Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever depths they were once able to plumb. -- Stanley Kaufman | |
A certain amount of opposition is a help, not a hindrance. Kites rise against the wind, not with it. | |
Kites rise highest against the wind -- not with it. -- Winston Churchill | |
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 | |
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 | |
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 | |
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 | |
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. | |
There is nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure. -- Ross MacDonald | |
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 | |
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" | |
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 | |
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. | |
Early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead. -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" | |
The War Against Linux A significant obstacle on the path to Linux World Domination has emerged. A reactionary grass-roots movement has formed to fight, as they call it, "The War Against Linux". This movement, code-named "LinSux", is composed of people (mostly Microsoft stockholders and commercial software developers) who want to maintain the status quo. They are fighting back against the rise of Linux and free software which they see as a threat to their financial independence. The most damaging attack the LinSux folks have launched is "Three Mile Island", a Windows macro virus designed to inflict damage on computers that contain a partition devoted to a non-Microsoft OS. When the victim computer is booted into Windows, the virus activates and deletes any non-Microsoft partitions. Ironically, the many security flaws in Windows allow the virus to damage alternative operating systems but leave Windows unscathed. "The War Against Linux" has also been fought in more subtle ways. Time-tested methods of Linux advocacy have been turned into subtle forms of anti-Linux advocacy by the LinSux crowd. MSCEs are smuggling NT boxes into companies that predominantly use Linux or Unix. LinSux "freedom fighters" are rearranging books and software boxes on store shelves so that Microsoft offerings are displayed more prominently. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#7) The Rise of Geeks The late 19th Century saw the rise and fall of "geeks", wild carnival performers who bit the heads off live chickens. This vocal minority, outcast from mainstream society, clamored for respect, but failed. Their de facto spokesman, Tom Splatz, tried to expose America to their plight in his 312-page book, "Geeks". In the book Splatz documented the life of two Idahoan geeks with no social life as they made a meager living traveling the Pacific Northwest in circuses. While Splatz's masterpiece was a commercial failure, the book did set a world record for using the term "geek" a total of 6,143 times. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#11) Birth of Gates and the Anti-Gates October 28, 1955 saw the birth of William H. Gates, who would rise above his humble beginnings as the son of Seattle's most powerful millionaire lawyer and become the World's Richest Man(tm). A classic American rags-to-riches story (with "rags" referring to the dollar bills that the Gates family used for toilet paper), Bill Gates is now regarded as the world's most respected businessman by millions of clueless people that have obviously never touched a Windows machine. Nature is all about balance. The birth of Gates in 1955 tipped the cosmic scales toward evil, but the birth of Linus Torvalds in 1969 finally balanced them out. Linus' destiny as the savior of Unix and the slayer of money-breathing Redmond dragons was sealed when, just mere hours after his birth, the Unix epoch began January 1st, 1970. While the baseline for Unix timekeeping might be arbitrary, we here at Humorix like to thank the its proximity of Linus' birth is no coincidence. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#18) The rise and rise of the Microsoft Empire The DOS and Windows releases kept coming, and much to everyone's surprise, Microsoft became more and more successful. This brought much frustration to computer experts who kept predicting the demise of Microsoft and the rise of Macintosh, Unix, and OS/2. Nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft, which was the prime reason that DOS and Windows prevailed. Oh, and DOS had better games as well, which we all know is the most important feature an OS can have. In 1986 Microsoft's continued success prompted the company to undergo a wildly successful IPO. Afterwards, Microsoft and Chairman Bill had accumulated enough money to acquire small countries without missing a step, but all that money couldn't buy quality software. Gates could, however, buy enough marketing and hype to keep MS-DOS (Maybe Some Day an Operating System) and Windows (Will Install Needless Data On While System) as the dominant platforms, so quality didn't matter. This fact was demonstrated in Microsoft's short-lived slogan from 1988, "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1". | |
Early to bed and early to rise and you'll be groggy when everyone else is wide awake. | |
Some rise by sin and some by virtue fall. | |
Surly to bed, surly to rise, makes you about average. | |
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. Therefore having and not having arise together. Difficult and easy complement each other. Long and short contrast each other: High and low rest upon each other; Voice and sound harmonize each other; Front and back follow one another. Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking. The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease, Creating, yet not. Working, yet not taking credit. Work is done, then forgotten. Therefore it lasts forever. | |
Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind become still. The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return. They grow and flourish and then return to the source. Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature. The way of nature is unchanging. Knowing constancy is insight. Not knowing constancy leads to disaster. Knowing constancy, the mind is open. With an open mind, you will be openhearted. Being openhearted, you will act royally. Being royal, you will attain the divine. Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao. Being at one with the Tao is eternal. And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away. | |
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... | |
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? | |
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" | |
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. | |
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" |