The Quotes Basement
Sub-Level 3


'Words are the only bullets in truths bandolier.
And poets are the snipers'
-George Wu

'The Gods did not create us in their image; we created them in ours.'

'Sometimes honour is found in the places where there is the least glory.'
-Tamora Pierce

'Chivalry is the most delicate form of contempt.'
-Albert Guerard (Bottle in the Sea, Harvard)

'You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed.'
-John Irving (The Hotel New Hampshire Dutton)

For the happiest life, days should be rigorously planned, nights left open to chance.

'I know you, not your name, but your game, I know the true you.'

'Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it.'
-Jerome K. Jerome

"There are bugs and then there are bugs. And then there are bugs."
-Karl Lehenbauer

'Mandkind fears the darkness so he scrapes away at the edges of it with fire'

'The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exsist'

'Those who truely understand need no explanation.
Those who need explaination will never understand.'
-To Ride Pegasus

'Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.'
-Washington Irving

The day will happen whether or not you get up.
-John Ciardi (Reader's Digest May)

Ever heard of the agnostic,dyslexic insomniac who stays awake all night wondering if Dog exists?

"Life begins when you can spend your spare time programming instead of watching television."
-Cal Keegan

"The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward."
-John Maynard Keynes

'There is no great genius without some touch of madness.'
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Moral Essays)

The part of the world that people find most puzzling is the part called "Me".

'There's sure no passion in the human soul, But finds it's food in music.'
-George Lillo

'Just because a solution satisfies a problem, never accept that it must be the only solution'
-Magician

'If we did all things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves'
-Thomas Edison

'The biggest fool is the one who thinks there is such a thing as fake music'
-Dalwitz

I don't hate anyone. I dislike. But my dislike is the equivalent of anyone else's hate.

'The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist.'
-Marshall McLuhan

'Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.'
-Gabrielle Chaniel

'That is not dead, which can eternal lie, yet with strange eons, even death can die.'

'Unfortunately, aging seem to be the only available way for one to live a long time'

"What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke."
-Steve Martin

"The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones."
-Nathaniel Howe

'From the traveler who looks back,
the Gods take one eye;
From the traveler who looks back,
they take both

'Happy is the person who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused'

'There arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind'
-Francis Bacon

'The First Law of Computing:
To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.'
-Rossiter

'The past is history
The future is a mystery
And today is a gift
That's why it's called the Present'

'The light only shines in the dark. And sometimes innocence is just an excuse for the guilty'
-StarTrek

"Hats off, gentlemen - a genius!"
-Robert Schumann (On fist hearing Frederic Chopin's music, 1831)

"I prefer neurotic people. I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface."
-Stephen Sondheim (Newsweek 23 Apr)

People don't choose their careers; they are engulfed by them.
- John Dos Passos (NY Times 25 Oct)

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on thee and I'll forgive thy great big one on me.

'Music and silence...combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music'
-Aaron Copland

'Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.'

This town isn't big enough to act like a maniac too often or you get a REPUTATION.

'All books are either dreams or swords, You can cut, or you can drug, with words.'
-Amy Lowell

In the end nobody will blame you. Because in the end there is nobody.

'Since when was genius found respectable?'
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Aurora Leigh bk VI, 1857)

Question: "Which is worse - ignorance or apathy?"
Response: "I don't know and I don't care"

'A dream is an answer to a question we haven't yet learn't how to ask'
-the X-files

'life is a cigarette, you smoke it till the end'
-Supergrass ( Pumpin on your stereo)

"They call them "squares" because it's the most complicated shape they can deal with."

'Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.'
-John Lehman (Secretary of the Navy, 1981-1987)

"Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a receipt."

"The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice."
-Mark Twain

'... the heat come 'round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day.'

Kludge, n.: An ill-assorted collection of poorly-matching parts, forming a distressing whole.
-Jackson Granholm ("Datamation")

Nachman's Rule:
When it comes to foreign food, the less authentic the better.
-Gerald Nachman

'It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it.'
-Steven Wright

"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."
-John Kenneth Galbraith

love, n.:
When it's growing, you don't mind watering it with a few tears.

"The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions."
-Alfred Adler

'Man will never fly. Space travel is merely a dream. All aspirin is alike.'

"Somehow I reached excess without ever noticing when I was passing through satisfaction."
-Ashleigh Brilliant

"How can you govern a nation which has 246 kinds of cheese?"
-Charles de Gaulle

'You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.'
-William Blake

'Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.'
-Mark Twain

'Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive.'

"You've got to think about tomorrow!"
"TOMORROW! I haven't even prepared for *_yesterday_* yet!"

Law of Continuity:
Experiments should be reproducible. They should all fail the same way.

"'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability."
-George Bernard Shaw

"Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?"
-Indiana Jones ("Raiders of the Lost Ark")

'Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.'

"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first universe."
-Carl Sagan, Cosmos

"It seems intuitively obvious to me, which means that it might be wrong."
-Chris Torek

'Optimism is the content of small men in high places.'
-F. Scott Fitzgerald ("The Crack Up")

"Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it is an enemy."
-Albert Einstein

"Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which otherwise require harder thinking."
-Jerome Lettvin

'Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you from enjoying it.'

"Optimisim is a drug taken by fools and those who have been awake too long."

"Life is just a bowl of cherries, but why do I always get the pits?"

"Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop writing."
-R. Geis

"Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent."
-George Orwell ("Reflections on Gandhi")

'While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.'

'He is considered a most graceful speaker who can say nothing in the most words.'

"All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right hands."
-Saint Patrick

"One of the worst of my many faults is that I'm too critical of myself."

"A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself."
-Du Bois

"Cops never say good-bye. They're always hoping to see you again in the line-up."
-Raymond Chandler

"The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power. "
-William Shakespeare ("Julius Caesar")

Bore, n.:
A guy who wraps up a two-minute idea in a two-hour vocabulary.
-Walter Winchell

"I have an existential map. It has 'You are here' written all over it."
-Steven Wright

love, n.:
When you don't want someone too close--because you're very sensitive to pleasure.

"Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs, then they'd be algorithms."

An efficient and a successful administration manifests itself equally in small as in great matters.
-W. Churchill

"I think trash is the most important manifestation of culture we have in my lifetime."
-Johnny Legend

"A freelance is one who gets paid by the word -- per piece or perhaps."
-Robert Benchley

'My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells down by the seashore.'

'And then there was the lawyer that stepped in cow manure and thought he was melting...'

On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague:
"This isn't right. This isn't even wrong."
-Wolfgang Pauli

"It's the good girls who keep the diaries, the bad girls never have the time."
-Tallulah Bankhead

'Please don't put a strain on our friendship by asking me to do something for you.'

"The propriety of some persons seems to consist in having improper thoughts about their neighbours."
-F.H. Bradley

'The difference between reality and unreality is that reality has so little to recommend it.'
-Allan Sherman

"I love you more than anything in this world. I don't expect that will last."
-Elvis Costello

The trouble with a kitten is that
When it grows up, it's always a cat
-Ogden Nash.

Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you wish you weren't.

"The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom."
-H.L. Mencken

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
-William James

'By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task completely overwhelm you.'

"I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either."
-Jack Benny

"The student in question is performing minimally for his peer group and is an emerging underachiever."

"If swimming is so good for your figure, how come whales look the way they do?"

"Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem."
-P.D. Ouspensky

"You know what they say -- the sweetest word in the English language is revenge."
-Peter Beard

"What good is an obscenity trial except to popularize literature?"
-Nero Wolfe ("The League of Frightened Men")

Bumper sticker:
All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British manufacture.

'The opulence of the front office door varies inversely with the fundamental solvency of the firm.'

FLASH!
Intelligence of mankind decreasing.
Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the ....

BYTE editors are people who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then carefully print the chaff.

"Sometimes when you look into his eyes you get the feeling that someone else is driving."
-David Letterman

"The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing."
-Mr. Cole's Axiom

"In a whiskey it's age, in a cigarette it's taste and in a sports car it's impossible."

"No one so thoroughly appreciates the value of constructive criticism as the one who's giving it."
-Hal Chadwick

'Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.'
-Dr. Laurence J. Peter

"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
-John Cage

"The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason that He makes so many of them."
-Abraham Lincoln

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
-S. Johnson ("The Life of Samuel Johnson" by J. Boswell)

"Early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead."
-Terry Pratchett ("The Light Fantastic")

"The appreciation of the average visual graphisticator alone is worth the whole suaveness and decadence which abounds!!"

Kinkler's First Law:
Responsibility always exceeds authority.
Kinkler's Second Law:
All the easy problems have been solved.

'Never, ever lie to someone you love unless you're absolutely sure they'll never find out the truth.'

"There goes the good time that was had by all."
-Bette Davis (remarking on a passing starlet)

'In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save.'
-Paul's Law

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Hate me because I'm beautiful, smart and rich."
-Calvin Keegan

'Alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine are weak dilutions. The surest poison is time.'
-Emerson ("Society and Solitude")

"Talent does what it can, genius what it must. I do what I get paid to do."
-QOTD

" - Un dessein si funestre,
S'il n'est digne d'Aree, est digne de Thyeste."
-Crebillon (Atree)

To survive you have to know the difference between your friends and you enemies.

'Television: a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well done.'
-Ernie Kovacs

'Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television."
-Rita Mae Brown (American writer)

"The answers to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle - they're on TV."
-Homer Simpson

"I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts."
-Orson Welles

"One of the greatest achievements in a materialistic society is to be content with what we have,"
-P.K.Shaw

'Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.'
Confucius (Analects)

'Man blames most accidents on fate - but feels a more personal responsibility when he makes a hole-in-one.'

"Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great."

A lot of people get what they want, but they don't always want what they get.

With your heads all on backwards you can see in front for what near behind you lies.

"When a man is tired of London he is tired of life."
-Dr Samuel Johnson (1777)

'Sometimes you kill crickets thinking they're cockroaches. The time has come to tread carefully'

"Whenever I'm talking to christians, I say 'Explain dinosaurs!' That shuts them up for over an hour."


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