DEEn Dictionary De - En
DeEs De - Es
DePt De - Pt
 Vocabulary trainer

Spec. subjects Grammar Abbreviations Random search Preferences
Search in Sprachauswahl
a little
Search for:
Mini search box
 
Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

The Great Movie Posters:

POWERFUL! SHOCKING! RAW! ROUGH! CHALLENGING! SEE A LITTLE GIRL MOLESTED!
                -- Never Take Candy from a Stranger (1963)

She Sins in Mobile --
Marries in Houston --
Loses Her Baby in Dallas --
Leaves Her Husband in Tuscon --
MEETS HARRU IN SAN DIEGO!...
FIRST -- HARLOW!
THEN -- MONROE!
NOW -- McCLANAHAN!!!
                -- The Rotten Apple (1963), Rue McClanahan

*NOT FOR SISSIES! DON'T COME IF YOU'RE CHICKEN!
A Horrifying Movie of Wierd Beauties and Shocking Monsters...
1001 WIERDEST SCENES EVER!!  MOST SHOCKING THRILLER OF THE CENTURY!
                -- Teenage Psycho meets Bloody Mary (1964)  (Alternate Title:
                   The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and
                   Became Mixed Up Zombies)
        A little dog goes into a saloon in the Wild West, and beckons to
the bartender.  "Hey, bartender, gimme a whiskey."
        The bartender ignores him.
        "Hey bartender, gimme a whiskey!"
        Still ignored.
        "HEY BARMAN!!  GIMME A WHISKEY!!"
        The bartender takes out his six-shooter and shoots the dog in the
leg, and the dog runs out the saloon, howling in pain.
        Three years later, the wee dog appears again, wearing boots,
jeans, chaps, a Stetson, gun belt, and guns.  He ambles slowly into the
saloon, goes up to the bar, leans over it, and says to the bartender,
"I'm here t'git the man that shot muh paw."
"If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do:  Pour a little
Lavoris in the toilet."
                -- Jay Leno
        "...The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'!"
        "Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to
feel interested.
        "No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little
vexed.  "That's what the name is called.  The name really is, 'The Aged
Aged Man.'"
        "Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called'?"
Alice corrected herself.
        "No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing!  The song is
called 'Ways and Means':  but that's only what it is called you know!"
        "Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this
time completely bewildered.
        "I was coming to that," the Knight said.  "The song really is
"A-sitting on a Gate": and the tune's my own invention."
                --Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
You see, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty
attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.  A fool
takes in all the lumber of every sort he comes across, so that the knowledge
which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with
a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it.
Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his
brain-attic.  He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing
his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect
order.  It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and
can distend to any extent.  Depend upon it there comes a time when for every
addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before.  It is of
the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out
the useful ones.
                -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet"
"What's this?  Trix?  Aunt!  Trix?  You?  You're after the prize!  What
is it?"  He picked up the box and studied the back.  "A glow-in-the-dark
squid!  Have you got it out of there yet?"  He tilted the box, angling the
little colored balls of cereal so as to see the bottom, and nearly spilling
them onto the table top.  "Here it is!"  He hauled out a little cream-colored,
glitter-sprinkled squid, three-inches long and made out of rubbery plastic.
                -- James P. Blaylock, "The Last Coin"
A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems
have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects,
those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are
the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers.  Consider Unix,
APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them
with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS.
                -- Fred Brooks
Even bytes get lonely for a little bit.
Everybody needs a little love sometime; stop hacking and fall in love!
Okay, Okay -- I admit it.  You didn't change that program that worked
just a little while ago; I inserted some random characters into the
executable.  Please forgive me.  You can recover the file by typing in
the code over again, since I also removed the source.
One of the most overlooked advantages to computers is...  If they do
foul up, there's no law against whacking them around a little.
                -- Joe Martin
OS/2 Skyways:
The terminal is almost empty, with only a few prospective passengers milling
about. The announcer says that their flight has just departed, wishes them a
good flight, though there are no planes on the runway. Airline personnel
walk around, apologising profusely to customers in hushed voices, pointing
from time to time to the sleek, powerful jets outside the terminal on the
field. They tell each passenger how good the real flight will be on these
new jets and how much safer it will be than Windows Airlines, but that they
will have to wait a little longer for the technicians to finish the flight
systems. Maybe until mid-1995. Maybe longer.
"Our attitude with TCP/IP is, `Hey, we'll do it, but don't make a big
system, because we can't fix it if it breaks -- nobody can.'"

"TCP/IP is OK if you've got a little informal club, and it doesn't make
any difference if it takes a while to fix it."
                -- Ken Olson, in Digital News, 1988
So you see Antonio, why worry about one little core dump, eh?  In reality
all core dumps happen at the same instant, so the core dump you will have
tomorrow, why, it already happened.  You see, it's just a little universal
recursive joke which threads our lives through the infinite potential of
the instant.  So go to sleep, Antonio, your thread could break any moment
and cast you out of the safe security of the instant into the dark void of
eternity, the anti-time.  So go to sleep...
This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked.  When we can
speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled;
batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented,
deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts,
Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong;  senseless,
spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked;  {beef,
beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled,
pinhead;  asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple;  brute, lumbering, oafish;
half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have
a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon,
individually and in combination, isn't it a little <fill in the blank> to be
limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective?
A little experience often upsets a lot of theory.
A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation.
                -- C.E. Ayres
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
                -- H.H. Munro, "Saki"
Any road followed to its end leads precisely nowhere.
Climb the mountain just a little to test it's a mountain.
From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.
                -- Bene Gesserit proverb, "Dune"
To err is human, but when the eraser wears out before the pencil,
you're overdoing it a little.
A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems
have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects,
those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are
the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers.  Consider Unix,
APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them
with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS.
- Fred Brooks, Jr.
Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.
-- Jean Cocteau
"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)
Even if we put all these nagging thoughts [four embarrassing questions about
astrology] aside for a moment, one overriding question remains to be asked.
Why would the positions of celestial objects at the moment of birth have an
effect on our characters, lives, or destinies?  What force or influence,
what sort of energy would travel from the planets and stars to all human
beings and affect our development or fate?  No amount of scientific-sounding
jargon or computerized calculations by astrologers can disguise this central
problem with astrology -- we can find no evidence of a mechanism by which
celestial objects can influence us in so specific and personal a way. . . .
Some astrologers argue that there may be a still unknown force that represents
the astrological influence. . . .If so, astrological predictions -- like those
of any scientific field -- should be easily tested. . . . Astrologers always
claim to be just a little too busy to carry out such careful tests of their
efficacy, so in the last two decades scientists and statisticians have
generously done such testing for them.  There have been dozens of well-designed
tests all around the world, and astrology has failed every one of them. . . .
I propose that we let those beckoning lights in the sky awaken our interest
in the real (and fascinating) universe beyond our planet, and not let them
keep us tied to an ancient fantasy left over from a time when we huddled by
the firelight, afraid of the night.
-- Andrew Fraknoi, Executive Officer, Astronomical Society of the Pacific,
    "Why Astrology Believers Should Feel Embarrassed," San Jose Mercury
    News, May 8, 1988
   "Are those cocktail-waitress fingernail marks?"  I asked Colletti as he
showed us these scratches on his chest.  "No, those are on my back," Colletti
answered.  "This is where a case of cocktail shrimp fell on me.  I told her
to slow down a little, but you know cocktail waitresses, they seem to have
a mind of their own."
-- The Incredibly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs
   National Lampoon, October 1982
"It says he made us all to be just like him.  So if we're dumb, then god is
dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side."
-- Frank Zappa
"If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do:  Pour a little
Lavoris in the toilet."
-- Comedian Jay Leno
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
I don't care how poor and inefficient a little country is; they like to
run their own business.  I know men that would make my wife a better
husband than I am; but, darn it, I'm not going to give her to 'em.
                -- The Best of Will Rogers
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing...
                -- Thomas Jefferson
It seems a little silly now, but this country was founded as a protest
against taxation.
Listen, there is no courage or any extra courage that I know of to find out
the right thing to do.  Now, it is not only necessary to do the right thing,
but to do it in the right way and the only problem you have is what is the
right thing to do and what is the right way to do it.  That is the problem.
But this economy of ours is not so simple that it obeys to the opinion of
bias or the pronouncements of any particular individual, even to the President.
This is an economy that is made up of 173 million people, and it reflects
their desires, they're ready to buy, they're ready to spend, it is a thing
that is too complex and too big to be affected adversely or advantageously
just by a few words or any particular -- say, a little this and that, or even
a panacea so alleged.
                -- D.D. Eisenhower, in response to: "Has the government
                been lacking in courage and boldness in facing up to
                the recession?"
Nobody takes a bribe.  Of course at Christmas if you happen to hold out
your hat and somebody happens to put a little something in it, well, that's
different.
                -- New York City Police Commissioner (Ret.) William P.
                   O'Brien, instructions to the force.
        The General disliked trying to explain the highly technical inner
workings of the U.S. Air Force.
        "$7,662 for a ten cup coffee maker, General?" the Senator asked.
        In his head he ran through his standard explanations.  "It's not so,"
he thought.  "It's a deterrent."  Soon he came up with, "It's computerized,
Senator.  Tiny computer chips make coffee that's smooth and full-bodied.  Try
a cup."
        The Senator did.  "Pfffttt!  Tastes like jet fuel!"
        "It's not so," the General thought.  "It's a deterrent."
        Then he remembered something.  "We bought a lot of untested computer
chips," the General answered.  "They got into everything.  Just a little
mix-up.  Nothing serious."
        Then he remembered something else.  It was at the site of the
mysterious B-1 crash.  A strange smell in the fuel lines.  It smelled like
coffee.  Smooth and full bodied...
                -- Another Episode of General's Hospital
The Government just announced today the creation of the Neutron Bomb II.
Similar to the Neutron Bomb, the Neutron Bomb II not only kills people
and leaves buildings standing, but also does a little light housekeeping.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
                -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Keep in mind always the four constant Laws of Frisbee:
        (1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc
           straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this
           force is technically termed "car suck").
        (2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive
           than "Watch this!"
        (3) The probability of a Frisbee hitting something is directly
           proportional to the cost of hitting it.  For instance, a
           Frisbee will always head directly towards a policeman or
           a little old lady rather than the beat up Chevy.
        (4) Your best throw happens when no one is watching; when the
           cute girl you've been trying to impress is watching, the
           Frisbee will invariably bounce out of your hand or hit you
           in the head and knock you silly.
QOTD:
        All I want is a little more than I'll ever get.
Lessness:
        A philosophy whereby one reconciles oneself with diminishing
expectations of material wealth: "I've given up wanting to make a
killing or be a bigshot.  I just want to find happiness and maybe open
up a little roadside cafe in Idaho."
                -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
                   Culture"
Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.
        -- Jean Cocteau
Three o'clock in the afternoon is always just a little too late or a little
too early for anything you want to do.
                -- Jean-Paul Sartre
The best audience is intelligent, well-educated and a little drunk.
                -- Maurice Baring
Woody: What's going on, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:  Let's talk about what's going *in* Mr. Peterson.  A beer, Woody.
                -- Cheers, Paint Your Office

Sam:  How's life treating you?
Norm: It's not, Sammy, but that doesn't mean you can't.
                -- Cheers, A Kiss is Still a Kiss

Woody:  Can I pour you a draft, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:   A little early, isn't it Woody?
Woody:  For a beer?
Norm:   No, for stupid questions.
                -- Cheers, Let Sleeping Drakes Lie
A book is the work of a mind, doing its work in the way that a mind deems
best.  That's dangerous.  Is the work of some mere individual mind likely to
serve the aims of collectively accepted compromises, which are known in the
schools as 'standards'?  Any mind that would audaciously put itself forth to
work all alone is surely a bad example for the students, and probably, if
not downright antisocial, at least a little off-center, self-indulgent,
elitist.  ... It's just good pedagogy, therefore, to stay away from such
stuff, and use instead, if film-strips and rap-sessions must be
supplemented, 'texts,' selected, or prepared, or adapted, by real
professionals.  Those texts are called 'reading material.'  They are the
academic equivalent of the 'listening material' that fills waiting-rooms,
and the 'eating material' that you can buy in thousands of convenient eating
resource centers along the roads.
                -- The Underground Grammarian
If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have
taught much more!
        In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi,
Junior, what are you up to?"
        "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the
rabbit.
        "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible!  No one
will publish such rubbish!"
        "Well, follow me and I'll show you."
        They both go into the rabbit's dwelling and after a while the
rabbit emerges with a satisfied expression on his face.  Comes along a
wolf.  "Hello, little buddy, what are we doing these days?"
        "I'm writing the 2'nd chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits devour
wolves."
        "Are you crazy?  Where's your academic honesty?"
        "Come with me and I'll show you."
        As before, the rabbit comes out with a satisfied look on his face
and a diploma in his paw.  Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave
and, as everybody should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge
lion, sitting, picking his teeth and belching, next to some furry, bloody
remnants of the wolf and the fox.

        The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are
important -- it's your PhD advisor that really counts.
Universities are places of knowledge.  The freshman each bring a little
in with them, and the seniors take none away, so knowledge accumulates.
A prominent broadcaster, on a big-game safari in Africa, was taken to a
watering hole where the life of the jungle could be observed. As he
looked down from his tree platform and described the scene into his
tape recorder, he saw two gnus grazing peacefully. So preoccupied were
they that they failed to observe the approach of a pride of lions led
by two magnificent specimens, obviously the leaders. The lions charged,
killed the gnus, and dragged them into the bushes where their feasting
could not be seen.  A little while later the two kings of the jungle
emerged and the radioman recorded on his tape: "Well, that's the end of
the gnus and here, once again, are the head lions."
The only qualities for real success in journalism are ratlike cunning, a
plausible manner and a little literary ability.  The capacity to steal
other people's ideas and phrases ... is also invaluable.
                -- Nicolas Tomalin, "Stop the Press, I Want to Get On"
It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that
English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many
other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case.
                -- Sydney J. Harris
        There once was this swami who lived above a delicatessan.  Seems one
day he decided to stop in downstairs for some fresh liver.  Well, the owner
of the deli was a bit of a cheap-skate, and decided to pick up a little extra
change at his customer's expense.  Turning quietly to the counterman, he
whispered, "Weigh down upon the swami's liver!"
Logic is a little bird, sitting in a tree; that smells *_____awful*.
Love makes the world go 'round, with a little help from intrinsic angular
momentum.
"Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams) "365,365,365,
365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365".  He [ten-year-old Truman Henry
Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his pantaloons over the
tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes in their sockets, sometimes
smiling and talking, and then seeming to be in an agony, until, in not more
than one minute, said he, 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!"
An electronic computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be
as much fun to watch.
                -- James R. Newman, "The World of Mathematics"
One day this guy is finally fed up with his middle-class existence and
decides to do something about it.  He calls up his best friend, who is a
mathematical genius.  "Look," he says, "do you suppose you could find some
way mathematically of guaranteeing winning at the race track?  We could
make a lot of money and retire and enjoy life."  The mathematician thinks
this over a bit and walks away mumbling to himself.
        A week later his friend drops by to ask the genius if he's had any
success.  The genius, looking a little bleary-eyed, replies, "Well, yes,
actually I do have an idea, and I'm reasonably sure that it will work, but
there a number of details to be figured out.
        After the second week the mathematician appears at his friend's house,
looking quite a bit rumpled, and announces, "I think I've got it! I still have
some of the theory to work out, but now I'm certain that I'm on the right
track."
        At the end of the third week the mathematician wakes his friend by
pounding on his door at three in the morning.  He has dark circles under his
eyes.  His hair hasn't been combed for many days.  He appears to be wearing
the same clothes as the last time.  He has several pencils sticking out from
behind his ears and an almost maniacal expression on his face.  "WE CAN DO
IT!  WE CAN DO IT!!" he shrieks. "I have discovered the perfect solution!!
And it's so EASY!  First, we assume that horses are perfect spheres in simple
harmonic motion..."
        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"
You can not get anything worthwhile done without raising a sweat.
                -- The First Law Of Thermodynamics

What ever you want is going to cost a little more than it is worth.
                -- The Second Law Of Thermodynamics

You can not win the game, and you are not allowed to stop playing.
                -- The Third Law Of Thermodynamics
Pete:        Waiter, this meat is bad.
Waiter:        Who told you?
Pete:        A little swallow.
The basic menu item, in fact the ONLY menu item, would be a food unit called
the "patty," consisting of -- this would be guaranteed in writing -- "100
percent animal matter of some kind." All patties would be heated up and then
cooled back down in electronic devices immediately before serving.  The
Breakfast Patty would be a patty on a bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, egg,
Ba-Ko-Bits, Cheez Whiz, a Special Sauce made by pouring ketchup out of a
bottle and a little slip of paper stating: "Inspected by Number 12."  The
Lunch or Dinner Patty would be any Breakfast Patties that didn't get sold in
the morning. The Seafood Lover's Patty would be any patties that were
starting to emit a serious aroma.  Patties that were too rank even to be
Seafood Lover's Patties would be compressed into wads and sold as "Nuggets."
                -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"
You know you're a little fat if you have stretch marks on your car.
                -- Cyrus, Chicago Reader 1/22/82
A little word of doubtful number,
A foe to rest and peaceful slumber.
If you add an "s" to this,
Great is the metamorphosis.
Plural is plural now no more,
And sweet what bitter was before.
What am I?
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found
I've got a little list -- I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground
And who never would be missed -- who never would be missed.
                -- Koko, "The Mikado"
Come fill the cup and in the fire of spring
Your winter garment of repentence fling.
The bird of time has but a little way
To flutter -- and the bird is on the wing.
                -- Omar Khayyam
Have you seen the old man in the closed down market,
Kicking up the papers in his worn out shoes?
In his eyes you see no pride, hands hang loosely at his side
Yesterdays papers, telling yesterdays news.

How can you tell me you're lonely,
And say for you the sun don't shine?
Let me take you by the hand
Lead you through the streets of London
I'll show you something to make you change your mind...

Have you seen the old man outside the sea-man's mission
Memories fading like the metal ribbons that he wears.
In our winter city the rain cries a little pity
For one more forgotten hero and a world that doesn't care...
Hey, diddle, diddle the overflow pdl
To get a little more stack;
If that's not enough then you lose it all
And have to pop all the way back.
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
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow--
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller, like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.
                -- R.L. Stevenson
I went home with a waitress,
The way I always do.
How I was I to know?
She was with the Russians too.

I was gambling in Havana,
I took a little risk.
Send lawyers, guns, and money,
Dad, get me out of this.
                -- Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns and Money"
Last night I met upon the stair
A little man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
Gee how I wish he'd go away!
No rock so hard but that a little wave
May beat admission in a thousand years.
                -- Tennyson
Once there was a little nerd who loved to read your mail,
And then yank back the i-access times to get hackers off his tail,
And once as he finished reading from the secretary's spool,
He wrote a rude rejection to her boyfriend (how uncool!)
And this as delivermail did work and he ran his backfstat,
He heard an awful crackling like rat fritters in hot fat,
And hard errors brought the system down 'fore he could even shout!
        And the bio bug'll bring yours down too, ef you don't watch out!
And once they was a little flake who'd prowl through the uulog,
And when he went to his blit that night to play at being god,
The ops all heard him holler, and they to the console dashed,
But when they did a ps -ut they found the system crashed!
Oh, the wizards adb'd the dumps and did the system trace,
And worked on the file system 'til the disk head was hot paste,
But all they ever found was this:  "panic: never doubt",
        And the bio bug'll crash your box too, ef you don't watch out!
When the day is done and the moon comes out,
And you hear the printer whining and the rk's seems to count,
When the other desks are empty and their terminals glassy grey,
And the load is only 1.6 and you wonder if it'll stay,
You must mind the file protections and not snoop around,
        Or the bio bug'll getcha and bring the system down!
Take a look around you, tell me what you see,
A girl who thinks she's ordinary lookin' she has got the key.
If you can get close enough to look into her eyes
There's something special right behind the bitterness she hides.
        And you're fair game,
        You never know what she'll decide, you're fair game,
        Just relax, enjoy the ride.
Find a way to reach her, make yourself a fool,
But do it with a little class, disregard the rules.
'Cause this one knows the bottom line, couldn't get a date.
The ugly duckling striking back, and she'll decide her fate.
        (chorus)
The ones you never notice are the ones you have to watch.
She's pleasant and she's friendly while she's looking at your crotch.
Try your hand at conversation, gossip is a lie,
And sure enough she'll take you home and make you wanna die.
        (chorus)
                -- Crosby, Stills, Nash, "Fair Game"
The Bird of Time has but a little way to fly ...
and the bird is on the wing.
                -- Omar Khayyam
There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good, she was very, very good
And when she was bad, she was very, very popular.
                -- Max Miller, "The Max Miller Blue Book"
Though I respect that a lot
I'd be fired if that were my job
After killing Jason off and
Countless screaming argonauts

Bluebird of friendliness
Like guardian angels it's
Always near

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
                -- "Birdhouse in your Soul", They Might Be Giants
Well I looked at my watch and it said a quarter to five,
The headline screamed that I was still alive,
I couldn't understand it, I thought I died last night.
I dreamed I'd been in a border town,
In a little cantina that the boys had found,
I was desperate to dance, just to dig the local sounds.
When along came a senorita,
She looked so good that I had to meet her,
I was ready to approach her with my English charm,
When her brass knuckled boyfriend grabbed me by the arm,
And he said, grow some funk of your own, amigo,
Grow some funk of your own.
We no like to with the gringo fight,
But there might be a death in Mexico tonite.
...
Take my advice, take the next flight,
And grow some funk, grow your funk at home.
                -- Elton John, "Grow Some Funk of Your Own"
While walking down a crowded
City street the other day,
I heard a little urchin
To a comrade turn and say,
"Say, Chimmey, lemme tell youse,
I'd be happy as a clam
If only I was de feller dat
Me mudder t'inks I am.

"She t'inks I am a wonder,                My friends, be yours a life of toil
An' she knows her little lad                Or undiluted joy,
Could never mix wit' nuttin'                You can learn a wholesome lesson
Dat was ugly, mean or bad.                From that small, untutored boy.
Oh, lot o' times I sit and t'ink        Don't aim to be an earthly saint
How nice, 'twould be, gee whiz!                With eyes fixed on a star:
If a feller was de feller                Just try to be the fellow that
Dat his mudder t'inks he is."                Your mother thinks you are.
                -- Will S. Adkin, "If I Only Was the Fellow"
        COONDOG MEMORY
        (heard in Rutledge, Missouri, about eighteen years ago)

Now, this dog is for sale, and she can not only follow a trail twice as
old as the average dog can, but she's got a pretty good memory to boot.
For instance, last week this old boy who lives down the road from me, and
is forever stinkmouthing my hounds, brought some city fellow around to
try out ol' Sis here.  So I turned her out south of the house and she made
two or three big swings back and forth across the edge of the woods, set
back her head, bayed a couple of times, cut straight through the woods,
come to a little clearing, jumped about three foot straight up in the air,
run to the other side, and commenced to letting out a racket like she had
something treed.  We went over there with our flashlights and shone them
up in the tree but couldn't catch no shine offa coon's eyes, and my
neighbor sorta indicated that ol' Sis might be a little crazy, `cause she
stood right to the tree and kept singing up into it.  So I pulled off my
coat and climbed up into the branches, and sure enough, there was a coon
skeleton wedged in between a couple of branches about twenty foot up.
Now as I was saying, she can follow a pretty old trail, but this fellow
was still calling her crazy or touched `cause she had hopped up in the
air while she was crossing the clearing, until I reminded him that the
Hawkins' had a fence across there about five years back.  Now, this dog
is for sale.
                -- News that stayed News: Ten Years of Coevolution Quarterly
Keep in mind always the four constant Laws of Frisbee:
        (1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc
           straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this
           force is technically termed "car suck").
        (2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive
           than "Watch this!"
        (3) The probability of a Frisbee hitting something is directly
           proportional to the cost of hitting it.  For instance, a
           Frisbee will always head directly towards a policeman or
           a little old lady rather than the beat up Chevy.
        (4) Your best throw happens when no one is watching; when the
           cute girl you've been trying to impress is watching, the
           Frisbee will invariably bounce out of your hand or hit you
           in the head and knock you silly.
Several years ago, an international chess tournament was being held in a
swank hotel in New York.  Most of the major stars of the chess world were
there, and after a grueling day of chess, the players and their entourages
retired to the lobby of the hotel for a little refreshment.  In the lobby,
some players got into a heated argument about who was the brightest, the
fastest, and the best chess player in the world.  The argument got quite
loud, as various players claimed that honor.  At that point, a security
guard in the lobby turned to another guard and commented, "If there's
anything I just can't stand, it's chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."
A little suffering is good for the soul.
                -- Kirk, "The Corbomite Maneuver", stardate 1514.0
"Trillian did a little research in the ship's copy of
THHGTTG. It had some advice to offer on drunkenness.
`Go to it,' it said, `and good luck.'
It was cross-referenced to the entry concerning the size of
the Universe and ways of coping with that."

- One of the more preferable pieces of advice contained in
the Guide.
I have a box of telephone rings under my bed.  Whenever I get lonely, I
open it up a little bit, and I get a phone call.  One day I dropped the
box all over the floor.  The phone wouldn't stop ringing.  I had to get
it disconnected.  So I got a new phone.  I didn't have much money, so I
had to get an irregular.  It doesn't have a five.  I ran into a friend
of mine on the street the other day.  He said why don't you give me a
call.  I told him I can't call everybody I want to anymore, my phone
doesn't have a five.  He asked how long had it been that way.  I said I
didn't know -- my calendar doesn't have any sevens.
                -- Steven Wright
  A little pain never hurt anyone.
You Might be a Microsoft Employee If...

1. Every night you dream of torturing Linus Torvalds
2. Every morning you say, "I pledge allegiance to the logo of the United
    Corporation of Microsoft. And to the stock options for which it stands, one
    company, under Bill, with headaches and buggy software for all."
3. Your favorite pick-up line is, "Hey baby...do you want to see a little
    ActiveX?"
4. Everytime you see a website with "Best viewed with Netscape" on it you
    feel like filing a lawsuit against its webmaster
5. You feel that all Anti-Microsoft websites should be censored because they
    are on the Internet, something Bill "invented."
6. You've set a goal to invent at least one new buzzword or acronym per day
7. You've ever been nervous because you haven't registered your Microsoft
    software yet.
8. You've trained your parrot to say "Unix sucks!" and "All hail Bill Gates!"
9. You own a limited edition Monopoly game in which Boardwalk is Microsoft and
    Jail is replaced by Justice Department Investigation
10. You've spent countless hours tracking down the source of the "Microsoft
    Acquires Vatican Church" rumor
A paranoid is a man who knows a little of what's going on.
                -- William S. Burroughs
All most people want is a little more than they'll ever get.
By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task
completely overwhelm you.
Creativity is not always bred in an environment of tranquility;
sometimes you have to squeeze a little to get the paste out of the tube.
Higgins:        Doolittle, you're either an honest man or a rogue.
Doolittle:        A little of both, Guv'nor.  Like the rest of us, a
                little of both.
                -- Shaw, "Pygmalion"
If man is only a little lower than the angels, the angels should reform.
                -- Mary Wilson Little
Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans; it's lovely to be silly
at the right moment.
                -- Horace
You shouldn't wallow in self-pity.  But it's OK to put your feet in it
and swish them around a little.
                -- Guindon
He liked fishing a little too much, and he believed that work was
something a man did when he had to.  He had always been able to get
along well enough without it, especially for the last couple of
years.
                -- "The Stone Giant", James P. Blaylock
"Maybe a good analogy is that drivers are to hardware companies like
excrements are to living creatures: in order to stay alive, they have
to produce them, but you don't put much love into their production,
and their internals (like their development) may be a little
disgusting."

        - Werner Almesberger
You don't get out much, do you :-)?  Lighten up a little, this
is supposed to be fun.......We could argue all day, but there was
lots of computer work done before PCI and PCs.  I'm more than old
enough to know, so just leave it at that.......

        - Dan Malek on the linuxppc-embedded list
> Linus seems to be getting a little emotional in this discussion but swearing
> does not replace data.

Hey, I called people silly, not <censored>. You must have a very low
tolerance ;)

        - Linus Torvalds about offending people on the gcc mailing list
Interface definitions tend to be treated a little differently to "code". But
as I keep trying to beat into people - if you are going to mix GPL and non
GPL code see a lawyer - thats what they are there for

        - Alan Cox on linux-kernel
..... using XML would just be shooting birds with tactical nukes. E.g.
lots of fun, but a little expensive and not really necessary.

        - Jakob Østergaard about using XML in /proc file on linux-kernel
Know the strength of man,
But keep a woman's care!
Be the stream of the universe!
Being the stream of the universe,
Ever true and unswerving,
Become as a little child once more.

Know the white,
But keep the black!
Be an example to the world!
Being an example to the world,
Ever true and unwavering,
Return to the infinite.

Know honor,
Yet keep humility.
Be the valley of the universe!
Being the valley of the universe,
Ever true and resourceful,
Return to the state of the uncarved block.

When the block is carved, it becomes useful.
When the sage uses it, he becomes the ruler.
Thus, "A great tailor cuts little."
The sage has no mind of his own.
He is aware of the needs of others.

I am good to people who are good.
I am also good to people who are not good.
Because Virtue is goodness.
I have faith in people who are faithful.
I also have faith in people who are not faithful.
Because Virtue is faithfulness.

The sage is shy and humble - to the world he seems confusing.
Others look to him and listen.
He behaves like a little child.
If I have even just a little sense,
I will walk on the main road and my only fear
  will be of straying from it.
Keeping to the main road is easy,
But people love to be sidetracked.

When the court is arrayed in splendor,
The fields are full of weeds,
And the granaries are bare.
Some wear gorgeous clothes,
Carry sharp swords,
And indulge themselves with food and drink;
They have more possessions than they can use.
They are robber barons.
This is certainly not the way of Tao.
A little kid went up to Santa and asked him, "Santa, you know when I'm bad
right?"  And Santa says, "Yes, I do."  The little kid then asks, "And you
know when I'm sleeping?" To which Santa replies, "Every minute." So the
little kid then says, "Well, if you know when I'm bad and when I'm good,
then how come you don't know what I want for Christmas?"
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
<KnaraKat> Bite me.
* TheOne gets some salt, then proceeds to nibble on KnaraKat a little
         bit....
<Knghtbrd> learn to love Window Maker.
<Knghtbrd> a little NeXTStep is good for the soul.
I'm starting to think the gene pool could use a little chlorine.
* woot is now known as woot-dinner
* Knghtbrd sprinkles a little salt on woot
<Knghtbrd> I've never had a woot before...  Hope they taste good
<woot-dinner> noooo!
<woot-dinner> don't eat me!
* Knghtbrd decides he does not want a dinner that talks to him...  hehe
<WildCode> Mercury, isn't debugging X a little like finding perfectly
           bugfree code in windows ??
<Mercury> WildCode: Debugging X is like trying to run a straight line
          through a maze.
<Mercury> You just need to bend space-time so that the corners move around
          you and you won't have any problems. (=:]
A blind rabbit was hopping through the woods, tripping over logs and crashing
into trees.  At the same time, a blind snake was slithering through the same
forest, with identical results.  They chanced to collide head-on in a clearing.
        "Please excuse me, sir, I'm blind and I bumped into you accidentally,"
apologized the rabbit.
        "That's quite all right," replied the snake, "I have the same
problem!"
        "All my life I've been wondering what I am," said the rabbit, "Do
you think you could help me find out?"
        "I'll try," said the snake.  He gently coiled himself around the
rabbit. "Well, you're covered with soft fur, you have a little fluffy tail
and long ears.  You're... hmmm... you're probably a bunny rabbit!"
        "Great!" said the rabbit.  "Thanks, I really owe you one!"
        "Well," replied the snake, "I don't know what I am, either.  Do you
suppose you could try and tell me?"
        The rabbit ran his paws all over the snake.  "Well, you're low, cold
and slimey..."  And, as he ran one paw underneath the snake, "and you have
no balls.  You must be an attorney!"
****  GROWTH CENTER REPAIR SERVICE

For those who have had too much of Esalen, Topanga, and Kairos. Tired of
being genuine all the time?  Would you like to learn how to be a little
phony again?  Have you disclosed so much that you're beginning to avoid
people? Have you touched so many people that they're all beginning to
feel the same? Like to be a little dependent? Are perfect orgasms
beginning to bore you? Would you like, for once, not to express a
feeling?  Or better yet, not be in touch with it at all?  Come to us.  We
promise to relieve you of the burden of your great potential.
Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.
                -- Edgar W. Howe
"... being a Linux user is sort of like living in a house inhabited
by a large family of carpenters and architects. Every morning when
you wake up, the house is a little different. Maybe there is a new
turret, or some walls have moved. Or perhaps someone has temporarily
removed the floor under your bed." - Unix for Dummies, 2nd Edition
        -- found in the .sig of Rob Riggs, rriggs@tesser.com
Winnuke in one line?  No problem:
perl -MIO::Socket -e 'IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139")->send("bye",MSG_OOB)'

And formatted so it's a little easier to read:

        #!/usr/bin/perl
        use IO::Socket;
        IO::Socket::INET
                ->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139")
                ->send("bye", MSG_OOB);

        -- Randal Schwartz
Could somebody drag the Irix team kicking and screaming into the 1980's,
please?

I realize it might be quite painful for them, but maybe you could buy them
a disco tape, so they'd feel a little bit more at home.

                -- Linus "Stayin' alive, stayin' alive" Torvalds
        Now, you might ask, "How do I get one of those complete home tool
sets for under $4?" An excellent question.
        Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell
plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and where they
have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full of Raisinets and
malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixon administration.  In either
the hardware or housewares department, you'll find an item imported from an
obscure Oriental country and described as "Nine Tools in One", consisting of
a little handle with interchangeable ends representing inscrutable Oriental
notions of tools that Americans might use around the home.  Buy it.
        This is the kind of tool set professionals use.  Not only is it
inexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in the
so-called quality tools sets: The handle will actually break right off if
you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it to direct
sunlight.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
Practical people would be more practical if they would take a little
more time for dreaming.
                -- J. P. McEvoy
Save a little money each month and at the end of the year you'll be
surprised at how little you have.
                -- Ernest Haskins
The difficult we do today; the impossible takes a little longer.
There has been a little distress selling on the stock exchange.
                -- Thomas W. Lamont, October 29, 1929 (Black Tuesday)
There is hardly a thing in the world that some man can not make a little
worse and sell a little cheaper.
Veni, Vidi, VISA:
        I came, I saw, I did a little shopping.
"We maintain that the very foundation of our way of life is what we call
free enterprise," said Cash McCall, "but when one of our citizens
show enough free enterprise to pile up a little of that profit, we do
our best to make him feel that he ought to be ashamed of himself."
                -- Cameron Hawley
But you have to allow a little for the desire to evangelize when you
think you have good news.
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com>
Well, that's more-or-less what I was saying, though obviously addition
is a little more cosmic than the bitwise operators.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709051808.LAA01780@wall.org>
But that looks a little too much like a declaration for my tastes, when
in fact it isn't one.  So forget I mentioned it.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org>
Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much
extinguishes it.
                -- Hannah More
On a tous un peu peur de l'amour, mais on a surtout peur de souffrir
ou de faire souffrir.
        [One is always a little afraid of love, but above all, one is
         afraid of pain or causing pain.]
Actually, what I'd like is a little toy spaceship!!
I KAISER ROLL?!  What good is a Kaiser Roll without a little COLE SLAW
on the SIDE?
There's a little picture of ED MCMAHON doing BAD THINGS to JOAN RIVERS
in a $200,000 MALIBU BEACH HOUSE!!
Fortune's Exercising Truths:

1:  Richard Simmons gets paid to exercise like a lunatic.  You don't.
2.  Aerobic exercises stimulate and speed up the heart.  So do heart attacks.
3.  Exercising around small children can scar them emotionally for life.
4.  Sweating like a pig and gasping for breath is not refreshing.
5.  No matter what anyone tells you, isometric exercises cannot be done
    quietly at your desk at work.  People will suspect manic tendencies as
    you twitter around in your chair.
6.  Next to burying bones, the thing a dog enjoys mosts is tripping joggers.
7.  Locking four people in a tiny, cement-walled room so they can run around
    for an hour smashing a little rubber ball -- and each other -- with a hard
    racket should immediately be recognized for what it is: a form of insanity.
8.  Fifty push-ups, followed by thirty sit-ups, followed by ten chin-ups,
    followed by one throw-up.
9.  Any activity that can't be done while smoking should be avoided.
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2024
Your feedback:
Ad partners