Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
Jim, this is Matty down at Ralph's and Mark's. Some guy named Angel Martin just ran up a fifty buck bar tab. And now he wants to charge it to you. You gonna pay it? -- "The Rockford Files" | |
Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she lived with was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always getting pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to the farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd whimper and tug at their sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Do you think something's wrong? Do you think she wants us to follow her? What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, instead of every week. What with all the time these people spent pinned under the tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any crops whatsoever. They probably got by on federal crop supports, which Lassie filed the applications for. -- Dave Barry | |
Leslie West heads for the sticks, to Providence, Rhode Island and tries to hide behind a beard. No good. There are still too many people and too many stares, always taunting, always smirking. He moves to the outskirts of town. He finds a place to live -- huge mansion, dirt cheap, caretaker included. He plugs in his guitar and plays as loud as he wants, day and night, and there's no one to laugh or boo or even look bored. Nobody's cut the grass in months. What's happened to that caretaker? What neighborhood people there are start to talk, and what kids there are start to get curious. A 13 year-old blond with an angelic face misses supper. Before the summer's end, four more teenagers have disappeared. The senior class president, Barnard-bound come autumn, tells Mom she's going out to a movie one night and stays out. The town's up in arms, but just before the police take action, the kids turn up. They've found a purpose. They go home for their stuff and tell the folks not to worry but they'll be going now. They're in a band. -- Ira Kaplan | |
Who wants to remember that escape-x-alt-control-left shift-b puts you into super-edit-debug-compile mode? (Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands, especially Emacs.) | |
A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. -- Mark Twain | |
A classic is something that everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read. -- Mark Twain, "The Disappearance of Literature" | |
Our documentation manager was showing her 2 year old son around the office. He was introduced to me, at which time he pointed out that we were both holding bags of popcorn. We were both holding bottles of juice. But only *__he* had a lollipop. He asked his mother, "Why doesn't HE have a lollipop?" Her reply: "He can have a lollipop any time he wants to. That's what it means to be a programmer." | |
Shopping at this grody little computer store at the Galleria for a totally awwwesome Apple. Fer suuure. I mean Apples are nice you know? But, you know, there is this cute guy who works there and HE says that VAX's are cooler! I mean I don't really know, you know? He says that he has this totally tubular VAX at home and it's stuffed with memory-to-the-max! Right, yeah. And he wants to take me home to show it to me. Oh My God! I'm suuure. Gag me with a Prime! | |
Except for 75% of the women, everyone in the whole world wants to have sex. - Ellyn Mustard | |
"The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." -- William Stekel | |
Delta: A real man lands where he wants to. -- David Letterman | |
"I DO want your money, because god wants your money!" -- The Reverend Jimmy, from _Repo_Man_ | |
Mr. DePree also expects a "tremendous social change" in all workplaces. "When I first started working 40 years ago, a factory supervisor was focused on the product. Today it is drastically different, because of the social milieu. It isn't unusual for a worker to arrive on his shift and have some family problem that he doesn't know how to resolve. The example I like to use is a guy who comes in and says 'this isn't going to be a good day for me, my son is in jail on a drunk-driving charge and I don't know how to raise bail.' What that means is that if the supervisor wants productivity, he has to know how to raise bail." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 | |
...cyberpunk wants to see the mind as mechanistic & duplicable, challenging basic assumptions about the nature of individuality & self. That seems all the better reason to assume that cyberpunk art & music is essentially mindless garbagio. Willy certainly addressed this idea in "Count Zero," with Katatonenkunst, the automatic box-maker and the girl's observation that the real art was the building of the machine itself, rather than its output. -- Eliot Handelman | |
Everyone who comes in here wants three things: 1. They want it quick. 2. They want it good. 3. They want it cheap. I tell 'em to pick two and call me back. -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company in Delaware | |
Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organising and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office. -- David Broder | |
If you wants to get elected president, you'se got to think up some memoraboble homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin' it, even if they don't know what it means. -- Walt Kelly, "The Pogo Party" | |
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. -- Wilhelm Stekel | |
Thompson, if he is to be believed, has sampled the entire rainbow of legal and illegal drugs in heroic efforts to feel better than he does. As for the truth about his health: I have asked around about it. I am told that he appears to be strong and rosy, and steadily sane. But we will be doing what he wants us to do, I think, if we consider his exterior a sort of Dorian Gray facade. Inwardly, he is being eaten alive by tinhorn politicians. The disease is fatal. There is no known cure. The most we can do for the poor devil, it seems to me, is to name his disease in his honor. From this moment on, let all those who feel that Americans can be as easily led to beauty as to ugliness, to truth as to public relations, to joy as to bitterness, be said to be suffering from Hunter Thompson's disease. I don't have it this morning. It comes and goes. This morning I don't have Hunter Thompson's disease. -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Excerpt from "A Political Disease", Vonnegut's review of "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" | |
You first have to decide whether to use the short or the long form. The short form is what the Internal Revenue Service calls "simplified", which means it is designed for people who need the help of a Sears tax-preparation expert to distinguish between their first and last names. Here's the complete text: "(1) How much did you make? (AMOUNT) (2) How much did we here at the government take out? (AMOUNT) (3) Hey! Sounds like we took too much! So we're going to send an official government check for (ONE-FIFTEENTH OF THE AMOUNT WE TOOK) directly to the (YOUR LAST NAME) household at (YOUR ADDRESS), for you to spend in any way you please! Which just goes to show you, (YOUR FIRST NAME), that it pays to file the short form!" The IRS wants you to use this form because it gets to keep most of your money. So unless you have pond silt for brains, you want the long form. -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" | |
The world wants to be deceived. -- Sebastian Brant | |
Living in New York City gives people real incentives to want things that nobody else wants. -- Andy Warhol | |
We dedicate this book to our fellow citizens who, for love of truth, take from their own wants by taxes and gifts, and now and then send forth one of themselves as dedicated servant, to forward the search into the mysteries and marvelous simplicities of this strange and beautiful Universe, Our home. -- "Gravitation", Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler | |
Remember, DESSERT is spelled with two `s's while DESERT is spelled with one, because EVERYONE wants two desserts, but NO ONE wants two deserts. -- Miss Oglethorp, Gr. 5, PS. 59 | |
Blackout, heatwave, .44 caliber homicide, The bums drop dead and the dogs go mad in packs on the West Side, A young girl standing on a ledge, looks like another suicide, She wants to hit those bricks, 'cause the news at six got to stick to a deadline, While the millionaires hide in Beekman place, The bag ladies throw their bones in my face, I get attacked by a kid with stereo sound, I don't want to hear it but he won't turn it down... -- Billy Joel, "Glass Houses" | |
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed: the poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That's how it goes. Everybody knows. Everybody knows that the boat is leaking. Everybody knows the captain lied. Everybody got this broken feeling like their father or their dog just died. Everybody talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates and long stem rose. Everybody knows. Everybody knows that you love me, baby. Everybody knows that you really do. Everybody knows that you've been faithful, give or take a night or two. Everybody knows you've been discreet, but there were so many people you just had to meet without your clothes. And everybody knows. And everybody knows it's now or never. Everybody knows that it's me or you. And everybody knows that you live forever when you've done a line or two. Everybody knows the deal is rotten: Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton for you ribbons and bows. And everybody knows. -- Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows" | |
Got a wife and kids in Baltimore Jack, I went out for a ride and never came back. Like a river that don't know where it's flowing, I took a wrong turn and I just kept going. Everybody's got a hungry heart. Everybody's got a hungry heart. Lay down your money and you play your part, Everybody's got a hungry heart. I met her in a Kingstown bar, We fell in love, I knew it had to end. We took what we had and we ripped it apart, Now here I am down in Kingstown again. Everybody needs a place to rest, Everybody wants to have a home. Don't make no difference what nobody says, Ain't nobody likes to be alone. -- Bruce Springsteen, "Hungry Heart" | |
I can see him a'comin' With his big boots on, With his big thumb out, He wants to get me. He wants to hurt me. He wants to bring me down. But some time later, When I feel a little straighter, I'll come across a stranger Who'll remind me of the danger, And then.... I'll run him over. Pretty smart on my part! To find my way... In the dark! -- Phil Ochs | |
/\ SUN of them wants to use you, \\ \ / \ \\ / SUN of them wants to be used by you, / / \/ / //\ \//\ \// / SUN of them wants to abuse you, / / /\ / / \\ \ SUN of them wants to be abused ... \ \\ \/ -- Eurythmics | |
A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as "you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants to make a travesty of the game. -- Donald A. Metz | |
Every living thing wants to survive. -- Spock, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3 | |
No one wants war. -- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7 | |
Operation Desert Slash WASHINGTON, D.C. -- High officials in the US military are planning on putting the 'Slashdot Effect' to use against Iraq. Pentagon computer experts think that the Slashdot Effect could topple key Net-connected Iraqi computer systems. Such a Denial of Service attack could prove instrumental when the US invades. One Pentagon official said, "If I had a million dollars for every server that crashed as a result of being linked on Slashdot, I'd be richer than Bill Gates. The Slashdot Effect is a very powerful weapon that the US military wants to tap into." Rob Malda has been contacted by top military brass. According to anonymous sources, Malda will play a key part in the so-called "Operation Desert Slash". Supposedly Malda will post several Slashdot articles with links to critical Iraqi websites right when the US invasion is set to begin. Meanwhile, Pentagon operatives will begin a series of Denial of Service attacks on other key Iraqi computer systems. One source notes, "Since many Iraqi systems rely on Microsoft software, this task should be relatively simple." | |
Linux Dominates Academic Research A recent survey of colleges and high school reveals that Linux, Open Source Software, and Microsoft are favorite topics for research projects. Internet Censorship, a popular topic for the past two years, was supplanted by Biology of Penguins as another of this year's most popular subjects for research papers. "The Internet has changed all the rules," one college professor told Humorix. "Nobody wants to write papers about traditional topics like the death penalty, freedom of speech, abortion, juvenile crime, etc. Most of the research papers I've seen the past year have been computer related, and most of the reference material has come from the Net. This isn't necessarily good; there's a lot of crap on the Net. One student tried to use 'Bob's Totally Wicked Anti-Microsoft Homepage of Doom' and 'The Support Group for People Used by Microsoft' as primary sources of information for his paper about Microsoft." A high school English teacher added, "Plagarism is a problem with the Net. One of my students 'wrote' a brilliant piece about the free software revolution. Upon further inspection, however, almost everything was stolen from Eric S. Raymond's website. I asked the student, "What does noosphere mean?" He responded, 'New-what?' Needless to say, he failed the class." | |
Don't you see? This whole trial is a conspiracy concocted by Bill Gates. He knows that he stands to make even more billions if Microsoft is broken up into Baby Bills... just like Rockefeller did with Standard Oil, and stockholders did with Ma Bell. Bill Gates actually wants the DOJ to win. That's why he's been so arrogant in court; he wants Judge Jackson to throw the book at him! It will be a very lucrative book. The faked Windows video? His amnesia during the video deposition? It's all a ruse to fool Microsoft stockholders... and us. -- The ramblings of a resident Slashdot conspiracy nut in response to Judge Jackson's harsh Findings Of Fact against Microsoft | |
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#6) (Round 4, the Who Wants To Be A Billionaire? Round) ERIC RAYMOND (Moderator): Here's the second question: Who is the primary author of the world-renowned fetchmail program? [Bzzz] Yes, Hemos? HEMOS: Mr. Eric... Fetch of Cincinnati, Ohio. RAYMOND: No, no, no! The answer is me, me, me, you idiots! Sheesh. I'm resetting your points to zero for that. ALAN COX: Are you going to ask any questions that are not about you? RAYMOND: Um... let's see... yeah, there's one or two here... Okay, here's question three... What loud-mouthed hippie-spirtualist founder of the GNU Project keeps demanding that everybody use the crappy term "Free Software" instead of "Open Source"? [Bzzz] Yes, Anonymous Coward? ANONCOW: Eric Raymond! RAYMOND: Why you little [expletive]! I'm going to... | |
What I'd like to see is a prohibition on Microsoft incorporating multi-megabyte Easter Eggs and other stupid bloatware into Windows and Office. A typical computer with pre-installed Microsoft shoveware probably only has about 3 megabytes of hard drive space free because of flight simulators, pinball games, and multimedia credits Easter Eggs that nobody wants. I predict that if Microsoft is ever forced to remove these things, the typical user will actually be able to purchase competing software now that they have some free space to put it on. Of course, stock in hard drive companies might plummet... -- Anonymous Coward, when asked by Humorix for his reaction to the proposed Microsoft two-way split | |
The Socioeconomic Group Formerly Known As "Geeks" Nobody wants to be called a "geek" anymore. The label, once worn proudly by members of the tech community as a symbol of their separation from mainstream society, is now suddenly out of style. It all started last week when some clueless PR firm released a list of the "Top 100 Geeks", including such anti-geeks as Bill Gates, Janet Reno, Paul Allen, and Jeff "One-Click" Bezos. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that businessmen in South Korea are striving for the "Geek Chic" image by dressing like Bill Gates. Now that the Chief Bloatware Architect has been identified as a "geek", everybody else has bailed ship. Still undecided on a new label, the community now calls itself the S.E.G.K.A.G. (SocioEconomic Group formerly Known As Geeks). "I cannot tolerate belonging to the same subculture as Bill Gates!" explained one former geek. "If that manifestation of evil is called a 'geek', then so be it. I am now officially a nerd." | |
Class-Action Lawsuit Filed Against Linus Torvalds SILLYCON VALLEY -- Nearly 130 former system administrators have filed suit against Linus Torvalds in which they claim Linux cost them their jobs. Recently several companies migrated from Windows to Linux, increasing their productivity but decreasing the need for a large staff of tech workers, prompting a wave of layoffs. "The good old days when it required five full-time system administrators to maintain a Microsoft Exchange server are history, all because of that cancer known as Linux," explained the lead litigant in the lawsuit. "It all started two years ago when some pimply-faced idiot down in Accounting decided to smuggle in a Linux box to automate some of his work. Before long every tech-savvy person in Accounting, Billing, and Sales was secretly using Linux." "That's when the troubles started. Productivity soared. Downtime was limited to an average of three milliseconds per day. Macro viruses ceased to spread. It was horrible! The entire IT staff was replaced by one part-time bearded wonder, who was able to administrate the entire Linux network! Due to the layoffs, I'm now sitting in a homeless shelter with little hope to find work. Nobody wants to hire an MCSE anymore!" | |
Linux Distro To Include Pre-Installed Security Holes Proactive Synergy Paradigm, the Linux distro targeted at Pointy Haired Bosses, will now include built-in security flaws to better compete with Microsoft programs. "The sheer popularity of Windows, Outlook, and IIS clearly shows that people demand security holes large enough to drive a truck through," said Mr. Bert Dill of P.S.P. Inc. "We're going to do our best to offer what the consumer wants. Just as Microsoft stole ideas from Apple during the 1980's, we're stealing ideas from Microsoft today." Future releases of Proactive Synergy Linux will feature "LookOut! 1.0", a mail reader that automatically executes (with root privileges) e-mail attachments coded in Perl, JavaScript, Python, and Visual Basic. "Hey, if it works for Microsoft, it can work for us," boasted Mr. Dill. "Now PHBs won't have to stick with Windows in order to have their confidential files secretly emailed to their colleagues by a worm. Better yet, this capability allows viruses to automagically delete unnecessary files to save disk space without wasting the PHB's valuable time. | |
A person who has nothing looks at all there is and wants something. A person who has something looks at all there is and wants all the rest. | |
Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. | |
Everyone wants results, but no one is willing to do what it takes to get them. -- Dirty Harry | |
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. -- Oscar Wilde | |
Man belongs wherever he wants to go. -- Wernher von Braun | |
Nobody wants constructive criticism. It's all we can do to put up with constructive praise. | |
"Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt somebody else. He even told you he'd be hurt if..." "He was going to suck my blood!" "Which is what we do to anyone when we tell them we'll be hurt if they don't live our way." ... "The thing that puzzles you," he said, "is an accepted saying that happens to be impossible. The phrase is hurt somebody else. We choose, ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what. Us who decides. Nobody else. My vampire told you he'd be hurt if you didn't let him? That's his decision to be hurt, that's his choice. What you do about it is your decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake through his heart. If he doesn't want the holly stake, he's free to resist, in whatever way he wants. It goes on and on, choices, choices." "When you look at it that way..." "Listen," he said, "it's important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do." -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" | |
The idle mind knows not what it is it wants. -- Quintus Ennius | |
The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized -- and never knowing. -- David Viscott | |
"The 'C' language can order structure members anyway it wants." - Richard B. Johnson | |
"The 'C' language can order structure members anyway it wants." - Richard B. Johnson on linux-kernel | |
Richard B. Johnson wrote: > The 'C' language can order structure members anyway it wants. You are an idiot. - Rusty Russell on linux-kernel | |
A great country is like low land. It is the meeting ground of the universe, The mother of the universe. The female overcomes the male with stillness, Lying low in stillness. Therefore if a great country gives way to a smaller country, It will conquer the smaller country. And if a small country submits to a great country, It can conquer the great country. Therefore those who would conquer must yield, And those who conquer do so because they yield. A great nation needs more people; A small country needs to serve. Each gets what it wants. It is fitting for a great nation to yield. | |
-- Gifts for Children -- This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children, because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months and months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday- morning cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your children exactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If your child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You Can Rip Right Off, you'd better get it. You may be worried that it might help to encourage your child's antisocial tendencies, but believe me, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you've seen a child who is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" | |
My mother wants grandchildren, so I said, "Mom, go for it!" -- Sue Murphy | |
My ritual differs slightly. What I do, first thing [in the morning], is I hop into the shower stall. Then I hop right back out, because when I hopped in I landed barefoot right on top of See Threepio, a little plastic robot character from "Star Wars" whom my son, Robert, likes to pull the legs off of while he showers. Then I hop right back into the stall because our dog, Earnest, who has been alone in the basement all night building up powerful dog emotions, has come bounding and quivering into the bathroom and wants to greet me with 60 or 70 thousand playful nips, any one of which -- bear in mind that I am naked and, without my contact lenses, essentially blind -- could result in the kind of injury where you have to learn a whole new part if you want to sing the "Messiah," if you get my drift. Then I hop right back out, because Robert, with that uncanny sixth sense some children have -- you cannot teach it; they either have it or they don't -- has chosen exactly that moment to flush one of the toilets. Perhaps several of them. -- Dave Barry | |
What really shapes and conditions and makes us is somebody only a few of us ever have the courage to face: and that is the child you once were, long before formal education ever got its claws into you -- that impatient, all-demanding child who wants love and power and can't get enough of either and who goes on raging and weeping in your spirit till at last your eyes are closed and all the fools say, "Doesn't he look peaceful?" It is those pent-up, craving children who make all the wars and all the horrors and all the art and all the beauty and discovery in life, because they are trying to achieve what lay beyond their grasp before they were five years old. -- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels" | |
<Kensey> RMS for President??? <RelDrgn> ...or ESR, he wants a new job ;) | |
There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast. | |
* joeyh wonders why everyone wants to know how tall he is <james> joeyh: it helps the sniper | |
<doogie> cat /dev/random | perl ? <shaleh> doogie: it is also a valid sendmail.cf <doogie> :) * knghtbrd hands doogie a senseless-use-of-cat award * shaleh wants to try it but is afraid | |
* shortc wants to get in one of knghtbrd's sigs one of these days. | |
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?" | |
Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods. -- Socrates | |
Who wants to remember that escape-x-alt-control-left shift-b puts you into super-edit-debug-compile mode? -- Discussion on the intuitiveness of commands, especially Emacs | |
Everyone who comes in here wants three things: (1) They want it quick. (2) They want it good. (3) They want it cheap. I tell 'em to pick two and call me back. -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company | |
Mundus vult decipi decipiatur ergo. -- Xaviera Hollander [The world wants to be cheated, so cheat.] | |
The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it. -- Theodore Roosevelt | |
He probably just wants to take over my CELLS and then EXPLODE inside me like a BARREL of runny CHOPPED LIVER! Or maybe he'd like to PSYCHOLIGICALLY TERRORISE ME until I have no objection to a RIGHT-WING MILITARY TAKEOVER of my apartment!! I guess I should call AL PACINO! |