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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

        So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark].
With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to
maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of
corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to
flop up onto the land and evolve.  Richard and I were inching toward
it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and --
I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in
the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us.
        Many people would have panicked at this point.  But Richard and
I were not "many people."  We were experienced waders, and we kept our
heads.  We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're
unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water
up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the
opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of
our feet never once went below the surface of the water.  We ran all
the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers
cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen
these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked
into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
"What you end up with, after running an operating system concept through
these many marketing coffee filters, is something not unlike plain hot
water."
(By Matt Welsh)
waste water tank overflowed onto computer
The air conditioning water supply pipe ruptured over the machine room
Your Pentium has a heating problem - try cooling it with ice cold water.(Do not turn of your computer, you do not want to cool down the Pentium Chip while he isn't working, do you?)
Computers under water due to SYN flooding.
Delores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever
skipping along smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but oblivious
to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank, and due to an
overdose of flouride as a child which caused her to suffer from chronic
apathy, doomed herself to lie forever on the floor of her life as useless
as an appendix and as lonely as a five-hundred pound barbell in a
steroid-free fitness center.
                -- Winning sentence, 1990 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
"Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though
ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak,
mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee.  Of all divers,
thou has dived the deepest.  That head upon which the upper sun now gleams has
moved amid the world's foundations.  Where unrecorded names and navies rust,
and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate
earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful
water-land, there was thy most familiar home.  Thou hast been where bell or
diver never went; has slept by many a sailer's side, where sleepless mothers
would give their lives to lay them down.  Thou saw'st the locked lovers when
leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting
wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them.  Thou saw'st the
murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell
into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed
on unharmed -- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would
have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms.  O head! thou has
seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one
syllable is thine!"
                -- H. Melville, "Moby Dick"
        The Priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly.
I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go.
        A voice, sweetened and sustained, called to him from the sea.
Turning the curve he waved his hand.  A sleek brown head, a seal's, far
out on the water, round.  Usurper.
                -- James Joyce, "Ulysses"
Water, taken in moderation cannot hurt anybody.
                -- Mark Twain
        A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it,
realization of a basic truth came over me.  So simple!  So obvious we couldn't
see it.  John Knivlen, Chairman of Polamar Repeater Club, an amateur radio
group, had discovered how IC circuits work.  He says that smoke is the thing
that makes ICs work because every time you let the smoke out of an IC circuit,
it stops working.  He claims to have verified this with thorough testing.
        I was flabbergasted!  Of course!  Smoke makes all things electrical
work.  Remember the last time smoke escaped from your Lucas voltage regulator
Didn't it quit working?  I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth
dawned.  It's the wiring harness that carries the smoke from one device to
another in your Mini, MG or Jag.  And when the harness springs a leak, it lets
the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works.  The starter motor
requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why the wire
going to it is so large.
        Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis.  Why are Lucas
electronics more likely to leak than say Bosch?  Hmmm...  Aha!!!  Lucas is
British, and all things British leak!  British convertible tops leak water,
British engines leak oil, British displacer units leak hydrostatic fluid, and
I might add Brititsh tires leak air, and the British defense unit leaks
secrets... so naturally British electronics leak smoke.
                -- Jack Banton, PCC Automotive Electrical School

        [Ummm ... IC circuits?  Integrated circuit circuits?]
        Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse.  Software said: "You
are the Yin and I am the Yang.  If we travel together we will become famous
and earn vast sums of money."  And so the pair set forth together, thinking
to conquer the world.
        Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and
hobbled along propped on a thorny stick.  Firmware said to them: "The Tao
lies beyond Yin and Yang.  It is silent and still as a pool of water.  It does
not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence.  It does not seeks fortune,
for it is complete within itself.  It exists beyond space and time."
        Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:

PI        Punch Invalid
POPI        Punch Operator Immediately
PVLC        Punch Variable Length Card
RASC        Read And Shred Card
RPM        Read Programmers Mind
RSSC        reduce speed, step carefully  (for improved accuracy)
RTAB        Rewind tape and break
RWDSK        rewind disk
RWOC        Read Writing On Card
SCRBL        scribble to disk  - faster than a write
SLC        Search for Lost Chord
SPSW        Scramble Program Status Word
SRSD        Seek Record and Scar Disk
STROM        Store in Read Only Memory
TDB        Transfer and Drop Bit
WBT        Water Binary Tree
        The programmers of old were mysterious and profound.  We cannot fathom
their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance.
        Aware, like a fox crossing the water.  Alert, like a general on the
battlefield.  Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like uncarved
blocks of wood.  Opaque, like black pools in darkened caves.
        Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds?
        The answer exists only in the Tao.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
Walking on water wasn't built in a day.
                -- Jack Kerouac
You can drive a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.
   Fiery energy lanced out, but the beams struck an intangible wall between
the Gubru and the rapidly turning Earth ship.

   "Water!" it shrieked as it read the spectral report.  "A barrier of water
vapor!  A civilized race could not have found such a trick in the Library!
A civilized race could not have stooped so low!  A civilized race would not
have..."

   It screamed as the Gubru ship hit a cloud of drifting snowflakes.

- Startide Rising, by David Brin
Ocean:  A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man --
who has no gills.
-- Ambrose Bierce
Now I was heading, in my hot cage, down towards meat-market country on the
tip of the West Village.  Here the redbrick warehouses double as carcass
galleries and rat hives, the Manhattan fauna seeking its necessary
level, living or dead.  Here too you find the heavy faggot hangouts,
The Spike, the Water Closet, the Mother Load.  Nobody knows what goes on
in these places.  Only the heavy faggots know.  Even Fielding seems somewhat
vague on the question.  You get zapped and flogged and dumped on -- by
almost anybody's standards, you have a really terrible time.  The average
patron arrives at the Spike in one taxi but needs to go back to his sock
in two.  And then the next night he shows up for more.  They shackle
themselves to racks, they bask in urinals.  Their folks have a lot of
explaining to do, if you want my opinion, particularly the mums.  Sorry
to single you ladies out like this but the story must start somewhere.  
A craving for hourly murder -- it can't be willed.  In the meantime,
Fielding tells me, Mother Nature looks on and taps her foot and clicks
her tongue.  Always a champion of monogamy, she is cooking up some fancy
new diseases.  She just isn't going to stand for it.
-- Martin Amis, _Money_
         EARTH          
     smog  |   bricks  
AIR  --  mud  --  FIRE
soda water |   tequila
         WATER        
        "...'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not
matter.  'I' do not matter.  No word matters.  But man forgets reality
and remembers words.  The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his
fellows esteem him.  He looks upon the great transformations of the
world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon
reality for the first time.  Their names come to his lips and he smiles
as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming."
-- Siddartha, _Lord_of_Light_ by Roger Zelazny
        Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas.  Five years later?
Six?  It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era -- the kind of peak that
never comes again.  San Fransisco in the middle sixties was a very special time
and place to be a part of.  Maybe it meant something.  Maybe not, in the long
run...  There was madness in any direction, at any hour.  If not across the
Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda...  You could
strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we
were doing was right, that we were winning...
        And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory
over the forces of Old and Evil.  Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't
need that. Our energy would simply prevail.  There was no point in fighting
-- on our side or theirs.  We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest
of a high and beautiful wave.  So now, less than five years later, you can go
up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes
you can almost ___see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally
broke and rolled back.
                -- Hunter S. Thompson
The Worst Prison Guards
        The largest number of convicts ever to escape simultaneously from a
maximum security prison is 124.  This record is held by Alcoente Prison,
near Lisbon in Portugal.
        During the weeks leading up to the escape in July 1978 the prison
warders had noticed that attendances had fallen at film shows which
included "The Great Escape", and also that 220 knives and a huge quantity
of electric cable had disappeared.  A guard explained, "Yes, we were
planning to look for them, but never got around to it."  The warders had
not, however, noticed the gaping holes in the wall because they were
"covered with posters".  Nor did they detect any of the spades, chisels,
water hoses and electric drills amassed by the inmates in large quantities.
The night before the breakout one guard had noticed that of the 36
prisoners in his block only 13 were present.  He said this was "normal"
because inmates sometimes missed roll-call or hid, but usually came back
the next morning.
        "We only found out about the escape at 6:30 the next morning when
one of the prisoners told us," a warder said later.  [...]  When they
eventually checked, the prison guards found that exactly half of the gaol's
population was missing.  By way of explanation the Justice Minister, Dr.
Santos Pais, claimed that the escape was "normal" and part of the
"legitimate desire of the prisoner to regain his liberty."
                -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
Bathquake, n.:
        The violent quake that rattles the entire house when the water
        faucet is turned on to a certain point.
                -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
FORTUNE EXPLAINS WHAT JOB REVIEW CATCH PHRASES MEAN:        #9
has management potential:
        Because of his intimate relationship with inanimate objects, the
        reviewee has been appointed to the critical position of department
        pencil monitor.

inspirational:
        A true inspiration to others.  ("There, but for the grace of God,
        go I.")

adapts to stress:
        Passes wind, water, or out depending upon the severity of the
        situation.

goal oriented:
        Continually sets low goals for himself, and usually fails
        to meet them.
Hartley's First Law:
        You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float
        on his back, you've got something.
ink, n.:
        A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic,
        and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of
        idiocy and promote intellectual crime.
                -- H.L. Mencken
My father taught me three things:
        (1) Never mix whiskey with anything but water.
        (2) Never try to draw to an inside straight.
        (3) Never discuss business with anyone who refuses to give his name.
Stock's Observation:
        You no sooner get your head above water but what someone pulls
        your flippers off.
I have a terrible headache,  I was putting on toilet water and the lid fell.
        [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 you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse.
Brandy-and-water spoils two good things.
                -- Charles Lamb
ELECTRIC JELL-O

2   boxes JELL-O brand gelatin        2 packages Knox brand unflavored gelatin
2   cups fruit (any variety)        2+ cups water
1/2 bottle Everclear brand grain alcohol

Mix JELL-O and Knox gelatin into 2 cups of boiling water.  Stir 'til
        fully dissolved.
Pour hot mixture into a flat pan.  (JELL-O molds won't work.)
Stir in grain alcohol instead of usual cold water.  Remove any congealing
        glops of slime. (Alcohol has an unusual effect on excess JELL-O.)
Pour in fruit to desired taste, and to absorb any excess alcohol.
Mix in some cold water to dilute the alcohol and make it easier to eat for
        the faint of heart.
Refrigerate overnight to allow mixture to fully harden. (About 8-12 hours.)
Cut into squares and enjoy!

WARNING:
        Keep ingredients away from open flame.  Not recommended for
        children under eight years of age.
Excellent day for drinking heavily.  Spike the office water cooler.
Never drink from your finger bowl -- it contains only water.
Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were
forced to live on nothing but food and water for days.
                -- W. C. Fields, "My Little Chickadee"
Recipe for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster:
        (1) Take the juice from one bottle of Ol' Janx Spirit
        (2) Pour into it one measure of water from the seas of
                Santraginus V  (Oh, those Santraginean fish!)
        (3) Allow 3 cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin to melt into the
                mixture (properly iced or the benzine is lost.)
        (4) Allow four liters of Fallian marsh gas to bubble through it.
        (5) Over the back of a silver spoon, float a measure of
                Qualactin Hypermint extract.
        (6) Drop in the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger.  Watch it dissolve.
        (7) Sprinkle Zamphuor.
        (8) Add an olive.
        (9) Drink... but... very carefully...
The water was not fit to drink.  To make it palatable, we had to add whiskey.
By diligent effort, I learned to like it.
                -- Winston Churchill
Q:        How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:        Two.  One to assure everyone that everything possible is being
        done while the other screws the bulb into the water faucet.
A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed
on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new
game.  Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the
pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly
along it at the water's edge.  Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their
heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn
around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite
direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match.  Then, the
paper reports "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin
colony and overfly it.  Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins
fall over gently onto their backs.
                -- Audobon Society Magazine
If I were to walk on water, the press would say I'm only doing it
because I can't swim.
                -- Bob Stanfield
                Once Again From the Top

Correction notice in the Miami Herald: "Last Sunday, The Herald erroneously
reported that original Dolphin Johnny Holmes had been an insurance salesman
in Raleigh, North Carolina, that he had won the New York lottery in 1982 and
lost the money in a land swindle, that he had been charged with vehicular
homicide, but acquitted because his mother said she drove the car, and that
he stated that the funniest thing he ever saw was Flipper spouting water on
George Wilson.  Each of these items was erroneous material published
inadvertently.  He was not an insurance salesman in Raleigh, did not win the
lottery, neither he nor his mother was charged or involved in any way with
vehicular homicide, and he made no comment about Flipper or George Wilson.
The Herald regrets the errors."
                -- "The Progressive", March, 1987
Inglish Spocken Hier: some mangled translations

        Various signs in Poland:

                Right turn toward immediate outside.

                Go soothingly in the snow, as there lurk the ski demons.

                Five o'clock tea at all hours.

        In a men's washroom in Sidney:

                Shake excess water from hands, push button to start,
                rub hands rapidly under air outlet and wipe hands
                on front of shirt.

                -- Colin Bowles, San Francisco Chronicle
Iowans ask why Minnesotans don't drink more Kool-Aid.  That's because
they can't figure out how to get two quarts of water into one of those
little paper envelopes.
A mathematician, a doctor, and an engineer are walking on the beach and
observe a team of lifeguards pumping the stomach of a drowned woman.  As
they watch, water, sand, snails and such come out of the pump.
        The doctor watches for a while and says: "Keep pumping, men, you may
yet save her!!"
        The mathematician does some calculations and says: "According to my
understanding of the size of that pump, you have already pumped more water
from her body than could be contained in a cylinder 4 feet in diameter and
6 feet high."
        The engineer says: "I think she's sitting in a puddle."
A sense of desolation and uncertainty, of futility, of the baselessness
of aspirations, of the vanity of endeavor, and a thirst for a life giving
water which seems suddenly to have failed, are the signs in conciousness
of this necessary reorganization of our lives.

It is difficult to believe that this state of mind can be produced by the
recognition of such facts as that unsupported stones always fall to the
ground.
                -- J.W.N. Sullivan
Air is water with holes in it.
Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.
"The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl."
                -- Dave Barry
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and
tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will
have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy... neither its pipes nor
its theories will hold water.
        There was a mad scientist (a mad... social... scientist) who kidnapped
three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked
each of them in seperate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no
can opener.
        A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's
cell and found it long empty.  The engineer had constructed a can opener from
pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,
and escaped.
        The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids
off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall.  She was developing a good
pitching arm and a new quantum theory.
        The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising
solution to the kissing problem; his dessicated corpse was propped calmly
against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor:
        Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die.
        Proof: assume the opposite...
We don't know who it was that discovered water, but we're pretty sure
that it wasn't a fish.
        -- Marshall McLuhan
        While the engineer developed his thesis, the director leaned over to
his assistant and whispered, "Did you ever hear of why the sea is salt?"
        "Why the sea is salt?" whispered back the assistant.  "What do you
mean?"
        The director continued: "When I was a little kid, I heard the story of
`Why the sea is salt' many times, but I never thought it important until just
a moment ago.  It's something like this: Formerly the sea was fresh water and
salt was rare and expensive.  A miller received from a wizard a wonderful
machine that just ground salt out of itself all day long.  At first the miller
thought himself the most fortunate man in the world, but soon all the villages
had salt to last them for centuries and still the machine kept on grinding
more salt.  The miller had to move out of his house, he had to move off his
acres.  At last he determined that he would sink the machine in the sea and
be rid of it.  But the mill ground so fast that boat and miller and machine
were sunk together, and down below, the mill still went on grinding and that's
why the sea is salt."
        "I don't get you," said the assistant.
                -- Guy Endore, "Men of Iron"
For those of you who have been unfortunate enough to never have tasted the
'Great Chieftain O' the Pudden Race' (i.e. haggis) here is an easy to follow
recipe which results in a dish remarkably similar to the above mentioned
protected species.
        Ingredients:
          1 Sheep's Pluck (heart, lungs, liver) and bag
          2 teacupsful toasted oatmeal
          1 teaspoonful salt
          8 oz. shredded suet
          2 small onions
        1/2 teaspoonful black pepper
    
        Scrape and clean bag in cold, then warm, water.  Soak in salt water
overnight.  Wash pluck, then boil for 2 hours with windpipe draining over
the side of pot.  Retain 1 pint of stock.  Cut off windpipe, remove surplus
gristle, chop or mince heart and lungs, and grate best part of liver (about
half only).  Parboil and chop onions, mix all together with oatmeal, suet,
salt, pepper and stock to moisten.  Pack the mixture into bag, allowing for
swelling.  Boil for three hours, pricking regularly all over.  If bag not
available, steam in greased basin covered by greaseproof paper and cloth for
four to five hours.
Lobster:
        Everyone loves these delectable crustaceans, but many cooks are
squeamish about placing them into boiling water alive, which is the only
proper method of preparing them.  Frankly, the easiest way to eliminate your
guilt is to establish theirs by putting them on trial before they're cooked.
The fact is, lobsters are among the most ferocious predators on the sea
floor, and you're helping reduce crime in the reefs.  Grasp the lobster
behind the head, look it right in its unmistakably guilty eyestalks and say,
"Where were you on the night of the 21st?", then flourish a picture of a
scallop or a sole and shout, "Perhaps this will refresh that crude neural
apparatus you call a memory!"  The lobster will squirm noticeably.  It may
even take a swipe at you with one of its claws.  Incorrigible.  Pop it into
the pot.  Justice has been served, and shortly you and your friends will
be, too.
                -- Dave Barry, "Cooking: The Art of Using Appliances and
                   Utensils into Excuses and Apologies"
MOCK APPLE PIE (No Apples Needed)

  Pastry to two crust 9-inch pie        36 RITZ Crackers
2 cups water                                 2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons cream of tartar                 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  Grated rind of one lemon                   Butter or margarine
  Cinnamon

Roll out bottom crust of pastry and fit into 9-inch pie plate.  Break
RITZ Crackers coarsely into pastry-lined plate.  Combine water, sugar
and cream of tartar in saucepan, boil gently for 15 minutes.  Add lemon
juice and rind.  Cool.  Pour this syrup over Crackers, dot generously
with butter or margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon.  Cover with top
crust.  Trim and flute edges together.  Cut slits in top crust to let
steam escape.  Bake in a hot oven (425 F) 30 to 35 minutes, until crust
is crisp and golden.  Serve warm.  Cut into 6 to 8 slices.
                -- Found lurking on a Ritz Crackers box
An Hacker there was, one of the finest sort
Who controlled the system; graphics was his sport.
A manly man, to be a wizard able;
Many a protected file he had sitting on his table.
His console, when he typed, a man might hear
Clicking and feeping wind as clear,
Aye, and as loud as does the machine room bell
Where my lord Hacker was Prior of the cell.
The Rule of good St Savage or St Doeppnor
As old and strict he tended to ignore;
He let go by the things of yesterday
And took the modern world's more spacious way.
He did not rate that text as a plucked hen
Which says that Hackers are not holy men.
And that a hacker underworked is a mere
Fish out of water, flapping on the pier.
That is to say, a hacker out of his cloister.
That was a text he held not worth an oyster.
And I agreed and said his views were sound;
Was he to study till his head wend round
Poring over books in the cloisters?  Must he toil
As Andy bade and till the very soil?
Was he to leave the world upon the shelf?
Let Andy have his labor to himself!
                -- Chaucer
                [well, almost.  Ed.]
And all that the Lorax left here in this mess
was a small pile of rocks with the one word, "unless."
Whatever THAT meant, well, I just couldn't guess.
That was long, long ago, and each day since that day,
I've worried and worried and worried away.
Through the years as my buildings have fallen apart,
I've worried about it with all of my heart.

"BUT," says the Oncler, "now that you're here,
the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear!
UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better - it's not.
So... CATCH!" cries the Oncler.  He lets something fall.
"It's a truffula seed.  It's the last one of all!

"You're in charge of the last of the truffula seeds.
And truffula trees are what everyone needs.
Plant a new truffula -- treat it with care.
Give it clean water and feed it fresh air.
Grow a forest -- protect it from axes that hack.
Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back!"
Black shiny mollies and bright colored guppies,
Shy little angels as gentle as puppies,
Swimming and diving with scarcely a swish,
They were just some of my tropical fish.

Then I got mantas that sting in the water,
Deadly piranhas that itch for a slaughter,
Savage male betas that bite with a squish,
Now I have many less tropical fish.

        If you think that
        Fish are peaceful
        That's an empty wish.
        Just dump them together
        And leave them alone,
        And soon you will have -- no fish.
                -- To My Favorite Things
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
Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol!  My darling!
Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling.

Down along under Hill, shining in the sunlight,
Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight,
There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter,
Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water.

Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing
Comes hopping home again.  Can you hear him singing?
Hey!  Come merry dol! derry dol! and merry-o
Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o!

Poor old Willow-man, you tuck your roots away!
Tom's in a hurry now.  Evening will follow day.
Tom's going home again water-lilies bringing.
Hey! come derry dol!  Can you hear me singing?
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!
By water, wood and hill, by reed and willow,
By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us!
Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
I had an errand there: gathering water-lilies,
green leaves and lilies white to please my pretty lady,
the last ere the year's end to keep them from the winter,
to flower by her pretty feet till the snows are melted.

Each year at summer's end I go to find them for her,
in a wide pool, deep and clear, far down Withywindle;
there they open first in spring and there they linger latest.

By that pool long ago I found the River-daughter,
fair young Goldberry sitting in the rushes.
Sweet was her singing then, and her heart was beating!

And that proved well for you--for now I shall no longer
go down deep again along the forest-water,
no while the year is old.  Nor shall I be passing
Old Man Willow's house this side of spring-time,
not till the merry spring, when the River-daughter
dances down the withy-path to bathe in the water.
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Now let the song begin!  Let us sing together
Of sun, star, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather,
Light on the budding leag, dew on the feather,
Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather,
Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water:
Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter!
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
O slender as a willow-wand!  O clearer than clear water!
O reed by the living pool!  Fair river-daughter!
O spring-time and summer-time, and spring again after!
O wind on the waterfall, and the leaves' laughter!
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!

        O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain,
        and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
        but better than rain or rippling streams
        is Water Hot that smokes and steams.

O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.

        O! Water is fair that leaps on high
        in a fountain white beneath the sky;
        but never did fountain sound so sweet
        as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
So much
depends
upon
a red

wheel
barrow
glazed with

rain
water
beside
the white
chickens.
                -- William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheel Barrow"
There's little in taking or giving,
        There's little in water or wine:
This living, this living, this living,
        Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
        The gain of the one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
        And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
        And rest's for a clam in a shell,
So I'm thinking of throwing the battle --
        Would you kindly direct me to hell?
                -- Dorothy Parker
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"
Upon the hearth the fire is red,
Beneath the roof there is a bed;
But not yet weary are our feet,
Still round the corner we may meet
A sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen but we alone.        Still round the corner there may wait
  Tree and flower and leaf and grass,        A new road or a secret gate,
  Let them pass!  Let them pass!        And though we pass them by today
  Hill and water under sky,                Tomorrow we may come this way
  Pass them by!  Pass them by!                And take the hidden paths that run
                                        Towards the Moon or to the Sun,
Home is behind, the world ahead,          Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe,
And there are many paths to tread          Let them go!  Let them go!
Through shadows to the edge of night,          Sand and stone and pool and dell,
Until the stars are all alight.                  Fare you well!  Fare you well!
Then world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back to home and bed.
  Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,
  Away shall fade!  Away shall fade!
  Fire and lamp, and meat and bread,
  And then to bed!  And then to bed!
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
        A boy scout troop went on a hike.  Crossing over a stream, one of
the boys dropped his wallet into the water.  Suddenly a carp jumped, grabbed
the wallet and tossed it to another carp.  Then that carp passed it to
another carp, and all over the river carp appeared and tossed the wallet back
and forth.
        "Well, boys," said the Scout leader, "you've just seen a rare case
of carp-to-carp walleting."
The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water.  Eager to show off
this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his next
hunting trip.  Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the duck fell,
the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the duck and returned
it to his master.
        "Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly.
        "Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't swim."
Do you know the one -- "All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer
her by ..."  You could feel the wind at your back, about you ...  the
sounds of the sea beneath you.  And even if you take away the wind and
the water, it's still the same.  The ship is yours ... you can feel her
... and the stars are still there.
                -- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4
"`You'd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace.
It's unpleasently like being drunk.'
`What's so unpleasent about being drunk?'
`You ask a glass of water.'"

- Arthur getting ready for his first jump into hyperspace.
BOOK        ...Man had always assumed that he was more
intelligent than
        dolphins because he had achieved so much... the
wheel, New York,
        wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever
done was muck
        about in the water having a good time. But
conversely the
        dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent
than man for
        precisely the same reasons.
I got this powdered water -- now I don't know what to add.
                -- Steven Wright
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what
they seem.  For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed
that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so
much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins
had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time.  But
conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more
intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons.

Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending
destruction of the of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to
alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were
misinterpreted ...
                -- Douglas Admas "The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy"
        My friends, I am here to tell you of the wonderous continent known as
Africa.  Well we left New York drunk and early on the morning of February 31.
We were 15 days on the water, and 3 on the boat when we finally arrived in
Africa.  Upon our arrival we immediately set up a rigorous schedule:  Up at
6:00, breakfast, and back in bed by 7:00.  Pretty soon we were back in bed by
6:30.  Now Africa is full of big game.  The first day I shot two bucks.  That
was the biggest game we had.  Africa is primerally inhabited by Elks, Moose
and Knights of Pithiests.
        The elks live up in the mountains and come down once a year for their
annual conventions.  And you should see them gathered around the water hole,
which they leave immediately when they discover it's full of water.  They
weren't looking for a water hole.  They were looking for an alck hole.
        One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my
pajamas, I don't know.  Then we tried to remove the tusks.  That's a tough
word to say, tusks.  As I said we tried to remove the tusks, but they were
imbedded so firmly we couldn't get them out.  But in Alabama the Tuscaloosa,
but that is totally irrelephant to what I was saying.
        We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed.
So we're going back in a few years...
                -- Julius H. Marx [Groucho]
Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves to
spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to
indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest
person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you
are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other
passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they
have plenty of food and water.
                -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
What you end up with, after running an operating system concept through
these many marketing coffee filters, is something not unlike plain hot
water.

   -- Matt Welsh
A man is crawling through the Sahara desert when he is approached by another
man riding on a camel.  When the rider gets close enough, the crawling man
whispers through his sun-parched lips, "Water... please... can you give...
water..."
        "I'm sorry," replies the man on the camel, "I don't have any water
with me.  But I'd be delighted to sell you a necktie."
        "Tie?" whispers the man.  "I need *water*."
        "They're only four dollars apiece."
        "I need *water*."
        "Okay, okay, say two for seven dollars."
        "Please!  I need *water*!", says the man.
        "I don't have any water, all I have are ties," replies the salesman,
and he heads off into the distance.
        The man, losing track of time, crawls for what seems like days.
Finally, nearly dead, sun-blind and with his skin peeling and blistering, he
sees a restaurant in the distance.  Summoning the last of his strength he
staggers up to the door and confronts the head waiter.
        "Water... can I get... water," the dying man manages to stammer.
        "I'm sorry, sir, ties required."
An elderly couple were flying to their Caribbean hideaway on a chartered plane
when a terrible storm forced them to land on an uninhabited island.  When
several days passed without rescue, the couple and their pilot sank into a
despondent silence. Finally, the woman asked her husband if he had made his
usual pledge to the United Way Campaign.
        "We're running out of food and water and you ask *that*?" her husband
barked.  "If you really need to know, I not only pledged a half million but
I've already paid them half of it."
        "You owe the U.W.C. a *quarter million*?" the woman exclaimed
euphorically.  "Don't worry, Harry, they'll find us!  They'll find us!"
        Eeyore, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and
looked at himself in the water.
        "Pathetic," he said.  "That's what it is.  Pathetic."
        He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards,
splashed across it, and walked slowly back on the other side.  Then he
looked at himself again.
        "As I thought," he said, "no better from *____this* side.  But nobody
minds.  Nobody cares.  Pathetic, that's what it is.
                -- A.A. Milne, "Winnie the Pooh," Chapter VI, "In Which Eeyore
                   Has a Birthday and Gets Two Presents"
I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.
                -- G.K. Chesterton
We are stronger than our skin of flesh and metal, for we carry and share a
spectrum of suns and lands that lends us legends as we craft our immortality
and interweave our destinies of water and air, leaving shadows that gather
color of their own, until they outshine the substance that cast them.
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.
Yes, we're all anti-american terrorists who plan to make the
US economy collapse by inventing lots of new words which will
have to be added to the dictionary, making the US economy
unable to support the ever-growing dictionaries and ensuring  
the Americans will be unable to (learn to) spell, leaving them
dead in the water if there's ever a linguistic war between
them and the UK.

        - Rik van Riel explaining the real reason behind spelling
          mistakes in the linux kernel
The highest good is like water.
Water give life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In daily life, be competent.
In action, be aware of the time and the season.
No fight:  No blame.
Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water.
Yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better;
It has no equal.
The weak can overcome the strong;
The supple can overcome the stiff.
Under heaven everyone knows this,
Yet no one puts it into practice.
Therefore the sage says:
He who takes upon himself the humiliation of the people is fit to rule them.
He who takes upon himself the country's disasters deserves to be king of the universe.
The truth often sounds paradoxical.
I'd been hearing all sorts of gloom and doom predictions for Y2K, so I
thought I'd heed some of the advice that the experts have been giving:
Fill up the car's gas tank, stock up on canned goods, fill up the bathtub
with water, and so on.

I guess I wasn't fully awake when I completed my preparations late last
night.  This morning I found the kitchen shelves soaked in gasoline, water
in the car's gas tank, and my bathtub filled with baked beans.
        -- Dan Pearl in a message to rec.humor.funny
... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter.
"I" do not matter.  No word matters.  But man forgets reality and remembers
words.  The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him.
He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see
them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time.
Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he
knows them in the naming.
                -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"
What you end up with, after running an operating system concept through
these many marketing coffee filters, is something not unlike plain hot
water.
        -- Matt Welsh
(1)        Office employees will daily sweep the floors, dust the
        furniture, shelves, and showcases.
(2)        Each day fill lamps, clean chimneys, and trim wicks.
        Wash the windows once a week.
(3)        Each clerk will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of
        coal for the day's business.
(4)        Make your pens carefully.  You may whittle nibs to your
        individual taste.
(5)        This office will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. except
        on the Sabbath, on which day we will remain closed.  Each
        employee is expected to spend the Sabbath by attending
        church and contributing liberally to the cause of the Lord.
                -- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage
                    Works, 1872
        Plumbing is one of the easier of do-it-yourself activities,
requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arm into a
clogged toilet.  In fact, you can solve many home plumbing problems, such as
annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up the radio.  But before we get
into specific techniques, let's look at how plumbing works.
        A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system, except
that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires, it has
pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets and toilets.
So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing at all like your
electrical system, which is good, because electricity can kill you.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
This is an especially good time for you vacationers who plan to fly, because
the Reagan administration, as part of the same policy under which it
recently sold Yellowstone National Park to Wayne Newton, has "deregulated"
the airline industry.  What this means for you, the consumer, is that the
airlines are no longer required to follow any rules whatsoever.  They can
show snuff movies.  They can charge for oxygen.  They can hire pilots right
out of Vending Machine Refill Person School.  They can conserve fuel by
ejecting husky passengers over water.  They can ram competing planes in
mid-air.  These innovations have resulted in tremendous cost savings which
have been passed along to you, the consumer, in the form of flights with
amazingly low fares, such as $29.  Of course, certain restrictions do apply,
the main one being that all these flights take you to Newark, and you must
pay thousands of dollars if you want to fly back out.
                -- Dave Barry, "Iowa -- Land of Secure Vacations"
XLVII:
        Two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered with water.  The other
        third is covered with auditors from headquarters.
XLVIII:
        The more time you spend talking about what you have been doing, the
        less time you have to spend doing what you have been talking about.
        Eventually, you spend more and more time talking about less and less
        until finally you spend all your time talking about nothing.
XLIX:
        Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds.
L:
        The average regulation has a life span one-fifth as long as a
        chimpanzee's and one-tenth as long as a human's -- but four times
        as long as the official's who created it.
LI:
        By the time of the United States Tricentennial, there will be more
        government workers than there are workers.
LII:
        People working in the private sector should try to save money.
        There remains the possibility that it may someday be valuable again.
                -- Norman Augustine
Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much
extinguishes it.
                -- Hannah More
His ideas of first-aid stopped short of squirting soda water.
                -- P.G. Wodehouse
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2023
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