Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
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 | |
Real computer scientists don't comment their code. The identifiers are so long they can't afford the disk space. | |
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." | |
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 | |
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 Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the soverign's power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance.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 | |
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 | |
... 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 | |
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 | |
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. | |
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. | |
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. | |
Why is it taking so long for her to bring out all the good in you? | |
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. | |
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. | |
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" | |
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" | |
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" | |
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. | |
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. | |
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" | |
The worst is not so long as we can say "This is the worst." -- King Lear | |
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 | |
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". | |
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 | |
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?" |