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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

The Great Movie Posters:

The nightmare terror of the slithering eye that unleashed agonizing
horror on a screaming world!
                -- The Crawling Eye (1958)

SEE a female colossus... her mountainous torso, scyscraper limbs,
giant desires!
                -- Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman (1958)

Here Is Your Chance To Know More About Sex.
What Should a Movie Do?  Hide Its Head in the Sand Like an Ostrich?
Or Face the JOLTING TRUTH as does...
                -- The Desperate Women (1958)
Yeah, that's me, Tracer Bullet.  I've got eight slugs in me.  One's lead,
the rest bourbon.  The drink packs a wallop, and I pack a revolver.  I'm
a private eye.
                -- "Calvin & Hobbes"
If anyone has seen my dog, please contact me at x2883 as soon as possible.
We're offering a substantial reward.  He's a sable collie, with three legs,
blind in his left eye, is missing part of his right ear and the tip of his
tail.  He's been recently fixed.  Answers to "Lucky".
We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength.  But there was
also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle Haggard song at a
French restaurant. [...]
        I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk
white BMW and her Jordache smile.  There had been a fight.  I had punched her
boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls.  Everyone told him, "You ride the
bull, senor.  You do not fight it."  But he was lean and tough like a bad
rib-eye and he fought the bull.  And then he fought me.  And when we finished
there were no winners, just men doing what men must do. [...]
        "Stop the car," the girl said.
        There was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes.  She knew about the
woman of the tollway.  I knew not how.  I started to speak, but she raised an
arm and spoke with a quiet and peace I will never forget.
        "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the tollway
belle's for thee."
        The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie.
Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured whiskey
onto my granola and faced a new day.
                -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway
                   Competition
A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen
objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer
scientists.  Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration
needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects.
What to do in case of an alien attack:

    1)   Hide beneath the seat of your plane and look away.
    2)   Avoid eye contact.
    3) If there are no eyes, avoid all contact.

-- The Firesign Theatre, _Everything you know is Wrong_
"The stars are made of the same atoms as the earth."  I usually pick one small
topic like this to give a lecture on.  Poets say science takes away from the
beauty of the stars -- mere gobs of gas atoms.  Nothing is "mere."  I too can
see the stars on a desert night, and feel them.  But do I see less or more?
The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination -- stuck on this carousel
my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light.  A vast pattern -- of which
I am a part -- perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one
is belching there.  Or see them with the greater eye of Palomar, rushing all
apart from some common starting point when they were perhaps all together.
What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the *why?*  It does not do harm to the
mystery to know a little about it.  For far more marvelous is the truth than
any artists of the past imagined!  Why do the poets of the present not speak
of it?  What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but
if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
-- Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988)
A serious public debate about the validity of astrology?  A serious believer
in the White House?  Two of them?  Give me a break.  What stifled my laughter
is that the image fits.  Reagan has always exhibited a fey indifference toward
science.  Facts, like numbers, roll off his back.  And we've all come to
accept it.  This time it was stargazing that became a serious issue....Not
that long ago, it was Reagan's support of Creationism....Creationists actually
got equal time with evolutionists.  The public was supposed to be open-minded
to the claims of paleontologists and fundamentalists, as if the two were
scientific colleagues....It has been clear for a long time that the president
is averse to science...In general, these attitudes fall onto friendly American
turf....But at the outer edges, this skepticism about science easily turns
into a kind of naive acceptance of nonscience, or even nonsense.  The same
people who doubt experts can also believe any quackery, from the benefits of
laetrile to eye of newt to the movment of planets.  We lose the capacity to
make rational -- scientific -- judgments.  It's all the same.
-- Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe Newspaper Company-Washington Post Writers
    Group
"If you ever want to get anywhere in politics, my boy, you're going to
have to get a toehold in the public eye."
No, my friend, the way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it
all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly
the functions he is competent to.  It is by dividing and subdividing these
republics from the national one down through all its subordinations, until it
ends in the administration of every man's farm by himself; by placing under
every one what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best.
                -- Thomas Jefferson, to Joseph Cabell, 1816
Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers
in heavy weather for several days.  I was serving on the lead battleship and
was on watch on the bridge as night fell.  The visibility was poor with patchy
fog, so the Captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities.
        Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported,
"Light, bearing on the starboard bow."
        "Is it steady or moving astern?" the Captain called out.
        Lookout replied, "Steady, Captain," which meant we were on a dangerous
collision course with that ship.
        The Captain then called to the signalman, "Signal that ship: We are on
a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees."
        Back came a signal "Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees."
        In reply, the Captain said, "Send: I'm a Captain, change course 20
degrees!"
        "I'm a seaman second class," came the reply, "You had better change
course 20 degrees."
        By that time, the Captain was furious. He spit out, "Send: I'm a
battleship, change course 20 degrees."
        Back came the flashing light: "I'm a lighthouse!"
        We changed course.
                -- The Naval Institute's "Proceedings"
Beauty:
        What's in your eye when you have a bee in your hand.
Cynic, n.:
        One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye.
Spirtle, n.:
        The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in your eye.
                -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
Me-ism:
        A search by an individual, in the absence of training in
traditional religious tenets, to formulate a personally tailored
religion by himself.  Most frequently a mishmash of reincarnation,
personal dialogue with a nebulously defined god figure, naturalism,
and karmic eye-for-eye attitudes.
                -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
                   Culture"
Q:        Why do the police always travel in threes?
A:        One to do the reading, one to do the writing, and the other keeps
        an eye on the two intellectuals.
Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles, called
electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been
drinking.  Electrons travel at the speed of light, which in most American
homes is 110 volts per hour.  This is very fast.  In the time it has taken
you to read this sentence so far, an electron could have traveled all the
way from San Francisco to Hackensack, New Jersey, although God alone knows
why it would want to.

The five main kinds of electricity are alternating current, direct current,
lightning, static, and European.  Most American homes have alternating
current, which means that the electricity goes in one direction for a while,
then goes in the other direction.  This prevents harmful electron buildup in
the wires.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
        In the beginning there was only one kind of Mathematician, created by
the Great Mathamatical Spirit form the Book: the Topologist.  And they grew to
large numbers and prospered.
        One day they looked up in the heavens and desired to reach up as far
as the eye could see.  So they set out in building a Mathematical edifice that
was to reach up as far as "up" went.  Further and further up they went ...
until one night the edifice collapsed under the weight of paradox.
        The following morning saw only rubble where there once was a huge
structure reaching to the heavens.  One by one, the Mathematicians climbed
out from under the rubble.  It was a miracle that nobody was killed; but when
they began to speak to one another, SUPRISE of all suprises! they could not
understand each other.  They all spoke different languages.  They all fought
amongst themselves and each went about their own way.  To this day the
Topologists remain the original Mathematicians.
                -- The Story of Babel
The astronomer Francesco Sizi, a contemporary of Galileo, argues that
Jupiter can have no satellites:

        There are seven windows in the head, two nostrils, two ears, two
eyes, and a mouth; so in the heavens there are two favorable stars, two
unpropitious, two luminaries, and Mercury alone undecided and indifferent.
From which and many other similar phenomena of nature such as the seven
metals, etc., which it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number
of planets is necessarily seven. [...]
        Moreover, the satellites are invisible to the naked eye and
therefore can have no influence on the earth and therefore would be useless
and therefore do not exist.
While it may be true that a watched pot never boils, the one you don't
keep an eye on can make an awful mess of your stove.
                -- Edward Stevenson
All I need to have a good time,
Is a reefer, a woman and a bottle of wine.
With those three things I don't need no sunshine,
A reefer, a woman and a bottle of wine.

All I want is to never grow old,
I want to wash in a bathtub of gold.
I want 97 kilos already rolled,
I want to wash in a bathtub of gold.

I want to light my cigars with 10 dollar bills,
I like to have a cattle ranch in Beverly Hills.
I want a bottle of Red Eye that's always filled,
I like to have a cattle ranch in Beverly Hills.
                -- Country Joe and the Fish, "Zachariah"
An eye in a blue face
Saw an eye in a green face.
"That eye is like this eye"
Said the first eye,
"But in low place,
Not in high place."
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
                -- Dorothy Parker, "Inventory" [or "Not so Deep as a Well"?]
I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
Bernoulli would have been content to die
Had he but known such _a-squared cos 2(phi)!
                -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
I'll grant thee random access to my heart,
Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love;
And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove
And in our bound partition never part.

Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain?
Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes,
A root or two, a torus and a node:
The inverse of my verse, a null domain.

I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
Bernoulli would have been content to die
Had he but known such a-squared cos 2(thi)!
                -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
My My, hey hey
Rock and roll is here to stay        The king is gone but he's not forgotten
It's better to burn out                This is the story of a Johnny Rotten
Than to fade away                It's better to burn out than it is to rust
My my, hey hey                        The king is gone but he's not forgotten

It's out of the blue and into the black                Hey hey, my my
They give you this, but you pay for that        Rock and roll can never die
And once you're gone you can never come back        There's more to the picture
When you're out of the blue                        Than meets the eye
And into the black
                -- Neil Young
                "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), Rust Never Sleeps"
Once again dread deed is done.
Canon sleeps,
his all-knowing eye shaded
to human chance and circumstance.
Peace reigns anew o'er Pine Valley,
but Canon's sleep is troubled.

Beware, scant days past the Ides of July.
Impatient hands wait eagerly
to grasp, to hold
scant moments of time
wrested from life in the full
glory of Canon's power;
held captive by his unblinking eye.

Three golden orbs stand watch;
one each to toll the day, hour, minute
until predestiny decrees his reawakening.
When that feared moment arives,
"Ask not for whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee."
                -- "I extended the loan on your Camera, at the Pine
                   Valley Pawn Shop today"
'Twas the night before crisis, and all through the house,
        Not a program was working not even a browse.
The programmers were wrung out too mindless to care,
        Knowing chances of cutover hadn't a prayer.
The users were nestled all snug in their beds,
        While visions of inquiries danced in their heads.
When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter,
        I sprang from my tube to see what was the matter.
And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
        But a Super Programmer, oblivious to fear.
More rapid than eagles, his programs they came,
        And he whistled and shouted and called them by name;
On Update!  On Add!  On Inquiry!  On Delete!
        On Batch Jobs!  On Closing!  On Functions Complete!
His eyes were glazed over, his fingers were lean,
        From Weekends and nights in front of a screen.
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
        Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread...
                -- "Twas the Night before Crisis"
Tyger, Tyger, burning bright                Where the hammer?  Where the chain?
In the forests of the night,                In what furnace was thy brain?
What immortal hand or eye                What the anvil?  What dread grasp
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?        Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

Burnt in distant deeps or skies                When the stars threw down their spears
The cruel fire of thine eyes?                And water'd heaven with their tears
On what wings dare he aspire?                Dare he laugh his work to see?
What the hand dare seize the fire?        Dare he who made the lamb make thee?

And what shoulder & what art                Tyger, Tyger, burning bright
Could twist the sinews of they heart?        In the forests of the night,
And when thy heart began to beat        What immortal hand or eye
What dread hand & what dread feet        Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Could fetch it from the furnace deep
And in thy horrid ribs dare steep
In the well of sanguine woe?
In what clay & in what mould
Were thy eyes of fury roll'd?
                -- William Blake, "The Tyger"
Well, my daddy left home when I was three,
And he didn't leave much for Ma and me,
Just and old guitar an'a empty bottle of booze.
Now I don't blame him 'cause he ran and hid,
But the meanest thing that he ever did,
Was before he left he went and named me Sue.
...
But I made me a vow to the moon and the stars,
I'd search the honkey tonks and the bars,
And kill the man that give me that awful name.
It was Gatlinburg in mid-July,
I'd just hit town and my throat was dry,
Thought I'd stop and have myself a brew,
At an old saloon on a street of mud,
Sitting at a table, dealing stud,
Sat that dirty (bleep) that named me Sue.
...
Now, I knew that snake was my own sweet Dad,
From a wornout picture that my Mother had,
And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye...
                -- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue"
When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to a mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.
        For it isn't your father or mother or wife
        Whose judgement upon you must pass;
        The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
        Is the one staring back from the glass.
Some people may think you a straight-shootin' chum
And call you a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look him straight in the eye.
        He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest,
        For he's with you clear up to the end,
        And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test
        If the man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you've cheated the man in the glass.
While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
                -- Robert Burns, Address on "The Rights of Woman", 26/10 1792
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
                -- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven"

        [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when
         referring to hardware interrupts.]

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine.
                -- William Wordsworth, "She Was a Phantom of Delight"

        [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when
         referring to software interrupts.]
"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
        For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
        Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
        And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
        Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
        That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose --
        What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
        Said his father.  "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
        Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"
        "We have the right to survive!"
        "Not by killing others."
                -- Deela and Kirk, "Wink of An Eye", stardate 5710.5
I finally went to the eye doctor.  I got contacts.  I only need them to
read, so I got flip-ups.
                -- Steven Wright
  Most bacteria have the decency to be microscopic. Epulopiscium
  fishelsoni is not among them. The newly identified one-celled
  macro-microorganism is a full .5 mm long, large enough to be seen
  with the naked eye. Described in the current Nature, "It is a
  million times as massive as a typical bacterium."-Time, page 25,
  March 29, 1993
Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #3

iTux Penguin Computer
Price: $999.95 for base model
Producer: Orange Computer, Co.; 1-800-GET-ITUX

Based on the Slashdot comments, response to the Apple iMac from the Linux
community was lukewarm at best.  Orange Computer, Co., has picked up where
Apple left behind and produced the iTux computer specifically for Linux users
who want to "Think a lot different".

The self-contained iTux computer system is built in the shape of Tux the
Penguin.  Its 15 inch monitor (17 inch available next year) is located at
Tux's large belly.  The penguin's two feet make up the split ergonomic
keyboard (without those annoying Windows keys, of course).  A 36X CD-ROM
drive fits into Tux's mouth.  Tux's left eye is actually the reboot button
(can be reconfigured for other purposes since it is rarely used) and his
right eye is the power button.  The iTux case opens up from the back,
allowing easy access for screwdriver-wielding nerds into Tux's guts.

The US$995.95 model contains an Alpha CPU and all the usual stuff found in a
Linux-class machine.  More expensive models, to be debuted next year, will
feature dual or quad Alpha CPUs and a larger size.
Linux Advocacy Crackdown

SHERIDAN, WY -- In an unprecedented blow to Linux advocacy, Aaron McAdams, an
employee at the Sheridan Try-N-Save Discount Store, was fired last week.
According to the store's general manager, McAdams was fired because "he
constantly rearranged items on shelves so that Linux-related books and
software boxes would be displayed more prominently than Windows merchandise."
McAdams' boss added, "If he would have spent as much time actually working as
he did hiding Windows books at the back of shelves, he wouldn't have received
the pink slip."

The general manager supplied Humorix with videotapes from the store's
security cameras showing McAdams in action.  In one scene, he takes a whole
stack of "...For Dummies" books and buries them in the Cheap Romance section,
an area of the store rarely visited by computer users.  In another, McAdams
can be plainly seen setting copies of Red Hat Linux in front of a large,
eye-catching display of various Microsoft products at the front of the
store.  Finally, at one point McAdams can be seen slapping huge tags reading
"DEMO DISPLAY BOX -- NOT AVAILABLE UNTIL 1999" on boxes of Windows 98.

McAdams disputes his bosses accusations.  "If he would spend more time
actually working instead of peering over security camera footage for hours on
end, this store might actually turn a profit for a change."
The Humorix Oracle explains how to get a job at a major corporation:

1. Find an exploit in Microsoft IIS or another buggy Microsoft product to
   which large corporations rarely apply security patches.
2. Create a virus or worm that takes advantage of this exploit and then
   propogates itself by selecting IP numbers at random and then trying to
   infect those machines.
3. Keep an eye on your own website's server logs. When your virus starts
   propogating, your server will be hit with thousands of attacks from
   other infected systems trying to spread the virus to your machine.
4. Make a list of the IP numbers of all of the infected machines.
5. Perform a reverse DNS lookup on these IP numbers.
6. Make a note of all of the Fortune 500 companies that appear on the list
   of infected domains.
7. Send your resume to these companies and request an interview for a
   system administrator position. These companies are hiring -- whether
   they realize it or not.
8. Use your new salary to hire a good defense lawyer when the FBI comes
   knocking.
Experience teaches you that the man who looks you straight in the eye,
particularly if he adds a firm handshake, is hiding something.
                -- Clifton Fadiman, "Enter Conversing"
To find a friend one must close one eye; to keep him -- two.
                -- Norman Douglas
You know you're in trouble when...
(1)        You've been at work for an hour before you notice that your
                skirt is caught in your pantyhose.
                Especially if you're a man.
(2)        Your blind date turns out to be your ex-wife.
(3)        Your income tax check bounces.
(4)        You put both contact lenses in the same eye.
(5)        Your wife says, "Good morning, Bill" and your name is George.
(6)        You wake up to the soothing sound of flowing water... the day
                after you bought a waterbed.
(7)        You go on your honeymoon to a remote little hotel and the desk
                clerk, bell hop, and manager have a "Welcome Back" party
                for your spouse.
The five colors blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavors dull the taste.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Precious things lead one astray.
Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees.
He lets go of that and chooses this.
My boy is a mean kid.  I came home the other day and saw him taping worms
to the sidewalk, he sits there and watches the birds get hernias.  Well,
only last Christmas I gave him a B-B gun and he gave me a sweatshirt with
a bulls-eye on the back.

I told my kids, "Someday, you'll have kids of your own."  One of them
said, "So will you."
                -- Rodney Dangerfield
<stu> apt: !bugs
<apt> !bugs are stupid
<dpkg> apt: are stupid?  what's that?
<apt> dpkg: i don't know
<dpkg> apt: Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder...
<apt> i already had it that way, dpkg.
An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God.  Some of these eyes
we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them as quickly as possible.
                -- Russell Hoban, "Pilgermann"
During the voyage of life, remember to keep an eye out for a fair wind; batten
down during a storm; hail all passing ships; and fly your colors proudly.
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is
lightly greased.
                -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
It is only with the heart one can see clearly; what is essential is
invisible to the eye.
                -- The Fox, 'The Little Prince"
The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing,
the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its
own capacity. ...  Fuss, the god of the Southern Ocean, and Fret, the god
of the Northern Ocean, happened once to meet in the realm of Chaos, the god
of the center.  Chaos treated them very handsomely and they discussed together
what they could do to repay his kindness.  They had noticed that, whereas
everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and
so on, Chaos had none.  So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes
in him.  Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died.
                -- Chuang Tzu
Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of
the beholder.
                -- Dr. Laurence J. Peter
        "Hey, Sam, how about a loan?"
        "Whattaya need?"
        "Oh, about $500."
        "Whattaya got for collateral?"
        "Whattaya need?"
        "How about an eye?"
                -- Sam Giancana
Keep your Eye on the Ball,
Your Shoulder to the Wheel,
Your Nose to the Grindstone,
Your Feet on the Ground,
Your Head on your Shoulders.
Now... try to get something DONE!
Nitwit ideas are for emergencies.  You use them when you've got nothing
else to try.  If they work, they go in the Book.  Otherwise you follow
the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.
                -- Larry Niven, "The Mote in God's Eye"
One of your most ancient writers, a historian named Herodotus, tells of a
thief who was to be executed.  As he was taken away he made a bargain with
the king: in one year he would teach the king's favorite horse to sing
hymns.  The other prisoners watched the thief singing to the horse and
laughed.  "You will not succeed," they told him.  "No one can."
        To which the thief replied, "I have a year, and who knows what might
happen in that time.  The king might die.  The horse might die.  I might die.
And perhaps the horse will learn to sing.
                -- "The Mote in God's Eye", Niven and Pournelle
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2024
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