Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
The Analytical Engine weaves Algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves. -- Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace, the first programmer | |
Sweet April showers do spring May flowers. -- Thomas Tusser | |
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" | |
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" | |
For thee the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers. -- Titus Lucretius Carus | |
[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. | |
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.] | |
Artificial intelligence has the same relation to intelligence as artificial flowers have to flowers. -- David Parnas | |
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" | |
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 | |
Say it with flowers, Or say it with mink, But whatever you do, Don't say it with ink! -- Jimmie Durante | |
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 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 | |
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. | |
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" | |
What good is it if you talk in flowers, and they think in pastry? -- Ashleigh Brilliant | |
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 | |
A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom. -- Parkinson | |
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... | |
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?" |