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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

Well, anyway, I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized
that like most books, it had too many words.  The plot was the same one that
all James Bond books have: An evil person tries to blow up the world, but
James Bond kills him and his henchmen and makes love to several attractive
women.  There, that's it: 24 words.  But the guy who wrote the book took
*thousands* of words to say it.
        Or consider "The Brothers Karamazov", by the famous Russian alcoholic
Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  It's about these two brothers who kill their father.
Or maybe only one of them kills the father.  It's impossible to tell because
what they mostly do is talk for nearly a thousand pages.  If all Russians talk
as much as the Karamazovs did, I don't see how they found time to become a
major world power.
        I'm told that Dostoyevsky wrote "The Brothers Karamazov" to raise
the question of whether there is a God.  So why didn't he just come right
out and say: "Is there a God? It sure beats the heck out of me."
        Other famous works could easily have been summarized in a few words:

* "Moby Dick" -- Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize
  nature and will kill you.
* "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy.
                -- Dave Barry
Leveraging always beats prototyping.
A Smith & Wesson beats four aces.
Once upon a time there was a kingdom ruled by a great bear.  The peasants
were not very rich, and one of the few ways to become at all wealthy was
to become a Royal Knight.  This required an interview with the bear.  If
the bear liked you, you were knighted on the spot.  If not, the bear would
just as likely remove your head with one swat of a paw.  However, the family
of these unfortunate would-be knights was compensated with a beautiful
sheepdog from the royal kennels, which was itself a fairly valuable
possession.  And the moral of the story is:

The mourning after a terrible knight, nothing beats the dog of the bear that
hit you.
Canada Bill Jones's Motto:
        It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.

Canada Bill Jones's Supplement:
        A Smith and Wesson beats four aces.
[Norm is angry.]

Woody: What can I get you, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:  Clifford Clavin's head.
                -- Cheers, The Triangle

Sam:  Hey, what's happening, Norm?
Norm: Well, it's a dog-eat-dog world, Sammy,
      and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear.
                -- Cheers, The Peterson Principle

Sam:  How's life in the fast lane, Normie?
Norm: Beats me, I can't find the on-ramp.
                -- Cheers, Diane Chambers Day
Sam:   What do you know there, Norm?
Norm:  How to sit.  How to drink.  Want to quiz me?
                -- Cheers, Loverboyd

Sam:   Hey, how's life treating you there, Norm?
Norm:  Beats me. ...  Then it kicks me and leaves me for dead.
                -- Cheers, Loverboyd

Woody: How would a beer feel, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:  Pretty nervous if I was in the room.
                -- Cheers, Loverboyd
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
                -- William Blake
This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.
Schizophrenia beats being alone.
For adult education nothing beats children.
        "Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly.  "In the past year
strange and fearful wonders I have seen.  Fields sown with barley reap
crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their artichoke hearts.
There has been a hot day in December and a blue moon.  Calendars are made with
a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon Holstein bore alive two insurance
salesmen.  The earth splits and the entrails of a goat were found tied in
square knots.  The face of the sun blackens and the skies have rained down
soggy potato chips."
        "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito.
        "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made good
copy."
                -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
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