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive. +% +Do what you can to prolong your life, in the hope that someday you'll +learn what it's for. +% + "Do you think there's a God?" + "Well, ____SOMEbody's out to get me!" + -- Calvin and Hobbs +% +Do your part to help preserve life on Earth -- by trying to preserve your own. +% +Don't abandon hope. Your Captain Midnight decoder ring arrives tomorrow. +% +Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow. +% +Don't go to bed with no price on your head. + -- Baretta +% +Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them. +% +Don't kid yourself. Little is relevant, and nothing lasts forever. +% +Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance. +% +Don't make a big deal out of everything; just deal with everything. +% +Don't stop to stomp ants when the elephants are stampeding. +% +Don't take life seriously, you'll never get out alive. +% +Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. + -- Paul Tillich, German theologian. +% +Down with categorical imperative! +% +Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate +and captain of your soul. +% +During the voyage of life, remember to keep an eye out for a fair wind; batten +down during a storm; hail all passing ships; and fly your colors proudly. +% +Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. My advice to you is to have +nothing whatever to do with it. + -- W. Somerset Maughm, his last words +% +Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down. + -- Woody Allen +% +Each man is his own prisoner, in solitary confinement for life. +% +Each of us bears his own Hell. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +Either I'm dead or my watch has stopped. + -- Groucho Marx's last words +% +Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral. + -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" +% +Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect +that life is no farce; that it is not genteel comedy even; that it flowers +and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundest tragic depths of the +essential death in which its subject's roots are plunged. The natural +inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued +forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters. + -- Henry James Sr., writing to his sons Henry and William +% +Every person, all the events in your life are there because you have +drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +Everything ends badly. Otherwise it wouldn't end. +% +Everything in this book may be wrong. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +Everything is possible. Pass the word. + -- Rita Mae Brown, "Six of One" +% +Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last. + -- Marcus Aurelius +% +Expansion means complexity; and complexity decay. +% +Facts are the enemy of truth. + -- Don Quixote +% +Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall. + -- Sir Walter Raleigh +% +Faith goes out through the window when beauty comes in at the door. +% +Faith is under the left nipple. + -- Martin Luther +% +Fill what's empty, empty what's full, scratch where it itches. + -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth +% +... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter. +"I" do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers +words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. +He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see +them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. +Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he +knows them in the naming. + -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light" +% +For fast-acting relief, try slowing down. +% +For good, return good. +For evil, return justice. +% +For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in +despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the +implacable grandeur of this life. + -- Albert Camus +% +For your penance, say five Hail Marys and one loud BLAH! +% +Force has no place where there is need of skill. + -- Herodotus +% +FORTUNE'S RULES TO LIVE BY: #2 + Never goose a wolverine. +% +FORTUNE'S RULES TO LIVE BY: #23 + Don't cut off a police car when making an illegal U-turn. +% +From listening comes wisdom and from speaking repentance. +% +From the cradle to the coffin underwear comes first. + -- Bertolt Brecht +% +Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death. + -- Miyamoto Musashi, 1645 +% +Getting into trouble is easy. + -- D. Winkel and F. Prosser +% +Getting there is only half as far as getting there and back. +% +Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief. + -- William Faulkner +% +God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to +change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference. +% +God instructs the heart, not by ideas, but by pains and contradictions. + -- De Caussade +% +God is the tangential point between zero and infinity. + -- Alfred Jarry +% +God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through. + -- Paul Valery +% +Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. + -- George Saunders' dying words +% +Goodbye, cool world. +% +Got a dictionary? I want to know the meaning of life. +% +Great acts are made up of small deeds. + -- Lao Tsu +% +**** GROWTH CENTER REPAIR SERVICE + +For those who have had too much of Esalen, Topanga, and Kairos. Tired of +being genuine all the time? Would you like to learn how to be a little +phony again? Have you disclosed so much that you're beginning to avoid +people? Have you touched so many people that they're all beginning to +feel the same? Like to be a little dependent? Are perfect orgasms +beginning to bore you? Would you like, for once, not to express a +feeling? Or better yet, not be in touch with it at all? Come to us. We +promise to relieve you of the burden of your great potential. +% +Happiness is having a scratch for every itch. + -- Ogden Nash +% +Happiness is just an illusion, filled with sadness and confusion. +% +Happiness isn't having what you want, it's wanting what you have. +% +Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember. + -- Oscar Levant +% +Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods. + -- Socrates +% +He has shown you, o man, what is good. And what does the Lord ask of you, +but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly before your God? +% +He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another's mishap. +% +He knows not how to know who knows not also how to unknow. + -- Sir Richard Burton +% +He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book. + -- B. Franklin +% +He thought of Musashi, the Sword Saint, standing in his garden more than +three hundred years ago. "What is the 'Body of a rock'?" he was asked. +In answer, Musashi summoned a pupil of his and bid him kill himself by +slashing his abdomen with a knife. Just as the pupil was about to comply, +the Master stayed his hand, saying, "That is the 'Body of a rock'." + -- Eric Van Lustbader +% +He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hopes for +the human condition is a fool. + -- Albert Camus +% +He who knows not and knows that he knows not is ignorant. Teach him. +He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him. +He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep. Wake him. +% +He who knows nothing, knows nothing. +But he who knows he knows nothing knows something. +And he who knows someone whose friend's wife's brother knows nothing, + he knows something. Or something like that. +% +He who knows others is wise. +He who knows himself is enlightened. + -- Lao Tsu +% +He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. + -- Lao Tsu +% +He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know. + -- Lao Tsu +% + ...He who laughs does not believe in what he laughs at, but neither +does he hate it. Therefore, laughing at evil means not preparing oneself to +combat it, and laughing at good means denying the power through which good is +self-propagating. + -- Umberto Eco, "The Name of the Rose" +% +Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: +if you're alive, it isn't. +% +How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our +thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another +in the waking state? + -- Plato +% +I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today. + -- William Allen White +% +I didn't believe in reincarnation in any of my other lives. I don't see why +I should have to believe in it in this one. + -- Strange de Jim +% +I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or +whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. + -- Chuang-tzu +% +I do not seek the ignorant; the ignorant seek me -- I will instruct them. +I ask nothing but sincerity. If they come out of habit, they become tiresome. + -- I Ching +% +"I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very +reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment." + -- Gotama Buddha +% +I hate dying. + -- Dave Johnson +% +I have a simple philosophy: + + Fill what's empty. + Empty what's full. + Scratch where it itches. + -- A. R. Longworth +% +I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer. + -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" +% +I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. +That would be dishonest. +% +I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!! +% +I know not how I came into this, shall I call it a dying life or a +living death? + -- St. Augustine +% + "I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of +that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put +more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it +might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not +otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be +otherwise.'" + -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" +% +If a guru falls in the forest with no one to hear him, was he really a +guru at all? + -- Strange de Jim, "The Metasexuals" +% +If a man has a strong faith he can indulge in the luxury of skepticism. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his +reverence for all of life. + -- Albert Schweitzer +% +If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it around. +Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble; that's +as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for +you'll see a lot of it and you had better be on speaking terms with it. + -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. +% +If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I +would relax, I would limber up, I would be sillier than I have been this +trip. I know of very few things I would take seriously. I would be crazier. +I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers and watch more sunsets. I'd +travel and see. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. +You see, I am one of those people who lives prophylactically and sensibly +and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I have had my moments and, +if I had it to do over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to +have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many +years ahead each day. I have been one of those people who never go anywhere +without a thermometer, a hotwater bottle, a gargle, a raincoat and a parachute. +If I had it to do over again, I would go places and do things and travel +lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start bare-footed +earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would play hooky +more. I probably wouldn't make such good grades, but I'd learn more. I would +ride on more merry-go-rounds. I'd pick more daisies. +% +If little green men land in your back yard, hide any little green women +you've got in the house. + -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" +% +If men are not afraid to die, +it is of no avail to threaten them with death. + +If men live in constant fear of dying, +And if breaking the law means a man will be killed, +Who will dare to break the law? + +There is always an official executioner. +If you try to take his place, +It is like trying to be a master carpenter and cutting wood. +If you try to cut wood like a master carpenter, + you will only hurt your hand. + -- Tao Te Ching, "Lao Tsu, #74" +% +If something has not yet gone wrong then it would ultimately have been +beneficial for it to go wrong. +% +If the master dies and the disciple grieves, the lives of both have +been wasted. +% +If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads. + -- Anatole France +% +If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, +the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. + +If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure +can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly develop. +% +If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing +of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur +of this life. + -- Albert Camus +% +If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed. +% +If we don't survive, we don't do anything else. + -- John Sinclair +% +If you are not for yourself, who will be for you? +If you are for yourself, then what are you? +If not now, when? +% +If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything. +% +If you find a solution and become attached to it, the solution may become +your next problem. +% +If you fool around with something long enough, it will eventually break. +% +If you have to hate, hate gently. +% +If you have to think twice about it, you're wrong. +% +If you keep anything long enough, you can throw it away. +% +If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat. + -- Simone de Beauvoir +% +If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. + -- Maslow +% +If you put it off long enough, it might go away. +% +If you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it. +% +If you wait long enough, it will go away... after having done its damage. +If it was bad, it will be back. +% +If you want divine justice, die. + -- Nick Seldon +% +If your aim in life is nothing, you can't miss. +% +If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do +have a problem. + -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" +% +Illusion is the first of all pleasures. + -- Voltaire +% +Immortality -- a fate worse than death. + -- Edgar A. Shoaff +% +In dwelling, be close to the land. +In meditation, delve deep into the heart. +In dealing with others, be gentle and kind. +In speech, be true. +In work, be competent. +In action, be careful of your timing. + -- Lao Tsu +% +In order to discover who you are, first learn who everybody else is; +you're what's left. +% +In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. +It is not always an easy sacrifice. +% +In spite of everything, I still believe that people are good at heart. + -- Ann Frank +% +In the long run we are all dead. + -- John Maynard Keynes +% +In the next world, you're on your own. +% +Indeed, the first noble truth of Buddhism, usually translated as +`all life is suffering,' is more accurately rendered `life is filled +with a sense of pervasive unsatisfactoriness.' + -- M.D. Epstein +% +Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better. + -- Edgar W. Howe +% +Intellect annuls Fate. +So far as a man thinks, he is free. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson +% +It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations. +% +It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is +lightly greased. + -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" +% +It is Fortune, not Wisdom, that rules man's life. +% +It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, +that makes life blessed. + -- Goethe +% +It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live +at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result +is the only thing that makes the result come true. + -- William James +% +It is only with the heart one can see clearly; what is essential is +invisible to the eye. + -- The Fox, 'The Little Prince" +% +It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the lowly +ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as high as the eagle? +% +It is so stupid of modern civilisation to have given up believing in the +devil when he is the only explanation of it. + -- Ronald Knox, "Let Dons Delight" +% +It is through symbols that man consciously or unconsciously lives, works +and has his being. + -- Thomas Carlyle +% +It will be advantageous to cross the great stream ... the Dragon is on +the wing in the Sky ... the Great Man rouses himself to his Work. +% +It's easier to take it apart than to put it back together. + -- Washlesky +% +It's hard to drive at the limit, but it's harder to know where the limits are. + -- Stirling Moss +% +It's not reality that's important, but how you perceive things. +% + "It's today!" said Piglet. + "My favorite day," said Pooh. +% +It's very inconvenient to be mortal -- you never know when everything may +suddenly stop happening. +% +Joshu: What is the true Way? +Nansen: Every way is the true Way. +J: Can I study it? +N: The more you study, the further from the Way. +J: If I don't study it, how can I know it? +N: The Way does not belong to things seen: nor to things unseen. + It does not belong to things known: nor to things unknown. Do + not seek it, study it, or name it. To find yourself on it, open + yourself as wide as the sky. +% +Just remember, wherever you go, there you are. + -- Buckaroo Bonzai +% +Kindness is the beginning of cruelty. + -- Muad'dib [Frank Herbert, "Dune"] +% +Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around us in awareness. + -- James Thurber +% +Life can be so tragic -- you're here today and here tomorrow. +% +Life exists for no known purpose. +% +Life is a grand adventure -- or it is nothing. + -- Helen Keller +% +Life is knowing how far to go without crossing the line. +% +Life is like a 10 speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use. + -- C. Schultz +% +Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +Life is the childhood of our immortality. + -- Goethe +% +Life is the living you do, Death is the living you don't do. + -- Joseph Pintauro +% +Life is the urge to ecstasy. +% +Life may have no meaning, or, even worse, it may have a meaning of which +you disapprove. +% +Life only demands from you the strength you possess. +Only one feat is possible -- not to have run away. + -- Dag Hammarskjold +% +Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all. + -- Thomas J. Kopp +% +Like, if I'm not for me, then fer shure, like who will be? And if, y'know, +if I'm not like fer anyone else, then hey, I mean, what am I? And if not +now, like I dunno, maybe like when? And if not Who, then I dunno, maybe +like the Rolling Stones? + -- Rich Rosen (Rabbi Valiel's paraphrase of famous quote + attributed to Rabbi Hillel.) +% +Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is +published around the world -- even if what is published is not true. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +Living in the complex world of the future is somewhat like having bees +live in your head. But, there they are. +% +Loneliness is a terrible price to pay for independence. +% +Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and +long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his +pain and his aloneness without regret? + -- Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet" +% +Man's reach must exceed his grasp, for why else the heavens? +% +[Maturity consists in the discovery that] there comes a critical moment +where everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand +more and more that there is something which cannot be understood. + -- S. Kierkegaard +% +Mohandas K. Gandhi often changed his mind publicly. An aide once asked him +how he could so freely contradict this week what he had said just last week. +The great man replied that it was because this week he knew better. +% + Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, +and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the +graduate school mountain but there in the sandbox at nursery school. + These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't +hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. +Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt someone. +Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good +for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint +and sing and dance and play and work some every day. + Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for +traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the +little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and +nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and +hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup -- they all +die. So do we. + And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you +learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK. Everything you need to know is in +there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and +politics and sane living. + Think of what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world +-- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with +our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other +nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own +messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into +the world it is best to hold hands and stick together. + -- Robert Fulghum, "All I ever really needed to know I learned + in kindergarten" +% +Murphy was an optimist. +% +Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work. +% +Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. + -- Lao Tsu +% +My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior +spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive +with our frail and feeble mind. + -- Albert Einstein +% +My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed. + -- Christopher Morley +% +Nasrudin called at a large house to collect for charity. The servant said +"My master is out." Nasrudin replied, "Tell your master that next time he +goes out, he should not leave his face at the window. Someone might steal it." +% +Nasrudin returned to his village from the imperial capital, and the villagers +gathered around to hear what had passed. "At this time," said Nasrudin, "I +only want to say that the King spoke to me." All the villagers but the +stupidest ran off to spread the wonderful news. The remaining villager +asked, "What did the King say to you?" "What he said -- and quite distinctly, +for everyone to hear -- was 'Get out of my way!'" The simpleton was overjoyed; +he had heard words actually spoken by the King, and seen the very man they +were spoken to. +% +Nasrudin walked into a shop one day, and the owner came forward to serve +him. Nasrudin said, "First things first. Did you see me walk into your +shop?" + "Of course." + "Have you ever seen me before?" + "Never." + "Then how do you know it was me?" +% +Nasrudin walked into a teahouse and declaimed, "The moon is more useful +than the sun." + "Why?", he was asked. + "Because at night we need the light more." +% +Nasrudin was carrying home a piece of liver and the recipe for liver pie. +Suddenly a bird of prey swooped down and snatched the piece of meat from his +hand. As the bird flew off, Nasrudin called after it, "Foolish bird! You +have the liver, but what can you do with it without the recipe?" +% +Ninety percent of everything is crap. + -- Theodore Sturgeon +% +Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would. +The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much. + -- Augustine +% +No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the +Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, +Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if +a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes +me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know +for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. + -- John Donne, "No Man is an Iland" +% +No matter where I go, the place is always called "here". +% +No use getting too involved in life -- you're only here for a limited time. +% +Nobody ever ruined their eyesight by looking at the bright side of something. +% +Nonsense and beauty have close connections. + -- E.M. Forster +% +Normal times may possibly be over forever. +% +Not every question deserves an answer. +% +Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. +% +Nothing is as simple as it seems at first + Or as hopeless as it seems in the middle + Or as finished as it seems in the end. +% +Nothing is but what is not. +% +Nothing is ever a total loss; it can always serve as a bad example. +% +Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. + -- Michel de Montaigne +% +Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all. + -- Arthur Balfour +% +Of all men's miseries, the bitterest is this: +to know so much and have control over nothing. + -- Herodotus +% +Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's hard to get it back in. + -- H.R. Haldeman +% + Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great +crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs +and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and +resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature +said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall +let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom." + The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current +you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will +die quicker than boredom!" + But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at +once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet, in time, +as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the +bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. + And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See +a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come +to save us all!" And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more +Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us free, if only we dare let go. +Our true work is this voyage, this adventure. + But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to the +rocks, making legends of a Saviour. + -- Richard Bach +% +Once you've tried to change the world you find it's a whole bunch easier +to change your mind. +% + One day it was announced that the young monk Kyogen had reached +an enlightened state. Much impressed by this news, several of his peers +went to speak with him. + "We have heard that you are enlightened. Is this true?" his fellow +students inquired. + "It is", Kyogen answered. + "Tell us", said a friend, "how do you feel?" + "As miserable as ever", replied the enlightened Kyogen. +% +One day the King decided that he would force all his subjects to tell the +truth. A gallows was erected in front of the city gates. A herald announced, +"Whoever would enter the city must first answer the truth to a question +which will be put to him." Nasrudin was first in line. The captain of the +guard asked him, "Where are you going? Tell the truth -- the alternative +is death by hanging." + "I am going," said Nasrudin, "to be hanged on that gallows." + "I don't believe you." + "Very well, if I have told a lie, then hang me!" + "But that would make it the truth!" + "Exactly," said Nasrudin, "your truth." +% +One learns to itch where one can scratch. + -- Ernest Bramah +% +One meets his destiny often on the road he takes to avoid it. +% +One monk said to the other, "The fish has flopped out of the net! How will it +live?" The other said, "When you have gotten out of the net, I'll tell you." +% +Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying. + -- Baba Ram Dass +% +Only those who leisurely approach that which the masses are busy about +can be busy about that which the masses take leisurely. + -- Lao Tsu +% +Paradise is exactly like where you are right now ... only much, much better. + -- Laurie Anderson +% +Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but +when there is no longer anything to take away. + -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery +% +Perhaps the biggest disappointments were the ones you expected anyway. +% +Philosophy will clip an angel's wings. + -- John Keats +% +Push where it gives and scratch where it itches. +% +Reality always seems harsher in the early morning. +% +Reality does not exist -- yet. +% +Reality is bad enough, why should I tell the truth? + -- Patrick Sky +% +Reality is for people who lack imagination. +% +Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity. + -- Alvy Ray Smith +% +Reality is just a crutch for people who can't handle science fiction. +% +Reality is nothing but a collective hunch. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away". + -- Philip K. Dick +% +Remember, Grasshopper, falling down 1000 stairs begins by tripping over +the first one. + -- Confusion +% +Rule of Life #1 -- Never get separated from your luggage. +% +Seeing is believing. You wouldn't have seen it if you hadn't believed it. +% +Since everything in life is but an experience perfect in being what it is, +having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well +burst out in laughter. + -- Long Chen Pa +% +So little time, so little to do. + -- Oscar Levant +% +Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. + -- Seneca +% +Sometimes you get an almost irresistible urge to go on living. +% +Standards are different for all things, so the standard set by man is by +no means the only 'certain' standard. If you mistake what is relative for +something certain, you have strayed far from the ultimate truth. + -- Chuang Tzu +% +Suffering alone exists, none who suffer; +The deed there is, but no doer thereof; +Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it; +The Path there is, but none who travel it. + -- "Buddhist Symbolism", Symbols and Values +% +Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes +a-begging. + -- Martin Luther +% +Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to +your execution is not generally understood by less advanced life forms, +and they'll call you crazy. + -- "Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul" +% +That that is is that that is not is not. +% +That, that is, is. +That, that is not, is not. +That, that is, is not that, that is not. +That, that is not, is not that, that is. +% +The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth. + -- A. Camus +% +The best you get is an even break. + -- Franklin Adams +% +"The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain." + -- G. Fitch +% +The chief cause of problems is solutions. + -- Eric Sevareid +% +The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions. + -- Alfred Adler +% +The days are all empty and the nights are unreal. +% +The door is the key. +% +The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing, +the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its +own capacity. ... Fuss, the god of the Southern Ocean, and Fret, the god +of the Northern Ocean, happened once to meet in the realm of Chaos, the god +of the center. Chaos treated them very handsomely and they discussed together +what they could do to repay his kindness. They had noticed that, whereas +everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and +so on, Chaos had none. So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes +in him. Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died. + -- Chuang Tzu +% +The farther you go, the less you know. + -- Lao Tsu, "Tao Te Ching" +% +The final delusion is the belief that one has lost all delusions. + -- Maurice Chapelain, "Main courante" +% +The first requisite for immortality is death. + -- Stanislaw Lem +% +The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves. + -- Sophocles +% +The longest part of the journey is said to be the passing of the gate. + -- Marcus Terentius Varro +% +The major sin is the sin of being born. + -- Samuel Beckett +% +The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice +and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the +master calls a butterfly. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and +robbers there will be. + -- Lao Tsu +% +The more you complain, the longer God lets you live. +% +The moss on the tree does not fear the talons of the hawk. +% +The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably +not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +The only difference between a rut and a grave is their dimensions. +% +The only happiness lies in reason; all the rest of the world is dismal. +The highest reason, however, I see in the work of the artist, and he may +experience it as such. Happiness lies in the swiftness of feeling and +thinking: all the rest of the world is slow, gradual and stupid. Whoever +could feel the course of a light ray would be very happy, for it is very +swift. Thinking of oneself gives little happiness. If, however, one feels +much happiness in this, it is because at bottom one is not thinking of +oneself but of one's ideal. This is far, and only the swift shall reach +it and are delighted. + -- Nietzsche +% +The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, +and the pessimist knows it. + -- J. Robert Oppenheimer, "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" +% +Yet creeds mean very little, Coth answered the dark god, still speaking +almost gently. The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all +possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. + -- James Cabell, "The Silver Stallion" +% +The Poems, all three hundred of them, may be summed up in one of their phrases: +"Let our thoughts be correct". + -- Confucius +% +The price of success in philosophy is triviality. + -- C. Glymour. +% +The questions remain the same. The answers are eternally variable. +% +The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but +that's the way to bet. + -- Damon Runyon +% +The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, +but not when it misses. + -- Francis Bacon +% +The savior becomes the victim. +% +The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears. +% +The state of innocence contains the germs of all future sin. + -- Alexandre Arnoux, "Etudes et caprices" +% +The true way goes over a rope which is not stretched at any great height +but just above the ground. It seems more designed to make people stumble +than to be walked upon. + -- Franz Kafka +% +The truth is rarely pure, and never simple. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +The truth is what is; what should be is a dirty lie. + -- Lenny Bruce +% +The truth of a thing is the feel of it, not the think of it. + -- Stanley Kubrick +% +The truth you speak has no past and no future. It is, and that's all it +needs to be. +% +The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums. +It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. +You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +There are no accidents whatsoever in the universe. + -- Baba Ram Dass +% +There are no winners in life, only survivors. +% +There are ten or twenty basic truths, and life is the process of +discovering them over and over and over. + -- David Nichols +% +There is more to life than increasing its speed. + -- Mahatma Gandhi +% +There is no comfort without pain; thus we define salvation through suffering. + -- Cato +% +There is no cure for birth and death other than to enjoy the interval. + -- George Santayana +% +There is no sin but ignorance. + -- Christopher Marlowe +% +There is nothing which cannot be answered by means of my doctrine," said +a monk, coming into a teahouse where Nasrudin sat. + "And yet just a short time ago, I was challenged by a scholar with +an unanswerable question," said Nasrudin. + "I could have answered it if I had been there." + "Very well. He asked, 'Why are you breaking into my house in +the middle of the night?'" +% +There's only one everything. +% +To get something clean, one has to get something dirty. +To get something dirty, one does not have to get anything clean. +% +To give happiness is to deserve happiness. +% +To give of yourself, you must first know yourself. +% +To have died once is enough. + -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) +% +To lead people, you must follow behind. + -- Lao Tsu +% +Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now -- always. + -- Albert Schweitzer +% +Truth is hard to find and harder to obscure. +% +Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy +of him that brought her birth. + -- Milton +% +Two men came before Nasrudin when he was magistrate. The first man said, +"This man has bitten my ear -- I demand compensation." The second man said, +"He bit it himself." Nasrudin withdrew to his chambers, and spent an hour +trying to bite his own ear. He succeeded only in falling over and bruising +his forehead. Returning to the courtroom, Nasrudin pronounced, "Examine the +man whose ear was bitten. If his forehead is bruised, he did it himself and +the case is dismissed. If his forehead is not bruised, the other man did it +and must pay three silver pieces." +% +Two men were sitting over coffee, contemplating the nature of things, +with all due respect for their breakfast. "I wonder why it is that +toast always falls on the buttered side," said one. + "Tell me," replied his friend, "why you say such a thing. Look +at this." And he dropped his toast on the floor, where it landed on the +dry side. + "So, what have you to say for your theory now?" + "What am I to say? You obviously buttered the wrong side." +% +Waste not fresh tears over old griefs. + -- Euripides +% +We can embody the truth, but we cannot know it. + -- Yates +% +We have nowhere else to go... this is all we have. + -- Margaret Mead +% +We have only two things to worry about: That things will never get +back to normal, and that they already have. +% +We have reason to be afraid. This is a terrible place. + -- John Berryman +% +We rarely find anyone who can say he has lived a happy life, and who, +content with his life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest. + -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) +% +We're all in this alone. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +We're mortal -- which is to say, we're ignorant, stupid, and sinful -- +but those are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and +then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for? + -- Ensign Flandry +% +"We're not talking about the same thing," he said. "For you the world is +weird because if you're not bored with it you're at odds with it. For me +the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, +unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must accept +responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous +desert, in this marvelous time. I wanted to convince you that you must +learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a +short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it." + -- Don Juan +% + Well, he thought, since neither Aristotelian Logic nor the disciplines +of Science seemed to offer much hope, it's time to go beyond them... + Drawing a few deep even breaths, he entered a mental state practiced +only by Masters of the Universal Way of Zen. In it his mind floated freely, +able to rummage at will among the bits and pieces of data he had absorbed, +undistracted by any outside disturbances. Logical structures no longer +inhibited him. Pre-conceptions, prejudices, ordinary human standards vanished. +All things, those previously trivial as well as those once thought important, +became absolutely equal by acquiring an absolute value, revealing relationships +not evident to ordinary vision. Like beads strung on a string of their own +meaning, each thing pointed to its own common ground of existence, shared by +all. Finally, each began to melt into each, staying itself while becoming +all others. And Mind no longer contemplated Problem, but became Problem, +destroying Subject-Object by becoming them. + Time passed, unheeded. + Eventually, there was a tentative stirring, then a decisive one, and +Nakamura arose, a smile on his face and the light of laughter in his eyes. + -- Wayfarer +% +Well, you know, no matter where you go, there you are. + -- Buckaroo Banzai +% +"Well," Brahma said, "even after ten thousand explanations, a fool is no +wiser, but an intelligent man requires only two thousand five hundred." + -- The Mahabharata. +% +What does not destroy me, makes me stronger. + -- Nietzsche +% +What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing +to compare it with. +% +What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? + -- Ursula K. LeGuin +% +What we Are is God's gift to us. +What we Become is our gift to God. +% +Whatever occurs from love is always beyond good and evil. + -- Friedrich Nietzsche +% +Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. + -- Gandhi +% +When it's dark enough you can see the stars. + -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, +% +When the speaker and he to whom he is speaks do not understand, that is +metaphysics. + -- Voltaire +% +When the wind is great, bow before it; +when the wind is heavy, yield to it. +% +When you are young, you enjoy a sustained illusion that sooner or later +something marvelous is going to happen, that you are going to transcend +your parents' limitations... At the same time, you feel sure that in all +the wilderness of possibility; in all the forests of opinion, there is a +vital something that can be known -- known and grasped. That we will +eventually know it, and convert the whole mystery into a coherent +narrative. So that then one's true life -- the point of everything -- +will emerge from the mist into a pure light, into total comprehension. +But it isn't like that at all. But if it isn't, where did the idea come +from, to torture and unsettle us? + -- Brian Aldiss, "Helliconia Summer" +% +When you die, you lose a very important part of your life. + -- Brooke Shields +% +Who does not trust enough will not be trusted. + -- Lao Tsu +% +Wisdom is knowing what to do with what you know. + -- J. Winter Smith +% +Wisdom is rarely found on the best-seller list. +% +[Wisdom] is a tree of life to those laying +hold of her, making happy each one holding her fast. + -- Proverbs 3:18, NSV +% +With listening comes wisdom, with speaking repentance. +% +Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. + -- Socrates, quoting Plato + [Huh? That's like Johnson quoting Boswell] +% + Work Hard. + Rock Hard. + Eat Hard. + Sleep Hard. + Grow Big. + Wear Glasses If You Need 'Em. + -- The Webb Wilder Credo +% +Yes, but which self do you want to be? +% +You are never given a wish without also being given the +power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. + -- R. Bach, "Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for + the Advanced Soul" +% +You can always pick up your needle and move to another groove. + -- Tim Leary +% +You can get *anywhere* in ten minutes if you drive fast enough. +% +You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the tracks. +% +You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. + -- Jeannette Rankin +% +You can observe a lot just by watching. + -- Yogi Berra +% +You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. +% +You can't get there from here. +% +You can't mend a wristwatch while falling from an airplane. +% +You can't push on a string. +% +You can't run away forever, +But there's nothing wrong with getting a good head start. + -- Jim Steinman, "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" +% +"You can't survive by sucking the juice from a wet mitten." + -- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and + Over and Over" +% +You can't take it with you -- especially when crossing a state line. +% +You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads +lead down. + -- Stanislaw Lem, "The Cyberiad" +% +You have all eternity to be cautious in when you're dead. + -- Lois Platford +% +You have to run as fast as you can just to stay where you are. +If you want to get anywhere, you'll have to run much faster. + -- Lewis Carroll +% + "You mean, if you allow the master to be uncivil, to treat you +any old way he likes, and to insult your dignity, then he may deem you +fit to hear his view of things?" + "Quite the contrary. You must defend your integrity, assuming +you have integrity to defend. But you must defend it nobly, not by +imitating his own low behavior. If you are gentle where he is rough, +if you are polite where he is uncouth, then he will recognize you as +potentially worthy. If he does not, then he is not a master, after all, +and you may feel free to kick his ass." + -- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume" +% +You will always find something in the last place you look. +% +"You would do well not to imagine profundity," he said. "Anything that seems +of momentous occasion should be dwelt upon as though it were of slight note. +Conversely, trivialities must be attended to with the greatest of care. +Because death is momentous, give it no thought; because victory is important, +give it no thought; because the method of achievement and discovery is less +momentous than the effect, dwell always upon the method. You will strengthen +yourself in this way." + -- Jessica Salmonson, "The Swordswoman" +% +Your happiness is intertwined with your outlook on life. +% +Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart, what is true. +% +Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being +true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the +mark of a fake messiah. The simplest questions are the most profound. +Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What +are you doing? Think about these once in awhile and watch your answers +change. + -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul +% +Your picture of the world often changes just before you get it into focus. +% +Your wig steers the gig. + -- Lord Buckley +% +You may be marching to the beat of a different drummer, but you're +still in the parade. +% +The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. + -- Muriel Rukeyser +% +Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. + -- Jean-Paul Sartre +% +There is a secret person undamaged within every individual. + -- Paul Shepard +% +We are governed not by armies and police but by ideas. + -- Mona Caird, 1892 +% +The first rule of all intelligent tinkering is to keep all the parts. + -- Aldo Leopold, quoted in Donald Wurster's "Nature's Economy" +% +You must be the change you wish to see in the world. + --Mahatma Gandhi +% +No people are all bad, just as none are all good. +Tecumseh, (Shawnee) to his nephew Spemica Lawba 1790 +% +My reason tells me that land cannot be sold - nothing can be sold but +such things as can be carried away. Black Hawk, (Saulk) +% +Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the +earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his +children? Tecumseh, (Shawnee) +% +Free yourself from negative influence. Negative thoughts are the old +habits that gnaw at the roots of the soul. +Moses Shongo, (Seneca) +% +...everything on this earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure +it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence. +Mourning Dove, (Salish 1888-1936) +% +"Der bestirnte Himmel über mir und das moralische Gesetz in mir" +that is +"The starry sky above me, and the Moral Law inside me." + - The epigraph on Kant's tombstone. +% +The words fly away, the writings remain. +% +I am what you will be; I was what you are. +% +The people rule. +% +Perhaps the remembrance of these things will prove a source of future +pleasure. + -- Virgil +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/work b/fortune-mod/datfiles/work new file mode 100644 index 0000000..df952d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/work @@ -0,0 +1,2725 @@ +(1) Office employees will daily sweep the floors, dust the + furniture, shelves, and showcases. +(2) Each day fill lamps, clean chimneys, and trim wicks. + Wash the windows once a week. +(3) Each clerk will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of + coal for the day's business. +(4) Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to your + individual taste. +(5) This office will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. except + on the Sabbath, on which day we will remain closed. Each + employee is expected to spend the Sabbath by attending + church and contributing liberally to the cause of the Lord. + -- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage + Works, 1872 +% +(6) Men employees will be given time off each week for courting + purposes, or two evenings a week if they go regularly to church. +(7) After an employee has spent his thirteen hours of labor in the + office, he should spend the remaining time reading the Bible + and other good books. +(8) Every employee should lay aside from each pay packet a goodly + sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years, + so that he will not become a burden on society or his betters. +(9) Any employee who smokes Spanish cigars, uses alcoholic drink + in any form, frequents pool tables and public halls, or gets + shaved in a barber's shop, will give me good reason to suspect + his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty. +(10) The employee who has performed his labours faithfully and + without a fault for five years, will be given an increase of + five cents per day in his pay, providing profits from the + business permit it. + -- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872 +% +A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and +ask for it back the when it begins to rain. + -- Robert Frost +% +A boss with no humor is like a job that's no fun. +% +A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well +as afterward. +% +A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator. + -- Paul Valery +% +A committee is a group that keeps the minutes and loses hours. + -- Milton Berle +% +A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love" +% +A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the +seed from which other committees will bloom. + -- Parkinson +% +A commune is where people join together to share their lack of wealth. + -- R. Stallman +% +A company is known by the men it keeps. +% +A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it +is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it. +% +A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper. + -- Dyer +% +A cow is a completely automated milk-manufacturing machine. It is encased +in untanned leather and mounted on four vertical, movable supports, one at +each corner. The front end of the machine, or input, contains the cutting +and grinding mechanism, utilizing a unique feedback device. Here also are +the headlights, air inlet and exhaust, a bumper and a foghorn. + At the rear, the machine carries the milk-dispensing equipment as +well as a built-in flyswatter and insect repeller. The central portion +houses a hydro- chemical-conversion unit. Briefly, this consists of four +fermentation and storage tanks connected in series by an intricate network +of flexible plumbing. This assembly also contains the central heating plant +complete with automatic temperature controls, pumping station and main +ventilating system. The waste disposal apparatus is located to the rear of +this central section. + Cows are available fully-assembled in an assortment of sizes and +colors. Production output ranges from 2 to 20 tons of milk per year. In +brief, the main external visible features of the cow are: two lookers, two +hookers, four stander-uppers, four hanger-downers, and a swishy-wishy. +% +A feed salesman is on his way to a farm. As he's driving along at forty +m.p.h., he looks out his car window and sees a three-legged chicken running +alongside him, keeping pace with his car. He is amazed that a chicken is +running at forty m.p.h. So he speeds up to forty-five, fifty, then sixty +m.p.h. The chicken keeps right up with him the whole way, then suddenly +takes off and disappears into the distance. + The man pulls into the farmyard and says to the farmer, "You know, +the strangest thing just happened to me; I was driving along at at least +sixty miles an hour and a chicken passed me like I was standing still!" + "Yeah," the farmer replies, "that chicken was ours. You see, there's +me, and there's Ma, and there's our son Billy. Whenever we had chicken for +dinner, we would all want a drumstick, so we'd have to kill two chickens. +So we decided to try and breed a three-legged chicken so each of us could +have a drumstick." + "How do they taste?" said the farmer. + "Don't know," replied the farmer. "We haven't been able to catch +one yet." +% +A freelance is one who gets paid by the word -- per piece or perhaps. + -- Robert Benchley +% +A good supervisor can step on your toes without messing up your shine. +% +A holding company is a thing where you hand an accomplice the goods while +the policeman searches you. +% +A man is known by the company he organizes. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost. +% +A memorandum is written not to inform the reader, but to protect the writer. + -- Dean Acheson +% +A motion to adjourn is always in order. +% +A mouse is an elephant built by the Japanese. +% +A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary. +Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a round tuit now +has no excuse for further procrastination. +% +A rock store eventually closed down; they were taking too much for granite. +% +... a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you +were a High-Class Realtor and if you hadn't you were a shyster, a piker and +a fly-by-night. These virtues awakened Confidence and enabled you to handle +Bigger Propositions. But they didn't imply that you were to be impractical +and refuse to take twice the value for a house if a buyer was such an idiot +that he didn't force you down on the asking price. + -- Sinclair Lewis, "Babbitt" +% +A traveling salesman was driving past a farm when he saw a pig with three +wooden legs executing a magnificent series of backflips and cartwheels. +Intrigued, he drove up to the farmhouse, where he found an old farmer +sitting in the yard watching the pig. + "That's quite a pig you have there, sir" said the salesman. + "Sure is, son," the farmer replied. "Why, two years ago, my daughter +was swimming in the lake and bumped her head and damned near drowned, but that +pig swam out and dragged her back to shore." + "Amazing!" the salesman exlaimed. + "And that's not the only thing. Last fall I was cuttin' wood up on +the north forty when a tree fell on me. Pinned me to the ground, it did. +That pig run up and wiggled underneath that tree and lifted it off of me. +Saved my life." + "Fantastic! the salesman said. But tell me, how come the pig has +three wooden legs?" + The farmer stared at the newcomer in amazement. "Mister, when you +got an amazin' pig like that, you don't eat him all at once." +% +A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. + -- Samuel Goldwyn +% +About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends. + -- Herbert Hoover +% +According to a recent and unscientific national survey, smiling is something +everyone should do at least 6 times a day. In an effort to increase the +national average (the US ranks third among the world's superpowers in +smiling), Xerox has instructed all personnel to be happy, effervescent, and +most importantly, to smile. Xerox employees agree, and even feel strongly +that they can not only meet but surpass the national average... except for +Tubby Ackerman. But because Tubby does such a fine job of racing around +parking lots with a large butterfly net retrieving floating IC chips, Xerox +decided to give him a break. If you see Tubby in a parking lot he may have +a sheepish grin. This is where the expression, "Service with a slightly +sheepish grin" comes from. +% +According to all the latest reports, there was no truth in any of the +earlier reports. +% +Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest +way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless. + -- Sinclair Lewis +% +Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket. + -- George Orwell +% +Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human +intelligence long enough to get money from it. +% +After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done. +% +After any salary raise, you will have less money at the end of the +month than you did before. +% +All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. +% +All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, +provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe +to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the +cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief +Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: "Where else are you +going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains?" + -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" +% +All this big deal about white collar crime -- what's WRONG with white collar +crime? Who enjoys his job today? You? Me? Anybody? The only satisfying +part of any job is coffee break, lunch hour and quitting time. Years ago +there was at least the hope of improvement -- eventual promotion -- more +important jobs to come. Once you can be sold the myth that you may make +president of the company you'll hardly ever steal stamps. But nobody +believes he's going to be president anymore. The more people change jobs +the more they realize that there is a direct connection between working for +a living and total stupefying boredom. So why NOT take revenge? You're not +going to find ME knocking a guy because he pads an expense account and his +home stationery carries the company emblem. Take away crime from the white +collar worker and you will rob him of his last vestige of job interest. + -- J. Feiffer +% +All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for fun. +Money's just the way we keep score. + -- Henry Tyroon +% +All warranty and guarantee clauses become null and void upon payment of invoice. +% +America works less, when you say "Union Yes!" +% +American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective employees +be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for employees who are +educated enough that they can tell the difference between the men's room and +the women's room without having little pictures on the doors. + -- Dave Barry, "Urine Trouble, Mister" +% +An office party is not, as is sometimes supposed the Managing Director's +chance to kiss the tea-girl. It is the tea-girl's chance to kiss the +Managing Director (however bizarre an ambition this may seem to anyone +who has seen the Managing Director face on). + -- Katherine Whitehorn, "Roundabout" +% +Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed +to be doing at the moment. + -- Robert Benchley +% +Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. + -- Publius Syrus +% +Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none. +% +Anything free is worth what you pay for it. +% +Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the +price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW" +means the price went way up. +% +"At least they're ___________EXPERIENCED incompetents" +% +At these prices, I lose money -- but I make it up in volume. + -- Peter G. Alaquon +% +At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the +number of pens that person is carrying. +% +Be sociable. Speak to the person next to you in the unemployment line tomorrow. +% +Been Transferred Lately? +% +... before I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speech +or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility. What +did it matter what anyone knew or ignored? What did it matter who was +manager? One gets sometimes such a flash of insight. The essentials of +this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, and beyond my +power of meddling. + -- Joseph Conrad +% +Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of Hudson +Bay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate. +Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years and +great effort pushing boulders into a single word. + +It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow. +Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latin +equivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for the +destruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrass +both Parliament and Party. + +It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists on other +planets, this may be the first message received from us. + -- The Realist, November, 1964. +% +Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather +a new wearer of clothes. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% +Biz is better. +% +Body by Nautilus, Brain by Mattel. +% +Bullwinkle: You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the outfit. +General: What does that make YOU? +Bullwinkle: What else? An executive. + -- Jay Ward +% +Business is a good game -- lots of competition and minimum of rules. +You keep score with money. + -- Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari +% +Business will be either better or worse. + -- Calvin Coolidge +% +"But don't you worry, its for a cause -- feeding global corporations' paws." +% +But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a +brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and +lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877, was the +phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where +it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented. But Edison's +greatest achievement came in 1879, when he invented the electric company. +Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: +the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then +immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is +the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again. + +This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of +electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few +customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. In fact the +last year any new electricity was generated in the United States was 1937; +the electric companies have been merely re-selling it ever since, which is +why they have so much free time to apply for rate increases. + -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" +% + By the middle 1880's, practically all the roads except those in +the South, were of the present standard gauge. The southern roads were +still five feet between rails. + It was decided to change the gauge of all southern roads to standard, +in one day. This remarkable piece of work was carried out on a Sunday in May +of 1886. For weeks beforehand, shops had been busy pressing wheels in on the +axles to the new and narrower gauge, to have a supply of rolling stock which +could run on the new track as soon as it was ready. Finally, on the day set, +great numbers of gangs of track layers went to work at dawn. Everywhere one +rail was loosened, moved in three and one-half inches, and spiked down in its +new position. By dark, trains from anywhere in the United States could operate +over the tracks in the South, and a free interchange of freight cars everywhere +was possible. + -- Robert Henry, "Trains", 1957 +% +By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be +boss and work twelve. + -- Robert Frost +% +Can anyone remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce? +% +Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. +% +Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected. +Carefully planned projects take four times longer to complete than expected, +mostly because the planners expect their planning to reduce the time it takes. +% +Chairman of the Bored. +% +Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 + +0. integrated 0. management 0. options +1. total 1. organizational 1. flexibility +2. systematized 2. monitored 2. capability +3. parallel 3. reciprocal 3. mobility +4. functional 4. digital 4. programming +5. responsive 5. logistical 5. concept +6. optional 6. transitional 6. time-phase +7. synchronized 7. incremental 7. projection +8. compatible 8. third-generation 8. hardware +9. balanced 9. policy 9. contingency + + The procedure is simple. Think of any three-digit number, then select +the corresponding buzzword from each column. For instance, number 257 produces +"systematized logistical projection," a phrase that can be dropped into +virtually any report with that ring of decisive, knowledgeable authority. "No +one will have the remotest idea of what you're talking about," says Broughton, +"but the important thing is that they're not about to admit it." + -- Philip Broughton, "How to Win at Wordsmanship" +% +Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to +be appointed to do the work. +% +Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of +the beholder. + -- Dr. Laurence J. Peter +% +Competitive fury is not always anger. It is the true missionary's courage +and zeal in facing the possibility that one's best may not be enough. + -- Gene Scott +% +... [concerning quotation marks] even if we *___did* quote anybody in this +business, it probably would be gibberish. + -- Thom McLeod +% +"Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich." + -- "Ali Baba Bunny" [1957, Chuck Jones] +% +Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to +stick to one thing till it gets there. + -- Josh Billings +% +Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then +give it back to them. +% +Credit ... is the only enduring testimonial to man's confidence in man. + -- James Blish +% +Dealing with failure is easy: + Work hard to improve. +Success is also easy to handle: + You've solved the wrong problem. + Work hard to improve. +% +Dealing with the problem of pure staff accumulation, +all our researches ... point to an average increase of 5.75% per year. + -- C.N. Parkinson +% +Dear Lord: + I just want *___one* one-armed manager so I never have to hear "On +the other hand", again. +% +Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe? + +Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business signs +to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a word, as in: +WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ITEM'S. +Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand- lettered +small-business signs is that you should put quotation marks around random +words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S. + -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" +% +Despite all appearances, your boss is a thinking, feeling, human being. +% + "Do you think what we're doing is wrong?" + "Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!" + "I've never done anything illegal before." + "I thought you said you were an accountant!" +% +Don't be irreplaceable, if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted. +% +Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat. + -- Ambrose Bierce +% +Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. + -- James J. Ling +% +"Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where to +get more wax!!" +% +Dreams are free, but you get soaked on the connect time. +% +Drilling for oil is boring. +% +Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends. +% +Ernest asks Frank how long he has been working for the company. + "Ever since they threatened to fire me." +% +Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you +just how busy they are? +% +Every cloud has a silver lining; you should have sold it, and bought titanium. +% +"Every man has his price. Mine is $3.95." +% +Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know that he is. + -- Jean Anouilh, "The Lark" +% +Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster +than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. +It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. +It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun comes +up, you'd better be running. +% +"Every morning, I get up and look through the 'Forbes' list of the +richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work" + -- Robert Orben +% +Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no +guarantee of eventual success. +% +Every young man should have a hobby: learning how to handle money is +the best one. + -- Jack Hurley +% +Everybody but Sam had signed up for a new company pension plan that +called for a small employee contribution. The company was paying all +the rest. Unfortunately, 100% employee participation was needed; +otherwise the plan was off. Sam's boss and his fellow workers pleaded +and cajoled, but to no avail. Sam said the plan would never pay off. +Finally the company president called Sam into his office. + "Sam," he said, "here's a copy of the new pension plan and here's +a pen. I want you to sign the papers. I'm sorry, but if you don't sign, +you're fired. As of right now." + Sam signed the papers immediately. + "Now," said the president, "would you mind telling me why you +couldn't have signed earlier?" + "Well, sir," replied Sam, "nobody explained it to me quite so +clearly before." +% +Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money. + -- Arthur Miller +% +Everyone who comes in here wants three things: + (1) They want it quick. + (2) They want it good. + (3) They want it cheap. +I tell 'em to pick two and call me back. + -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company +% +Exceptions prove the rule, and wreck the budget. + -- Miller +% +Excerpt from a conversation between a customer support person and a +customer working for a well-known military-affiliated research lab: + +Support: "You're not our only customer, you know." +Customer: "But we're one of the few with tactical nuclear weapons." +% +Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do +the work. + -- John G. Pollard +% + Exxon's 'Universe of Energy' tends to the peculiar rather than the +humorous ... After [an incomprehensible film montage about wind and sun and +rain and strip mines and] two or three minutes of mechanical confusion, the +seats locomote through a short tunnel filled with clock-work dinosaurs. +The dinosaurs are depicted without accuracy and too close to your face. + "One of the few real novelties at Epcot is the use of smell to +aggravate illusions. Of course, no one knows what dinosaurs smelled like, +but Exxon has decided they smelled bad. + "At the other end of Dino Ditch ... there's a final, very addled +message about facing challengehood tomorrow-wise. I dozed off during this, +but the import seems to be that dinosaurs don't have anything to do with +energy policy and neither do you." + -- P.J. O'Rourke, "Holidays in Hell" +% +Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital. +% +Fast, cheap, good: pick two. +% +Fear is the greatest salesman. + -- Robert Klein +% +Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions, right here! +% +For every bloke who makes his mark, there's half a dozen waiting to rub it out. + -- Andy Capp +% +Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. + -- Thomas Alva Edison +% +Genius is ten percent inspiration and fifty percent capital gains. +% +Getting the job done is no excuse for not following the rules. + +Corollary: + Following the rules will not get the job done. +% +"Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around, +I'd rather lie around. No contest." + -- Eric Clapton +% +God help those who do not help themselves. + -- Wilson Mizner +% +God helps them that help themselves. + -- Benjamin Franklin, "Poor Richard's Almanac" +% +Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to work. +% +Good salesmen and good repairmen will never go hungry. + -- R.E. Schenk +% +Happiness is a positive cash flow. +% +Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance? + -- Charlie McCarthy +% +Have you ever noticed that the people who are always trying to tell you +`there's a time for work and a time for play' never find the time for play? +% +He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. + -- Bion +% +He who has but four and spends five has no need for a wallet. +% +He who is content with his lot probably has a lot. +% +He who steps on others to reach the top has good balance. +% +"Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from +Presidents and Kings to the scum of the earth ..." +% + "Hey, Sam, how about a loan?" + "Whattaya need?" + "Oh, about $500." + "Whattaya got for collateral?" + "Whattaya need?" + "How about an eye?" + -- Sam Giancana +% +Hideously disfigured by an ancient Indian curse? + + WE CAN HELP! + +Call (511) 338-0959 for an immediate appointment. +% +Hire the morally handicapped. +% + Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's willing to +pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop for lumber, +hardware, and toasters all in one location. Notice I say "shop for," as +opposed to "obtain." This is the major drawback of home centers: they are +always out of everything except artificial Christmas trees. The home center +employees have no time to reorder merchandise because they are too busy +applying little price stickers to every object -- every board, washer, nail +and screw -- in the entire store ... + + Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the +broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has a +replacement. The employee, who has never is his life even seen the inside +of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the same way +that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at an electronic +calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of these sometime +around the middle of next week." + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty. + -- Plato +% +Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people. + -- F.M. Hubbard +% +Hotels are tired of getting ripped off. I checked into a hotel and they +had towels from my house. + -- Mark Guido +% +How come everyone's going so slow if it's called rush hour? +% +How come financial advisors never seem to be as wealthy as they +claim they'll make you? +% + "How many people work here?" + "Oh, about half." +% +Human resources are human first, and resources second. + -- J. Garbers +% +"I am convinced that the manufacturers of carpet odor removing powder +have included encapsulated time released cat urine in their products. +This technology must be what prevented its distribution during my mom's +reign. My carpet smells like piss, and I don't have a cat. Better go +buy some more." + -- timw@zeb.USWest.COM +% +I am more bored than you could ever possibly be. Go back to work. +% +I attribute my success to intelligence, guts, determination, honesty, +ambition, and having enough money to buy people with those qualities. +% +I BET WHAT HAPPENED was they discovered fire and invented the wheel on +the same day. Then that night, they burned the wheel. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats; If it be man's work I will do it. +% +I consider a new device or technology to have been culturally accepted when +it has been used to commit a murder. + -- M. Gallaher +% +I don't do it for the money. + -- Donald Trump, Art of the Deal +% +I don't have any use for bodyguards, but I do have a specific use for two +highly trained certified public accountants. + -- Elvis Presley +% +I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve +immortality through not dying. + -- Woody Allen +% + I for one cannot protest the recent M.T.A. fare hike and the +accompanying promises that this would in no way improve service. For +the transit system, as it now operates, has hidden advantages that +can't be measured in monetary terms. + Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to +have that unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: "I came +by subway." Those four words have such magic in them that if Godot +should someday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantly +understand his long delay. +% +I go on working for the same reason a hen goes on laying eggs. + -- H.L. Mencken +% +I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +I have ways of making money that you know nothing of. + -- John D. Rockefeller +% +I just asked myself... what would John DeLorean do? + -- Raoul Duke +% +I just need enough to tide me over until I need more. + -- Bill Hoest +% +I like work; it fascinates me; I can sit and look at it for hours. +% +I never cheated an honest man, only rascals. They wanted something for +nothing. I gave them nothing for something. + -- Joseph "Yellow Kid" Weil +% +I owe the public nothing. + -- J.P. Morgan +% +I was in this prematurely air conditioned supermarket and there were all +these aisles and there were these bathing caps you could buy that had these +kind of Fourth of July plumes on them that were red and yellow and blue and +I wasn't tempted to buy one but I was reminded of the fact that I had been +avoiding the beach. + -- Lucinda Childs "Einstein On The Beach" +% +I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending +their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to +buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike. + -- Emile Henry Gauvreay +% +I'd rather be led to hell than managed to heavan. +% +I'd rather just believe that it's done by little elves running around. +% +I'm always looking for a new idea that will be more productive than its cost. + -- David Rockefeller +% +I've got all the money I'll ever need if I die by 4 o'clock. + -- Henny Youngman +% +I: + The best way to make a silk purse from a sow's ear is to begin + with a silk sow. The same is true of money. +II: + If today were half as good as tomorrow is supposed to be, it would + probably be twice as good as yesterday was. +III: + There are no lazy veteran lion hunters. +IV: + If you can afford to advertise, you don't need to. +V: + One-tenth of the participants produce over one-third of the output. + Increasing the number of participants merely reduces the average + output. + -- Norman Augustine +% +If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had +lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question back at him. +% +If a thing's worth doing, it is worth doing badly. + -- G.K. Chesterton +% +If a thing's worth having, it's worth cheating for. + -- W.C. Fields +% +If all else fails, lower your standards. +% +If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four tellers? +% +If ever the pleasure of one has to be bought by the pain of the other, there +better be no trade. A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud. + -- Dagny Taggart, "Atlas Shrugged" +% +If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to invent it. +% +IF I HAD A MINE SHAFT, I don't think I would just abandon it. There's +got to be a better way. + -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. +% +If I want your opinion, I'll ask you to fill out the necessary form. +% +If I were a grave-digger or even a hangman, there are some people I could +work for with a great deal of enjoyment. + -- Douglas Jerrold +% +If it's worth doing, it's worth doing for money. +% +If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it. +% +If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we would +all be millionaires. + -- Abigail Van Buren +% +If what they've been doing hasn't solved the problem, tell them to +do something else. + -- Gerald Weinberg, "The Secrets of Consulting" +% +If you always postpone pleasure you will never have it. Quit work and play +for once! +% +If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are real +good, you will get out of it. +% +If you are over 80 years old and accompanied by your parents, we will +cash your check. +% +If you are shooting under 80 you are neglecting your business; +over 80 you are neglecting your golf. + -- Walter Hagen +% +If you aren't rich you should always look useful. + -- Louis-Ferdinand Celine +% +If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars. + -- J. Paul Getty +% +If you can't get your work done in the first 24 hours, work nights. +% +If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. +% +If you didn't have to work so hard, you'd have more time to be depressed. +% +If you do something right once, someone will ask you to do it again. +% +If you don't have time to do it right, where are you going to find the time +to do it over? +% +If you fail to plan, plan to fail. +% +If you had better tools, you could more effectively demonstrate your +total incompetence. +% +If you have to ask how much it is, you can't afford it. +% +If you hype something and it succeeds, you're a genius -- it wasn't a +hype. If you hype it and it fails, then it was just a hype. + -- Neil Bogart +% +If you sell diamonds, you cannot expect to have many customers. +But a diamond is a diamond even if there are no customers. + -- Swami Prabhupada +% +If you suspect a man, don't employ him. +% +If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car +payments. + -- Earl Wilson +% +If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the people he gave +it to. + -- Dorthy Parker +% +If you want to put yourself on the map, publish your own map. +% +If you would know the value of money, go try to borrow some. + -- Ben Franklin +% + If you're like most homeowners, you're afraid that many repairs +around your home are too difficult to tackle. So, when your furnace +explodes, you call in a so-called professional to fix it. The +"professional" arrives in a truck with lettering on the sides and deposits a +large quantity of tools and two assistants who spend the better part of the +week in your basement whacking objects at random with heavy wrenches, after +which the "professional" returns and gives you a bill for slightly more +money than it would cost you to run a successful campaign for the U.S. +Senate. + And that's why you've decided to start doing things yourself. You +figure, "If those guys can fix my furnace, then so can I. How difficult can +it be?" + Very difficult. In fact, most home projects are impossible, which +is why you should do them yourself. There is no point in paying other +people to screw things up when you can easily screw them up yourself for far +less money. This article can help you. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the mail. +Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the Boss is reading +it. Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving +from where you left them to where you can't find them. +% +In 1914, the first crossword puzzle was printed in a newspaper. The +creator received $4000 down ... and $3000 across. +% +In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: +the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy. +% +In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence ... +in time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent +to carry out its duties ... Work is accomplished by those employees who +have not yet reached their level of incompetence. + -- Dr. Laurence J. Peter, "The Peter Principle" +% +In case of atomic attack, all work rules will be temporarily suspended. +% +In case of injury notify your superior immediately. He'll kiss it and +make it better. +% +In every hierarchy the cream rises until it sours. + -- Dr. Laurence J. Peter +% +In order to get a loan you must first prove you don't need it. +% +In the middle of a wide field is a pot of gold. 100 feet to the north stands +a smart manager. 100 feet to the south stands a dumb manager. 100 feet to +the east is the Easter Bunny, and 100 feet to the west is Santa Claus. + +Q: Who gets to the pot of gold first? +A: The dumb manager. All the rest are myths. +% +Innovation is hard to schedule. + -- Dan Fylstra +% +Insanity is the final defense ... It's hard to get a refund when the +salesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon. +% +Is a person who blows up banks an econoclast? +% +It is better to give than to lend, and it costs about the same. +% +It is better to live rich than to die rich. + -- Samuel Johnson +% +It is better to travel hopefully than to fly Continental. +% +It is difficult to soar with the eagles when you work with turkeys. +% +It is imperative when flying coach that you restrain any tendency toward +the vividly imaginative. For although it may momentarily appear to be the +case, it is not at all likely that the cabin is entirely inhabited by +crying babies smoking inexpensive domestic cigars. + -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" +% +It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of +work to do. + -- Jerome Klapka Jerome +% +It is much harder to find a job than to keep one. +% +It is not enough that I should succeed. Others must fail. + -- Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald's + [Also attributed to David Merrick. Ed.] + +It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. + -- Gore Vidal + [Great minds think alike? Ed.] +% +It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat +rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they +kill me. You're talking about the American way of survival of the fittest. + -- Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's +% +It's a poor workman who blames his tools. +% +It's been a business doing pleasure with you. +% +It's fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an hour! + -- Macy's +% +It's not so hard to lift yourself by your bootstraps once you're off the ground. + -- Daniel B. Luten +% +It's very glamorous to raise millions of dollars, until it's time for the +venture capitalist to suck your eyeballs out. + -- Peter Kennedy, chairman of Kraft & Kennedy. +% +Just because he's dead is no reason to lay off work. +% +Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help. +% +Keep your boss's boss off your boss's back. +% +Keep your Eye on the Ball, +Your Shoulder to the Wheel, +Your Nose to the Grindstone, +Your Feet on the Ground, +Your Head on your Shoulders. +Now... try to get something DONE! +% +Lavish spending can be disastrous. Don't buy any lavishes for a while. +% +Lend money to a bad debtor and he will hate you. +% +Let me assure you that to us here at First National, you're not just a +number. Youre two numbers, a dash, three more numbers, another dash and +another number. + -- James Estes +% +Let's organize this thing and take all the fun out of it. +% +Life is a healthy respect for mother nature laced with greed. +% +Life is cheap, but the accessories can kill you. +% +Live within your income, even if you have to borrow to do so. + -- Josh Billings +% +Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip +around the Sun. +% +Lo! Men have become the tool of their tools. + -- Henry David Thoreau +% +Loan-department manager: "There isn't any fine print. At these +interest rates, we don't need it." +% +Lonesome? + +Like a change? +Like a new job? +Like excitement? +Like to meet new and interesting people? + +JUST SCREW-UP ONE MORE TIME!!!!!!! +% +Look, we trade every day out there with hustlers, deal-makers, shysters, +con-men. That's the way businesses get started. That's the way this +country was built. + -- Hubert Allen +% +Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny. + -- Frank Hubbard +% +Love may laugh at locksmiths, but he has a profound respect for money bags. + -- Sidney Paternoster, "The Folly of the Wise" +% +Luck, that's when preparation and opportunity meet. + -- P.E. Trudeau +% +Make headway at work. Continue to let things deteriorate at home. +% +Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this-- +no dog exchanges bones with another. + -- Adam Smith +% +Man must shape his tools lest they shape him. + -- Arthur R. Miller +% +Management: How many feet do mice have? +Reply: Mice have four feet. +M: Elaborate! +R: Mice have five appendages, and four of them are feet. +M: No discussion of fifth appendage! +R: Mice have five appendages; four of them are feet; one is a tail. +M: What? Feet with no legs? +R: Mice have four legs, four feet, and one tail per unit-mouse. +M: Confusing -- is that a total of 9 appendages? +R: Mice have four leg-foot assemblies and one tail assembly per body. +M: Does not fully discuss the issue! +R: Each mouse comes equipped with four legs and a tail. Each leg + is equipped with a foot at the end opposite the body; the tail + is not equipped with a foot. +M: Descriptive? Yes. Forceful NO! +R: Allotment of appendages for mice will be: Four foot-leg assemblies, + one tail. Deviation from this policy is not permitted as it would + constitute misapportionment of scarce appendage assets. +M: Too authoritarian; stifles creativity! +R: Mice have four feet; each foot is attached to a small leg joined + integrally with the overall mouse structural sub-system. Also + attached to the mouse sub-system is a thin tail, non-functional and + ornamental in nature. +M: Too verbose/scientific. Answer the question! +R: Mice have four feet. +% +Many people are unenthusiastic about their work. +% +Many people are unenthusiastic about your work. +% +Many people write memos to tell you they have nothing to say. +% +Mater artium necessitas. + [Necessity is the mother of invention]. +% +Maternity pay? Now every Tom, Dick and Harry will get pregnant. + -- Malcolm Smith +% +Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these days you can certainly charge it. +% +McDonald's -- Because you're worth it. +% +Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active. + -- Leonardo da Vinci +% +Men take only their needs into consideration -- never their abilities. + -- Napoleon Bonaparte +% +Men's skin is different from women's skin. It is usually bigger, and +it has more snakes tattooed on it. Also, if you examine a woman's skin +very closely, inch by inch, starting at her shapely ankles, then gently +tracing the slender curve of her calves, then moving up to her ... + +[EDITOR'S NOTE: To make room for news articles about important world events +such as agriculture, we're going to delete the next few square feet of the +woman's skin. Thank you.] + +... until finally the two of you are lying there, spent, smoking your +cigarettes, and suddenly it hits you: Human skin is actually made up of +billions of tiny units of protoplasm, called "cells"! And what is even more +interesting, the ones on the outside are all dying! This is a fact. Your +skin is like an aggressive modern corporation, where the older veteran +cells, who have finally worked their way to the top and obtained offices +with nice views, are constantly being shoved out the window head first, +without so much as a pension plan, by younger hotshot cells moving up from +below. + -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face" +% +Mental power tended to corrupt, and absolute intelligence tended to +corrupt absolutely, until the victim eschewed violence entirely in +favor of smart solutions to stupid problems. + -- Piers Anthony +% +Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while +you're being miserable. + -- C.B. Luce +% +Money can't buy love, but it improves your bargaining position. + -- Christopher Marlowe +% +Money cannot buy love, nor even friendship. +% +Money doesn't talk, it swears. + -- Bob Dylan +% +Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. +% +Money is its own reward. +% +Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots. +% +Money is the root of all wealth. +% +Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Money isn't everything -- but it's a long way ahead of what comes next. + -- Sir Edmond Stockdale +% +Money may buy friendship but money cannot buy love. +% +Money will say more in one moment than the most eloquent lover can in years. +% +Moneyliness is next to Godliness. + -- Andries van Dam +% +Most people will listen to your unreasonable demands, if you'll consider +their unacceptable offer. +% +Mundus vult decipi decipiatur ergo. + -- Xaviera Hollander + [The world wants to be cheated, so cheat.] +% +My idea of roughing it is when room service is late. +% +My idea of roughing it turning the air conditioner too low. +% +My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income. + -- Errol Flynn + +Any man who has $10,000 left when he dies is a failure. + -- Errol Flynn +% +"Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity +is the mother of futile dodges" is much nearer the truth. + -- Alfred North Whitehead +% +Neckties strangle clear thinking. + -- Lin Yutang +% +Never appeal to a man's "better nature." He may not have one. +Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Never ask two questions in a business letter. The reply will discuss +the one you are least interested, and say nothing about the other. +% +Never buy from a rich salesman. + -- Goldenstern +% +Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap; it will be dear to you. + -- Thomas Jefferson +% +Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him. +% +Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repainting. + -- Billy Rose +% +Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level. + -- Quentin Crisp +% +Never let someone who says it cannot be done interrupt the person who is +doing it. +% +Never say you know a man until you have divided an inheritance with him. +% +Never tell people how to do things. Tell them WHAT to do and they will +surprise you with their ingenuity. + -- Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. +% +Never trust anyone who says money is no object. +% +Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig. + -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" +% + NEW YORK-- Kraft Foods, Inc. announced today that its board of +directors unanimously rejected the $11 billion takeover bid by Philip +Morris and Co. A Kraft spokesman stated in a press conference that the +offer was rejected because the $90-per-share bid did not reflect the +true value of the company. + Wall Street insiders, however, tell quite a different story. +Apparently, the Kraft board of directors had all but signed the takeover +agreement when they learned of Philip Morris' marketing plans for one of +their major Middle East subsidiaries. To a person, the board voted to +reject the bid when they discovered that the tobacco giant intended to +reorganize Israeli Cheddar, Ltd., and name the new company Cheeses of Nazareth. +% +Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you've got nothing +else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow +the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked. + -- Larry Niven, "The Mote in God's Eye" +% +No committee could ever come up with anything as revolutionary as a camel -- +anything as practical and as perfectly designed to perform effectively under +such difficult conditions. + -- Laurence J. Peter +% +"No job too big; no fee too big!" + -- Dr. Peter Venkman, "Ghost-busters" +% +No one gets sick on Wednesdays. +% +No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances. +% +No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it. + -- C. Schulz +% +No problem is so large it can't be fit in somewhere. +% +No skis take rocks like rental skis! +% +No spitting on the Bus! +Thank you, The Mgt. +% +None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary +to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert -- because no one +ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a +job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing +forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient +he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a +state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the +"expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible. + -- From Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work" +% +Nothing is finished until the paperwork is done. +% +Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself. + -- A.H. Weiler +% +Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires +tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth. + -- Nero Wolfe +% +Nothing makes a person more productive than the last minute. +% +Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss put in an honest day's work. +% +Nothing recedes like success. + -- Walter Winchell +% +Nothing succeeds like excess. + -- Oscar Wilde +% +Nothing succeeds like success. + -- Alexandre Dumas +% +Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success. + -- Christopher Lascl +% +Nothing will dispel enthusiasm like a small admission fee. + -- Kim Hubbard +% +Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first +overcome. + -- Dr. Johnson +% + Now, you might ask, "How do I get one of those complete home tool +sets for under $4?" An excellent question. + Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell +plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and where they +have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full of Raisinets and +malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixon administration. In either +the hardware or housewares department, you'll find an item imported from an +obscure Oriental country and described as "Nine Tools in One", consisting of +a little handle with interchangeable ends representing inscrutable Oriental +notions of tools that Americans might use around the home. Buy it. + This is the kind of tool set professionals use. Not only is it +inexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in the +so-called quality tools sets: The handle will actually break right off if +you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it to direct +sunlight. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the +reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest +amount of hot air. + -- Thomas L. Martin +% +Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy. +% +Once it hits the fan, the only rational choice is to sweep it up, package it, +and sell it as fertilizer. +% + One fine day, the bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, +and drove off along the route. No problems for the first few stops -- a few +people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well. At the next +stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet eight, built like a +wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the driver and said, +"Big John doesn't pay!" and sat down at the back. + Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically +meek? Well, he was. Naturally, he didn't argue with Big John, but he wasn't +happy about it. Well, the next day the same thing happened -- Big John got on +again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down. And the next day, and the +one after that, and so forth. This grated on the bus driver, who started +losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him. Finally he +could stand it no longer. He signed up for bodybuilding courses, karate, judo, +and all that good stuff. By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; +what's more, he felt really good about himself. + So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus +and said "Big John doesn't pay!," the driver stood up, glared back at the +passenger, and screamed, "And why not?" + With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, "Big John has a +bus pass." +% +One good suit is worth a thousand resumes. +% +One man's brain plus one other will produce one half as many ideas as one +man would have produced alone. These two plus two more will produce half +again as many ideas. These four plus four more begin to represent a +creative meeting, and the ratio changes to one quarter as many ... + -- Anthony Chevins +% +One of your most ancient writers, a historian named Herodotus, tells of a +thief who was to be executed. As he was taken away he made a bargain with +the king: in one year he would teach the king's favorite horse to sing +hymns. The other prisoners watched the thief singing to the horse and +laughed. "You will not succeed," they told him. "No one can." + To which the thief replied, "I have a year, and who knows what might +happen in that time. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die. +And perhaps the horse will learn to sing. + -- "The Mote in God's Eye", Niven and Pournelle +% +One possible reason that things aren't going according to plan +is that there never was a plan in the first place. +% +One promising concept that I came up with right away was that you could +manufacture personal air bags, then get a law passed requiring that they be +installed on congressmen to keep them from taking trips. Let's say your +congressman was trying to travel to Paris to do a fact-finding study on how +the French government handles diseases transmitted by sherbet. Just when he +got to the plane, his mandatory air bag, strapped around his waist, would +inflate -- FWWAAAAAAPPPP -- thus rendering him too large to fit through the +plane door. It could also be rigged to inflate whenever the congressman +proposed a law. ("Mr. Speaker, people ask me, why should October be +designated as Cuticle Inspection Month? And I answer that FWWAAAAAAPPPP.") +This would save millions of dollars, so I have no doubt that the public +would violently support a law requiring airbags on congressmen. The problem +is that your potential market is very small: there are only around 500 +members of Congress, and some of them, such as House Speaker "Tip" O'Neil, +are already too large to fit on normal aircraft. + -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants" +% +One way to make your old car run better is to look up the price of a new model. +% +Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer. +% +Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't +recognize them. +% +Optimism is the content of small men in high places. + -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack Up" +% +Or you or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. +I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but +we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company. + -- J. Wellington Wells +% +Our business in life is not to succeed but to continue to fail in high spirits. + -- Robert Louis Stevenson +% +Our country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble is +they charge fifteen cents for them. +% +Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing. + -- Roy L. Ash, ex-president, Litton Industries +% +Overdrawn? But I still have checks left! +% +Owe no man any thing... + -- Romans 13:8 +% +People are always available for work in the past tense. +% +People seem to think that the blanket phrase, "I only work here," absolves +them utterly from any moral obligation in terms of the public -- but this +was precisely Eichmann's excuse for his job in the concentration camps. +% +People will buy anything that's one to a customer. +% +Please keep your hands off the secretary's reproducing equipment. +% +Please try to limit the amount of "this room doesn't have any bazingas" +until you are told that those rooms are "punched out." Once punched out, +we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas, and such. + -- N. Meyrowitz +% + Plumbing is one of the easier of do-it-yourself activities, +requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arm into a +clogged toilet. In fact, you can solve many home plumbing problems, such as +annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up the radio. But before we get +into specific techniques, let's look at how plumbing works. + A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system, except +that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires, it has +pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets and toilets. +So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing at all like your +electrical system, which is good, because electricity can kill you. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +Porsche: there simply is no substitute. + -- Risky Business +% +Possessions increase to fill the space available for their storage. + -- Ryan +% +Practical people would be more practical if they would take a little +more time for dreaming. + -- J. P. McEvoy +% +Promise her anything, but give her Exxon unleaded. +% +Promising costs nothing, it's the delivering that kills you. +% +Promptness is its own reward, if one lives by the clock instead of the sword. +% +Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust. +% +Put your best foot forward. Or just call in and say you're sick. +% +Put your Nose to the Grindstone! + -- Amalgamated Plastic Surgeons and Toolmakers, Ltd. +% +Quantity is no substitute for quality, but its the only one we've got. +% +Real wealth can only increase. + -- R. Buckminster Fuller +% +Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better than +being flat broke and having a stomach ache. + -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" +% +Recent investments will yield a slight profit. +% +Recent research has tended to show that the Abominable No-Man +is being replaced by the Prohibitive Procrastinator. + -- C.N. Parkinson +% +Regardless of whether a mission expands or contracts, administrative +overhead continues to grow at a steady rate. +% +Remember -- only 10% of anything can be in the top 10%. +% +Remember to say hello to your bank teller. +% +Remember, even if you win the rat race -- you're still a rat. +% +Retirement means that when someone says "Have a nice day", you +actually have a shot at it. +% +Riches cover a multitude of woes. + -- Menander +% +Rule #7: Silence is not acquiescence. + Contrary to what you may have heard, silence of those present is + not necessarily consent, even the reluctant variety. They simply may + sit in stunned silence and figure ways of sabotaging the plan after + they regain their composure. +% +Save a little money each month and at the end of the year you'll be +surprised at how little you have. + -- Ernest Haskins +% +Sears has everything. +% +Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence. +% + "Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. +"An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have +said 'Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now." + "I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly. + "Too proud?" the other enquired. + Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean," +she said, "that one can't help growing older." + "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With +proper assistance, you might have left off at seven." + -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass" +% +Several years ago, some smart businessmen had an idea: Why not build a big +store where a do-it-yourselfer could get everything he needed at reasonable +prices? Then they decided, nah, the hell with that, let's build a home +center. And before long home centers were springing up like crabgrass all +over the United States. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is playing +golf with his boss. +% +So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what +is the root of money? + -- Ayn Rand +% +So... did you ever wonder, do garbagemen take showers before they go to work? +% +Some people carve careers, others chisel them. +% +Some people have a great ambition: to build something +that will last, at least until they've finished building it. +% +Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the +book or even what book. +% +Some people only open up to tell you that they're closed. +% +Some people pray for more than they are willing to work for. +% +Some people say a front-engine car handles best. Some people say a +rear-engine car handles best. I say a rented car handles best. + -- P.J. O'Rourke +% +Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the +pens will multiply instead of disappear. +% +Someday somebody has got to decide whether the typewriter is the machine, +or the person who operates it. +% +Someday your prints will come. + -- Kodak +% +Someone is unenthusiastic about your work. +% +Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names +the streets after them. + -- Bill Vaughn +% +Success is something I will dress for when I get there, and not until. +% +Suggest you just sit there and wait till life gets easier. +% +Support your local church or synagogue. Worship at Bank of America. +% +Surprise due today. Also the rent. +% +Surprise your boss. Get to work on time. +% +Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves. + -- Lazarus Long +% +Take everything in stride. Trample anyone who gets in your way. +% + Take the folks at Coca-Cola. For many years, they were content +to sit back and make the same old carbonated beverage. It was a good +beverage, no question about it; generations of people had grown up +drinking it and doing the experiment in sixth grade where you put a +nail into a glass of Coke and after a couple of days the nail dissolves +and the teacher says: "Imagine what it does to your TEETH!" So Coca-Cola +was solidly entrenched in the market, and the management saw no need to +improve ... + -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" +% +Take time to reflect on all the things you have, not as a result of your +merit or hard work or because God or chance or the efforts of other people +have given them to you. +% +Take your work seriously but never take yourself seriously; and do not +take what happens either to yourself or your work seriously. + -- Booth Tarkington +% +Talent does what it can. +Genius does what it must. +You do what you get paid to do. +% +Telephone books are like dictionaries -- if you know the answer before +you look it up, you can eventually reaffirm what you thought you knew +but weren't sure. But if you're searching for something you don't +already know, your fingers could walk themselves to death. + -- Erma Bombeck +% +Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work, +work till we die. + -- C.S. Lewis +% +That's life. + What's life? +A magazine. + How much does it cost? +Two-fifty. + I only have a dollar. +That's life. +% +The [Ford Foundation] is a large body of money completely surrounded by +people who want some. + -- Dwight MacDonald +% +The `loner' may be respected, but he is always resented by his colleagues, +for he seems to be passing a critical judgment on them, when he may be +simply making a limiting statement about himself. + -- Sidney Harris +% +The absent ones are always at fault. +% +The annual meeting of the "You Have To Listen To Experience" Club is now in +session. Our Achievement Awards this year are in the fields of publishing, +advertising and industry. For best consistent contribution in the field of +publishing our award goes to editor, R.L.K., [...] for his unrivalled alle- +giance without variation to the statement: "Personally I'd love to do it, +we'd ALL love to do it. But we're not going to do it. It's not the kind of +book our house knows how to handle." Our superior performance award in the +field of advertising goes to media executive, E.L.M., [...] for the continu- +ally creative use of the old favorite: "I think what you've got here could be +very exciting. Why not give it one more try based on the approach I've out- +lined and see if you can come up with something fresh." Our final award for +courageous holding action in the field of industry goes to supervisor, R.S., +[...] for her unyielding grip on "I don't care if they fire me, I've been +arguing for a new approach for YEARS but are we SURE that this is the right +time--" I would like to conclude this meeting with a verse written specially +for our prospectus by our founding president fifty years ago -- and now, as +then, fully expressive of the emotion most close to all our hearts -- + Treat freshness as a youthful quirk, + And dare not stray to ideas new, + For if t'were tried they might e'en work + And for a living what woulds't we do? +% +The answer to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is... + + Four day work week, + Two ply toilet paper! +% +The answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything was +released with the kind permission of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, +Sages, Luminaries, and Other Professional Thinking Persons. +% +The average individual's position in any hierarchy is a lot like pulling +a dogsled -- there's no real change of scenery except for the lead dog. +% +The best equipment for your work is, of course, the most expensive. +However, your neighbor is always wasting money that should be yours +by judging things by their price. +% +The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do +what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with +them while they do it. + -- Theodore Roosevelt +% +The best laid plans of mice and men are held up in the legal department. +% +The best things in life are for a fee. +% +The best things in life go on sale sooner or later. +% +The best way to avoid responsibility is to say, "I've got responsibilities." +% +The Bible on letters of reference: + + Are we beginning all over again to produce our credentials? Do +we, like some people, need letters of introduction to you, or from you? +No, you are all the letter we need, a letter written on your heart; any +man can see it for what it is and read it for himself. + -- 2 Corinthians 3:1-2, New English translation +% +The biggest mistake you can make is to believe that you are working for +someone else. +% + The boss returned from lunch in a good mood and called the whole staff +in to listen to a couple of jokes he had picked up. Everybody but one girl +laughed uproariously. "What's the matter?" grumbled the boss. "Haven't you +got a sense of humor?" + "I don't have to laugh," she said. "I'm leaving Friday anyway. +% +The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up +in the morning, and does not stop until you get to work. +% +The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job +application form. + -- Stanley J. Randall +% +The confusion of a staff member is measured by the length of his memos. + -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981 +% +The cost of feathers has risen, even down is up! +% +The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity. +% +The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going down. +% +The decision doesn't have to be logical; it was unanimous. +% +The degree of technical confidence is inversely proportional to the +level of management. +% +The departing division general manager met a last time with his young +successor and gave him three envelopes. "My predecessor did this for me, +and I'll pass the tradition along to you," he said. "At the first sign +of trouble, open the first envelope. Any further difficulties, open the +second envelope. Then, if problems continue, open the third envelope. +Good luck." The new manager returned to his office and tossed the envelopes +into a drawer. + Six months later, costs soared and earnings plummeted. Shaken, the +young man opened the first envelope, which said, "Blame it all on me." + The next day, he held a press conference and did just that. The +crisis passed. + Six months later, sales dropped precipitously. The beleagured +manager opened the second envelope. It said, "Reorganize." + He held another press conference, announcing that the division +would be restructured. The crisis passed. + A year later, everything went wrong at once and the manager was +blamed for all of it. The harried executive closed his office door, sank +into his chair, and opened the third envelope. + "Prepare three envelopes..." it said. +% +The difference between a career and a job is about 20 hours a week. +% +The difficult we do today; the impossible takes a little longer. +% +The early bird who catches the worm works for someone who comes in late +and owns the worm farm. + -- Travis McGee +% +The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and +add ten percent. +% +The end of labor is to gain leisure. +% +The error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute for +experience, while the error of age is to believe experience is a substitute +for intelligence. + -- Lyman Bryson +% +The faster I go, the behinder I get. + -- Lewis Carroll +% +The finest eloquence is that which gets things done. +% +The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time, the last 10% takes the +other 90% of the time. +% +The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of +management is that success equals skill. + -- Robert Heller +% +The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist "Jack." + -- H.L. Mencken +% +The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. + -- Paul Erlich +% +The flush toilet is the basis of Western civilization. + -- Alan Coult +% +The gent who wakes up and finds himself a success hasn't been asleep. +% +The greatest productive force is human selfishness. + -- Robert Heinlein +% +The hardest part of climbing the ladder of success is getting through +the crowd at the bottom. +% +The hieroglyphics are all unreadable except for a notation on the back, +which reads "Genuine authentic Egyptian papyrus. Guaranteed to be at +least 5000 years old." +% +The idea there was that consumers would bring their broken electronic +devices, such as television sets and VCR's, to the destruction centers, +where trained personnel would whack them (the devices) with sledgehammers. +With their devices thus permanently destroyed, consumers would then be free +to go out and buy new devices, rather than have to fritter away years of +their lives trying to have the old ones repaired at so-called "factory +service centers," which in fact consist of two men named Lester poking at +the insides of broken electronic devices with cheap cigars and going, +"Lookit all them WIRES in there!" + -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants" +% +The ideal voice for radio may be defined as showing no substance, no sex, +no owner, and a message of importance for every housewife. + -- Harry V. Wade +% +The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest. +% +The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important +point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly +important thing to people. + -- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King +% +The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the +number of participants. + -- Adam Walinsky +% +The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided +by the number of people in the group. +% +The King and his advisor are overlooking the battle field: + +King: "How goes the battle plan?" +Advisor: "See those little black specks running to the right?" +K: "Yes." +A: "Those are their guys. And all those little red specks running + to the left are our guys. Then when they collide we wait till + the dust clears." +K: "And?" +A: "If there are more red specks left than black specks, we win." +K: "But what about the ^#!!$% battle plan?" +A: "So far, it seems to be going according to specks." +% +The last person that quit or was fired will be held responsible for +everything that goes wrong -- until the next person quits or is fired. +% +The longer the title, the less important the job. +% +The major difference between bonds and bond traders is that the bonds will +eventually mature. +% +The means-and-ends moralists, or non-doers, always end up on their ends +without any means. + -- Saul Alinsky +% +The meek don't want it. +% +The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse. +% +The meek shall inherit the earth, but *not* its mineral rights. + -- J.P. Getty +% +The meek shall inherit the Earth. (But they're gonna have to fight for it.) +% +The meek shall inherit the earth; but by that time there won't be +anything left worth inheriting. +% +The more cordial the buyer's secretary, the greater the odds that the +competition already has the order. +% +The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to get. +% +The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work. + -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" +% +The more pretentious a corporate name, the smaller the organization. (For +instance, The Murphy Center for Codification of Human and Organizational Law, +contrasted to IBM, GM, AT&T ...) +% +The most delightful day after the one on which you buy a cottage in +the country is the one on which you resell it. + -- J. Brecheux +% +The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to +watch someone else doing it wrong, without commenting. + -- T.H. White +% +The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut. +% +The only problem with being a man of leisure is that you can never stop +and take a rest. +% +The only promotion rules I can think of are that a sense of shame is to +be avoided at all costs and there is never any reason for a hustler to +be less cunning than more virtuous men. Oh yes ... whenever you think +you've got something really great, add ten per cent more. + -- Bill Veeck +% +The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber has +already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture, finished, +and put inside boxes. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +The opossum is a very sophisticated animal. It doesn't even get up +until 5 or 6 PM. +% +The optimum committee has no members. + -- Norman Augustine +% +The opulence of the front office door varies inversely with the fundamental +solvency of the firm. +% +The other line moves faster. +% +The person who can smile when something goes wrong has thought of +someone to blame it on. +% +The person who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. +% +The person who's taking you to lunch has no intention of paying. +% +The possession of a book becomes a substitute for reading it. + -- Anthony Burgess +% +The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate +knowledge of its ugly side. + -- James Baldwin +% +The primary cause of failure in electrical appliances is an expired +warranty. Often, you can get an appliance running again simply by changing +the warranty expiration date with a 15/64-inch felt-tipped marker. + -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" +% +The problem that we thought was a problem was, indeed, a problem, but +not the problem we thought was the problem. + -- Mike Smith +% +The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people +worry than work. +% +The reward for working hard is more hard work. +% +The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. + -- Emerson +% +The rich get rich, and the poor get poorer. +The haves get more, the have-nots die. +% +The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared +for not by our labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in his +infinite wisdom has given control of property interests of the country, and +upon the successful management of which so much remains. + -- George F. Baer, railroad industrialist +% +The road to ruin is always in good repair, and the travellers pay the +expense of it. + -- Josh Billings +% +The salary of the chief executive of the large corporation is not a market +award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal +gesture by the individual to himself. + -- John Kenneth Galbraith, "Annals of an Abiding Liberal" +% +The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got +it made. + -- Jean Giraudoux +% +The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability +and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones from man's neck but +money; and the spirit cannot soar until the milestones are lifted. + -- George Bernard Shaw +% +The shortest distance between two points is under construction. + -- Noelie Alito +% +The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up. +% +The sooner you make your first 5000 mistakes, the sooner you will be +able to correct them. + -- Nicolaides +% +The star of riches is shining upon you. +% +The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands +what will sell. + -- Confucius +% +The term "fire" brings up visions of violence and mayhem and the ugly scene +of shooting employees who make mistakes. We will now refer to this process +as "deleting" an employee (much as a file is deleted from a disk). The +employee is simply there one instant, and gone the next. All the terrible +temper tantrums, crying, and threats are eliminated. + -- Kenny's Korner +% +The time spent on any item of the agenda [of a finance committee] will be +in inverse proportion to the sum involved. + -- C.N. Parkinson +% +The trouble with a lot of self-made men is that they worship their creator. +% +The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time. +% +The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it. + -- Franklin P. Jones +% +The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothing more +important to do. +% +The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody +appreciates how difficult it was. +% +The trouble with money is it costs too much! +% +The trouble with opportunity is that it always comes disguised as hard work. + -- Herbert V. Prochnow +% +The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. + -- Lily Tomlin +% +The two most beautiful words in the English language are "Cheque Enclosed." + -- Dorothy Parker +% +The use of money is all the advantage there is to having money. + -- B. Franklin +% +The wages of sin are high but you get your money's worth. +% +The wages of sin are unreported. +% +The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start +with a large fortune. +% +The Worst Car Hire Service + When David Schwartz left university in 1972, he set up Rent-a-wreck +as a joke. Being a natural prankster, he acquired a fleet of beat-up +shabby, wreckages waiting for the scrap heap in California. + He put on a cap and looked forward to watching people's faces as he +conducted them round the choice of bumperless, dented junkmobiles. + To his lasting surprise there was an insatiable demand for them and +he now has 26 thriving branches all over America. "People like driving +round in the worst cars available," he said. Of course they do. + "If a driver damages the side of a car and is honest enough to +admit it, I tell him, `Forget it'. If they bring a car back late we +overlook it. If they've had a crash and it doesn't involve another vehicle +we might overlook that too." + "Where's the ashtray?" asked on Los Angeles wife, as she settled +into the ripped interior. "Honey," said her husband, "the whole car's the +ash tray." + -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" +% +Their idea of an offer you can't refuse is an offer... and you'd better +not refuse. +% +Them as has, gets. +% + Then a man said: Speak to us of Expectations. + He then said: If a man does not see or hear the waters of the +Jordan, then he should not taste the pomegranate or ply his wares in an +open market. + If a man would not labour in the salt and rock quarries then he +should not accept of the Earth that which he refuses to give of +himself. + + Such a man would expect a pear of a peach tree. + Such a man would expect a stone to lay an egg. + Such a man would expect Sears to assemble a lawnmower. + -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" +% +Then there was the ScoutMaster who got a fantastic deal on this case of +Tates brand compasses for his troup; only $1.25 each! Only problem was, +when they got them out in the woods, the compasses were all stuck pointing +to the "W" on the dial. + +Moral: + He who has a Tates is lost! +% +There are many of us in this old world of ours who hold that things break +about even for all of us. I have observed, for example, that we all get +about the same amount of ice. The rich get it in the summer and the poor +get it in the winter. + -- Bat Masterson +% +There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening +with an insurance salesman? + -- Woody Allen +% +There has been a little distress selling on the stock exchange. + -- Thomas W. Lamont, October 29, 1929 (Black Tuesday) +% +There is a good deal of solemn cant about the common interests of capital +and labour. As matters stand, their only common interest is that of cutting +each other's throat. + -- Brooks Atkinson, "Once Around the Sun" +% +There is hardly a thing in the world that some man can not make a little +worse and sell a little cheaper. +% +There is never time to do it right, but always time to do it over. +% +"There is no Father Christmas. It's just a marketing ploy to make low income +parents' lives a misery." +"... I want you to picture the trusting face of a child, streaked with tears +because of what you just said." +"I want you to picture the face of its mother, because one week's dole won't +pay for one Master of the Universe Battlecruiser!" + -- Filthy Rich and Catflap +% +There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be doing. +% +There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it +reluctantly. + -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) +% +There is one way to find out if a man is honest -- ask him. If he says +"Yes" you know he is crooked. + -- Groucho Marx +% +There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong. +% +There must be more to life than having everything. + -- Maurice Sendak +% + There was a college student trying to earn some pocket money by +going from house to house offering to do odd jobs. He explained this to +a man who answered one door. + "How much will you charge to paint my porch?" asked the man. + "Forty dollars." + "Fine" said the man, and gave the student the paint and brushes. + Three hours later the paint-splattered lad knocked on the door again. +"All done!", he says, and collects his money. "By the way," the student says, +"That's not a Porsche, it's a Ferrari." +% +There's no such thing as a free lunch. + -- Milton Friendman +% +There's nothing worse for your business than extra Santa Clauses +smoking in the men's room. + -- W. Bossert +% + They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even +drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man. These things offer +pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which +demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and +sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams -- and still calls for more. + They are fools that think otherwise. No great effort was ever bought. +No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was +ever raised into being for payment of any kind. No parthenon, no Thermopylae +was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground +beneath Mongol heel, for loot or power alone. The payment for doing these +things was itself the doing of them. + To wield onself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and +so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the +greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand +and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt +sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body +of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food +spread only for demons or for gods." + -- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not" +% +Things worth having are worth cheating for. +% +Think lucky. If you fall in a pond, check your pockets for fish. + -- Darrell Royal +% +This is a good time to punt work. +% +This is an especially good time for you vacationers who plan to fly, because +the Reagan administration, as part of the same policy under which it +recently sold Yellowstone National Park to Wayne Newton, has "deregulated" +the airline industry. What this means for you, the consumer, is that the +airlines are no longer required to follow any rules whatsoever. They can +show snuff movies. They can charge for oxygen. They can hire pilots right +out of Vending Machine Refill Person School. They can conserve fuel by +ejecting husky passengers over water. They can ram competing planes in +mid-air. These innovations have resulted in tremendous cost savings which +have been passed along to you, the consumer, in the form of flights with +amazingly low fares, such as $29. Of course, certain restrictions do apply, +the main one being that all these flights take you to Newark, and you must +pay thousands of dollars if you want to fly back out. + -- Dave Barry, "Iowa -- Land of Secure Vacations" +% +This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this: most of +the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many +solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were +largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, +which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of +paper that were unhappy. + -- Douglas Adams +% +This week only, all our fiber-fill jackets are marked down! +% +Those who claim the dead never return to life haven't ever been around +here at quitting time. +% +Those who do things in a noble spirit of self-sacrifice are to be avoided +at all costs. + -- N. Alexander. +% +Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend. + -- Theophrastus +% +Time to take stock. Go home with some office supplies. +% +To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. + -- Elbert Hubbard +% +To be or not to be, that is the bottom line. +% +To do nothing is to be nothing. +% +To do two things at once is to do neither. + -- Publilius Syrus +% +To get back on your feet, miss two car payments. +% +To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three +persons, two of them absent. +% +To restore a sense of reality, I think Walt Disney should have a Hardluckland. + -- Jack Paar +% +To save a single life is better than to build a seven story pagoda. +% +To see a need and wait to be asked, is to already refuse. +% +To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the longest +and cost the most. +% +To stay youthful, stay useful. +% +To the landlord belongs the doorknobs. +% +To thine own self be true. (If not that, at least make some money.) +% +To understand this important story, you have to understand how the telephone +company works. Your telephone is connected to a local computer, which is in +turn connected to a regional computer, which is in turn connected to a +loudspeaker the size of a garbage truck on the lawn of Edna A. Bargewater of +Lawrence, Kan. + +Whenever you talk on the phone, your local computer listens in. If it +suspects you're going to discuss an intimate topic, it notifies the computer +above it, which listens in and decides whether to alert the one above it, +until finally, if you really humiliate yourself, maybe break down in tears +and tell your closest friend about a sordid incident from your past +involving a seedy motel, a neighbor's spouse, an entire religious order, a +garden hose and six quarts of tapioca pudding, the top computer feeds your +conversation into Edna's loudspeaker, and she and her friends come out on +the porch to listen and drink gin and laugh themselves silly. + -- Dave Barry, "Won't It Be Just Great Owning Our Own Phones?" +% +Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem +more afraid of life than death. + -- James F. Byrnes +% +Too much is not enough. +% +Too much of everything is just enough. + -- Bob Wier +% +Truth is free, but information costs. +% +Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. + -- Howard Kandel +% +Veni, Vidi, VISA: + I came, I saw, I did a little shopping. +% +Very few things actually get manufactured these days, because in an +infinitely large Universe, such as the one in which we live, most things one +could possibly imagine, and a lot of things one would rather not, grow +somewhere. A forest was discovered recently in which most of the trees grew +ratchet screwdrivers as fruit. The life cycle of the ratchet screwdriver is +quite interesting. Once picked it needs a dark dusty drawer in which it can +lie undisturbed for years. Then one night it suddenly hatches, discards its +outer skin that crumbles into dust, and emerges as a totally unidentifiable +little metal object with flanges at both ends and a sort of ridge and a hole +for a screw. This, when found, will get thrown away. No one knows what the +screwdriver is supposed to gain from this. Nature, in her infinite wisdom, +is presumably working on it. +% +Vests are to suits as seat-belts are to cars. +% +VI: + A hungry dog hunts best. + A hungrier dog hunts even better. +VII: + Decreased business base increases overhead. + So does increased business base. +VIII: + The most unsuccessful four years in the education of a cost-estimator + is fifth grade arithmetic. +IX: + Acronyms and abbreviations should be used to the maximum extent + possible to make trivial ideas profound. Q.E.D. +X: + Bulls do not win bull fights; people do. + People do not win people fights; lawyers do. + -- Norman Augustine +% +Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving +from where you left them to where you can't find them. +% + WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL: + +Firings will continue until morale improves. +% +Waste not, get your budget cut next year. +% +We all like praise, but a hike in our pay is the best kind of ways. +% +We all live in a state of ambitious poverty. + -- Decimus Junius Juvenalis +% +We are not a loved organization, but we are a respected one. + -- John Fisher +% + We have some absolutely irrefutable statistics to show exactly why +you are so tired. + There are not as many people actually working as you may have thought. + The population of this country is 200 million. 84 million are over +60 years of age, which leaves 116 million to do the work. People under 20 +years of age total 75 million, which leaves 41 million to do the work. + There are 22 million who are employed by the government, which leaves +19 million to do the work. Four million are in the Armed Services, which +leaves 15 million to do the work. Deduct 14,800,000, the number in the state +and city offices, leaving 200,000 to do the work. There are 188,000 in +hospitals, insane asylums, etc., so that leaves 12,000 to do the work. + Now it may interest you to know that there are 11,998 people in jail, +so that leaves just 2 people to carry the load. That is you and me, and +brother, I'm getting tired of doing everything myself! +% +"We maintain that the very foundation of our way of life is what we call +free enterprise," said Cash McCall, "but when one of our citizens +show enough free enterprise to pile up a little of that profit, we do +our best to make him feel that he ought to be ashamed of himself." + -- Cameron Hawley +% +We were so poor that we thought new clothes meant someone had died. +% +We were so poor we couldn't afford a watchdog. If we heard a noise at night, +we'd bark ourselves. + -- Crazy Jimmy +% +We're living in a golden age. All you need is gold. + -- D.W. Robertson. +% +Weekend, where are you? +% +What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find the entrance? +% +What I mean (and everybody else means) by the word QUALITY cannot be +broken down into subjects and predicates. This is not because Quality +is so mysterious but because Quality is so simple, immediate, and direct. + -- R. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" +% +What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do. +% +What sin has not been committed in the name of efficiency? +% +What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away. +% +What they said: + What they meant: + +"I recommend this candidate with no qualifications whatsoever." + (Yes, that about sums it up.) +"The amount of mathematics she knows will surprise you." + (And I recommend not giving that school a dime...) +"I simply can't say enough good things about him." + (What a screw-up.) +"I am pleased to say that this candidate is a former colleague of mine." + (I can't tell you how happy I am that she left our firm.) +"When this person left our employ, we were quite hopeful he would go +a long way with his skills." + (We hoped he'd go as far as possible.) +"You won't find many people like her." + (In fact, most people can't stand being around her.) +"I cannot reccommend him too highly." + (However, to the best of my knowledge, he has never committed a + felony in my presence.) +% +What they said: + What they meant: + +"If you knew this person as well as I know him, you would think as much +of him as I do." + (Or as little, to phrase it slightly more accurately.) +"Her input was always critical." + (She never had a good word to say.) +"I have no doubt about his capability to do good work." + (And it's nonexistent.) +"This candidate would lend balance to a department like yours, which +already has so many outstanding members." + (Unless you already have a moron.) +"His presentation to my seminar last semester was truly remarkable: +one unbelievable result after another." + (And we didn't believe them, either.) +"She is quite uniform in her approach to any function you may assign her." + (In fact, to life in general...) +% +What they said: + What they meant: + +"You will be fortunate if you can get him to work for you." + (We certainly never succeeded.) +There is no other employee with whom I can adequately compare him. + (Well, our rats aren't really employees...) +"Success will never spoil him." + (Well, at least not MUCH more.) +"One usually comes away from him with a good feeling." + (And such a sigh of relief.) +"His dissertation is the sort of work you don't expect to see these days; +in it he has definitely demonstrated his complete capabilities." + (And his IQ, as well.) +"He should go far." + (The farther the better.) +"He will take full advantage of his staff." + (He even has one of them mowing his lawn after work.) +% +What they say: What they mean: + +A major technological breakthrough... Back to the drawing board. +Developed after years of research Discovered by pure accident. +Project behind original schedule due We're working on something else. + to unforseen difficulties +Designs are within allowable limits We made it, stretching a point or two. +Customer satisfaction is believed So far behind schedule that they'll be + assured grateful for anything at all. +Close project coordination We're gonna spread the blame, campers! +Test results were extremely gratifying It works, and boy, were we surprised! +The design will be finalized... We haven't started yet, but we've got + to say something. +The entire concept has been rejected The guy who designed it quit. +We're moving forward with a fresh We hired three new guys, and they're + approach kicking it around. +A number of different approaches... We don't know where we're going, but + we're moving. +Preliminary operational tests are Blew up when we turned it on. + inconclusive +Modifications are underway We're starting over. +% +What they say: What they mean: + +New Different colors from previous version. +All New Not compatible with previous version. +Exclusive Nobody else has documentation. +Unmatched Almost as good as the competition. +Design Simplicity The company wouldn't give us any money. +Fool-proof Operation All parameters are hard-coded. +Advanced Design Nobody really understands it. +Here At Last Didn't get it done on time. +Field Tested We don't have any simulators. +Years of Development Finally got one to work. +Unprecedented Performance Nothing ever ran this slow before. +Revolutionary Disk drives go 'round and 'round. +Futuristic Only runs on a next generation supercomputer. +No Maintenance Impossible to fix. +Performance Proven Worked through Beta test. +Meets Tough Quality Standards It compiles without errors. +Satisfaction Guaranteed We'll send you another pack if it fails. +Stock Item We shipped it before and can do it again. +% +What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent bagel. +% +What this country needs is a good five cent ANYTHING! +% +What this country needs is a good five cent nickel. +% +What this country needs is a good five dollar plasma weapon. +% +What we need in this country, instead of Daylight Savings Time, which nobody +really understands anyway, is a new concept called Weekday Morning Time, +whereby at 7 a.m. every weekday we go into a space-launch-style "hold" for +two to three hours, during which it just remains 7 a.m. This way we could +all wake up via a civilized gradual process of stretching and belching and +scratching, and it would still be only 7 a.m. when we were ready to actually +emerge from bed. + -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!" +% +Whatever is not nailed down is mine. Whatever I can pry up is not nailed down. + -- Collis P. Huntingdon, railroad tycoon +% +When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him--that's where the money is. + -- Robespierre +% +When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the thing," +it's the money. + -- Kim Hubbard +% +When all else fails, read the instructions. +% +When I works, I works hard. +When I sits, I sits easy. +And when I thinks, I goes to sleep. +% +When in doubt, mumble; when in trouble, delegate; when in charge, ponder. + -- James H. Boren +% +When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to +make a decision. +% +When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity: for +every week you're away and get nothing done, there's another when your boss +is away and you get twice as much done. + -- Daniel B. Luten +% +When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never talking +about themselves. +% + When the lodge meeting broke up, Meyer confided to a friend. +"Abe, I'm in a terrible pickle! I'm strapped for cash and I haven't +the slightest idea where I'm going to get it from!" + "I'm glad to hear that," answered Abe. "I was afraid you +might have some idea that you could borrow from me!" +% +When you are working hard, get up and retch every so often. +% +When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried. +% +When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly. +% +When you go out to buy, don't show your silver. +% +When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers. + -- The Wall Street Journal +% +When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt. + -- Henry J. Kaiser +% +Where there's a will, there's a relative. +% +Where there's a will, there's an Inheritance Tax. +% +While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own +form of misery. +% +While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position. +% +Who goeth a-borrowing goeth a-sorrowing. + -- Thomas Tusser +% +Whoever dies with the most toys wins. +% +Why be a man when you can be a success? + -- Bertolt Brecht +% +Will you loan me $20.00 and only give me ten of it? +That way, you will owe me ten, and I'll owe you ten, and we'll be even! +% +Wishing without work is like fishing without bait. + -- Frank Tyger +% +Work expands to fill the time available. + -- Cyril Northcote Parkinson, "The Economist", 1955 +% +Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near +the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people +to do so. + -- Bertrand Russell +% +Work is the crab grass in the lawn of life. + -- Schulz +% +Work smarter, not harder, and be careful of your speling. +% +Work without a vision is slavery, Vision without work is a pipe dream, +But vision with work is the hope of the world. +% +XI: + If the Earth could be made to rotate twice as fast, managers would + get twice as much done. If the Earth could be made to rotate twenty + times as fast, everyone else would get twice as much done since all + the managers would fly off. +XII: + It costs a lot to build bad products. +XIII: + There are many highly successful businesses in the United States. + There are also many highly paid executives. The policy is not to + intermingle the two. +XIV: + After the year 2015, there will be no airplane crashes. There will + be no takeoffs either, because electronics will occupy 100 percent + of every airplane's weight. +XV: + The last 10 percent of performance generates one-third of the cost + and two-thirds of the problems. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XLI: + The more one produces, the less one gets. +XLII: + Simple systems are not feasible because they require infinite testing. +XLIII: + Hardware works best when it matters the least. +XLIV: + Aircraft flight in the 21st century will always be in a westerly + direction, preferably supersonic, crossing time zones to provide the + additional hours needed to fix the broken electronics. +XLV: + One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the + unexpected should have been expected. +XLVI: + A billion saved is a billion earned. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XLVII: + Two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered with water. The other + third is covered with auditors from headquarters. +XLVIII: + The more time you spend talking about what you have been doing, the + less time you have to spend doing what you have been talking about. + Eventually, you spend more and more time talking about less and less + until finally you spend all your time talking about nothing. +XLIX: + Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds. +L: + The average regulation has a life span one-fifth as long as a + chimpanzee's and one-tenth as long as a human's -- but four times + as long as the official's who created it. +LI: + By the time of the United States Tricentennial, there will be more + government workers than there are workers. +LII: + People working in the private sector should try to save money. + There remains the possibility that it may someday be valuable again. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XVI: + In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one + aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and + Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be + made available to the Marines for the extra day. +XVII: + Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, + and obeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics, i.e., it always increases. +XVIII: + It is very expensive to achieve high unreliability. It is not uncommon + to increase the cost of an item by a factor of ten for each factor of + ten degradation accomplished. +XIX: + Although most products will soon be too costly to purchase, there will + be a thriving market in the sale of books on how to fix them. +XX: + In any given year, Congress will appropriate the amount of funding + approved the prior year plus three-fourths of whatever change the + administration requests -- minus 4-percent tax. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XXI: + It's easy to get a loan unless you need it. +XXII: + If stock market experts were so expert, they would be buying stock, + not selling advice. +XXIII: + Any task can be completed in only one-third more time than is + currently estimated. +XXIV: + The only thing more costly than stretching the schedule of an + established project is accelerating it, which is itself the most + costly action known to man. +XXV: + A revised schedule is to business what a new season is to an athlete + or a new canvas to an artist. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XXVI: + If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on each + other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance. +XXVII: + Rank does not intimidate hardware. Neither does the lack of rank. +XXVIII: + It is better to be the reorganizer than the reorganizee. +XXIX: + Executives who do not produce successful results hold on to their + jobs only about five years. Those who produce effective results + hang on about half a decade. +XXX: + By the time the people asking the questions are ready for the answers, + the people doing the work have lost track of the questions. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XXXI: + The optimum committee has no members. +XXXII: + Hiring consultants to conduct studies can be an excellent means of + turning problems into gold -- your problems into their gold. +XXXIII: + Fools rush in where incumbents fear to tread. +XXXIV: + The process of competitively selecting contractors to perform work + is based on a system of rewards and penalties, all distributed + randomly. +XXXV: + The weaker the data available upon which to base one's conclusion, + the greater the precision which should be quoted in order to give + the data authenticity. + -- Norman Augustine +% +XXXVI: + The thickness of the proposal required to win a multimillion dollar + contract is about one millimeter per million dollars. If all the + proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top of each other + at the bottom of the Grand Canyon it would probably be a good idea. +XXXVII: + Ninety percent of the time things will turn out worse than you expect. + The other 10 percent of the time you had no right to expect so much. +XXXVIII: + The early bird gets the worm. + The early worm ... gets eaten. +XXXIX: + Never promise to complete any project within six months of the end of + the year -- in either direction. +XL: + Most projects start out slowly -- and then sort of taper off. + -- Norman Augustine +% +Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still +be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement. + -- Snoopy +% +You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk. +% +You can fool all the people all of the time if the advertising is right +and the budget is big enough. + -- Joseph E. Levine +% +You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements. + -- Norman Douglas +% +You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. + -- Superchicken +% +You know, the difference between this company and the Titanic is that the +Titanic had paying customers. +% +You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. +I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but +we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company. + -- J. Wellington Wells +% +YOU TOO CAN MAKE BIG MONEY IN THE EXCITING FIELD OF PAPER SHUFFLING! + +Mr. Smith of Muddle, Mass. says: "Before I took this course I used to be +a lowly bit twiddler. Now with what I learned at MIT Tech I feel really +important and can obfuscate and confuse with the best." + +Mr. Watkins had this to say: "Ten short days ago all I could look forward +to was a dead-end job as a engineer. Now I have a promising future and +make really big Zorkmids." + +MIT Tech can't promise these fantastic results to everyone, but when +you earn your MDL degree from MIT Tech your future will be brighter. + + SEND FOR OUR FREE BROCHURE TODAY! +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/datfiles/zippy b/fortune-mod/datfiles/zippy new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6869d81 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/datfiles/zippy @@ -0,0 +1,1289 @@ +A can of ASPARAGUS, 73 pigeons, some LIVE ammo, and a FROZEN DAQUIRI!! +% +A dwarf is passing out somewhere in Detroit! +% +A shapely CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRL is FIDGETING inside my costume.. +% +A wide-eyed, innocent UNICORN, poised delicately in a MEADOW filled +with LILACS, LOLLIPOPS & small CHILDREN at the HUSH of twilight?? +% +Actually, what I'd like is a little toy spaceship!! +% +All I can think of is a platter of organic PRUNE CRISPS being trampled +by an army of swarthy, Italian LOUNGE SINGERS ... +% +All of a sudden, I want to THROW OVER my promising ACTING CAREER, grow +a LONG BLACK BEARD and wear a BASEBALL HAT!! ... Although I don't know WHY!! +% +All of life is a blur of Republicans and meat! +% +All right, you degenerates! I want this place evacuated in 20 seconds! +% +All this time I've been VIEWING a RUSSIAN MIDGET SODOMIZE a HOUSECAT! +% +Alright, you!! Imitate a WOUNDED SEAL pleading for a PARKING SPACE!! +% +Am I accompanied by a PARENT or GUARDIAN? +% +Am I elected yet? +% +Am I in GRADUATE SCHOOL yet? +% +Am I SHOPLIFTING? +% +America!! I saw it all!! Vomiting! Waving! JERRY FALWELLING into +your void tube of UHF oblivion!! SAFEWAY of the mind ... +% +An air of FRENCH FRIES permeates my nostrils!! +% +An INK-LING? Sure -- TAKE one!! Did you BUY any COMMUNIST UNIFORMS?? +% +An Italian is COMBING his hair in suburban DES MOINES! +% +And furthermore, my bowling average is unimpeachable!!! +% +ANN JILLIAN'S HAIR makes LONI ANDERSON'S HAIR look like RICARDO +MONTALBAN'S HAIR! +% +Are the STEWED PRUNES still in the HAIR DRYER? +% +Are we live or on tape? +% +Are we on STRIKE yet? +% +Are we THERE yet? +% +Are we THERE yet? My MIND is a SUBMARINE!! +% +Are you mentally here at Pizza Hut?? +% +Are you selling NYLON OIL WELLS?? If so, we can use TWO DOZEN!! +% +Are you still an ALCOHOLIC? +% +As President I have to go vacuum my coin collection! +% +Awright, which one of you hid my PENIS ENVY? +% +BARBARA STANWYCK makes me nervous!! +% +Barbie says, Take quaaludes in gin and go to a disco right away! +But Ken says, WOO-WOO!! No credit at "Mr. Liquor"!! +% +BARRY ... That was the most HEART-WARMING rendition of "I DID IT MY +WAY" I've ever heard!! +% +Being a BALD HERO is almost as FESTIVE as a TATTOOED KNOCKWURST. +% +BELA LUGOSI is my co-pilot ... +% +BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI- +% +... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ... +% +Bo Derek ruined my life! +% +Boy, am I glad it's only 1971... +% +Boys, you have ALL been selected to LEAVE th' PLANET in 15 minutes!! +% +But they went to MARS around 1953!! +% +But was he mature enough last night at the lesbian masquerade? +% +Can I have an IMPULSE ITEM instead? +% +Can you MAIL a BEAN CAKE? +% +Catsup and Mustard all over the place! It's the Human Hamburger! +% +CHUBBY CHECKER just had a CHICKEN SANDWICH in downtown DULUTH! +% +Civilization is fun! Anyway, it keeps me busy!! +% +Clear the laundromat!! This whirl-o-matic just had a nuclear meltdown!! +% +Concentrate on th'cute, li'l CARTOON GUYS! Remember the SERIAL +NUMBERS!! Follow the WHIPPLE AVE. EXIT!! Have a FREE PEPSI!! Turn +LEFT at th'HOLIDAY INN!! JOIN the CREDIT WORLD!! MAKE me an OFFER!!! +% +CONGRATULATIONS! Now should I make thinly veiled comments about +DIGNITY, self-esteem and finding TRUE FUN in your RIGHT VENTRICLE?? +% +Content: 80% POLYESTER, 20% DACRONi ... The waitress's UNIFORM sheds +TARTAR SAUCE like an 8" by 10" GLOSSY ... +% +Could I have a drug overdose? +% +Did an Italian CRANE OPERATOR just experience uninhibited sensations in +a MALIBU HOT TUB? +% +Did I do an INCORRECT THING?? +% +Did I say I was a sardine? Or a bus??? +% +Did I SELL OUT yet?? +% +Did YOU find a DIGITAL WATCH in YOUR box of VELVEETA? +% +Did you move a lot of KOREAN STEAK KNIVES this trip, Dingy? +% +DIDI ... is that a MARTIAN name, or, are we in ISRAEL? +% +Didn't I buy a 1951 Packard from you last March in Cairo? +% +Disco oil bussing will create a throbbing naugahide pipeline running +straight to the tropics from the rug producing regions and devalue the dollar! +% +Do I have a lifestyle yet? +% +Do you guys know we just passed thru a BLACK HOLE in space? +% +Do you have exactly what I want in a plaid poindexter bar bat?? +% +Do you like "TENDER VITTLES"? +% +Do you think the "Monkees" should get gas on odd or even days? +% +Does someone from PEORIA have a SHORTER ATTENTION span than me? +% +does your DRESSING ROOM have enough ASPARAGUS? +% +DON'T go!! I'm not HOWARD COSELL!! I know POLISH JOKES ... WAIT!! +Don't go!! I AM Howard Cosell! ... And I DON'T know Polish jokes!! +% +Don't hit me!! I'm in the Twilight Zone!!! +% +Don't SANFORIZE me!! +% +Don't worry, nobody really LISTENS to lectures in MOSCOW, either! ... +FRENCH, HISTORY, ADVANCED CALCULUS, COMPUTER PROGRAMMING, BLACK +STUDIES, SOCIOBIOLOGY! ... Are there any QUESTIONS?? +% +Edwin Meese made me wear CORDOVANS!! +% +Eisenhower!! Your mimeograph machine upsets my stomach!! +% +Either CONFESS now or we go to "PEOPLE'S COURT"!! +% +Everybody gets free BORSCHT! +% +Everybody is going somewhere!! It's probably a garage sale or a +disaster Movie!! +% +Everywhere I look I see NEGATIVITY and ASPHALT ... +% +Excuse me, but didn't I tell you there's NO HOPE for the survival of +OFFSET PRINTING? +% +FEELINGS are cascading over me!!! +% +Finally, Zippy drives his 1958 RAMBLER METROPOLITAN into the faculty +dining room. +% +First, I'm going to give you all the ANSWERS to today's test ... So +just plug in your SONY WALKMANS and relax!! +% +FOOLED you! Absorb EGO SHATTERING impulse rays, polyester poltroon!! +% +for ARTIFICIAL FLAVORING!! +% +Four thousand different MAGNATES, MOGULS & NABOBS are romping in my +gothic solarium!! +% +FROZEN ENTREES may be flung by members of opposing SWANSON SECTS ... +% +FUN is never having to say you're SUSHI!! +% +Gee, I feel kind of LIGHT in the head now, knowing I can't make my +satellite dish PAYMENTS! +% +Gibble, Gobble, we ACCEPT YOU ... +% +Give them RADAR-GUIDED SKEE-BALL LANES and VELVEETA BURRITOS!! +% +Go on, EMOTE! I was RAISED on thought balloons!! +% +GOOD-NIGHT, everybody ... Now I have to go administer FIRST-AID to my +pet LEISURE SUIT!! +% +HAIR TONICS, please!! +% +Half a mind is a terrible thing to waste! +% +Hand me a pair of leather pants and a CASIO keyboard -- I'm living for today! +% +Has everybody got HALVAH spread all over their ANKLES?? ... Now, it's +time to "HAVE A NAGEELA"!! +% +... he dominates the DECADENT SUBWAY SCENE. +% +He is the MELBA-BEING ... the ANGEL CAKE ... XEROX him ... XEROX him -- +% +He probably just wants to take over my CELLS and then EXPLODE inside me +like a BARREL of runny CHOPPED LIVER! Or maybe he'd like to +PSYCHOLIGICALLY TERRORISE ME until I have no objection to a RIGHT-WING +MILITARY TAKEOVER of my apartment!! I guess I should call AL PACINO! +% +HELLO KITTY gang terrorizes town, family STICKERED to death! +% +HELLO, everybody, I'm a HUMAN!! +% +Hello, GORRY-O!! I'm a GENIUS from HARVARD!! +% +Hello. I know the divorce rate among unmarried Catholic Alaskan females!! +% +Hello. Just walk along and try NOT to think about your INTESTINES +being almost FORTY YARDS LONG!! +% +Hello... IRON CURTAIN? Send over a SAUSAGE PIZZA! World War III? No thanks! +% +Hello? Enema Bondage? I'm calling because I want to be happy, I guess ... +% +Here I am at the flea market but nobody is buying my urine sample bottles ... +% +Here I am in 53 B.C. and all I want is a dill pickle!! +% +Here I am in the POSTERIOR OLFACTORY LOBULE but I don't see CARL SAGAN +anywhere!! +% +Here we are in America ... when do we collect unemployment? +% +Hey, wait a minute!! I want a divorce!! ... you're not Clint Eastwood!! +% +Hey, waiter! I want a NEW SHIRT and a PONY TAIL with lemon sauce! +% +Hiccuping & trembling into the WASTE DUMPS of New Jersey like some +drunken CABBAGE PATCH DOLL, coughing in line at FIORUCCI'S!! +% +Hmmm ... a CRIPPLED ACCOUNTANT with a FALAFEL sandwich is HIT by a +TROLLEY-CAR ... +% +Hmmm ... A hash-singer and a cross-eyed guy were SLEEPING on a deserted +island, when ... +% +Hmmm ... a PINHEAD, during an EARTHQUAKE, encounters an ALL-MIDGET +FIDDLE ORCHESTRA ... ha ... ha ... +% +Hmmm ... an arrogant bouquet with a subtle suggestion of POLYVINYL +CHLORIDE ... +% +Hold the MAYO & pass the COSMIC AWARENESS ... +% +HOORAY, Ronald!! Now YOU can marry LINDA RONSTADT too!! +% +How do I get HOME? +% +How do you explain Wayne Newton's POWER over millions? It's th' MOUSTACHE +... Have you ever noticed th' way it radiates SINCERITY, HONESTY & WARMTH? +It's a MOUSTACHE you want to take HOME and introduce to NANCY SINATRA! +% +How many retured bricklayers from FLORIDA are out purchasing PENCIL +SHARPENERS right NOW?? +% +How's it going in those MODULAR LOVE UNITS?? +% +How's the wife? Is she at home enjoying capitalism? +% +hubub, hubub, HUBUB, hubub, hubub, hubub, HUBUB, hubub, hubub, hubub. +% +HUGH BEAUMONT died in 1982!! +% +HUMAN REPLICAS are inserted into VATS of NUTRITIONAL YEAST ... +% +I always have fun because I'm out of my mind!!! +% +I am a jelly donut. I am a jelly donut. +% +I am a traffic light, and Alan Ginzberg kidnapped my laundry in 1927! +% +I am covered with pure vegetable oil and I am writing a best seller! +% +I am deeply CONCERNED and I want something GOOD for BREAKFAST! +% +I am having FUN... I wonder if it's NET FUN or GROSS FUN? +% +I am NOT a nut.... +% +I appoint you ambassador to Fantasy Island!!! +% +I brought my BOWLING BALL -- and some DRUGS!! +% +I can't decide which WRONG TURN to make first!! I wonder if BOB +GUCCIONE has these problems! +% +I can't think about that. It doesn't go with HEDGES in the shape of +LITTLE LULU -- or ROBOTS making BRICKS ... +% +I demand IMPUNITY! +% +I didn't order any WOO-WOO ... Maybe a YUBBA ... But no WOO-WOO! +% +I don't believe there really IS a GAS SHORTAGE.. I think it's all just +a BIG HOAX on the part of the plastic sign salesmen -- to sell more numbers!! +% +... I don't know why but, suddenly, I want to discuss declining I.Q. +LEVELS with a blue ribbon SENATE SUB-COMMITTEE! +% +I don't know WHY I said that ... I think it came from the FILLINGS in +my rear molars ... +% +... I don't like FRANK SINATRA or his CHILDREN. +% +I don't understand the HUMOUR of the THREE STOOGES!! +% +I feel ... JUGULAR ... +% +I feel better about world problems now! +% +I feel like a wet parking meter on Darvon! +% +I feel like I am sharing a ``CORN-DOG'' with NIKITA KHRUSCHEV ... +% +I feel like I'm in a Toilet Bowl with a thumbtack in my forehead!! +% +I feel partially hydrogenated! +% +I fill MY industrial waste containers with old copies of the "WATCHTOWER" +and then add HAWAIIAN PUNCH to the top ... They look NICE in the yard ... +% +I guess it was all a DREAM ... or an episode of HAWAII FIVE-O ... +% +I guess you guys got BIG MUSCLES from doing too much STUDYING! +% +I had a lease on an OEDIPUS COMPLEX back in '81 ... +% +I had pancake makeup for brunch! +% +I have a TINY BOWL in my HEAD +% +I have a very good DENTAL PLAN. Thank you. +% +I have a VISION! It's a RANCID double-FISHWICH on an ENRICHED BUN!! +% +I have accepted Provolone into my life! +% +I have many CHARTS and DIAGRAMS.. +% +... I have read the INSTRUCTIONS ... +% +-- I have seen the FUN -- +% +I have seen these EGG EXTENDERS in my Supermarket ... I have read the +INSTRUCTIONS ... +% +I have the power to HALT PRODUCTION on all TEENAGE SEX COMEDIES!! +% +I HAVE to buy a new "DODGE MISER" and two dozen JORDACHE JEANS because +my viewscreen is "USER-FRIENDLY"!! +% +I haven't been married in over six years, but we had sexual counseling +every day from Oral Roberts!! +% +I hope I bought the right relish ... zzzzzzzzz ... +% +I hope something GOOD came in the mail today so I have a REASON to live!! +% +I hope the ``Eurythmics'' practice birth control ... +% +I hope you millionaires are having fun! I just invested half your life +savings in yeast!! +% +I invented skydiving in 1989! +% +I joined scientology at a garage sale!! +% +I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!! +% +I just got my PRINCE bumper sticker ... But now I can't remember WHO he is ... +% +I just had a NOSE JOB!! +% +I just had my entire INTESTINAL TRACT coated with TEFLON! +% +I just heard the SEVENTIES were over!! And I was just getting in touch +with my LEISURE SUIT!! +% +I just remembered something about a TOAD! +% +I KAISER ROLL?! What good is a Kaiser Roll without a little COLE SLAW +on the SIDE? +% +I Know A Joke!! +% +I know how to do SPECIAL EFFECTS!! +% +I know th'MAMBO!! I have a TWO-TONE CHEMISTRY SET!! +% +I know things about TROY DONAHUE that can't even be PRINTED!! +% +I left my WALLET in the BATHROOM!! +% +I like the way ONLY their mouths move ... They look like DYING OYSTERS +% +I like your SNOOPY POSTER!! +% +-- I love KATRINKA because she drives a PONTIAC. We're going away +now. I fed the cat. +% +I love ROCK 'N ROLL! I memorized the all WORDS to "WIPE-OUT" in +1965!! +% +I need to discuss BUY-BACK PROVISIONS with at least six studio SLEAZEBALLS!! +% +I once decorated my apartment entirely in ten foot salad forks!! +% +I own seven-eighths of all the artists in downtown Burbank! +% +I put aside my copy of "BOWLING WORLD" and think about GUN CONTROL +legislation... +% +I represent a sardine!! +% +I request a weekend in Havana with Phil Silvers! +% +... I see TOILET SEATS ... +% +I selected E5 ... but I didn't hear "Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs"! +% +I smell a RANCID CORN DOG! +% +I smell like a wet reducing clinic on Columbus Day! +% +I think I am an overnight sensation right now!! +% +... I think I'd better go back to my DESK and toy with a few common +MISAPPREHENSIONS ... +% +I think I'll KILL myself by leaping out of this 14th STORY WINDOW while +reading ERICA JONG'S poetry!! +% +I think my career is ruined! +% +I used to be a FUNDAMENTALIST, but then I heard about the HIGH +RADIATION LEVELS and bought an ENCYCLOPEDIA!! +% +... I want a COLOR T.V. and a VIBRATING BED!!! +% +I want a VEGETARIAN BURRITO to go ... with EXTRA MSG!! +% +I want a WESSON OIL lease!! +% +I want another RE-WRITE on my CEASAR SALAD!! +% +I want EARS! I want two ROUND BLACK EARS to make me feel warm 'n secure!! +% +... I want FORTY-TWO TRYNEL FLOATATION SYSTEMS installed within +SIX AND A HALF HOURS!!! +% +I want the presidency so bad I can already taste the hors d'oeuvres. +% +I want to dress you up as TALLULAH BANKHEAD and cover you with VASELINE +and WHEAT THINS ... +% +I want to kill everyone here with a cute colorful Hydrogen Bomb!! +% +... I want to perform cranial activities with Tuesday Weld!! +% +I want to read my new poem about pork brains and outer space ... +% +I want to so HAPPY, the VEINS in my neck STAND OUT!! +% +I want you to MEMORIZE the collected poems of EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY +... BACKWARDS!! +% +I want you to organize my PASTRY trays ... my TEA-TINS are gleaming in +formation like a ROW of DRUM MAJORETTES -- please don't be FURIOUS with me -- +% +I was born in a Hostess Cupcake factory before the sexual revolution! +% +I was making donuts and now I'm on a bus! +% +I wish I was a sex-starved manicurist found dead in the Bronx!! +% +I wish I was on a Cincinnati street corner holding a clean dog! +% +I wonder if I could ever get started in the credit world? +% +I wonder if I ought to tell them about my PREVIOUS LIFE as a COMPLETE +STRANGER? +% +I wonder if I should put myself in ESCROW!! +% +I wonder if there's anything GOOD on tonight? +% +I would like to urinate in an OVULAR, porcelain pool -- +% +I'd like MY data-base JULIENNED and stir-fried! +% +I'd like some JUNK FOOD ... and then I want to be ALONE -- +% +I'll eat ANYTHING that's BRIGHT BLUE!! +% +I'll show you MY telex number if you show me YOURS ... +% +I'm a fuschia bowling ball somewhere in Brittany +% +I'm a GENIUS! I want to dispute sentence structure with SUSAN SONTAG!! +% +I'm a nuclear submarine under the polar ice cap and I need a Kleenex! +% +I'm also against BODY-SURFING!! +% +I'm also pre-POURED pre-MEDITATED and pre-RAPHAELITE!! +% +I'm ANN LANDERS!! I can SHOPLIFT!! +% +I'm changing the CHANNEL ... But all I get is commercials for "RONCO +MIRACLE BAMBOO STEAMERS"! +% +I'm continually AMAZED at th'breathtaking effects of WIND EROSION!! +% +I'm definitely not in Omaha! +% +I'm DESPONDENT ... I hope there's something DEEP-FRIED under this +miniature DOMED STADIUM ... +% +I'm dressing up in an ill-fitting IVY-LEAGUE SUIT!! Too late... +% +I'm EMOTIONAL now because I have MERCHANDISING CLOUT!! +% +I'm encased in the lining of a pure pork sausage!! +% +I'm GLAD I remembered to XEROX all my UNDERSHIRTS!! +% +I'm gliding over a NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP near ATLANTA, Georgia!! +% +I'm having a BIG BANG THEORY!! +% +I'm having a MID-WEEK CRISIS! +% +I'm having a RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE ... and I don't take any DRUGS +% +I'm having a tax-deductible experience! I need an energy crunch!! +% +I'm having an emotional outburst!! +% +I'm having an EMOTIONAL OUTBURST!! But, uh, WHY is there a WAFFLE in +my PAJAMA POCKET?? +% +I'm having BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS about the INSIPID WIVES of smug and +wealthy CORPORATE LAWYERS ... +% +I'm having fun HITCHHIKING to CINCINNATI or FAR ROCKAWAY!! +% +... I'm IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK ROOM +of a KOSHER DELI -- +% +I'm in direct contact with many advanced fun CONCEPTS. +% +I'm into SOFTWARE! +% +I'm meditating on the FORMALDEHYDE and the ASBESTOS leaking into my +PERSONAL SPACE!! +% +I'm mentally OVERDRAWN! What's that SIGNPOST up ahead? Where's ROD +STERLING when you really need him? +% +I'm not an Iranian!! I voted for Dianne Feinstein!! +% +I'm not available for comment.. +% +I'm pretending I'm pulling in a TROUT! Am I doing it correctly?? +% +I'm pretending that we're all watching PHIL SILVERS instead of RICARDO +MONTALBAN! +% +I'm QUIETLY reading the latest issue of "BOWLING WORLD" while my wife +and two children stand QUIETLY BY ... +% +I'm rated PG-34!! +% +I'm receiving a coded message from EUBIE BLAKE!! +% +I'm RELIGIOUS!! I love a man with a HAIRPIECE!! Equip me with MISSILES!! +% +I'm reporting for duty as a modern person. I want to do the Latin Hustle now! +% +I'm shaving!! I'M SHAVING!! +% +I'm sitting on my SPEED QUEEN ... To me, it's ENJOYABLE ... I'm WARM +... I'm VIBRATORY ... +% +I'm thinking about DIGITAL READ-OUT systems and computer-generated +IMAGE FORMATIONS ... +% +I'm totally DESPONDENT over the LIBYAN situation and the price of CHICKEN ... +% +I'm using my X-RAY VISION to obtain a rare glimpse of the INNER +WORKINGS of this POTATO!! +% +I'm wearing PAMPERS!! +% +I'm wet! I'm wild! +% +I'm young ... I'm HEALTHY ... I can HIKE THRU CAPT GROGAN'S LUMBAR REGIONS! +% +I'm ZIPPY the PINHEAD and I'm totally committed to the festive mode. +% +I've got a COUSIN who works in the GARMENT DISTRICT ... +% +I've got an IDEA!! Why don't I STARE at you so HARD, you forget your +SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER!! +% +I've read SEVEN MILLION books!! +% +... ich bin in einem dusenjet ins jahr 53 vor chr ... ich lande im +antiken Rom ... einige gladiatoren spielen scrabble ... ich rieche +PIZZA ... +% +If a person is FAMOUS in this country, they have to go on the ROAD for +MONTHS at a time and have their name misspelled on the SIDE of a +GREYHOUND SCENICRUISER!! +% +If elected, Zippy pledges to each and every American a 55-year-old houseboy ... +% +If I am elected no one will ever have to do their laundry again! +% +If I am elected, the concrete barriers around the WHITE HOUSE will be +replaced by tasteful foam replicas of ANN MARGARET! +% +If I felt any more SOPHISTICATED I would DIE of EMBARRASSMENT! +% +If I had a Q-TIP, I could prevent th' collapse of NEGOTIATIONS!! +% +... If I had heart failure right now, I couldn't be a more fortunate man!! +% +If I pull this SWITCH I'll be RITA HAYWORTH!! Or a SCIENTOLOGIST! +% +if it GLISTENS, gobble it!! +% +If our behavior is strict, we do not need fun! +% +If Robert Di Niro assassinates Walter Slezak, will Jodie Foster marry Bonzo?? +% +In 1962, you could buy a pair of SHARKSKIN SLACKS, with a "Continental +Belt," for $10.99!! +% +In Newark the laundromats are open 24 hours a day! +% +INSIDE, I have the same personality disorder as LUCY RICARDO!! +% +Inside, I'm already SOBBING! +% +Is a tattoo real, like a curb or a battleship? Or are we suffering in Safeway? +% +Is he the MAGIC INCA carrying a FROG on his shoulders?? Is the FROG +his GUIDELIGHT?? It is curious that a DOG runs already on the ESCALATOR ... +% +Is it 1974? What's for SUPPER? Can I spend my COLLEGE FUND in one +wild afternoon?? +% +Is it clean in other dimensions? +% +Is it NOUVELLE CUISINE when 3 olives are struggling with a scallop in a +plate of SAUCE MORNAY? +% +Is something VIOLENT going to happen to a GARBAGE CAN? +% +Is this an out-take from the "BRADY BUNCH"? +% +Is this going to involve RAW human ecstasy? +% +Is this TERMINAL fun? +% +Is this the line for the latest whimsical YUGOSLAVIAN drama which also +makes you want to CRY and reconsider the VIETNAM WAR? +% +Isn't this my STOP?! +% +It don't mean a THING if you ain't got that SWING!! +% +It was a JOKE!! Get it?? I was receiving messages from DAVID LETTERMAN!! +YOW!! +% +It's a lot of fun being alive ... I wonder if my bed is made?!? +% +It's NO USE ... I've gone to "CLUB MED"!! +% +It's OBVIOUS ... The FURS never reached ISTANBUL ... You were an EXTRA +in the REMAKE of "TOPKAPI" ... Go home to your WIFE ... She's making +FRENCH TOAST! +% +It's OKAY -- I'm an INTELLECTUAL, too. +% +It's the RINSE CYCLE!! They've ALL IGNORED the RINSE CYCLE!! +% +JAPAN is a WONDERFUL planet -- I wonder if we'll ever reach their level +of COMPARATIVE SHOPPING ... +% +Jesuit priests are DATING CAREER DIPLOMATS!! +% +Jesus is my POSTMASTER GENERAL ... +% +Kids, don't gross me off ... "Adventures with MENTAL HYGIENE" can be +carried too FAR! +% +Kids, the seven basic food groups are GUM, PUFF PASTRY, PIZZA, +PESTICIDES, ANTIBIOTICS, NUTRA-SWEET and MILK DUDS!! +% +Laundry is the fifth dimension!! ... um ... um ... th' washing machine +is a black hole and the pink socks are bus drivers who just fell in!! +% +LBJ, LBJ, how many JOKES did you tell today??! +% +Leona, I want to CONFESS things to you ... I want to WRAP you in a SCARLET +ROBE trimmed with POLYVINYL CHLORIDE ... I want to EMPTY your ASHTRAYS ... +% +Let me do my TRIBUTE to FISHNET STOCKINGS ... +% +Let's all show human CONCERN for REVERAND MOON's legal difficulties!! +% +Let's send the Russians defective lifestyle accessories! +% +Life is a POPULARITY CONTEST! I'm REFRESHINGLY CANDID!! +% +Like I always say -- nothing can beat the BRATWURST here in DUSSELDORF!! +% +Loni Anderson's hair should be LEGALIZED!! +% +Look DEEP into the OPENINGS!! Do you see any ELVES or EDSELS ... or a +HIGHBALL?? ... +% +Look into my eyes and try to forget that you have a Macy's charge card! +% +Look! A ladder! Maybe it leads to heaven, or a sandwich! +% +LOOK!! Sullen American teens wearing MADRAS shorts and "Flock of +Seagulls" HAIRCUTS! +% +Make me look like LINDA RONSTADT again!! +% +Mary Tyler Moore's SEVENTH HUSBAND is wearing my DACRON TANK TOP in a +cheap hotel in HONOLULU! +% +Maybe we could paint GOLDIE HAWN a rich PRUSSIAN BLUE -- +% +MERYL STREEP is my obstetrician! +% +MMM-MM!! So THIS is BIO-NEBULATION! +% +Mmmmmm-MMMMMM!! A plate of STEAMING PIECES of a PIG mixed with the +shreds of SEVERAL CHICKENS!! ... Oh BOY!! I'm about to swallow a +TORN-OFF section of a COW'S LEFT LEG soaked in COTTONSEED OIL and +SUGAR!! ... Let's see ... Next, I'll have the GROUND-UP flesh of CUTE, +BABY LAMBS fried in the MELTED, FATTY TISSUES from a warm-blooded +animal someone once PETTED!! ... YUM!! That was GOOD!! For DESSERT, +I'll have a TOFU BURGER with BEAN SPROUTS on a stone-ground, WHOLE +WHEAT BUN!! +% +Mr and Mrs PED, can I borrow 26.7% of the RAYON TEXTILE production of +the INDONESIAN archipelago? +% +My Aunt MAUREEN was a military advisor to IKE & TINA TURNER!! +% +My BIOLOGICAL ALARM CLOCK just went off ... It has noiseless DOZE +FUNCTION and full kitchen!! +% +My CODE of ETHICS is vacationing at famed SCHROON LAKE in upstate New York!! +% +My EARS are GONE!! +% +My face is new, my license is expired, and I'm under a doctor's care!!!! +% +My haircut is totally traditional! +% +MY income is ALL disposable! +% +My LESLIE GORE record is BROKEN ... +% +My life is a patio of fun! +% +My mind is a potato field ... +% +My mind is making ashtrays in Dayton ... +% +My nose feels like a bad Ronald Reagan movie ... +% +My NOSE is NUMB! +% +... My pants just went on a wild rampage through a Long Island Bowling Alley!! +% +My pants just went to high school in the Carlsbad Caverns!!! +% +My polyvinyl cowboy wallet was made in Hong Kong by Montgomery Clift! +% +My uncle Murray conquered Egypt in 53 B.C. And I can prove it too!! +% +My vaseline is RUNNING... +% +NANCY!! Why is everything RED?! +% +NATHAN ... your PARENTS were in a CARCRASH!! They're VOIDED -- They +COLLAPSED They had no CHAINSAWS ... They had no MONEY MACHINES ... They +did PILLS in SKIMPY GRASS SKIRTS ... Nathan, I EMULATED them ... but +they were OFF-KEY ... +% +NEWARK has been REZONED!! DES MOINES has been REZONED!! +% +Nipples, dimples, knuckles, NICKLES, wrinkles, pimples!! +% +Not SENSUOUS ... only "FROLICSOME" ... and in need of DENTAL WORK ... in PAIN!!! +% +Now I am depressed ... +% +Now I think I just reached the state of HYPERTENSION that comes JUST +BEFORE you see the TOTAL at the SAFEWAY CHECKOUT COUNTER! +% +Now I understand the meaning of "THE MOD SQUAD"! +% +Now I'm being INVOLUNTARILY shuffled closer to the CLAM DIP with the +BROKEN PLASTIC FORKS in it!! +% +Now I'm concentrating on a specific tank battle toward the end of World War II! +% +Now I'm having INSIPID THOUGHTS about the beatiful, round wives of +HOLLYWOOD MOVIE MOGULS encased in PLEXIGLASS CARS and being approached +by SMALL BOYS selling FRUIT ... +% +Now KEN and BARBIE are PERMANENTLY ADDICTED to MIND-ALTERING DRUGS ... +% +Now my EMOTIONAL RESOURCES are heavily committed to 23% of the SMELTING +and REFINING industry of the state of NEVADA!! +% +Now that I have my "APPLE", I comprehend COST ACCOUNTING!! +% +Now, let's SEND OUT for QUICHE!! +% +Of course, you UNDERSTAND about the PLAIDS in the SPIN CYCLE -- +% +Oh my GOD -- the SUN just fell into YANKEE STADIUM!! +% +Oh, I get it!! "The BEACH goes on", huh, SONNY?? +% +Okay ... I'm going home to write the "I HATE RUBIK's CUBE HANDBOOK FOR +DEAD CAT LOVERS" ... +% +OKAY!! Turn on the sound ONLY for TRYNEL CARPETING, FULLY-EQUIPPED +R.V.'S and FLOATATION SYSTEMS!! +% +OMNIVERSAL AWARENESS?? Oh, YEH!! First you need four GALLONS of JELL-O +and a BIG WRENCH!! ... I think you drop th'WRENCH in the JELL-O as if +it was a FLAVOR, or an INGREDIENT ... ... or ... I ... um ... WHERE'S +the WASHING MACHINES? +% +On SECOND thought, maybe I'll heat up some BAKED BEANS and watch REGIS +PHILBIN ... It's GREAT to be ALIVE!! +% +On the other hand, life can be an endless parade of TRANSSEXUAL +QUILTING BEES aboard a cruise ship to DISNEYWORLD if only we let it!! +% +On the road, ZIPPY is a pinhead without a purpose, but never without a POINT. +% +Once upon a time, four AMPHIBIOUS HOG CALLERS attacked a family of +DEFENSELESS, SENSITIVE COIN COLLECTORS and brought DOWN their PROPERTY +VALUES!! +% +Once, there was NO fun ... This was before MENU planning, FASHION +statements or NAUTILUS equipment ... Then, in 1985 ... FUN was +completely encoded in this tiny MICROCHIP ... It contain 14,768 vaguely +amusing SIT-COM pilots!! We had to wait FOUR BILLION years but we +finally got JERRY LEWIS, MTV and a large selection of creme-filled +snack cakes! +% +One FISHWICH coming up!! +% +ONE LIFE TO LIVE for ALL MY CHILDREN in ANOTHER WORLD all THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES. +% +ONE: I will donate my entire "BABY HUEY" comic book collection to + the downtown PLASMA CENTER ... +TWO: I won't START a BAND called "KHADAFY & THE HIT SQUAD" ... +THREE: I won't ever TUMBLE DRY my FOX TERRIER again!! +% +... or were you driving the PONTIAC that HONKED at me in MIAMI last Tuesday? +% +Our father who art in heaven ... I sincerely pray that SOMEBODY at this +table will PAY for my SHREDDED WHAT and ENGLISH MUFFIN ... and also +leave a GENEROUS TIP .... +% +over in west Philadelphia a puppy is vomiting ... +% +OVER the underpass! UNDER the overpass! Around the FUTURE and BEYOND REPAIR!! +% +PARDON me, am I speaking ENGLISH? +% +Pardon me, but do you know what it means to be TRULY ONE with your BOOTH! +% +PEGGY FLEMMING is stealing BASKET BALLS to feed the babies in VERMONT. +% +People humiliating a salami! +% +PIZZA!! +% +Place me on a BUFFER counter while you BELITTLE several BELLHOPS in the +Trianon Room!! Let me one of your SUBSIDIARIES! +% +Please come home with me ... I have Tylenol!! +% +Psychoanalysis?? I thought this was a nude rap session!!! +% +PUNK ROCK!! DISCO DUCK!! BIRTH CONTROL!! +% +Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!! +% +RELATIVES!! +% +Remember, in 2039, MOUSSE & PASTA will be available ONLY by prescription!! +% +RHAPSODY in Glue! +% +SANTA CLAUS comes down a FIRE ESCAPE wearing bright blue LEG WARMERS +... He scrubs the POPE with a mild soap or detergent for 15 minutes, +starring JANE FONDA!! +% +Send your questions to ``ASK ZIPPY'', Box 40474, San Francisco, CA +94140, USA +% +SHHHH!! I hear SIX TATTOOED TRUCK-DRIVERS tossing ENGINE BLOCKS into +empty OIL DRUMS ... +% +Should I do my BOBBIE VINTON medley? +% +Should I get locked in the PRINCICAL'S OFFICE today -- or have a VASECTOMY?? +% +Should I start with the time I SWITCHED personalities with a BEATNIK +hair stylist or my failure to refer five TEENAGERS to a good OCULIST? +% +Sign my PETITION. +% +So this is what it feels like to be potato salad +% +So, if we convert SUPPLY-SIDE SOYABEAN FUTURES into HIGH-YIELD T-BILL +INDICATORS, the PRE-INFLATIONARY risks will DWINDLE to a rate of 2 +SHOPPING SPREES per EGGPLANT!! +% +Someone in DAYTON, Ohio is selling USED CARPETS to a SERBO-CROATIAN +% +Sometime in 1993 NANCY SINATRA will lead a BLOODLESS COUP on GUAM!! +% +Somewhere in DOWNTOWN BURBANK a prostitute is OVERCOOKING a LAMB CHOP!! +% +Somewhere in suburban Honolulu, an unemployed bellhop is whipping up a +batch of illegal psilocybin chop suey!! +% +Somewhere in Tenafly, New Jersey, a chiropractor is viewing "Leave it +to Beaver"! +% +Spreading peanut butter reminds me of opera!! I wonder why? +% +TAILFINS!! ... click ... +% + Talking Pinhead Blues: +Oh, I LOST my ``HELLO KITTY'' DOLL and I get BAD reception on channel + TWENTY-SIX!! + +Th'HOSTESS FACTORY is closin' down and I just heard ZASU PITTS has been + DEAD for YEARS.. (sniff) + +My PLATFORM SHOE collection was CHEWED up by th' dog, ALEXANDER HAIG + won't let me take a SHOWER 'til Easter ... (snurf) + +So I went to the kitchen, but WALNUT PANELING whup me upside mah HAID!! + (on no, no, no.. Heh, heh) +% +TAPPING? You POLITICIANS! Don't you realize that the END of the "Wash +Cycle" is a TREASURED MOMENT for most people?! +% +Tex SEX! The HOME of WHEELS! The dripping of COFFEE!! Take me to +Minnesota but don't EMBARRASS me!! +% +Th' MIND is the Pizza Palace of th' SOUL +% +Thank god!! ... It's HENNY YOUNGMAN!! +% +The appreciation of the average visual graphisticator alone is worth +the whole suaveness and decadence which abounds!! +% +The entire CHINESE WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL TEAM all share ONE personality -- +and have since BIRTH!! +% +The fact that 47 PEOPLE are yelling and sweat is cascading down my +SPINAL COLUMN is fairly enjoyable!! +% +The FALAFEL SANDWICH lands on my HEAD and I become a VEGETARIAN ... +% +... the HIGHWAY is made out of LIME JELLO and my HONDA is a barbequeued +OYSTER! Yum! +% +The Korean War must have been fun. +% +... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!! +% +The Osmonds! You are all Osmonds!! Throwing up on a freeway at dawn!!! +% +The PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY is CRYING for an END to BURT REYNOLDS movies!! +% +The PINK SOCKS were ORIGINALLY from 1952!! But they went to MARS +around 1953!! +% +The SAME WAVE keeps coming in and COLLAPSING like a rayon MUU-MUU ... +% +There is no TRUTH. There is no REALITY. There is no CONSISTENCY. +There are no ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS. I'm very probably wrong. +% +There's a little picture of ED MCMAHON doing BAD THINGS to JOAN RIVERS +in a $200,000 MALIBU BEACH HOUSE!! +% +There's enough money here to buy 5000 cans of Noodle-Roni! +% + "These are DARK TIMES for all mankind's HIGHEST VALUES!" + "These are DARK TIMES for FREEDOM and PROSPERITY!" + "These are GREAT TIMES to put your money on BAD GUY to kick the CRAP +out of MEGATON MAN!" +% +These PRESERVES should be FORCE-FED to PENTAGON OFFICIALS!! +% +They collapsed ... like nuns in the street ... they had no teen +appeal! +% +This ASEXUAL PIG really BOILS my BLOOD ... He's so ... so ... URGENT!! +% +"This is a job for BOB VIOLENCE and SCUM, the INCREDIBLY STUPID MUTANT DOG." + -- Bob Violence +% +This is a NO-FRILLS flight -- hold th' CANADIAN BACON!! +% +This MUST be a good party -- My RIB CAGE is being painfully pressed up +against someone's MARTINI!! +% +... this must be what it's like to be a COLLEGE GRADUATE!! +% +This PIZZA symbolizes my COMPLETE EMOTIONAL RECOVERY!! +% +This PORCUPINE knows his ZIPCODE ... And he has "VISA"!! +% +This TOPS OFF my partygoing experience! Someone I DON'T LIKE is +talking to me about a HEART-WARMING European film ... +% +Those aren't WINOS -- that's my JUGGLER, my AERIALIST, my SWORD +SWALLOWER, and my LATEX NOVELTY SUPPLIER!! +% +Thousands of days of civilians ... have produced a ... feeling for the +aesthetic modules -- +% +Today, THREE WINOS from DETROIT sold me a framed photo of TAB HUNTER +before his MAKEOVER! +% +Toes, knees, NIPPLES. Toes, knees, nipples, KNUCKLES ... +Nipples, dimples, knuckles, NICKLES, wrinkles, pimples!! +% +TONY RANDALL! Is YOUR life a PATIO of FUN?? +% +Uh-oh -- WHY am I suddenly thinking of a VENERABLE religious leader +frolicking on a FORT LAUDERDALE weekend? +% +Uh-oh!! I forgot to submit to COMPULSORY URINALYSIS! +% +UH-OH!! I put on "GREAT HEAD-ON TRAIN COLLISIONS of the 50's" by +mistake!!! +% +UH-OH!! I think KEN is OVER-DUE on his R.V. PAYMENTS and HE'S having a +NERVOUS BREAKDOWN too!! Ha ha. +% +Uh-oh!! I'm having TOO MUCH FUN!! +% +UH-OH!! We're out of AUTOMOBILE PARTS and RUBBER GOODS! +% +Used staples are good with SOY SAUCE! +% +VICARIOUSLY experience some reason to LIVE!! +% +Vote for ME -- I'm well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived and TAX-DEFERRED! +% +Wait ... is this a FUN THING or the END of LIFE in Petticoat Junction?? +% +Was my SOY LOAF left out in th'RAIN? It tastes REAL GOOD!! +% +We are now enjoying total mutual interaction in an imaginary hot tub ... +% +We have DIFFERENT amounts of HAIR -- +% +We just joined the civil hair patrol! +% +We place two copies of PEOPLE magazine in a DARK, HUMID mobile home. +45 minutes later CYNDI LAUPER emerges wearing a BIRD CAGE on her head! +% +Well, here I am in AMERICA.. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE it. I +HATE it. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE ... +EMOTIONS are SWEEPING over me!! +% +Well, I'm a classic ANAL RETENTIVE!! And I'm looking for a way to +VICARIOUSLY experience some reason to LIVE!! +% +Well, I'm INVISIBLE AGAIN ... I might as well pay a visit to the LADIES +ROOM ... +% +Well, O.K. I'll compromise with my principles because of EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR! +% +Were these parsnips CORRECTLY MARINATED in TACO SAUCE? +% +What a COINCIDENCE! I'm an authorized "SNOOTS OF THE STARS" dealer!! +% +What GOOD is a CARDBOARD suitcase ANYWAY? +% +What I need is a MATURE RELATIONSHIP with a FLOPPY DISK ... +% +What I want to find out is -- do parrots know much about Astro-Turf? +% +What PROGRAM are they watching? +% +What UNIVERSE is this, please?? +% +What's the MATTER Sid? ... Is your BEVERAGE unsatisfactory? +% +When I met th'POPE back in '58, I scrubbed him with a MILD SOAP or +DETERGENT for 15 minutes. He seemed to enjoy it ... +% +When this load is DONE I think I'll wash it AGAIN ... +% +When you get your PH.D. will you get able to work at BURGER KING? +% +When you said "HEAVILY FORESTED" it reminded me of an overdue CLEANING +BILL ... Don't you SEE? O'Grogan SWALLOWED a VALUABLE COIN COLLECTION +and HAD to murder the ONLY MAN who KNEW!! +% +Where do your SOCKS go when you lose them in th' WASHER? +% +Where does it go when you flush? +% +Where's SANDY DUNCAN? +% +Where's th' DAFFY DUCK EXHIBIT?? +% +Where's the Coke machine? Tell me a joke!! +% +While my BRAINPAN is being refused service in BURGER KING, Jesuit +priests are DATING CAREER DIPLOMATS!! +% +While you're chewing, think of STEVEN SPIELBERG'S bank account ... his +will have the same effect as two "STARCH BLOCKERS"! +% +WHO sees a BEACH BUNNY sobbing on a SHAG RUG?! +% +WHOA!! Ken and Barbie are having TOO MUCH FUN!! It must be the +NEGATIVE IONS!! +% +Why are these athletic shoe salesmen following me?? +% +Why don't you ever enter any CONTESTS, Marvin?? Don't you know your +own ZIPCODE? +% +Why is everything made of Lycra Spandex? +% +Why is it that when you DIE, you can't take your HOME ENTERTAINMENT +CENTER with you?? +% +Will it improve my CASH FLOW? +% +Will the third world war keep "Bosom Buddies" off the air? +% +Will this never-ending series of PLEASURABLE EVENTS never cease? +% +With YOU, I can be MYSELF ... We don't NEED Dan Rather ... +% +World War III? No thanks! +% +World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced dress code! +% +Wow! Look!! A stray meatball!! Let's interview it! +% +Xerox your lunch and file it under "sex offenders"! +% +Yes, but will I see the EASTER BUNNY in skintight leather at an IRON +MAIDEN concert? +% +You can't hurt me!! I have an ASSUMABLE MORTGAGE!! +% +You mean now I can SHOOT YOU in the back and further BLUR th' +distinction between FANTASY and REALITY? +% +You mean you don't want to watch WRESTLING from ATLANTA? +% +YOU PICKED KARL MALDEN'S NOSE!! +% +You should all JUMP UP AND DOWN for TWO HOURS while I decide on a NEW CAREER!! +% +You were s'posed to laugh! +% +YOU!! Give me the CUTEST, PINKEST, most charming little VICTORIAN +DOLLHOUSE you can find!! An make it SNAPPY!! +% +Your CHEEKS sit like twin NECTARINES above a MOUTH that knows no BOUNDS -- +% +Youth of today! Join me in a mass rally for traditional mental +attitudes! +% +Yow! +% +Yow! Am I having fun yet? +% +Yow! Am I in Milwaukee? +% +Yow! And then we could sit on the hoods of cars at stop lights! +% +Yow! Are we laid back yet? +% +Yow! Are we wet yet? +% +Yow! Are you the self-frying president? +% +Yow! Did something bad happen or am I in a drive-in movie?? +% +Yow! I just went below the poverty line! +% +Yow! I threw up on my window! +% +Yow! I want my nose in lights! +% +Yow! I want to mail a bronzed artichoke to Nicaragua! +% +Yow! I'm having a quadrophonic sensation of two winos alone in a steel mill! +% +Yow! I'm imagining a surfer van filled with soy sauce! +% +Yow! Is my fallout shelter termite proof? +% +Yow! Is this sexual intercourse yet?? Is it, huh, is it?? +% +Yow! It's a hole all the way to downtown Burbank! +% +Yow! It's some people inside the wall! This is better than mopping! +% +Yow! Maybe I should have asked for my Neutron Bomb in PAISLEY -- +% +Yow! Now I get to think about all the BAD THINGS I did to a BOWLING +BALL when I was in JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL! +% +Yow! Now we can become alcoholics! +% +Yow! Those people look exactly like Donnie and Marie Osmond!! +% +Yow! We're going to a new disco! +% +YOW!! Everybody out of the GENETIC POOL! +% +YOW!! I'm in a very clever and adorable INSANE ASYLUM!! +% +YOW!! Now I understand advanced MICROBIOLOGY and th' new TAX REFORM laws!! +% +YOW!! The land of the rising SONY!! +% +YOW!! Up ahead! It's a DONUT HUT!! +% +YOW!! What should the entire human race DO?? Consume a fifth of +CHIVAS REGAL, ski NUDE down MT. EVEREST, and have a wild SEX WEEKEND! +% +YOW!!! I am having fun!!! +% +Zippy's brain cells are straining to bridge synapses ... +% diff --git a/fortune-mod/fortune/Makefile b/fortune-mod/fortune/Makefile new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c2cf2a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/fortune/Makefile @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +# Note: this makefile should be called by the makefile in the parent +# directory, which will pass it a number of variables. Better to call +# make fortune-bin or make fortune-debug from there. make install +# *only* works at the top level--do make install-fortune and make +# install-fman. Make clean is an acceptable target called directly +# in this directory, though. + +all: fortune + +fortune: fortune.o + $(CC) $(LDFLAGS) -o fortune fortune.o $(LIBS) + +clean: + rm -f fortune.o fortune fortune.man + + diff --git a/fortune-mod/fortune/fortune-man.part1 b/fortune-mod/fortune/fortune-man.part1 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b544eb1 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/fortune/fortune-man.part1 @@ -0,0 +1,238 @@ +.\" $NetBSD: fortune.6,v 1.4 1995/03/23 08:28:37 cgd Exp $ +.\" +.\" Copyright (c) 1985, 1991, 1993 +.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. +.\" +.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by +.\" Ken Arnold. +.\" +.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without +.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions +.\" are met: +.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright +.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. +.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright +.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the +.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. +.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software +.\" must display the following acknowledgement: +.\" This product includes software developed by the University of +.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. +.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors +.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software +.\" without specific prior written permission. +.\" +.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND +.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE +.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE +.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE +.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL +.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS +.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) +.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT +.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY +.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF +.\" SUCH DAMAGE. +.\" +.\" @(#)fortune.6 8.3 (Berkeley) 4/19/94 +.\" +.\" This version of the man page has been modified heavily, like the +.\" program it documents. Some of the changes may be exclusive to +.\" Linux. Amy A. Lewis, September, 1995. +.\" +.\" Changes Copyright (c) 1997 Dennis L. Clark. All rights reserved. +.\" +.\" The changes in this file may be freely redistributed, modified or +.\" included in other software, as long as both the above copyright +.\" notice and these conditions appear intact. +.\" +.TH FORTUNE 6 "19 April 94 [May. 97]" "BSD Experimental" "UNIX Reference Manual" +.SH NAME +fortune \- print a random, hopefully interesting, adage +.SH SYNOPSIS +.BR fortune " [" -acefilosw "] [" -n +.IR length "] [" +.B -m +.IR pattern "] [[" n% "] " file/dir/all ] +.SH DESCRIPTION +When +.B fortune +is run with no arguments it prints out a random epigram. Epigrams are +divided into several categories, where each category is sub-divided +into those which are potentially offensive and those which are not. +.SS Options +The options are as follows: +.TP +.B -a +Choose from all lists of maxims, both offensive and not. (See the +.B -o +option for more information on offensive fortunes.) +.TP +.B -c +Show the cookie file from which the fortune came. +.TP +.B -e +Consider all fortune files to be of equal size (see discussion below +on multiple files). +.TP +.B -f +Print out the list of files which would be searched, but don't +print a fortune. +.TP +.B -l +Long dictums only. See +.B -n +on how ``long'' is defined in this sense. +.TP +.BI "-m " pattern +Print out all fortunes which match the basic regular expression +.IR pattern . +The syntax of these expressions depends on how your system defines +.BR re_comp "(3) or " regcomp (3), +but it should nevertheless be similar to the syntax used in +.BR grep (1). +.sp +.RS +The fortunes are output to standard output, while the names of the file +from which each fortune comes are printed to standard error. Either or +both can be redirected; if standard output is redirected to a file, the +result is a valid fortunes database file. If standard error is +.I also +redirected to this file, the result is +.IR "still valid" , +.B but there will be ``bogus'' +.BR fortunes , +i.e. the filenames themselves, in parentheses. This can be useful if you +wish to remove the gathered matches from their original files, since each +filename-record will precede the records from the file it names. +.RE +.TP +.BI "-n " length +Set the longest fortune length (in characters) considered to be +``short'' (the default is 160). All fortunes longer than this are +considered ``long''. Be careful! If you set the length too short and +ask for short fortunes, or too long and ask for long ones, fortune goes +into a never-ending thrash loop. +.TP +.B -o +Choose only from potentially offensive aphorisms. The -o option is +ignored if a fortune directory is specified. +.sp +.B Please, please, please request a potentially +.B offensive fortune if and only if +.B you believe, deep in your heart, +.B that you are willing to be +.B offended. (And that you'll just quit +.BR using " -o " rather +.B than give us grief about it, +.B okay?) +.sp +.RS +\&... let us keep in mind the basic governing philosophy of The +Brotherhood, as handsomely summarized in these words: we believe in +healthy, hearty laughter -- at the expense of the whole human race, if +needs be. Needs be. +.RS +--H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes" +.RE +.RE +.TP +.B -s +Short apothegms only. See +.B -n +on which fortunes are considered ``short''. +.TP +.B -i +Ignore case for +.IR -m +patterns. +.TP +.B -w +Wait before termination for an amount of time calculated from the +number of characters in the message. This is useful if it is executed +as part of the logout procedure to guarantee that the message can be +read before the screen is cleared. +.PP +The user may specify alternate sayings. You can specify a specific +file, a directory which contains one or more files, or the special word +.I all +which says to use all the standard databases. Any of these may be +preceded by a percentage, which is a number +.I n +between 0 and 100 inclusive, followed by a +.IR % . +If it is, there will be a +.I n +percent probability that an adage will be picked from that file or +directory. If the percentages do not sum to 100, and there are +specifications without percentages, the remaining percent will apply +to those files and/or directories, in which case the probability of +selecting from one of them will be based on their relative sizes. +.PP +As an example, given two databases +.IR funny " and " not-funny ", with " funny +twice as big (in number of fortunes, not raw file size), saying +.RS +.sp +.B fortune +.I funny not-funny +.sp +.RE +will get you fortunes out of +.I funny +two-thirds of the time. The command +.RS +.sp +.B fortune +.RI "90% " funny " 10% " not-funny +.sp +.RE +will pick out 90% of its fortunes from +.I funny +(the ``10% not-funny'' is unnecessary, since 10% is all that's left). +.PP +The +.B -e +option says to consider all files equal; thus +.RS +.sp +.B fortune -e +.I funny not-funny +.sp +.RE +is equivalent to +.RS +.sp +.B fortune +.RI "50% " funny " 50% " not-funny +.sp +.RE +This fortune also supports the BSD method of appending ``-o'' to +database names to specify offensive fortunes. However this is +.B not +how fortune stores them: offensive fortunes are stored in a seperate +directory without the ``-o'' infix. A plain name (i.e., not a path to a +file or directory) that ends in ``-o'' will be assumed to be an +offensive database, and will have its suffix stripped off and be +searched in the offensive directory (even if the neither of the +.IR -a " or " -o +options were specified). This feature is not only for +backwards-compatibility, but also to allow users to distinguish between +inoffensive and offensive databases of the same name. +.PP +For example, assuming there is a database named +.I definitions +in both the inoffensive and potentially offensive collections, then the +following command will select an inoffensive definition 90% of the time, +and a potentially offensive definition for the remaining 10%: +.RS +.sp +.B fortune +90% +.I definitions definitions-o +.RE +.SH FILES +Note: these are the defaults as defined at compile time. +.PP +.PD 0 +.TP diff --git a/fortune-mod/fortune/fortune-man.part2 b/fortune-mod/fortune/fortune-man.part2 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d974f60 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/fortune/fortune-man.part2 @@ -0,0 +1,64 @@ +.PD +.PP +If a particular set of fortunes is particularly unwanted, there is an +easy solution: delete the associated +.I .dat +file. This leaves the data intact, should the file later be wanted, but +since +.B fortune +no longer finds the pointers file, it ignores the text file. +.SH BUGS +The division of fortunes into offensive and non-offensive by directory, +rather than via the `-o' file infix, is not 100% compatible with +original BSD fortune. Although the `-o' infix is recognised as referring +to an offensive database, the offensive database files still need to be +in a separate directory. The workaround, of course, is to move the `-o' +files into the offensive directory (with or without renaming), and to +use the +.B -a +option. +.PP +The supplied fortune databases have been attacked, in order to correct +orthographical and grammatical errors, and particularly to reduce +redundancy and repetition and redundancy. But especially to avoid +repetitiousness. This has not been a complete success. In the process, +some fortunes may also have been lost. +.PP +The fortune databases are now divided into a larger number of smaller +files, some organized by format (poetry, definitions), and some by +content (religion, politics). There are parallel files in the main +directory and in the offensive files directory (e.g., fortunes/definitions and +fortunes/off/definitions). Not all the potentially offensive fortunes are in +the offensive fortunes files, nor are all the fortunes in the offensive +files potentially offensive, probably, though a strong attempt has been +made to achieve greater consistency. Also, a better division might be +made. +.SH HISTORY +This version of fortune is based on the NetBSD fortune 1.4, but with a +number of bug fixes and enhancements. +.PP +The original fortune/strfile format used a single file; strfile read the +text file and converted it to null-delimited strings, which were stored +after the table of pointers in the .dat file. By NetBSD fortune 1.4, +this had changed to two separate files: the .dat file was only the header +(the table of pointers, plus flags; see +.IR strfile.h ), +and the text strings were left in their own file. The potential problem +with this is that text file and header file may get out of synch, but the +advantage is that the text files can be easily edited without resorting +to unstr, and there is a potential savings in disk space (on the +assumption that the sysadmin kept both .dat file with strings and the +text file). +.PP +Many of the enhancements made over the NetBSD version assumed a Linux +system, and thus caused it to fail under other platforms, including BSD. +The source code has since been made more generic, and currently works on +SunOS 4.x as well as Linux, with support for more platforms expected in +the future. Note that some bugs were inadvertently discovered and fixed +during this process. +.PP +At a guess, a great many people have worked on this program, many without +leaving attributions. +.SH SEE ALSO +.BR re_comp "(3), " regcomp "(3), " strfile "(1), " +.BR unstr (1) diff --git a/fortune-mod/fortune/fortune.6 b/fortune-mod/fortune/fortune.6 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07cba49 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/fortune/fortune.6 @@ -0,0 +1,174 @@ +.\" $NetBSD: fortune.6,v 1.4 1995/03/23 08:28:37 cgd Exp $ +.\" +.\" Copyright (c) 1985, 1991, 1993 +.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. +.\" +.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by +.\" Ken Arnold. +.\" +.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without +.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions +.\" are met: +.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright +.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. +.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright +.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the +.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. +.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software +.\" must display the following acknowledgement: +.\" This product includes software developed by the University of +.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. +.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors +.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software +.\" without specific prior written permission. +.\" +.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND +.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE +.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE +.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE +.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL +.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS +.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) +.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT +.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY +.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF +.\" SUCH DAMAGE. +.\" +.\" @(#)fortune.6 8.3 (Berkeley) 4/19/94 +.\" +.Dd April 19, 1994 +.Dt FORTUNE 6 +.Os +.Sh NAME +.Nm fortune +.Nd print a random, hopefully interesting, adage +.Sh SYNOPSIS +.Nm fortune +.Op Fl aefilosw +.Op Fl m Ar pattern +.Oo +.Op Ar N% +.Ar file/dir/all +.Oc +.Sh DESCRIPTION +When +.Nm fortune +is run with no arguments it prints out a random epigram. +Epigrams are divided into several categories, where each category +is subdivided into those which are potentially offensive and those +which are not. +The options are as follows: +.Bl -tag -width flag +.It Fl a +Choose from all lists of maxims, both offensive and not. +(See the +.Fl o +option for more information on offensive fortunes.) +.It Fl e +Consider all fortune files to be of equal size (see discussion below +on multiple files). +.It Fl f +Print out the list of files which would be searched, but don't +print a fortune. +.It Fl l +Long dictums only. +.It Fl m +Print out all fortunes which match the regular expression +.Ar pattern . +See +.Xr regex 3 +for a description of patterns. +.It Fl o +Choose only from potentially offensive aphorisms. +.Bf -symbolic +Please, please, please request a potentially offensive fortune if and +only if you believe, deep down in your heart, that you are willing +to be offended. +(And that if you are, you'll just quit using +.Fl o +rather than give us +grief about it, okay?) +.Ef +.Bd -filled -offset indent +\&... let us keep in mind the basic governing philosophy +of The Brotherhood, as handsomely summarized in these words: +we believe in healthy, hearty laughter -- at the expense of +the whole human race, if needs be. +Needs be. +.Bd -filled -offset indent-two -compact +--H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes" +.Ed +.Ed +.It Fl s +Short apothegms only. +.It Fl i +Ignore case for +.Fl m +patterns. +.It Fl w +Wait before termination for an amount of time calculated from the +number of characters in the message. +This is useful if it is executed as part of the logout procedure +to guarantee that the message can be read before the screen is cleared. +.El +.Pp +The user may specify alternate sayings. +You can specify a specific file, a directory which contains one or +more files, or the special word +.Em all +which says to use all the standard databases. +Any of these may be preceded by a percentage, which is a number +.Ar N +between 0 and 100 inclusive, followed by a +.Ar % . +If it is, there will be a +.Ar N +percent probability that an adage will be picked from that file +or directory. +If the percentages do not sum to 100, and there are specifications +without percentages, the remaining percent will apply to those files +and/or directories, in which case the probability of selecting from +one of them will be based on their relative sizes. +.Pp +As an example, given two databases +.Em funny +and +.Em not-funny , +with +.Em funny +twice as big, saying +.Bd -literal -offset indent +fortune funny not-funny +.Ed +.Pp +will get you fortunes out of +.Em funny +two-thirds of the time. +The command +.Bd -literal -offset indent +fortune 90% funny 10% not-funny +.Ed +.Pp +will pick out 90% of its fortunes from +.Em funny +(the ``10% not-funny'' is unnecessary, since 10% is all that's left). +The +.Fl e +option says to consider all files equal; +thus +.Bd -literal -offset indent +fortune -e +.Ed +.Pp +is equivalent to +.Bd -literal -offset indent +fortune 50% funny 50% not +.Em -funny +.Ed +.Sh FILES +.Bl -tag -width Pa -compact +.It Pa /usr/share/fortune +.El +.Sh SEE ALSO +.Xr regex 3 , +.Xr regcmp 3 , diff --git a/fortune-mod/fortune/fortune.c b/fortune-mod/fortune/fortune.c new file mode 100644 index 0000000..05520fa --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/fortune/fortune.c @@ -0,0 +1,1722 @@ +/* $NetBSD: fortune.c,v 1.8 1995/03/23 08:28:40 cgd Exp $ */ + +/*- + * Copyright (c) 1986, 1993 + * The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. + * + * This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by + * Ken Arnold. + * + * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without + * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions + * are met: + * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright + * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. + * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright + * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the + * documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. + * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software + * must display the following acknowledgement: + * This product includes software developed by the University of + * California, Berkeley and its contributors. + * 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors + * may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software + * without specific prior written permission. + * + * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND + * ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE + * IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE + * ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE + * FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL + * DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS + * OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) + * HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT + * LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY + * OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF + * SUCH DAMAGE. + */ + +/* Modified September, 1995, Amy A. Lewis + * 1: removed all file-locking dreck. Unnecessary + * 2: Fixed bug that made fortune -f report a different list than + * fortune with any other parameters, or none, and which forced + * the program to read only one file (named 'fortunes') + * 3: removed the unnecessary print_file_list() + * 4: Added "OFFDIR" to pathnames.h as the directory in which offensive + * fortunes are kept. This considerably simplifies our life by + * permitting us to dispense with a lot of silly tests for the string + * "-o" at the end of a filename. + * 5: I think the problems with trying to find filenames were fixed by + * the change in the way that offensive files are defined. Two birds, + * one stone! + * 6: Calculated probabilities for all files, so that -f will print them. + */ + +/* Changes Copyright (c) 1997 Dennis L. Clark. All rights reserved. + * + * The changes in this file may be freely redistributed, modified or + * included in other software, as long as both the above copyright + * notice and these conditions appear intact. + */ + +/* Modified May 1997, Dennis L. Clark (dbugger@progsoc.uts.edu.au) + * + Various portability fixes + * + Percent selection of files with -a now works on datafiles which + * appear in both unoffensive and offensive directories (see man page + * for details) + * + The -s and -l options are now more consistant in their + * interpretation of fortune length + * + The -s and -l options can now be combined wit the -m option + */ + +/* Modified Jul 1999, Pablo Saratxaga + * - added use of the LANG variables; now if called without argument + * it will choose (if they exist) fortunes in the users' language. + * (that is, under a directory $LANG/ under the main fortunes directory + * + * Added to debian by Alastair McKinstry, , 2002-07-31 + */ + +#if 0 /* comment out the stuff here, and get rid of silly warnings */ +#ifndef lint +static char copyright[] = +"@(#) Copyright (c) 1986, 1993\n\ + The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.\n"; + +#endif /* not lint */ + +#ifndef lint +#if 0 +static char sccsid[] = "@(#)fortune.c 8.1 (Berkeley) 5/31/93"; + +#else +static char rcsid[] = "$NetBSD: fortune.c,v 1.8 1995/03/23 08:28:40 cgd Exp $"; + +#endif +#endif /* not lint */ +#endif /* killing warnings */ + +#define PROGRAM_NAME "fortune-mod" +#define PROGRAM_VERSION "9708" + +#ifdef HAVE_STDBOOL_H +#include +#else /* ! HAVE_STDBOOL_H */ + +/* stdbool.h for GNU. */ + +/* The type `bool' must promote to `int' or `unsigned int'. The constants + `true' and `false' must have the value 0 and 1 respectively. */ +typedef enum + { + false = 0, + true = 1 + } bool; + +/* The names `true' and `false' must also be made available as macros. */ +#define false false +#define true true + +/* Signal that all the definitions are present. */ +#define __bool_true_false_are_defined 1 + +#endif /* HAVE_STDBOOL_H */ + +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include + +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include + + +/* This makes GNU libc to prototype the BSD regex functions */ +#ifdef BSD_REGEX +#define _REGEX_RE_COMP +#endif + +#ifdef HAVE_REGEX_H +#include +#endif +#ifdef HAVE_REGEXP_H +#include +#endif +#ifdef HAVE_RX_H +#include +#endif + +#include "strfile.h" + +#define TRUE 1 +#define FALSE 0 +#define bool short + +#define MINW 6 /* minimum wait if desired */ +#define CPERS 20 /* # of chars for each sec */ + +#define POS_UNKNOWN ((int32_t) -1) /* pos for file unknown */ +#define NO_PROB (-1) /* no prob specified for file */ + +#ifdef DEBUG +#define DPRINTF(l,x) if (Debug >= l) fprintf x; +#undef NDEBUG +#else +#define DPRINTF(l,x) +#define NDEBUG 1 +#endif + +typedef struct fd +{ + int percent; + int fd, datfd; + int32_t pos; + FILE *inf; + char *name; + char *path; + char *datfile, *posfile; + bool read_tbl; + bool was_pos_file; + bool utf8_charset; + STRFILE tbl; + int num_children; + struct fd *child, *parent; + struct fd *next, *prev; +} +FILEDESC; + +bool Found_one; /* did we find a match? */ +bool Find_files = FALSE; /* just find a list of proper fortune files */ +bool Wait = FALSE; /* wait desired after fortune */ +bool Short_only = FALSE; /* short fortune desired */ +bool Long_only = FALSE; /* long fortune desired */ +bool Offend = FALSE; /* offensive fortunes only */ +bool All_forts = FALSE; /* any fortune allowed */ +bool Equal_probs = FALSE; /* scatter un-allocated prob equally */ +bool Show_filename = FALSE; + +bool ErrorMessage = FALSE; /* Set to true if an error message has been displayed */ + +#ifndef NO_REGEX +bool Match = FALSE; /* dump fortunes matching a pattern */ + +#endif +#ifdef DEBUG +bool Debug = FALSE; /* print debug messages */ + +#endif + +unsigned char *Fortbuf = NULL; /* fortune buffer for -m */ + +int Fort_len = 0, Spec_prob = 0, /* total prob specified on cmd line */ + Num_files, Num_kids, /* totals of files and children. */ + SLEN = 160; /* max. characters in a "short" fortune */ + +int32_t Seekpts[2]; /* seek pointers to fortunes */ + +FILEDESC *File_list = NULL, /* Head of file list */ + *File_tail = NULL; /* Tail of file list */ +FILEDESC *Fortfile; /* Fortune file to use */ + +STRFILE Noprob_tbl; /* sum of data for all no prob files */ + +#ifdef BSD_REGEX + +#define RE_COMP(p) re_comp(p) +#define BAD_COMP(f) ((f) != NULL) +#define RE_EXEC(p) re_exec(p) + +#else + +#ifdef POSIX_REGEX +#define RE_COMP(p) regcomp(&Re_pat, (p), REG_NOSUB) +#define BAD_COMP(f) ((f) != 0) +#define RE_EXEC(p) (regexec(&Re_pat, (p), 0, NULL, 0) == 0) + +regex_t Re_pat; +#else +#define NO_REGEX +#endif /* POSIX_REGEX */ + +#endif /* BSD_REGEX */ + +RECODE_REQUEST request; +RECODE_OUTER outer; + +int add_dir(register FILEDESC *); + +char *program_version(void) +{ + static char buf[BUFSIZ]; + (void) sprintf(buf, "%s version %s", PROGRAM_NAME, PROGRAM_VERSION); + return buf; +} + +void usage(void) +{ + (void) fprintf(stderr, "%s\n",program_version()); + (void) fprintf(stderr, "fortune [-a"); +#ifdef DEBUG + (void) fprintf(stderr, "D"); +#endif /* DEBUG */ + (void) fprintf(stderr, "f"); +#ifndef NO_REGEX + (void) fprintf(stderr, "i"); +#endif /* NO_REGEX */ + (void) fprintf(stderr, "losw]"); +#ifndef NO_REGEX + (void) fprintf(stderr, " [-m pattern]"); +#endif /* NO_REGEX */ + (void) fprintf(stderr, " [-n number] [ [#%%] file/directory/all]\n"); + exit(1); +} + +#define STR(str) ((str) == NULL ? "NULL" : (str)) + + +/* + * calc_equal_probs: + * Set the global values for number of files/children, to be used + * in printing probabilities when listing files + */ +void calc_equal_probs(void) +{ + FILEDESC *fiddlylist; + + Num_files = Num_kids = 0; + fiddlylist = File_list; + while (fiddlylist != NULL) + { + Num_files++; + Num_kids += fiddlylist->num_children; + fiddlylist = fiddlylist->next; + } +} + +/* + * print_list: + * Print out the actual list, recursively. + */ +void print_list(register FILEDESC * list, int lev) +{ + while (list != NULL) + { + fprintf(stderr, "%*s", lev * 4, ""); + if (list->percent == NO_PROB) + if (!Equal_probs) +/* This, with some changes elsewhere, gives proper percentages for every case + * fprintf(stderr, "___%%"); */ + fprintf(stderr, "%5.2f%%", (100.0 - Spec_prob) * + list->tbl.str_numstr / Noprob_tbl.str_numstr); + else if (lev == 0) + fprintf(stderr, "%5.2f%%", 100.0 / Num_files); + else + fprintf(stderr, "%5.2f%%", 100.0 / Num_kids); + else + fprintf(stderr, "%5.2f%%", 1.0 * list->percent); + fprintf(stderr, " %s", STR(list->name)); + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, " (%s, %s, %s)\n", STR(list->path), + STR(list->datfile), STR(list->posfile))); + putc('\n', stderr); + if (list->child != NULL) + print_list(list->child, lev + 1); + list = list->next; + } +} + +#ifndef NO_REGEX +/* + * conv_pat: + * Convert the pattern to an ignore-case equivalent. + */ +char *conv_pat(register char *orig) +{ + register char *sp; + register unsigned int cnt; + register char *new; + + cnt = 1; /* allow for '\0' */ + for (sp = orig; *sp != '\0'; sp++) + if (isalpha(*sp)) + cnt += 4; + else + cnt++; + if ((new = malloc(cnt)) == NULL) + { + fprintf(stderr, "pattern too long for ignoring case\n"); + exit(1); + } + + for (sp = new; *orig != '\0'; orig++) + { + if (islower(*orig)) + { + *sp++ = '['; + *sp++ = *orig; + *sp++ = toupper(*orig); + *sp++ = ']'; + } + else if (isupper(*orig)) + { + *sp++ = '['; + *sp++ = *orig; + *sp++ = tolower(*orig); + *sp++ = ']'; + } + else + *sp++ = *orig; + } + *sp = '\0'; + return new; +} +#endif /* NO_REGEX */ + +/* + * do_malloc: + * Do a malloc, checking for NULL return. + */ +void *do_malloc(unsigned int size) +{ + void *new; + + if ((new = malloc(size)) == NULL) + { + (void) fprintf(stderr, "fortune: out of memory.\n"); + exit(1); + } + return new; +} + +/* + * do_free: + * Free malloc'ed space, if any. + */ +void do_free(void *ptr) +{ + if (ptr != NULL) + free(ptr); +} + +/* + * copy: + * Return a malloc()'ed copy of the string + */ +char *copy(char *str, unsigned int len) +{ + char *new, *sp; + + new = do_malloc(len + 1); + sp = new; + do + { + *sp++ = *str; + } + while (*str++); + return new; +} + +/* + * new_fp: + * Return a pointer to an initialized new FILEDESC. + */ +FILEDESC *new_fp(void) +{ + register FILEDESC *fp; + + fp = (FILEDESC *) do_malloc(sizeof *fp); + fp->datfd = -1; + fp->pos = POS_UNKNOWN; + fp->inf = NULL; + fp->fd = -1; + fp->percent = NO_PROB; + fp->read_tbl = FALSE; + fp->tbl.str_version = 0; + fp->tbl.str_numstr = 0; + fp->tbl.str_longlen = 0; + fp->tbl.str_shortlen = 0; + fp->tbl.str_flags = 0; + fp->tbl.stuff[0] = 0; + fp->tbl.stuff[1] = 0; + fp->tbl.stuff[2] = 0; + fp->tbl.stuff[3] = 0; + fp->next = NULL; + fp->prev = NULL; + fp->child = NULL; + fp->parent = NULL; + fp->datfile = NULL; + fp->posfile = NULL; + return fp; +} + +/* + * is_dir: + * Return TRUE if the file is a directory, FALSE otherwise. + */ +int is_dir(char *file) +{ + auto struct stat sbuf; + + if (stat(file, &sbuf) < 0) + return FALSE; + return (sbuf.st_mode & S_IFDIR); +} + +/* + * is_existant: + * Return TRUE if the file exists, FALSE otherwise. + */ +int is_existant(char *file) +{ + struct stat staat; + + if (stat(file, &staat) == 0) + return TRUE; + switch(errno) + { + case ENOENT: + case ENOTDIR: + return FALSE; + default: + perror("fortune: bad juju in is_existant"); + exit(1); + } +} + +/* + * is_fortfile: + * Return TRUE if the file is a fortune database file. We try and + * exclude files without reading them if possible to avoid + * overhead. Files which start with ".", or which have "illegal" + * suffixes, as contained in suflist[], are ruled out. + */ +int is_fortfile(char *file, char **datp, char **posp) +{ + register int i; + register char *sp; + register char *datfile; + static char *suflist[] = + { /* list of "illegal" suffixes" */ + "dat", "pos", "c", "h", "p", "i", "f", + "pas", "ftn", "ins.c", "ins,pas", + "ins.ftn", "sml", + NULL + }; + + DPRINTF(2, (stderr, "is_fortfile(%s) returns ", file)); + + if ((sp = strrchr(file, '/')) == NULL) + sp = file; + else + sp++; + if (*sp == '.') + { + DPRINTF(2, (stderr, "FALSE (file starts with '.')\n")); + return FALSE; + } + if ((sp = strrchr(sp, '.')) != NULL) + { + sp++; + for (i = 0; suflist[i] != NULL; i++) + if (strcmp(sp, suflist[i]) == 0) + { + DPRINTF(2, (stderr, "FALSE (file has suffix \".%s\")\n", sp)); + return FALSE; + } + } + + datfile = copy(file, (unsigned int) (strlen(file) + 4)); /* +4 for ".dat" */ + strcat(datfile, ".dat"); + if (access(datfile, R_OK) < 0) + { + free(datfile); + DPRINTF(2, (stderr, "FALSE (no \".dat\" file)\n")); + return FALSE; + } + if (datp != NULL) + *datp = datfile; + else + free(datfile); + DPRINTF(2, (stderr, "TRUE\n")); + return TRUE; +} + +/* + * add_file: + * Add a file to the file list. + */ +int add_file(int percent, register char *file, char *dir, + FILEDESC ** head, FILEDESC ** tail, FILEDESC * parent) +{ + register FILEDESC *fp; + register int fd; + register char *path, *testpath; + register bool was_malloc; + register bool isdir; + auto char *sp; + auto bool found; + struct stat statbuf; + + if (dir == NULL) + { + path = file; + was_malloc = FALSE; + } + else + { + path = do_malloc((unsigned int) (strlen(dir) + strlen(file) + 2)); + (void) strcat(strcat(strcpy(path, dir), "/"), file); + was_malloc = TRUE; + } + if (*path == '/' && !is_existant(path)) /* If doesn't exist, don't do anything. */ + { + if (was_malloc) + free(path); + return FALSE; + } + if ((isdir = is_dir(path)) && parent != NULL) + { + if (was_malloc) + free(path); + return FALSE; /* don't recurse */ + } + + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, "trying to add file \"%s\"\n", path)); + if ((fd = open(path, O_RDONLY)) < 0 || *path != '/') + { + found = FALSE; + if (dir == NULL && (strchr(file,'/') == NULL)) + { + if ( ((sp = strrchr(file,'-')) != NULL) && (strcmp(sp,"-o") == 0) ) + { + /* BSD-style '-o' offensive file suffix */ + *sp = '\0'; + found = (add_file(percent, file, LOCOFFDIR, head, tail, parent)) + || add_file(percent, file, OFFDIR, head, tail, parent); + /* put the suffix back in for better identification later */ + *sp = '-'; + } + else if (All_forts) + found = (add_file(percent, file, LOCFORTDIR, head, tail, parent) + || add_file(percent, file, LOCOFFDIR, head, tail, parent) + || add_file(percent, file, FORTDIR, head, tail, parent) + || add_file(percent, file, OFFDIR, head, tail, parent)); + else if (Offend) + found = (add_file(percent, file, LOCOFFDIR, head, tail, parent) + || add_file(percent, file, OFFDIR, head, tail, parent)); + else + found = (add_file(percent, file, LOCFORTDIR, head, tail, parent) + || add_file(percent, file, FORTDIR, head, tail, parent)); + } + if (!found && parent == NULL && dir == NULL) + { /* don't display an error when trying language specific files */ + char *lang; + + lang=getenv("LC_ALL"); + if (!lang) lang=getenv("LC_MESSAGES"); + if (!lang) lang=getenv("LANGUAGE"); + if (!lang) lang=getenv("LANG"); + if (lang) { + char llang[512]; + char langdir[512]; + int ret=0; + char *p; + + strncpy(llang,lang,sizeof(llang)); + lang=llang; + + /* the language string can be like "es:fr_BE:ga" */ + while (!ret && lang && (*lang)) { + p=strchr(lang,':'); + if (p) *p++='\0'; + snprintf(langdir,sizeof(langdir),"%s/%s", + FORTDIR,lang); + + if (strncmp(path,lang,2) == 0) + ret=1; + else if (strncmp(path,langdir,strlen(FORTDIR)+3) == 0) + ret=1; + lang=p; + } + if (!ret) + perror(path); + } else { + perror(path); + } + } + + if (was_malloc) + free(path); + return found; + } + + DPRINTF(2, (stderr, "path = \"%s\"\n", path)); + + fp = new_fp(); + fp->fd = fd; + fp->percent = percent; + + fp->name = do_malloc (strlen (file) + 1); + strncpy (fp->name, file, strlen (file) + 1); + + fp->path = do_malloc (strlen (path) + 1); + strncpy (fp->path, path, strlen (path) + 1); + + //FIXME + fp->utf8_charset = FALSE; + testpath = do_malloc(strlen (path) + 4); + sprintf(testpath, "%s.u8", path); +// fprintf(stderr, "State mal: %s\n", testpath); + if(stat(testpath, &statbuf) == 0) + fp->utf8_charset = TRUE; +// fprintf(stderr, "Is utf8?: %i\n", fp->utf8_charset ); + + fp->parent = parent; + + if ((isdir && !add_dir(fp)) || + (!isdir && + !is_fortfile(path, &fp->datfile, &fp->posfile))) + { + if (parent == NULL) + fprintf(stderr, + "fortune:%s not a fortune file or directory\n", + path); + if (was_malloc) + free(path); + do_free(fp->datfile); + do_free(fp->posfile); + if (fp->fd >= 0) close(fp->fd); + free(fp); + return FALSE; + } + + /* This is a hack to come around another hack - add_dir returns success + * if the directory is allowed to be empty, but we can not handle an + * empty directory... */ + if (isdir && fp->num_children == 0) { + if (was_malloc) + free(path); + do_free(fp->datfile); + do_free(fp->posfile); + if(fp->fd >= 0) close(fp->fd); + free(fp); + return TRUE; + } + /* End hack. */ + + if (*head == NULL) + *head = *tail = fp; + else if (fp->percent == NO_PROB) + { + (*tail)->next = fp; + fp->prev = *tail; + *tail = fp; + } + else + { + (*head)->prev = fp; + fp->next = *head; + *head = fp; + } + + return TRUE; +} + +/* + * add_dir: + * Add the contents of an entire directory. + */ +int add_dir(register FILEDESC * fp) +{ + register DIR *dir; + register struct dirent *dirent; + auto FILEDESC *tailp; + auto char *name; + + close(fp->fd); + fp->fd = -1; + if ((dir = opendir(fp->path)) == NULL) + { + perror(fp->path); + return FALSE; + } + tailp = NULL; + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, "adding dir \"%s\"\n", fp->path)); + fp->num_children = 0; + while ((dirent = readdir(dir)) != NULL) + { + if (dirent->d_name[0] == 0) + continue; + name = strdup(dirent->d_name); + if (add_file(NO_PROB, name, fp->path, &fp->child, &tailp, fp)) + fp->num_children++; + else + free(name); + } + if (fp->num_children == 0) + { + /* + * Only the local fortune dir and the local offensive dir are + * allowed to be empty. + * - Brian Bassett (brianb@debian.org) 1999/07/31 + */ + if (strcmp(LOCFORTDIR, fp->path) == 0 || strcmp(LOCOFFDIR, fp->path) == 0) + { + return TRUE; + } + fprintf(stderr, + "fortune: %s: No fortune files in directory.\n", fp->path); + return FALSE; + } + return TRUE; +} + +/* + * form_file_list: + * Form the file list from the file specifications. + */ +int form_file_list(register char **files, register int file_cnt) +{ + register int i, percent; + register char *sp; + char *lang; + char langdir[512]; + char fullpathname[512],locpathname[512]; + + if (file_cnt == 0) + { + if (All_forts) + return (add_file(NO_PROB, LOCFORTDIR, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL) + | add_file(NO_PROB, LOCOFFDIR, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL) + | add_file(NO_PROB, FORTDIR, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL) + | add_file(NO_PROB, OFFDIR, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL)); + else if (Offend) + return (add_file(NO_PROB, LOCOFFDIR, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL) + | add_file(NO_PROB, OFFDIR, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL)); + else { + char *lang=NULL; + + lang=getenv("LC_ALL"); + if (!lang) lang=getenv("LC_MESSAGES"); + if (!lang) lang=getenv("LANGUAGE"); + if (!lang) lang=getenv("LANG"); + if (lang) { + char llang[512]; + int ret=0; + char *p; + + strncpy(llang,lang,sizeof(llang)); + lang=llang; + + /* the language string can be like "es:fr_BE:ga" */ + while ( lang && (*lang)) { + p=strchr(lang,':'); + if (p) *p++='\0'; + + /* first try full locale */ + ret=add_file(NO_PROB, lang, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL); + + /* if not try language name only (two first chars) */ + if (!ret) { + char ll[3]; + + strncpy(ll,lang,2); + ll[2]='\0'; + ret=add_file(NO_PROB, ll, NULL, + &File_list, &File_tail, NULL); + } + + /* if we have found one we have finished */ + if (ret) + return ret; + lang=p; + } + /* default */ + return (add_file(NO_PROB, LOCFORTDIR, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL) + | add_file(NO_PROB, FORTDIR, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL)); + + } + else + /* no locales available, use default */ + return (add_file(NO_PROB, LOCFORTDIR, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL) + | add_file(NO_PROB, FORTDIR, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL)); + + } + } + + for (i = 0; i < file_cnt; i++) + { + percent = NO_PROB; + if (!isdigit(files[i][0])) + sp = files[i]; + else + { + percent = 0; + for (sp = files[i]; isdigit(*sp); sp++) + percent = percent * 10 + *sp - '0'; + if (percent > 100) + { + fprintf(stderr, "percentages must be <= 100\n"); + ErrorMessage = TRUE; + return FALSE; + } + if (*sp == '.') + { + fprintf(stderr, "percentages must be integers\n"); + ErrorMessage = TRUE; + return FALSE; + } + /* + * If the number isn't followed by a '%', then + * it was not a percentage, just the first part + * of a file name which starts with digits. + */ + if (*sp != '%') + { + percent = NO_PROB; + sp = files[i]; + } + else if (*++sp == '\0') + { + if (++i >= file_cnt) + { + fprintf(stderr, "percentages must precede files\n"); + ErrorMessage = TRUE; + return FALSE; + } + sp = files[i]; + } + } + if (strcmp(sp, "all") == 0) + { + snprintf(fullpathname,sizeof(fullpathname),"%s",FORTDIR); + snprintf(locpathname,sizeof(locpathname),"%s",LOCFORTDIR); + } + /* if it isn't an absolute path or relative to . or .. + make it an absolute path relative to FORTDIR */ + else + { + if (strncmp(sp,"/",1)!=0 && strncmp(sp,"./",2)!=0 && + strncmp(sp,"../",3)!=0) + { + snprintf(fullpathname,sizeof(fullpathname), + "%s/%s",FORTDIR,sp); + snprintf(locpathname,sizeof(locpathname), + "%s/%s",LOCFORTDIR,sp); + } + else + { + snprintf(fullpathname,sizeof(fullpathname),"%s",sp); + snprintf(locpathname,sizeof(locpathname),"%s",sp); + } + } + + lang=getenv("LC_ALL"); + if (!lang) lang=getenv("LC_MESSAGES"); + if (!lang) lang=getenv("LANGUAGE"); + if (!lang) lang=getenv("LANG"); + if (lang) { + char llang[512]; + int ret=0; + char *p; + + strncpy(llang,lang,sizeof(llang)); + lang=llang; + + /* the language string can be like "es:fr_BE:ga" */ + while (!ret && lang && (*lang)) { + p=strchr(lang,':'); + if (p) *p++='\0'; + + /* first try full locale */ + snprintf(langdir,sizeof(langdir),"%s/%s/%s", + FORTDIR, lang, sp); + ret=add_file(percent, langdir, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL); + + /* if not try language name only (two first chars) */ + if (!ret) { + char ll[3]; + + strncpy(ll,lang,2); + ll[2]='\0'; + snprintf(langdir,sizeof(langdir), + "%s/%s/%s", FORTDIR, ll, sp); + ret=add_file(percent, langdir, NULL, + &File_list, &File_tail, NULL); + } + + lang=p; + } + /* default */ + if (!ret) + ret=add_file(percent, fullpathname, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL); + if ( (!ret && fullpathname != locpathname) || strcmp(sp, "all") == 0 ) + ret=add_file(percent, locpathname, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL); + + if (!ret){ + snprintf (locpathname, sizeof (locpathname), "%s/%s", getenv ("PWD"), sp); + + ret=add_file (percent, locpathname, NULL, &File_list, &File_tail, NULL); + } + if (!ret) + return FALSE; + + } + else + if (!add_file(percent, fullpathname, NULL, &File_list, + &File_tail, NULL)) + return FALSE; + } + return TRUE; +} + +/* + * This routine evaluates the arguments on the command line + */ +void getargs(int argc, char **argv) +{ + register int ignore_case; + +#ifndef NO_REGEX + register char *pat = NULL; + +#endif /* NO_REGEX */ + extern char *optarg; + extern int optind; + int ch; + + ignore_case = FALSE; + +#ifdef DEBUG + while ((ch = getopt(argc, argv, "acDefilm:n:osvw")) != EOF) +#else + while ((ch = getopt(argc, argv, "acefilm:n:osvw")) != EOF) +#endif /* DEBUG */ + switch (ch) + { + case 'a': /* any fortune */ + All_forts++; + break; +#ifdef DEBUG + case 'D': + Debug++; + break; +#endif /* DEBUG */ + case 'e': + Equal_probs++; /* scatter un-allocted prob equally */ + break; + case 'f': /* find fortune files */ + Find_files++; + break; + case 'l': /* long ones only */ + Long_only++; + Short_only = FALSE; + break; + case 'n': + SLEN = atoi(optarg); + break; + case 'o': /* offensive ones only */ + Offend++; + break; + case 's': /* short ones only */ + Short_only++; + Long_only = FALSE; + break; + case 'w': /* give time to read */ + Wait++; + break; +#ifdef NO_REGEX + case 'i': /* case-insensitive match */ + case 'm': /* dump out the fortunes */ + (void) fprintf(stderr, + "fortune: can't match fortunes on this system (Sorry)\n"); + exit(0); +#else /* NO_REGEX */ + case 'm': /* dump out the fortunes */ + Match++; + pat = optarg; + break; + case 'i': /* case-insensitive match */ + ignore_case++; + break; +#endif /* NO_REGEX */ + case 'v': + (void) printf("%s\n", program_version()); + exit(0); + case 'c': + Show_filename++; + break; + case '?': + default: + usage(); + } + argc -= optind; + argv += optind; + + if (!form_file_list(argv, argc)) + { + if (!ErrorMessage) fprintf (stderr, "No fortunes found\n"); + exit(1); /* errors printed through form_file_list() */ + } +#ifdef DEBUG +/* if (Debug >= 1) + * print_list(File_list, 0); */ +#endif /* DEBUG */ +/* If (Find_files) print_list() moved to main */ +#ifndef NO_REGEX + if (pat != NULL) + { + if (ignore_case) + pat = conv_pat(pat); + if (BAD_COMP(RE_COMP(pat))) + { + fprintf(stderr, "bad pattern: %s\n", pat); + exit (1); + } + } +#endif /* NO_REGEX */ +} + +/* + * init_prob: + * Initialize the fortune probabilities. + */ +void init_prob(void) +{ + register FILEDESC *fp, *last; + register int percent, num_noprob, frac; + + /* + * Distribute the residual probability (if any) across all + * files with unspecified probability (i.e., probability of 0) + * (if any). + */ + + percent = 0; + num_noprob = 0; + last = NULL; + for (fp = File_tail; fp != NULL; fp = fp->prev) + if (fp->percent == NO_PROB) + { + num_noprob++; + if (Equal_probs) + last = fp; + } + else + percent += fp->percent; + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, "summing probabilities:%d%% with %d NO_PROB's\n", + percent, num_noprob)); + if (percent > 100) + { + fprintf(stderr, + "fortune: probabilities sum to %d%%!\n", percent); + exit(1); + } + else if (percent < 100 && num_noprob == 0) + { + fprintf(stderr, + "fortune: no place to put residual probability (%d%%)\n", + percent); + exit(1); + } + else if (percent == 100 && num_noprob != 0) + { + fprintf(stderr, + "fortune: no probability left to put in residual files\n"); + exit(1); + } + Spec_prob = percent; /* this is for -f when % is specified on cmd line */ + percent = 100 - percent; + if (Equal_probs) + { + if (num_noprob != 0) + { + if (num_noprob > 1) + { + frac = percent / num_noprob; + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, ", frac = %d%%", frac)); + for (fp = File_tail; fp != last; fp = fp->prev) + if (fp->percent == NO_PROB) + { + fp->percent = frac; + percent -= frac; + } + } + last->percent = percent; + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, ", residual = %d%%", percent)); + } + else + { + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, + ", %d%% distributed over remaining fortunes\n", + percent)); + } + } + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, "\n")); + +#ifdef DEBUG +/* if (Debug >= 1) + * print_list(File_list, 0); *//* Causes crash with new %% code */ +#endif +} + +/* + * zero_tbl: + * Zero out the fields we care about in a tbl structure. + */ +void zero_tbl(register STRFILE * tp) +{ + tp->str_numstr = 0; + tp->str_longlen = 0; + tp->str_shortlen = -1; +} + +/* + * sum_tbl: + * Merge the tbl data of t2 into t1. + */ +void sum_tbl(register STRFILE * t1, register STRFILE * t2) +{ + t1->str_numstr += t2->str_numstr; + if (t1->str_longlen < t2->str_longlen) + t1->str_longlen = t2->str_longlen; + if (t1->str_shortlen > t2->str_shortlen) + t1->str_shortlen = t2->str_shortlen; +} + +/* + * get_tbl: + * Get the tbl data file the datfile. + */ +void get_tbl(FILEDESC * fp) +{ + auto int fd; + register FILEDESC *child; + + if (fp->read_tbl) + return; + if (fp->child == NULL) + { +#if 0 + /* This should not be needed anymore since add_file takes care of + * empty directories now (Torsten Landschoff ) + */ + + /* + * Only the local fortune dir and the local offensive dir are + * allowed to be empty. Don't try and fetch their tables if + * they have no children (i.e. are empty). + * - Brian Bassett (brianb@debian.org) 1999/07/31 + */ + if (strcmp(LOCFORTDIR, fp->path) == 0 || strcmp(LOCOFFDIR, fp->path) == 0) + { + fp->read_tbl = TRUE; /* Make it look like we've read it. */ + return; + } + /* End */ +#endif + if ((fd = open(fp->datfile, O_RDONLY)) < 0) + { + perror(fp->datfile); + exit(1); + } + if (read(fd, &fp->tbl.str_version, sizeof fp->tbl.str_version) != + sizeof fp->tbl.str_version) + { + fprintf(stderr, + "fortune: %s corrupted\n", fp->path); + exit(1); + } + if (read(fd, &fp->tbl.str_numstr, sizeof fp->tbl.str_numstr) != + sizeof fp->tbl.str_numstr) + { + fprintf(stderr, + "fortune: %s corrupted\n", fp->path); + exit(1); + } + if (read(fd, &fp->tbl.str_longlen, sizeof fp->tbl.str_longlen) != + sizeof fp->tbl.str_longlen) + { + fprintf(stderr, + "fortune: %s corrupted\n", fp->path); + exit(1); + } + if (read(fd, &fp->tbl.str_shortlen, sizeof fp->tbl.str_shortlen) != + sizeof fp->tbl.str_shortlen) + { + fprintf(stderr, + "fortune: %s corrupted\n", fp->path); + exit(1); + } + if (read(fd, &fp->tbl.str_flags, sizeof fp->tbl.str_flags) != + sizeof fp->tbl.str_flags) + { + fprintf(stderr, + "fortune: %s corrupted\n", fp->path); + exit(1); + } + if (read(fd, &fp->tbl.stuff, sizeof fp->tbl.stuff) != + sizeof fp->tbl.stuff) + { + fprintf(stderr, + "fortune: %s corrupted\n", fp->path); + exit(1); + } + fp->tbl.str_version = ntohl(fp->tbl.str_version); + fp->tbl.str_numstr = ntohl(fp->tbl.str_numstr); + fp->tbl.str_longlen = ntohl(fp->tbl.str_longlen); + fp->tbl.str_shortlen = ntohl(fp->tbl.str_shortlen); + fp->tbl.str_flags = ntohl(fp->tbl.str_flags); + close(fd); + } + else + { + zero_tbl(&fp->tbl); + for (child = fp->child; child != NULL; child = child->next) + { + get_tbl(child); + sum_tbl(&fp->tbl, &child->tbl); + } + } + fp->read_tbl = TRUE; +} + +/* + * sum_noprobs: + * Sum up all the noprob probabilities, starting with fp. + */ +void sum_noprobs(register FILEDESC * fp) +{ + static bool did_noprobs = FALSE; + + if (did_noprobs) + return; + zero_tbl(&Noprob_tbl); + while (fp != NULL) + { + get_tbl(fp); + /* This conditional should help us return correct values for -f + * when a percentage is specified */ + if (fp->percent == NO_PROB) + sum_tbl(&Noprob_tbl, &fp->tbl); + fp = fp->next; + } + did_noprobs = TRUE; +} + +/* + * pick_child + * Pick a child from a chosen parent. + */ +FILEDESC *pick_child(FILEDESC * parent) +{ + register FILEDESC *fp; + register int choice; + + if (Equal_probs) + { + choice = random() % parent->num_children; + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, " choice = %d (of %d)\n", + choice, parent->num_children)); + for (fp = parent->child; choice--; fp = fp->next) + continue; + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, " using %s\n", fp->name)); + return fp; + } + else + { + get_tbl(parent); + choice = random() % parent->tbl.str_numstr; + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, " choice = %d (of %ld)\n", + choice, parent->tbl.str_numstr)); + for (fp = parent->child; choice >= fp->tbl.str_numstr; + fp = fp->next) + { + choice -= fp->tbl.str_numstr; + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, "\tskip %s, %ld (choice = %d)\n", + fp->name, fp->tbl.str_numstr, choice)); + } + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, " using %s, %ld\n", fp->name, + fp->tbl.str_numstr)); + return fp; + } +} + +/* + * open_dat: + * Open up the dat file if we need to. + */ +void open_dat(FILEDESC * fp) +{ + if (fp->datfd < 0 && (fp->datfd = open(fp->datfile, O_RDONLY)) < 0) + { + perror(fp->datfile); + exit(1); + } +} + +/* + * get_pos: + * Get the position from the pos file, if there is one. If not, + * return a random number. + */ +void get_pos(FILEDESC * fp) +{ + assert(fp->read_tbl); + if (fp->pos == POS_UNKNOWN) + { + fp->pos = random() % fp->tbl.str_numstr; + } + if (++(fp->pos) >= fp->tbl.str_numstr) + fp->pos -= fp->tbl.str_numstr; + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, "pos for %s is %ld\n", fp->name, fp->pos)); +} + +/* + * get_fort: + * Get the fortune data file's seek pointer for the next fortune. + */ +void get_fort(void) +{ + register FILEDESC *fp; + register int choice; + + if (File_list->next == NULL || File_list->percent == NO_PROB) + fp = File_list; + else + { + choice = random() % 100; + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, "choice = %d\n", choice)); + for (fp = File_list; fp->percent != NO_PROB; fp = fp->next) + if (choice < fp->percent) + break; + else + { + choice -= fp->percent; + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, + " skip \"%s\", %d%% (choice = %d)\n", + fp->name, fp->percent, choice)); + } + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, + "using \"%s\", %d%% (choice = %d)\n", + fp->name, fp->percent, choice)); + } + if (fp->percent != NO_PROB) + get_tbl(fp); + else + { + if (fp->next != NULL) + { + sum_noprobs(fp); + choice = random() % Noprob_tbl.str_numstr; + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, "choice = %d (of %ld) \n", choice, + Noprob_tbl.str_numstr)); + while (choice >= fp->tbl.str_numstr) + { + choice -= fp->tbl.str_numstr; + fp = fp->next; + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, + " skip \"%s\", %ld (choice = %d)\n", + fp->name, fp->tbl.str_numstr, + choice)); + } + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, "using \"%s\", %ld\n", fp->name, + fp->tbl.str_numstr)); + } + get_tbl(fp); + } + if (fp->tbl.str_numstr == 0) + { + fprintf(stderr, "fortune: no fortune found\n"); + exit(1); + } + if (fp->child != NULL) + { + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, "picking child\n")); + fp = pick_child(fp); + } + Fortfile = fp; + get_pos(fp); + open_dat(fp); + lseek(fp->datfd, + (off_t) (sizeof fp->tbl + fp->pos * sizeof Seekpts[0]), 0); + read(fp->datfd, &Seekpts[0], sizeof Seekpts[0]); + read(fp->datfd, &Seekpts[1], sizeof Seekpts[1]); + Seekpts[0] = ntohl(Seekpts[0]); + Seekpts[1] = ntohl(Seekpts[1]); +} + +/* + * open_fp: + * Assocatiate a FILE * with the given FILEDESC. + */ +void open_fp(FILEDESC * fp) +{ + if (fp->inf == NULL && (fp->inf = fdopen(fp->fd, "r")) == NULL) + { + perror(fp->path); + exit(1); + } +} + +#ifndef NO_REGEX +/* + * maxlen_in_list + * Return the maximum fortune len in the file list. + */ +int maxlen_in_list(FILEDESC * list) +{ + register FILEDESC *fp; + register int len, maxlen; + + maxlen = 0; + for (fp = list; fp != NULL; fp = fp->next) + { + if (fp->child != NULL) + { + if ((len = maxlen_in_list(fp->child)) > maxlen) + maxlen = len; + } + else + { + get_tbl(fp); + if (fp->tbl.str_longlen > maxlen) + maxlen = fp->tbl.str_longlen; + } + } + return maxlen; +} + +/* + * matches_in_list + * Print out the matches from the files in the list. + */ +void matches_in_list(FILEDESC * list) +{ + unsigned char *sp; + unsigned char *p; /* -allover */ + unsigned char ch; /* -allover */ + register FILEDESC *fp; + int in_file, nchar; + char *output; + + for (fp = list; fp != NULL; fp = fp->next) + { + if (fp->child != NULL) + { + matches_in_list(fp->child); + continue; + } + DPRINTF(1, (stderr, "searching in %s\n", fp->path)); + open_fp(fp); + sp = Fortbuf; + in_file = FALSE; + while (fgets(sp, Fort_len, fp->inf) != NULL) + if (!STR_ENDSTRING(sp, fp->tbl)) + sp += strlen(sp); + else + { + *sp = '\0'; + nchar = sp - Fortbuf; + + if (fp->utf8_charset) + { + output = recode_string (request, Fortbuf); + } else { + output = Fortbuf; + } + /* Should maybe rot13 Fortbuf -allover */ + + if(fp->tbl.str_flags & STR_ROTATED) + { + for (p = output; (ch = *p); ++p) + { + if (isupper(ch) && isascii(ch)) + *p = 'A' + (ch - 'A' + 13) % 26; + else if (islower(ch) && isascii(ch)) + *p = 'a' + (ch - 'a' + 13) % 26; + } + } + + DPRINTF(1, (stdout, "nchar = %d\n", nchar)); + if ( (nchar < SLEN || !Short_only) && + (nchar > SLEN || !Long_only) && + RE_EXEC(output) ) + { + if (!in_file) + { + fprintf(stderr, "(%s)\n%c\n", fp->name, fp->tbl.str_delim); + Found_one = TRUE; + in_file = TRUE; + } + fputs (output, stdout); + printf("%c\n", fp->tbl.str_delim); + } + + if (fp->utf8_charset) + free (output); + + sp = Fortbuf; + } + } +} + +/* + * find_matches: + * Find all the fortunes which match the pattern we've been given. + */ +int find_matches(void) +{ + Fort_len = maxlen_in_list(File_list); + DPRINTF(2, (stderr, "Maximum length is %d\n", Fort_len)); + /* extra length, "%\n" is appended */ + Fortbuf = do_malloc((unsigned int) Fort_len + 10); + + Found_one = FALSE; + matches_in_list(File_list); + return Found_one; + /* NOTREACHED */ +} +#endif /* NO_REGEX */ + +void display(FILEDESC * fp) +{ + register char *p, ch; + unsigned char line[BUFSIZ]; + + open_fp(fp); + fseek(fp->inf, (long) Seekpts[0], 0); + if (Show_filename) + printf ("(%s)\n%%\n", fp->name); + for (Fort_len = 0; fgets(line, sizeof line, fp->inf) != NULL && + !STR_ENDSTRING(line, fp->tbl); Fort_len++) + { + if (fp->tbl.str_flags & STR_ROTATED) + { + for (p = line; (ch = *p); ++p) + { + if (isupper(ch) && isascii(ch)) + *p = 'A' + (ch - 'A' + 13) % 26; + else if (islower(ch) && isascii (ch)) + *p = 'a' + (ch - 'a' + 13) % 26; + } + } + if(fp->utf8_charset) { + char *output; + output = recode_string (request, line); + fputs(output, stdout); + free(output); + } + else + fputs(line, stdout); + } + fflush(stdout); + + if(fp->utf8_charset) { + recode_delete_request(request); + } +} + +/* + * fortlen: + * Return the length of the fortune. + */ +int fortlen(void) +{ + register int nchar; + unsigned char line[BUFSIZ]; + + if (!(Fortfile->tbl.str_flags & (STR_RANDOM | STR_ORDERED))) + nchar = (Seekpts[1] - Seekpts[0]) - 2; /* for %^J delimiter */ + else + { + open_fp(Fortfile); + fseek(Fortfile->inf, (long) Seekpts[0], 0); + nchar = 0; + while (fgets(line, sizeof line, Fortfile->inf) != NULL && + !STR_ENDSTRING(line, Fortfile->tbl)) + nchar += strlen(line); + } + Fort_len = nchar; + return nchar; +} + +int max(register int i, register int j) +{ + return (i >= j ? i : j); +} + +int main(int ac, char *av[]) +{ + char *ctype, *crequest; + getargs(ac, av); + + outer = recode_new_outer(true); + request = recode_new_request (outer); + + setlocale(LC_ALL,""); + ctype = nl_langinfo(CODESET); + if(strcmp(ctype,"ANSI_X3.4-1968") == 0) + ctype="ISO-8859-1"; + + crequest = malloc(strlen(ctype) + 7 + 1); + sprintf(crequest, "UTF-8..%s", ctype); + recode_scan_request (request, crequest); + free(crequest); + +#ifndef NO_REGEX + if (Match) + exit(find_matches() != 0); +#endif + init_prob(); + if (Find_files) + { + sum_noprobs(File_list); + if (Equal_probs) + calc_equal_probs(); + print_list(File_list, 0); + exit(0); + } + srandom((int) (time((time_t *) NULL) + getpid())); + do + { + get_fort(); + } + while ((Short_only && fortlen() > SLEN) || + (Long_only && fortlen() <= SLEN)); + + display(Fortfile); + + if (Wait) + { + fortlen(); + sleep((unsigned int) max(Fort_len / CPERS, MINW)); + } + exit(0); + /* NOTREACHED */ +} diff --git a/fortune-mod/util/Makefile b/fortune-mod/util/Makefile new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6356e4f --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/util/Makefile @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +# Note: this makefile should be called by the makefile in the parent +# directory, which will pass it a number of variables defined there. +# To make the files here properly, try make util-bin or make util-debug +# from there. Install *only* works at the top level; do make install-util +# and make install-uman. make clean will work properly if called in +# this directory. + +all: strfile unstr rot + +strfile: strfile.o + $(CC) $(LDFLAGS) -o strfile strfile.o + +unstr: unstr.o + $(CC) $(LDFLAGS) -o unstr unstr.o + +randstr: randstr.o + $(CC) $(LDFLAGS) -o randstr randstr.o + +rot: rot.o + $(CC) -fsigned-char $(LDFLAGS) -o rot rot.o + +clean: + rm -f *.o unstr strfile randstr rot ansify diff --git a/fortune-mod/util/README.randstr b/fortune-mod/util/README.randstr new file mode 100644 index 0000000..28743f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/util/README.randstr @@ -0,0 +1,47 @@ +randstr is a simple utility that implements the minimal functionality of +the fortune program. Give it the name of a strfile text or data +(pointer) file, and it will randomly select and print one text string. + +It isn't intended to do a lot; it's supposed to be a sample +implementation of a minimal strfile type random text retrieval function, +such as might be used to generate random .signature files. + +For example: + + Create a file of signatures in strfile format (none more than four lines + long, please!). Call it signatures, for ease of understanding. + + Run it through strfile to create the pointer file; put both files in a + safe place--your home directory, for instance. + + In your .login or .profile, add the line: + randstr $HOME/signatures >.signature + + Each time you log in, your signature will change randomly to one of those + in the file signatures. If you change the file, be sure to update the + pointers file! (use strfile) + + If you happen to have root privileges, you might be able to hack Pnews + to change the sig randomly whenever you post. The solution is left as + an exercise for the student (gee, I *always* wanted to say that!). + +Another example: + + As root, create a shell or Perl script to read /etc/passwd and create + a strfile text file containing login name (line one) and GECOS (line + two). + + Add an entry to crontab.root that runs that script once a month, then + uses strfile to create the data file, and randstr to select one entry + at random. + + Give valuable prizes to the winning login. The script can also auto-mail + to the user, with Cc: root. + + Any other 'lottery'-style function could be implemented the same way. + +Both of these examples are more easily implemented with randstr (which +doesn't care where the files are, and accepts no parameters) than with +fortune, which expects files to be in a place specified at compile-time. + +Amy A. Lewis alewis@email.unc.edu diff --git a/fortune-mod/util/README.rot b/fortune-mod/util/README.rot new file mode 100644 index 0000000..96c7986 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/util/README.rot @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +This is a very simple caesar cipher, rotating alphabetic characters (A-Z +and a-z) by 13. It's used by the Makefile for the "offensive" fortunes, +since there's no guarantee that 'caesar' is available on a particular +machine; there is no specific target for it otherwise. Behavior should +be identical to caesar 13, and it's best used as a filter (e.g., cat +filename | rot >newfilename produces a file that's been rot13'd, just as +cat filename | caesar 13 >newfilename does). + +You shouldn't need this toy, if you have caesar. If you don't have +caesar, either get it, or copy the binary of rot to a safe place after +making the data files (make cookies). + +Amy Lewis alewis@email.unc.edu diff --git a/fortune-mod/util/randstr.c b/fortune-mod/util/randstr.c new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3300715 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/util/randstr.c @@ -0,0 +1,226 @@ +/* + * The following code has been derived chiefly from the BSD distributions + * of the utility program unstr and the random quote displayer fortune. + * The utility produced by this code shares characteristics of both + * (it might be regarded as a minimalist implementation of fortune, for + * large values of 'minimal'), and is here offered so as to have the + * minimal necessary tools for rabbiting a strfile routine into some other, + * more significant program, all in one place. A programmer who cares and + * has the proper training could probably clean this up significantly; it's + * all stolen code (first rule of programming: steal) hacked together to + * fit. Or, to paraphrase the old saw about how the British built ships, + * it's coded by the mile and cut off to order. In that analogy, this + * program's about an inch--and separated with an axe. + * + * Axe murderess programming. Wotta concept! + * + * Use at your own peril, especially as a pattern (kludge, kludge!). This + * program, at least, shouldn't have any real chance of corrupting data, + * though; it opens files ro and dumps to the screen. If you redirect + * output, you definitely do so at your own peril (I lost six hours of + * editing on a fortune file that way, by redirecting the output of unstr + * before it had an outputfile option, trying to skip over the mv x.sorted + * x step. Axe murderess redirection, in that case). + * + * Blame Amy A. Lewis. September, 1995. alewis@email.unc.edu + */ + +/*- + * Copyright (c) 1991, 1993 + * The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. + * + * This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by + * Ken Arnold. + * + * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without + * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions + * are met: + * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright + * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. + * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright + * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the + * documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. + * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software + * must display the following acknowledgement: + * This product includes software developed by the University of + * California, Berkeley and its contributors. + * 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors + * may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software + * without specific prior written permission. + * + * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND + * ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE + * IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE + * ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE + * FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL + * DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS + * OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) + * HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT + * LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY + * OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF + * SUCH DAMAGE. + */ + +/* randstr repeats the minimum functionality of the fortune program. It + * finds the fortune text or data file specified on the command line -- + * one or the other, not both -- generates a random number, and displays + * the text string indexed. No provision is made for any other command + * line switches. At all. + * + * Usage: + * + * randstr filename[.ext] + * + * Example: run sed or Perl over your /etc/passwd, and kick out a + * strfile-format file containing lognames on the first line and full + * names on the second. Write a script called 'lottery' which is + * called once a month from crontab; it in turn calls randstr lusers, + * and the winning luser gets a prize notification sent by email from + * the lottery script. Living up to promises is optional. + * + * Note: if you're a sysadmin who regularly reads _Mein Kampf_ for the + * deep truths buried in it, and believe in Truth, Justice, and the + * American Family, you could use this to replace fortune, by pointing + * it at a small, Family Values database. The great advantage to this, + * in my opinion, is that it wouldn't take up any disk space at all. + * Who're you gonna quote? Dan Quayle? + */ + +#include +#include +#include "strfile.h" +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include +#ifndef MAXPATHLEN +#define MAXPATHLEN 1024 +#endif /* MAXPATHLEN */ + +char *Infile, /* name of input file */ + Datafile[MAXPATHLEN], /* name of data file */ + Delimch; /* delimiter character */ + +FILE *Inf, *Dataf, *Outf; + +off_t pos, Seekpts[2]; /* seek pointers to fortunes */ + + +void getargs(int ac, char *av[]) +{ + extern int optind; + char *extc; + + av += optind + 1; + + if (*av) + { + Infile = *av; +/* Hmm. Don't output anything if we can help it. + * fprintf(stderr, "Input file: %s\n",Infile); */ + if (!strrchr(Infile, '.')) + { + strcpy(Datafile, Infile); + strcat(Datafile, ".dat"); + } + else + { + strcpy(Datafile, Infile); + extc = strrchr(Infile, '.'); + *extc = '\0'; + } + } + else +/* { + * Don't write out errors here, either; trust in exit codes and sh + * fprintf(stderr, "No input file name\n"); + * fprintf(stderr, "Usage:\n\tunstr [-c C] datafile[.ext] [outputfile]\n"); + */ exit(1); +/* } */ +} + +/* + * get_pos: + * Get the position from the pos file, if there is one. If not, + * return a random number. + */ +void get_pos(STRFILE * fp) +{ + pos = random() % fp->str_numstr; + if (++(pos) >= fp->str_numstr) + pos -= fp->str_numstr; +} + +/* + * get_fort: + * Get the fortune data file's seek pointer for the next fortune. + */ +void get_fort(STRFILE fp) +{ + register int choice; + + choice = random() % fp.str_numstr; + + get_pos(&fp); + fseek(Dataf, (long) (sizeof fp + pos * sizeof Seekpts[0]), 0); + fread(Seekpts, sizeof Seekpts, 1, Dataf); + Seekpts[0] = ntohl(Seekpts[0]); + Seekpts[1] = ntohl(Seekpts[1]); +} + +void display(FILE * fp, STRFILE table) +{ + register char *p, ch; + unsigned char line[BUFSIZ]; + int i; + + fseek(fp, (long) Seekpts[0], 0); + for (i = 0; fgets(line, sizeof line, fp) != NULL && + !STR_ENDSTRING(line, table); i++) + { + if (table.str_flags & STR_ROTATED) + for (p = line; (ch = *p); ++p) + if (isupper(ch)) + *p = 'A' + (ch - 'A' + 13) % 26; + else if (islower(ch)) + *p = 'a' + (ch - 'a' + 13) % 26; + fputs(line, stdout); + } + fflush(stdout); +} + +int main(int ac, char **av) +{ + static STRFILE tbl; /* description table */ + + getargs(ac, av); + if ((Inf = fopen(Infile, "r")) == NULL) + { + perror(Infile); + exit(1); + } + if ((Dataf = fopen(Datafile, "r")) == NULL) + { + perror(Datafile); + exit(1); + } + fread((char *) &tbl, sizeof tbl, 1, Dataf); + tbl.str_version = ntohl(tbl.str_version); + tbl.str_numstr = ntohl(tbl.str_numstr); + tbl.str_longlen = ntohl(tbl.str_longlen); + tbl.str_shortlen = ntohl(tbl.str_shortlen); + tbl.str_flags = ntohl(tbl.str_flags); + + srandom((int) (time((time_t *) NULL) + getpid())); + get_fort(tbl); + display(Inf, tbl); + + exit(0); + + fclose(Inf); + fclose(Dataf); + fclose(Outf); + exit(0); +} diff --git a/fortune-mod/util/randstr.man b/fortune-mod/util/randstr.man new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c55e537 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/util/randstr.man @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ +.\" +.\" Randstr: grab a random text string from a specified text file +.\" Amy A. Lewis, October, 1995 +.\" +.TH RANDSTR 1 "October 1995" "Linux hackery" +.SH NAME +randstr \- fetch a random text string from a specified file +.SH SYNOPIS +.BI "randstr " filename +.SH DESCRIPTION +In essence, +.B randstr +is a stripped-down, minimalist version of the popular +.BR fortune (6) +program. +.PP +It reads files with the same structure as the fortunes databases, and +displays a random string. +.SS Usage +.B randstr +might be used, with a database of signatures created with a text editor +and the +.BR strfile "(8) and " unstr (8) +utilities, to randomly change the +.I $HOME/.signature +file. To do so, create the necessary database as, for example, +.IR signatures " and " signatures.dat +in the home directory, and add the following line to +.IR .profile " or " .login : +.RS +.BI "randstr " signatures +.RI > .signature +.RE +.PP +As superuser, a similar sort of thing could be placed in the +.BR Pnews "(1) or " Rnmail (1) +scripts, although it should certainly test to be certain that the files +exist, and creating the files of signatures might require a good deal of +help for a lot of users. +.PP +Also as superuser, one might use +.B randstr +with a shell or +.B Perl +script to read the +.I etc/passwd +database and create a +.I strfile +type database, and use this database to run a monthly lottery. +.SH BUGS +None known. +.SH SEE ALSO +.BR fortune "(6), " strfile (1) diff --git a/fortune-mod/util/rot.c b/fortune-mod/util/rot.c new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3064193 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/util/rot.c @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +/* + * An extremely simpleminded function. Read characters from stdin, + * rot13 them, and put them on stdout. Totally unnecessary, of course. + */ + +#include +#include + +int main(void) +{ + char a, b; + + while ((a = getchar()) != EOF) + { + if (isupper(a)) + b = 'A' + (a - 'A' + 13) % 26; + else if (islower(a)) + b = 'a' + (a - 'a' + 13) % 26; + else + b = a; + putchar(b); + } + exit(0); +} diff --git a/fortune-mod/util/strfile.8 b/fortune-mod/util/strfile.8 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a495289 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/util/strfile.8 @@ -0,0 +1,150 @@ +.\" $NetBSD: strfile.8,v 1.3 1995/03/23 08:28:45 cgd Exp $ +.\" +.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1991, 1993 +.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. +.\" +.\" +.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by +.\" Ken Arnold. +.\" +.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without +.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions +.\" are met: +.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright +.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. +.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright +.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the +.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. +.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software +.\" must display the following acknowledgement: +.\" This product includes software developed by the University of +.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. +.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors +.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software +.\" without specific prior written permission. +.\" +.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND +.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE +.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE +.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE +.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL +.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS +.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) +.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT +.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY +.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF +.\" SUCH DAMAGE. +.\" +.\" @(#)strfile.8 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93 +.\" +.Dd June 9, 1993 +.Dt STRFILE 8 +.Os BSD 4 +.Sh NAME +.Nm strfile , +.Nm unstr +.Nd "create a random access file for storing strings" +.Sh SYNOPSIS +.Nm strfile +.Op Fl iorsx +.Op Fl c Ar char +.Ar source_file +.Op Ar output_file +.Nm unstr +.Ar source_file +.Sh DESCRIPTION +.Nm Strfile +reads a file containing groups of lines separated by a line containing +a single percent +.Ql \&% +sign and creates a data file which contains +a header structure and a table of file offsets for each group of lines. +This allows random access of the strings. +.Pp +The output file, if not specified on the command line, is named +.Ar source_file Ns Sy .out . +.Pp +The options are as follows: +.Bl -tag -width "-c char" +.It Fl c Ar char +Change the delimiting character from the percent sign to +.Ar char . +.It Fl i +Ignore case when ordering the strings. +.It Fl o +Order the strings in alphabetical order. +The offset table will be sorted in the alphabetical order of the +groups of lines referenced. +Any initial non-alphanumeric characters are ignored. +This option causes the +.Dv STR_ORDERED +bit in the header +.Ar str_flags +field to be set. +.It Fl r +Randomize access to the strings. +Entries in the offset table will be randomly ordered. +This option causes the +.Dv STR_RANDOM +bit in the header +.Ar str_flags +field to be set. +.It Fl s +Run silently; don't give a summary message when finished. +.It Fl x +Note that each alphabetic character in the groups of lines is rotated +13 positions in a simple caesar cypher. +This option causes the +.Dv STR_ROTATED +bit in the header +.Ar str_flags +field to be set. +.El +.Pp +The format of the header is: +.Bd -literal +#define VERSION 2 +u_int32_t str_version; /* version number */ +u_int32_t str_numstr; /* # of strings in the file */ +u_int32_t str_longlen; /* length of longest string */ +u_int32_t str_shortlen; /* length of shortest string */ +#define STR_RANDOM 0x1 /* randomized pointers */ +#define STR_ORDERED 0x2 /* ordered pointers */ +#define STR_ROTATED 0x4 /* rot-13'd text */ +u_int32_t str_flags; /* bit field for flags */ +u_int8_t str_delim; /* delimiting character */ +.Ed +.Pp +All fields are written in network byte order. Each field is also +written independantly so as to avoid structure padding problems on +some architectures. +.Pp +The purpose of +.Nm unstr +is to undo the work of +.Nm strfile . +It prints out the strings contained in the file +.Ar source_file +in the order that they are listed in +the header file +.Ar source_file Ns Pa .dat +to standard output. +It is possible to create sorted versions of input files by using +.Fl o +when +.Nm strfile +is run and then using +.Nm unstr +to dump them out in the table order. +.Sh SEE ALSO +.Xr byteorder 3 , +.Xr fortune 6 +.Sh FILES +.Bl -tag -width strfile.out -compact +.It Pa strfile.out +default output file. +.El +.Sh HISTORY +The +.Nm strfile +utility first appeared in 4.4BSD. diff --git a/fortune-mod/util/strfile.c b/fortune-mod/util/strfile.c new file mode 100644 index 0000000..15618c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/util/strfile.c @@ -0,0 +1,548 @@ +/* $NetBSD: strfile.c,v 1.3 1995/03/23 08:28:47 cgd Exp $ */ + +/*- + * Copyright (c) 1989, 1993 + * The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. + * + * This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by + * Ken Arnold. + * + * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without + * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions + * are met: + * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright + * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. + * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright + * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the + * documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. + * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software + * must display the following acknowledgement: + * This product includes software developed by the University of + * California, Berkeley and its contributors. + * 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors + * may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software + * without specific prior written permission. + * + * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND + * ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE + * IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE + * ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE + * FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL + * DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS + * OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) + * HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT + * LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY + * OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF + * SUCH DAMAGE. + */ + +/* + * Changes, September 1995, to make the damn thing actually sort instead + * of just pretending. Amy A. Lewis + * + * And lots more. + * + * Fixed the special cases of %^J% (an empty fortune), no 'separator' at + * the end of the file, and a trailing newline at the end of the file, all + * of which produced total ballsup at one point or another. + * + * This included adding a routine to go back and write over the last pointer + * written or stored, for the case of an empty fortune. + * + * unstr also had to be modified (well, for *lots* of reasons, but this was + * one) to be certain to put the delimiters in the right places. + */ + +/* + * + #ifndef lint + static char copyright[] = + "@(#) Copyright (c) 1989, 1993\n\ + The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.\n"; + #endif / * not lint * / + + #ifndef lint + #if 0 + static char sccsid[] = "@(#)strfile.c 8.1 (Berkeley) 5/31/93"; + #else + static char rcsid[] = "$NetBSD: strfile.c,v 1.3 1995/03/23 08:28:47 cgd Exp $"; + #endif + #endif / * not lint * / + * + *I haven't the faintest flipping idea what all that is, so kill the warnings + */ + +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include +#include "strfile.h" + +#ifndef MAXPATHLEN +#define MAXPATHLEN 1024 +#endif /* MAXPATHLEN */ + +/* + * This program takes a file composed of strings seperated by + * lines containing only the delimiting character (the default + * character is '%') and creates another file which consists of a table + * describing the file (structure from "strfile.h"), a table of seek + * pointers to the start of the strings, and the strings, each terminated + * by a null byte. Usage: + * + * % strfile [-iorsx] [ -cC ] sourcefile [ datafile ] + * + * c - Change delimiting character from '%' to 'C' + * s - Silent. Give no summary of data processed at the end of + * the run. + * o - order the strings in alphabetic order + * i - if ordering, ignore case + * r - randomize the order of the strings + * x - set rotated bit + * + * Ken Arnold Sept. 7, 1978 -- + * + * Added ordering options. + * + * Made ordering options do more than set the bloody flag, September 95 A. Lewis + * + * Always make sure that your loop control variables aren't set to bloody + * *zero* before distributing the bloody code, all right? + * + */ + +#define TRUE 1 +#define FALSE 0 + +#define STORING_PTRS (Oflag || Rflag) +#define CHUNKSIZE 512 + +#define ALWAYS 1 +#define ALLOC(ptr,sz) if (ALWAYS) { \ + if (ptr == NULL) \ + ptr = malloc((unsigned int) (CHUNKSIZE * sizeof *ptr)); \ + else if (((sz) + 1) % CHUNKSIZE == 0) \ + ptr = realloc((void *) ptr, ((unsigned int) ((sz) + CHUNKSIZE) * sizeof *ptr)); \ + if (ptr == NULL) { \ + fprintf(stderr, "out of space\n"); \ + exit(1); \ + } \ + } + +typedef struct +{ + char first; + int32_t pos; +} +STR; + +char *Infile = NULL, /* input file name */ + Outfile[MAXPATHLEN] = "", /* output file name */ + Delimch = '%'; /* delimiting character */ + +int Sflag = FALSE; /* silent run flag */ +int Oflag = FALSE; /* ordering flag */ +int Iflag = FALSE; /* ignore case flag */ +int Rflag = FALSE; /* randomize order flag */ +int Xflag = FALSE; /* set rotated bit */ +long Num_pts = 0; /* number of pointers/strings */ + +int32_t *Seekpts; + +FILE *Sort_1, *Sort_2; /* pointers for sorting */ + +STRFILE Tbl; /* statistics table */ + +STR *Firstch; /* first chars of each string */ + +void usage(void) +{ + fprintf(stderr, + "strfile [-iorsx] [-c char] sourcefile [datafile]\n"); + exit(1); +} + +/* + * This routine evaluates arguments from the command line + */ +void getargs(int argc, char **argv) +{ + extern char *optarg; + extern int optind; + int ch; + + while ((ch = getopt(argc, argv, "c:iorsx")) != EOF) + switch (ch) + { + case 'c': /* new delimiting char */ + Delimch = *optarg; + if (!isascii(Delimch)) + { + printf("bad delimiting character: '\\%o\n'", + Delimch); + } + break; + case 'i': /* ignore case in ordering */ + Iflag++; + break; + case 'o': /* order strings */ + Oflag++; + break; + case 'r': /* randomize pointers */ + Rflag++; + break; + case 's': /* silent */ + Sflag++; + break; + case 'x': /* set the rotated bit */ + Xflag++; + break; + case '?': + default: + usage(); + } + argv += optind; + + if (*argv) + { + Infile = *argv; + if (*++argv) + (void) strcpy(Outfile, *argv); + } + if (!Infile) + { + puts("No input file name"); + usage(); + } + if (*Outfile == '\0') + { + strcpy(Outfile, Infile); + strcat(Outfile, ".dat"); + } +} + +/* + * add_offset: + * Add an offset to the list, or write it out, as appropriate. + */ +void add_offset(FILE * fp, int32_t off) +{ + int32_t net; + + if (!STORING_PTRS) + { + net = htonl(off); + fwrite(&net, 1, sizeof net, fp); + } + else + { + ALLOC(Seekpts, Num_pts + 1); + Seekpts[Num_pts] = off; + } + Num_pts++; +} + +/* + * fix_last_offset: + * Used when we have two separators in a row. + */ +void fix_last_offset(FILE * fp, int32_t off) +{ + int32_t net; + + if (!STORING_PTRS) + { + net = htonl(off); + fseek(fp, -(sizeof net), SEEK_CUR); + fwrite(&net, 1, sizeof net, fp); + } + else + Seekpts[Num_pts - 1] = off; +} + +/* + * cmp_str: + * Compare two strings in the file + */ +int cmp_str(const void *v1, const void *v2) +{ + register int c1, c2; + register int n1, n2; + register STR *p1, *p2; + +#define SET_N(nf,ch) (nf = (ch == '\n')) +#define IS_END(ch,nf) (ch == Delimch && nf) + + p1 = (STR *) v1; + p2 = (STR *) v2; + c1 = p1->first; + c2 = p2->first; + if (c1 != c2) + return c1 - c2; + + fseek(Sort_1, p1->pos, 0); + fseek(Sort_2, p2->pos, 0); + + n1 = FALSE; + n2 = FALSE; + while (!isalnum(c1 = getc(Sort_1)) && c1 != '\0') + SET_N(n1, c1); + while (!isalnum(c2 = getc(Sort_2)) && c2 != '\0') + SET_N(n2, c2); + + while (!IS_END(c1, n1) && !IS_END(c2, n2)) + { + if (Iflag) + { + if (isupper(c1)) + c1 = tolower(c1); + if (isupper(c2)) + c2 = tolower(c2); + } + if (c1 != c2) + return c1 - c2; + SET_N(n1, c1); + SET_N(n2, c2); + c1 = getc(Sort_1); + c2 = getc(Sort_2); + } + if (IS_END(c1, n1)) + c1 = 0; + if (IS_END(c2, n2)) + c2 = 0; + return c1 - c2; +} + +/* + * do_order: + * Order the strings alphabetically (possibly ignoring case). + */ +void + do_order(void) +{ + register long i; + register int32_t *lp; + register STR *fp; + + Sort_1 = fopen(Infile, "r"); + Sort_2 = fopen(Infile, "r"); + qsort((char *) Firstch, (int) Num_pts - 1, sizeof *Firstch, cmp_str); +/* i = Tbl.str_numstr; + * Fucking brilliant. Tbl.str_numstr was initialized to zero, and is still zero + */ + i = Num_pts - 1; + lp = Seekpts; + fp = Firstch; + while (i--) + *lp++ = fp++->pos; + fclose(Sort_1); + fclose(Sort_2); + Tbl.str_flags |= STR_ORDERED; +} + +char * + unctrl(char c) +{ + static char buf[3]; + + if (isprint(c)) + { + buf[0] = c; + buf[1] = '\0'; + } + else if (c == 0177) + { + buf[0] = '^'; + buf[1] = '?'; + } + else + { + buf[0] = '^'; + buf[1] = c + 'A' - 1; + } + return buf; +} + +/* + * randomize: + * Randomize the order of the string table. We must be careful + * not to randomize across delimiter boundaries. All + * randomization is done within each block. + */ +void randomize(void) +{ + register int cnt, i; + register int32_t tmp; + register int32_t *sp; + extern time_t time(time_t *); + + srandom((int) (time((time_t *) NULL) + getpid())); + + Tbl.str_flags |= STR_RANDOM; +/* cnt = Tbl.str_numstr; + * See comment above. Isn't this stuff distributed worldwide? How embarrassing! + */ + cnt = Num_pts; + + /* + * move things around randomly + */ + + for (sp = Seekpts; cnt > 0; cnt--, sp++) + { + i = random() % cnt; + tmp = sp[0]; + sp[0] = sp[i]; + sp[i] = tmp; + } +} + +/* + * main: + * Drive the sucker. There are two main modes -- either we store + * the seek pointers, if the table is to be sorted or randomized, + * or we write the pointer directly to the file, if we are to stay + * in file order. If the former, we allocate and re-allocate in + * CHUNKSIZE blocks; if the latter, we just write each pointer, + * and then seek back to the beginning to write in the table. + */ +int main(int ac, char **av) +{ + register unsigned char *sp; + register FILE *inf, *outf; + register int32_t last_off, length, pos, *p; + register int first, cnt; + register char *nsp; + register STR *fp; + static char string[257]; + + getargs(ac, av); /* evalute arguments */ + if ((inf = fopen(Infile, "r")) == NULL) + { + perror(Infile); + exit(1); + } + + if ((outf = fopen(Outfile, "w")) == NULL) + { + perror(Outfile); + exit(1); + } + if (!STORING_PTRS) + (void) fseek(outf, sizeof Tbl, 0); + + /* + * Write the strings onto the file + */ + + Tbl.str_longlen = 0; + Tbl.str_shortlen = (unsigned int) 0xffffffff; + Tbl.str_delim = Delimch; + Tbl.str_version = VERSION; + first = Oflag; + add_offset(outf, ftell(inf)); + last_off = 0; + do + { + sp = fgets(string, 256, inf); + if (sp == NULL || STR_ENDSTRING(sp, Tbl)) + { + pos = ftell(inf); + length = pos - last_off - (sp ? strlen(sp) : 0); + if (!length) + /* Here's where we go back and fix things, if the + * 'fortune' just read was the null string. + * We had to make the assignment of last_off slightly + * redundant to achieve this. + */ + { + if (pos - last_off == 2) + fix_last_offset(outf, pos); + last_off = pos; + continue; + } + last_off = pos; + add_offset(outf, pos); + if (Tbl.str_longlen < length) + Tbl.str_longlen = length; + if (Tbl.str_shortlen > length) + Tbl.str_shortlen = length; + first = Oflag; + } + else if (first) + { + for (nsp = sp; !isalnum(*nsp); nsp++) + continue; + ALLOC(Firstch, Num_pts); + fp = &Firstch[Num_pts - 1]; + if (Iflag && isupper(*nsp)) + fp->first = tolower(*nsp); + else + fp->first = *nsp; + fp->pos = Seekpts[Num_pts - 1]; + first = FALSE; + } + } + while (sp != NULL); + + /* + * write the tables in + */ + + fclose(inf); + + if (Oflag) + do_order(); + else if (Rflag) + randomize(); + + if (Xflag) + Tbl.str_flags |= STR_ROTATED; + + if (!Sflag) + { + printf("\"%s\" created\n", Outfile); + if (Num_pts == 1) + puts("There was no string"); + else + { + if (Num_pts == 2) + puts("There was 1 string"); + else + printf("There were %ld strings\n", Num_pts - 1); + printf("Longest string: %lu byte%s\n", Tbl.str_longlen, + Tbl.str_longlen == 1 ? "" : "s"); + printf("Shortest string: %lu byte%s\n", Tbl.str_shortlen, + Tbl.str_shortlen == 1 ? "" : "s"); + } + } + + fseek(outf, (off_t) 0, 0); + Tbl.str_version = htonl(Tbl.str_version); + Tbl.str_numstr = htonl(Num_pts - 1); + /* Look, Ma! After using the variable three times, let's store + * something in it! + */ + Tbl.str_longlen = htonl(Tbl.str_longlen); + Tbl.str_shortlen = htonl(Tbl.str_shortlen); + Tbl.str_flags = htonl(Tbl.str_flags); + fwrite(&Tbl.str_version, sizeof Tbl.str_version, 1, outf); + fwrite(&Tbl.str_numstr, sizeof Tbl.str_numstr, 1, outf); + fwrite(&Tbl.str_longlen, sizeof Tbl.str_longlen, 1, outf); + fwrite(&Tbl.str_shortlen, sizeof Tbl.str_shortlen, 1, outf); + fwrite(&Tbl.str_flags, sizeof Tbl.str_flags, 1, outf); + fwrite( Tbl.stuff, sizeof Tbl.stuff, 1, outf); + if (STORING_PTRS) + { + for (p = Seekpts, cnt = Num_pts; cnt--; ++p) + { + *p = htonl(*p); + fwrite(p, sizeof *p, 1, outf); + } + } + fclose(outf); + exit(0); +} diff --git a/fortune-mod/util/strfile.h b/fortune-mod/util/strfile.h new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6be8240 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/util/strfile.h @@ -0,0 +1,56 @@ +/* $NetBSD: strfile.h,v 1.3 1995/03/23 08:28:49 cgd Exp $ */ + +/*- + * Copyright (c) 1991, 1993 + * The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. + * + * This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by + * Ken Arnold. + * + * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without + * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions + * are met: + * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright + * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. + * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright + * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the + * documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. + * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software + * must display the following acknowledgement: + * This product includes software developed by the University of + * California, Berkeley and its contributors. + * 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors + * may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software + * without specific prior written permission. + * + * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND + * ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE + * IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE + * ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE + * FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL + * DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS + * OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) + * HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT + * LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY + * OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF + * SUCH DAMAGE. + * + * @(#)strfile.h 8.1 (Berkeley) 5/31/93 + */ + +#define STR_ENDSTRING(line,tbl) \ + ((line)[0] == (tbl).str_delim && (line)[1] == '\n') + +typedef struct { /* information table */ +#define VERSION 2 + u_int32_t str_version; /* version number */ + u_int32_t str_numstr; /* # of strings in the file */ + u_int32_t str_longlen; /* length of longest string */ + u_int32_t str_shortlen; /* length of shortest string */ +#define STR_RANDOM 0x1 /* randomized pointers */ +#define STR_ORDERED 0x2 /* ordered pointers */ +#define STR_ROTATED 0x4 /* rot-13'd text */ + u_int32_t str_flags; /* bit field for flags */ + u_int8_t stuff[4]; /* long aligned space */ +#define str_delim stuff[0] /* delimiting character */ +} STRFILE; diff --git a/fortune-mod/util/strfile.man b/fortune-mod/util/strfile.man new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cc977a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/util/strfile.man @@ -0,0 +1,199 @@ +.\" $NetBSD: strfile.8,v 1.3 1995/03/23 08:28:45 cgd Exp $ +.\" +.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1991, 1993 +.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. +.\" +.\" +.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by +.\" Ken Arnold. +.\" +.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without +.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions +.\" are met: +.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright +.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. +.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright +.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the +.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. +.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software +.\" must display the following acknowledgement: +.\" This product includes software developed by the University of +.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. +.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors +.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software +.\" without specific prior written permission. +.\" +.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND +.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE +.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE +.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE +.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL +.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS +.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) +.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT +.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY +.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF +.\" SUCH DAMAGE. +.\" +.\" @(#)strfile.8 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93 +.\" +.\" This man page has been heavily modified, like the files it refers +.\" to, by Amy Lewis. Changes to command line, and a different style of +.\" macros for Linux systems. +.\" +.TH STRFILE 1 "June 9, 1993 [Apr. '97]" "4th Berkeley Distribution" "UNIX System Manager's Manual" +.SH NAME +strfile \- create a random access file for storing strings +.br +unstr \- dump strings in pointer order +.SH SYNOPSIS +.BR strfile " [" -iorsx "] [" -c +.IR char "] " sourcefile " [" outputfile ] +.br +.BR unstr " [" -c +.IR char "] " datafile [ .ext ] +.RI [ outputfile ] +.SH DESCRIPTION +.B strfile +reads a file containing groups of lines separated by a line containing +a single percent `%' sign (or other specified delimiter character) and +creates a data file which contains a header structure and a table of +file offsets for each group of lines. This allows random access of the +strings. +.PP +The output file, if not specified on the command line, is named +.IR sourcefile.dat . +.PP +The purpose of +.B unstr +is to undo the work of +.BR strfile . +It prints out the strings contained in the sourcefile, which is +.I datafile.ext +without its extension, or +.I datafile +if no extension is specified (in this case, the extension +.I .dat +is added to the name of the datafile) in the order +that they are listed in the header file +.IR datafile . +If no +.I outputfile +is specified, it prints to standard output; otherwise it prints +to the file specified. +.B unstr +can also universally change the delimiter character in a strings file. +It is possible to create sorted versions of input files by using +.B strfile -o +and then using +.B unstr +to dump them out in the table order. +.SS Options +The options are as follows: +.TP +.BI "-c " char +Change the delimiting character from the percent sign to +.IR char . +This option is available for both +.BR strfile " and " unstr . +.TP +.B -i +Ignore case when ordering the strings. +.TP +.B -o +Order the strings in alphabetical order. The offset table will be +sorted in the alphabetical order of the groups of lines referenced. +Any initial non-alphanumeric characters are ignored. This option +causes the STR_ORDERED bit in the header +.I str_flags +field to be set. (It also now really does sort! It didn't used to). +.TP +.B -r +Randomize access to the strings. Entries in the offset table will be +randomly ordered. This option causes the STR_RANDOM bit in the header +.I str_flags +field to be set. (And really does randomize) +.TP +.B -s +Run silently; don't give a summary message when finished. +.TP +.B -x +Note that each alphabetic character in the groups of lines is rotated +13 positions in a simple caesar cypher. This option causes the +STR_ROTATED bit in the header +.I str_flags +field to be set. Note that it +.B does not +rotate the strings--that operation must be performed separately. +.SS Header +The format of the header is: +.PP +#define VERSION 1 +.br +unsigned long str_version; /* version number */ +.br +unsigned long str_numstr; /* # of strings in the file */ +.br +unsigned long str_longlen; /* length of longest string */ +.br +unsigned long str_shortlen; /* shortest string length */ +.br +#define STR_RANDOM 0x1 /* randomized pointers */ +.br +#define STR_ORDERED 0x2 /* ordered pointers */ +.br +#define STR_ROTATED 0x4 /* rot-13'd text */ +.br +unsigned long str_flags; /* bit field for flags */ +.br +char str_delim; /* delimiting character */ +.PP +All fields are written in network byte order. +.SH BUGS +Fewer now, one hopes. However, fortunes (text strings) beginning with a +blank line appear to be sorted between random letters. This includes +ASCII art that contains no letters, and first lines that are solely +non-alphanumeric, apparently. I've no idea why this should be. +.SH OTHER USES +What can you do with this besides printing sarcastic and obscene messages +to the screens of lusers at login or logout? +.PP +There +.B are +some other possibilities. Source code for a sample program, +.BR randstr , +is included with this distribution: randstr splits the difference between +.BR unstr " and " fortune . +It reads a single, specified file, and randomly selects a single text +string. +.IP 1 +Include +.I strfile.h +into a news reading/posting program, to generate random signatures. +.BR Tin (1) +does something similar, in a much more complex manner. +.IP 2 +Include it in a game. While strfile doesn't support 'fields' or +\&'records', there's no reason that the text strings can't be consistent: +first line, a die roll; second line, a score; third and subsequent lines, +a text message. +.IP 3 +Use it to store your address book. Hell, some of the guys I know +would be as well off using it to decide who to call on Friday nights (and +for some, it wouldn't matter whether there were phone numbers in it or not). +.IP 4 +Use it in 'lottery' situations. If you're an ISP, write a script to +store login names and GECOS from +.I /etc/passwd +in strfile format, write another to send 'congratulations, you've won' +to the lucky login selected. The prize might be a month's free service, +or if you're AOL, a month free on a real service provider. +.SH SEE ALSO +.BR byteorder "(3), " fortune (6) +.SH HISTORY +The +.B strfile +utility first appeared in 4.4BSD. This version was heavily modified, +much of it in ways peculiar to Linux. Work has since been done to make +the code more generic, and has so far been tested to work with SunOS +4.x. More platforms are expected to be supported as work continues. diff --git a/fortune-mod/util/unstr.c b/fortune-mod/util/unstr.c new file mode 100644 index 0000000..87f5ab0 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune-mod/util/unstr.c @@ -0,0 +1,247 @@ +/* $NetBSD: unstr.c,v 1.3 1995/03/23 08:29:00 cgd Exp $ */ + +/*- + * Copyright (c) 1991, 1993 + * The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. + * + * This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by + * Ken Arnold. + * + * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without + * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions + * are met: + * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright + * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. + * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright + * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the + * documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. + * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software + * must display the following acknowledgement: + * This product includes software developed by the University of + * California, Berkeley and its contributors. + * 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors + * may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software + * without specific prior written permission. + * + * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND + * ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE + * IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE + * ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE + * FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL + * DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS + * OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) + * HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT + * LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY + * OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF + * SUCH DAMAGE. + */ + +#if 0 +#ifndef lint +static char copyright[] = +"@(#) Copyright (c) 1991, 1993\n\ + The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.\n"; + +#endif /* not lint */ + +#ifndef lint +static char sccsid[] = "@(#)unstr.c 8.1 (Berkeley) 5/31/93"; + +#endif /* not lint */ +#endif /* comment out the dreck, kill the warnings */ + +/* + * This program un-does what "strfile" makes, thereby obtaining the + * original file again. This can be invoked with the name of the output + * file, the input file, or both. If invoked with only a single argument + * ending in ".dat", it is pressumed to be the input file and the output + * file will be the same stripped of the ".dat". If the single argument + * doesn't end in ".dat", then it is presumed to be the output file, and + * the input file is that name prepended by a ".dat". If both are given + * they are treated literally as the input and output files. + * + * Ken Arnold Aug 13, 1978 + */ + +/* + * Umm. Well, when I got this thing, it didn't work like that. It now + * treats the *first* filename listed as the name of the datafile; if + * the file happens to have an extension, that's stripped off and the + * result is the name of the strings file. If there is no extension, then + * the datafile has '.dat' added, and the strings file is the filename. + * The only problem with this is if you happen to have a strings file + * with a dot in it--in that case, specify the dat file fully. + * + * The program also now accepts an optional second filename, which is the + * name of the output file; if not specified, it dumps to stdout. + * + * It can also take one parameter, which defines a new separator character. + * This was added chiefly in order to avoid having to run sed over a + * strings file; unstr *can* do it easily, so it should. + * + * We also had to add some code to make the special cases of a null fortune + * (two separators on successive lines, a common enough error when editing + * a strings file) and no trailing separator be treated properly. Unstr + * now writes out a separator string at the end of a file; strfile does + * not consider the null string following this to be a fortune. Be careful + * not to put an extra newline after the required last newline--if so, you'll + * get a fortune that contains nothing but a newline. Karo syrup, syrup. + * For the gory details, and lots of cussing, see strfile.c + */ +#include +#include +#include +#include "strfile.h" +#include +#include +#include +#include + +#ifndef MAXPATHLEN +#define MAXPATHLEN 1024 +#endif /* MAXPATHLEN */ + +char *Infile, /* name of input file */ + Datafile[MAXPATHLEN], /* name of data file */ + Delimch, /* delimiter character */ + Outfile[MAXPATHLEN]; + +char NewDelch = '\0'; /* a replacement delimiter character */ + +FILE *Inf, *Dataf, *Outf; + +/* ARGSUSED */ +void getargs(int ac, char *av[]) +{ + extern int optind; + extern char *optarg; + char *extc; + int ch; + + while ((ch = getopt(ac, av, "c:")) != EOF) + switch (ch) + { + case 'c': + NewDelch = *optarg; + if (!isascii(NewDelch)) + { + fprintf(stderr, "Bad delimiting characher: '\\%o'\n", NewDelch); + } + break; + case '?': + default: + fprintf(stderr, "Usage:\n\tunstr [-c C] datafile[.ext] [outputfile]\n"); + exit(1); + } + + av += optind; + + if (*av) + { + Infile = *av; + fprintf(stderr, "Input file: %s\n", Infile); + if (!strrchr(Infile, '.')) + { + strcpy(Datafile, Infile); + strcat(Datafile, ".dat"); + } + else + { + strcpy(Datafile, Infile); + extc = strrchr(Infile, '.'); + *extc = '\0'; + } + if (*++av) + { + strcpy(Outfile, *av); + fprintf(stderr, "Output file: %s\n", Outfile); + } + } + else + { + fprintf(stderr, "No input file name\n"); + fprintf(stderr, "Usage:\n\tunstr [-c C] datafile[.ext] [outputfile]\n"); + exit(1); + } + if (!strcmp(Infile, Outfile)) + { + fprintf(stderr, "The input file for strings (%s) must be different from the output file (%s)\n", Infile, Outfile); + exit(1); + } +} + +void order_unstr(tbl) + register STRFILE *tbl; +{ + register int i; + register unsigned char *sp; + auto int32_t pos; + char buf[BUFSIZ]; + int printedsome; + + for (i = 0; i <= tbl->str_numstr; i++) + { + fread((char *) &pos, 1, sizeof pos, Dataf); + fseek(Inf, ntohl(pos), 0); + printedsome = 0; + for (;;) + { + sp = fgets(buf, sizeof buf, Inf); + if (sp == NULL || STR_ENDSTRING(sp, *tbl)) + { + if (sp || printedsome) + fprintf(Outf, "%c\n", Delimch); + break; + } + else + { + printedsome = 1; + fputs(sp, Outf); + } + } + } +} + +int main(int ac, char **av) +{ + static STRFILE tbl; /* description table */ + + getargs(ac, av); + if ((Inf = fopen(Infile, "r")) == NULL) + { + perror(Infile); + exit(1); + } + if ((Dataf = fopen(Datafile, "r")) == NULL) + { + perror(Datafile); + exit(1); + } + if (*Outfile == '\0') + Outf = stdout; + else if ((Outf = fopen(Outfile, "w+")) == NULL) + { + perror(Outfile); + exit(1); + } + fread(&tbl.str_version, sizeof(tbl.str_version), 1, Dataf); + fread(&tbl.str_numstr, sizeof(tbl.str_numstr), 1, Dataf); + fread(&tbl.str_longlen, sizeof(tbl.str_longlen), 1, Dataf); + fread(&tbl.str_shortlen, sizeof(tbl.str_shortlen), 1, Dataf); + fread(&tbl.str_flags, sizeof(tbl.str_flags), 1, Dataf); + fread( tbl.stuff, sizeof(tbl.stuff), 1, Dataf); + if (!(tbl.str_flags & (STR_ORDERED | STR_RANDOM)) && (!NewDelch)) + { + fprintf(stderr, "nothing to do -- table in file order\n"); + exit(1); + } + if (NewDelch) + Delimch = NewDelch; + else + Delimch = tbl.str_delim; + order_unstr(&tbl); + fclose(Inf); + fclose(Dataf); + fclose(Outf); + exit(0); +} -- 2.40.0