"I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three." Elayne Boosler "Why is it that when we talk to God we're said to be praying, but when God talks to us we're schizophrenic?" Lily Tomlin "Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant? I'm halfway through my fishburger and I realize, Oh my God...I could be eating a slow learner." Lynda Montgomery "I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her." Ellen DeGeneres "I was a vegetarian until I started leaning towards sunlight." Rita Rudner "I'm a psychic amnesiac. I know in advance what I'll forget." Michael McShane "I had a linguistics professor who said that it's man's ability to use language that makes him the dominant species on the planet. That may be. But I think there's one other thing that separates us from animals. We aren't afraid of vacuum cleaners." Jeff Stilson "I don't kill flies but I like to mess with their minds. I hold them above globes. They freak out and yell, 'Whoa, I'm way too high!' " Bruce Baum While you are away, movie stars are taking your women. Robert Redford is dating your girlfriend, Tom Selleck is kissing your lady, Bart Simpson is making love to your wife. Clueless Iraqi radio announcer, Baghdad Betty, trying to demoralize American Gulf War troops. I want to be reincarnated as your tampon Prince Charles, 1991 You always write it's bombing, bombing, bombing. It's not bombing, it's air support. Air Force Colonel David Opfer, complaining to reporters about their coverage of the Vietnam War. Capital punishment is our societies recognition of the sanctity of human life. Orrin Hatch, Senator from Utah. Don't be humble. You're not that great. Golda Meir It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by resorting to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry. H. L. Mencken I think that the undecideds could go one way or the other. George Bush, 1988 (obviously Dan Quayle's advice) We may be finding that in some blacks, when the choke hold is applied, the veins or arteries do not open up like in normal people. Daryl Gates, former L.A. police chief and complete idiot. I'm not against the blacks, and a lot of the good blacks will attest to that. Evan Mecham, then governor of Arizona Honest businessmen should be protected from the unscrupulous consumer. Lester Maddox, then governer of Georgia, on why his state should not create a consumer protection agency. Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country. Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, D.C. I did what any normal person would do at that age. You call home. You call home to mother and father and say, "I'd like to get into the National Guard." Dan Quayle, vice-presidential hopeful, defending his National Guard service during the Vietnam War. Casual drug users should be taken out and shot. Daryl Gates, Asshole Deluxe. I didn't inhale. Presidential candidate Bill Clinton Who ever heard of Casablanca? I don't want to star opposite some unknown Swedish broad. George Raft, on the role of Rick in Casablanca. Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own. Aristotle Ward, come upstairs and talk to The Beaver. June (Mrs. Frisky) Cleaver I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy. But that could change. Vice-President Dan Quayle I was not lying. I said things that later on seemed to be untrue. Richard Nixon, discussing Watergate in 1978 A woman, occasionally, is quite a serviceable substitute for masturbation. Karl Kraus Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life. Brooke Shields, on why she wanted to become spokesperson for a federal antismoking campaign. It is more profitable for your congressman to support the tobacco industry than your life. Jackie Mason Isn't there any other part of the matzo you can eat? Marilyn Monroe, after being served matzoball soup three meals in a row. My work is done, why wait? Suicide note of Kodak founder George Eastman Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It's not fair that some men should be happier than others. Oscar Wilde A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted. Helen Rowland I love California. I grew up in Phoenix. Vice-President Dan Quayle Everyday people are straying away from the church and going back to God. Lenny Bruce Bite the wax tadpole. Coca-Cola name as originally translated into Chinese (later changed to "May the mouth rejoice"). Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave. Ad slogan "Pepsi comes alive" as initially translated into Chinese. If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war. Senior Pentagon official, explaining why the U.S. military censored footage showing Iraqi soldiers sliced in two by U.S. helicopter fire. They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist... Last words of Union commander General John Sedgwick, spoken as he was watching enemy troops at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something else anyway. Othal Brand, member of a Texas pesticide review board, on Chlordane. I have no weakness for shoes. I wear very simple shoes which are pump shoes. It is not one of my weaknesses. Imelda Marcos, owner of 3,400 pairs of shoes. Facts are stupid things. Ronald Reagan Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to fifteen years, with time off for good behavior? New York Senator James H. Donovan commenting on capital punishment. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind. General William Westmoreland on why the media should be controlled in wartime. I stand by all the misstatements. Dan Quayle, then vice-presidential hopeful, defending his verbal gaffes. For the Majority of people, the use of tobacco has a beneficial effect." Dr. Ian G. Macdonald, Los Angeles surgeon, Nov. 18, 1963. "Man will never reach the moon, regardless of all future scientific advances" Dr. Lee DeForest, inventor of the Audion tube and a father of radio, Feb. 25, 1967. "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." Irving Fisher, professor of economics, Yale University, Oct. 17, 1929. "Computers in the future may perhaps only weigh 1.5 tons" Popular Mechanics, forecasting the development of computer technology, 1949. "I have no political ambitions for myself or my children" Joseph P. Kennedy, 1936. "What use could this company make of an electrical toy?" Western Union president William Orton, rejecting Alexander Graham Bell's offer to sell his struggling telephone company to Western Union for $100,000. "Radio has no future" Lord Kelvin, Scottish mathematician and physicist, former president of the Royal Society, 1897. "Nobody now fears that a Japanese fleet could deal an unexpected blow on our Pacific possessions...Radio makes surprise impossible." Josephus Daniels, former U.S. secretary of the Navy, Oct. 16, 1922. "The election of Hoover...should result in continued prosperity for 1929" Roger W. Babson, American financial statistician and founder of the Bason Institute, Sept. 17, 1928. "We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out." Decca Records rejecting the Beatles, 1962. "I confess that in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years...Ever since, I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions." Wilbur Wright, U.S. aviation pioneer, 1908. "The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty...a fad." A president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Horace Rackham (Henry Ford's Lawyer), not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903. Rackham ignored the advice, bought $5,000 worth of stock and sold it several years later for $12.5 million. "I must confess that my imagination...refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea" H. G. Wells, British novelist, 1901. "Believe me, Germany is unable to wage war." Former British prime minister David Lloyd George, Aug. 1, 1934. "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French military strategist and future World War I commander, 1911. "Everything that can be invented has been invented." Charles H. Duell, U.S. commissioner of patents, 1899. "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" Harry M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927. "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977. "Today Germany is ours, and tomorrow, the whole world!" Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925-1926. "The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Samson's time." Richard Nixon "You can fight against evil, but you're helpless against stupidity." Henry Miller "Every free citizen is an ENEMY of the STATE." Kurt J. Robertson It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in 5 years. John Von Neumann (ca. 1949) "True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends But in the worth and choice" Ben Jonson "Cynthia's Revels" act III, sc.ii A day without a pun is a day without sunshine; there is gloom for improvement. John S. Crosbie Every time I try to define a perfectly stable person, I am appalled by the dullness of that person. J.D. Griffin "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all the people some of the time, which is just long enough to be president of the United States." A critic is a man who writes about things he doesn't like. H. L. Mencken 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 Asking a working writer what he feels about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs. John Osborne A drama critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned. George Bernard Shaw Any fool can criticize, and many of them do. Cyril Garbett A drama critic is a person who surprises a playwright by informing him what he meant. Wilson Mizner If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati Everything comes there ten years later. Will Rogers 95% of this game is half mental. Yogi Berra When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear. Mark Twain All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power. Ashleigh Brilliant It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. Kehlog Albran The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. Albert Einstein We don't have to protect the environment. the Second Coming is at hand. James Watt "We can't really be wrong if we're just following Gods orders. You know, He wrote this book here. And in this book He says that He made us to be just like Him. So if we're dumb, then God's dumb (and perhaps a little ugly on the side)." Frank Zappa "The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun." Buckminster Fuller "God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." Voltaire "The nuclear bomb took all the fun out of war." Edward Abbey If two wrongs don't make a right, try three. Nixon's Principle Why is it that there are so many more horses' asses than horses? Liddy Feminism: 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 This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." Western Union internal memo, 1876. "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s. "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a "C," the idea must be feasible." A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp. "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind." "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies. "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895. "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3M "Post-It" Notepads.(tm) "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer. "Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work. "You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training." Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus. "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859. "I think there's a world market for about five computers." Thomas J Watson, Chairman of the Board, IBM. "The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives." Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project. "This fellow Charles Lindbergh will never make it. He's doomed." Harry Guggenheim, millionaire aviation enthusiast. "I deny that I said that actors are like cattle. I said that they should be treated like cattle." Alfred Hitchcock "I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough." M. C. Escher The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. George Bernard Shaw "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, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal "Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done." Andy Rooney In fact, one thing that I have noticed...is that all of these conspiracy theories depend on the perpetrators being endlessly clever. I think you'll find the facts also work if you assume everyone is endlessly stupid. Brian E. Moore When _I_ come upon anything-- in Logic or in any other hard subject-- that entirely puzzles me, I find it a capital plan to talk it over, _aloud_, even when I am all alone. One can explain things so _clearly_ to one's self! And then, you know, one is so _patient_ with one's self: one _never_ gets irritated at one's own stupidity! Lewis Carroll University President: "Why is it that you physicists always require so much expensive equipment? Now the Department of Mathematics requires nothing but money for paper, pencils, and erasers...and the Department of Philosophy is better still. It doesn't even ask for erasers." Told by Isaac Asimov We seem to have achieved the remarkable situation where nearly half the population is telling the other half what it should be doing and thinking, and checking up that it is doing it. Phillip, The Duke of Edinburgh, The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different. Aldous Huxley Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves. Peter McArthur "Social gains," "social aims," "social objectives" have become the daily bromides of our language. The necessity of a social justification for all activities and all existence is now taken for granted. There is no proposal outrageous enough but what its author can get a respectful hearing and approbation if he claims that in some undefined way it is for "the common good." Ayn Rand We owe most of what we know to about one hundred men. We owe most of what we have suffered to another hundred or so. R.W. Dickson A print addict is a man who reads in elevators. People occasionally look at me curiously when they see me standing there, reading a paragraph or two as the elevator goes up. To me, it's curious that there are people who do not read in elevators. What can they be thinking about? Robert Fulford You know what misery I went through there, listening to lawyers day and night. If you'd had experience of them yourself, as brave as you think you are, you'd have preferred to clean out the Augean stables... Seneca Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. Arthur C. Clarke Methusalem might be half an hour in telling what o'clock it was: but as for us postdiluvians, we ought to do everything in haste; and in our speeches, as well as actions, remember that our time is short. Sir Richard Steele Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen. Bob Edwards 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 Jay Gould All this progress is marvelous...now if only it wouldstop! Allan Lamport "The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit." Maugham The direct use of force is so poor a solution to the problems of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations. David Friedman Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all. Charles Babbage The lecturer should give the audience full reason to believe that all his powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction. Michael Faraday The real danger from advertising is that it helps to shatter and ultimately destroy our most precious non-material possessions: the confidence in the existence of meaningful purposes of human activity and respect for the integrity of man. Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one. Seneca Physics is becoming so unbelievably complex that it is taking longer and longer to train a physicist. It is taking so long, in fact, to train a physicist to the place where he understands the nature of physical problems that he is already too old to solve them. Eugene Wigner America is a country that doesn't know where it is going but is determined to set a speed record getting there. Laurence J. Peter You have perhaps heard the story of the four students, British, French, American, Canadian, who were asked to write an essay on elephants. The British student entitled his essay "Elephants and the Empire." The French student called his "Love and the Elephant." The title of the American student's essay was "Bigger and Better Elephants," and the Canadian student called his "Elephants: A Federal or Provincial Responsibility?" Robert H. Winters Someone once said that the two most important things in developing taste were sensitivity and intelligence. I don't think this is so; I'd rather call them curiosity and courage. Curiosity to look for the new and the hidden; courage to develop your own tastes regardless of what others might say or think. R. Murray Schafer The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. Ralph W. Sockman Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly. Arnold Edinborough There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult. C.A.R. Hoare The UNIX system has the command, nice, which allows a user to voluntarily reduce the priority of his process, in order to be nice to the other users. Nobody ever uses it. Joules. "It's kinda funny. When I see my name anywhere, it's (often) the '60's this or the '60's that. I can't figure out sometimes if people think I'm dead or alive" Bob Dylan, 1985 interview Do not needlessly endanger your lives until ordered to do so. Dwight D. Eisenhower I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation. George Benard Shaw The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is modest about it. James Agee A few Mark Twain quotes... Familiarity breeds contempt...and children. The critic's symbol should be the tumble-bug; he deposits his egg in somebody else's dung, otherwise he could not hatch it. Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in. It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. Satan hasn't a single salaried helper; the opposition employs a million. Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. (Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.) Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. (The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.) It is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them. A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired. 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." Methuselah lived to be 969 years old. You boys and girls will see more in the next fifty years than Methuselah saw in his whole lifetime. It is not best that we should all think alike; it is differences of opinion that make horse races. There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist. Be virtuous and you will be eccentric. It is better to have old, second hand diamonds than none at all And last but certainly not least... Anarchy is better than no government at all. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt Prejudice is the reason of fools. Voltaire Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. P.J. O'Rourke "I had a dream this afternoon, that the brotherhood of man, will become a reality. In this day, with this faith, I will go out and carve the tunnel of hope, through the mountain of despair. With this faith, I will go out with you and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. With this faith, we will be able to achieve this new day, when all of God's children, black men and white men, jews and gentiles, Protestans and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing with the negroes, in the spiritual of old. Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we're free at last." Martin Luther King Jr. |
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