Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
"By golly, I'm beginning to think Linux really *is* the best thing since sliced bread." (By Vance Petree, Virginia Power) | |
Only people with names beginning with 'A' are getting mail this week (a la Microsoft) | |
All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead. -- Samuel Beckett | |
The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest is held ever year at San Jose State Univ. by Professor Scott Rice. It is held in memory of Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), a rather prolific and popular (in his time) novelist. He is best known today for having written "The Last Days of Pompeii." Whenever Snoopy starts typing his novel from the top of his doghouse, beginning "It was a dark and stormy night..." he is borrowing from Lord Bulwer-Lytton. This was the line that opened his novel, "Paul Clifford," written in 1830. The full line reveals why it is so bad: It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents -- except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. | |
A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat." The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an architect." The computer scientist, who'd listened carefully to all of this, then commented, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?" | |
In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt. -- Rico Tudor, "The Story of Creation or, The Myth of Urk" | |
In the beginning was the Tao. The Tao gave birth to Space and Time. Therefore, Space and Time are the Yin and Yang of programming. Programmers that do not comprehend the Tao are always running out of time and space for their programs. Programmers that comprehend the Tao always have enough time and space to accomplish their goals. How could it be otherwise? -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
Now she speaks rapidly. "Do you know *why* you want to program?" He shakes his head. He hasn't the faintest idea. "For the sheer *joy* of programming!" she cries triumphantly. "The joy of the parent, the artist, the craftsman. "You take a program, born weak and impotent as a dimly-realized solution. You nurture the program and guide it down the right path, building, watching it grow ever stronger. Sometimes you paint with tiny strokes, a keystroke added here, a keystroke changed there." She sweeps her arm in a wide arc. "And other times you savage whole *blocks* of code, ripping out the program's very *essence*, then beginning anew. But always building, creating, filling the program with your own personal stamp, your own quirks and nuances. Watching the program grow stronger, patching it when it crashes, until finally it can stand alone -- proud, powerful, and perfect. This is the programmer's finest hour!" Softly at first, then louder, he hears the strains of a Sousa march. "This ... this is your canvas! your clay! Go forth and create a masterwork!" | |
THE STORY OF CREATION or THE MYTH OF URK In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers;" and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt ... -- Rico Tudor | |
To communicate is the beginning of understanding. -- AT&T | |
You are transported to a room where you are faced by a wizard who points to you and says, "Them's fighting words!" You immediately get attacked by all sorts of denizens of the museum: there is a cobra chewing on your leg, a troglodyte is bashing your brains out with a gold nugget, a crocodile is removing large chunks of flesh from you, a rhinoceros is goring you with his horn, a sabre-tooth cat is busy trying to disembowel you, you are being trampled by a large mammoth, a vampire is sucking you dry, a Tyrannosaurus Rex is sinking his six inch long fangs into various parts of your anatomy, a large bear is dismembering your body, a gargoyle is bouncing up and down on your head, a burly troll is tearing you limb from limb, several dire wolves are making mince meat out of your torso, and the wizard is about to transport you to the corner of Westwood and Broxton. Oh dear, you seem to have gotten yourself killed, as well. You scored 0 out of 250 possible points. That gives you a ranking of junior beginning adventurer. To achieve the next higher rating, you need to score 32 more points. | |
A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that balances are correct. -- Princess Irulan, "Manual of Maud'Dib" | |
Two wrongs are only the beginning. -- Kohn | |
In the beginning, I was made. I didn't ask to be made. No one consulted with me or considered my feelings in this matter. But if it brought some passing fancy to some lowly humans as they haphazardly pranced their way through life's mournful jungle, then so be it. - Marvin the Paranoid Android, From Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Scripts | |
...though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War" | |
"Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked. "Begin at the beginning," the King said, gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop." Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll | |
"If you are beginning to doubt what I am saying, you are probably hallucinating." -- The Firesign Theatre, _Everything you know is Wrong_ | |
THE "FUN WITH USENET" MANIFESTO Very little happens on Usenet without some sort of response from some other reader. Fun With Usenet postings are no exception. Since there are some who might question the rationale of some of the excerpts included therein, I have written up a list of guidelines that sum up the philosophy behind these postings. One. I never cut out words in the middle of a quote without a VERY good reason, and I never cut them out without including ellipses. For instance, "I am not a goob" might become "I am ... a goob", but that's too mundane to bother with. "I'm flame proof" might (and has) become "I'm ...a... p...oof" but that's REALLY stretching it. Two. If I cut words off the beginning or end of a quote, I don't put ellipses, but neither do I capitalize something that wasn't capitalized before the cut. "I don't think that the Church of Ubizmo is a wonderful place" would turn into "the Church of Ubizmo is a wonderful place". Imagine the posting as a tape-recording of the poster's thoughts. If I can set up the quote via fast-forwarding and stopping the tape, and without splicing, I don't put ellipses in. And by the way, I love using this mechanism for turning things around. If you think something stinks, say so - don't say you don't think it's wonderful. ... -- D. J. McCarthy (dmccart@cadape.UUCP) | |
If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word "National." -- George Will | |
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny. | |
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it. -- Clarence Darrow | |
ASCII: The control code for all beginning programmers and those who would become computer literate. Etymologically, the term has come down as a contraction of the often-repeated phrase "ascii and you shall receive." -- Robb Russon | |
Shannon's Observation: Nothing is so frustrating as a bad situation that is beginning to improve. | |
Viking, n.: 1. Daring Scandinavian seafarers, explorers, adventurers, entrepreneurs world-famous for their aggressive, nautical import business, highly leveraged takeovers and blue eyes. 2. Bloodthirsty sea pirates who ravaged northern Europe beginning in the 9th century. Hagar's note: The first definition is much preferred; the second is used only by malcontents, the envious, and disgruntled owners of waterfront property. | |
In my end is my beginning. -- Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots | |
It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end. -- Leonardo da Vinci | |
Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail hour. | |
Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? A: Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer", and the party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb", do hereby and forthwith agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part shall be removed from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the second part and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the parties. The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be limited to, the following. The party of the first part shall, with or without elevation at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder or any other means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part and rotate the party of the second part in a counter-clockwise direction, this point being tendered non-negotiable. Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part becomes fully detached from the receptacle, the party of the first part shall have the option of disposing of the party of the second part in a manner consistent with all relevant and applicable local, state and federal statutes. Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part shall have the option of beginning installation. Aforesaid installation shall occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation should occur in a clockwise direction, this point also being non-negotiable. The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the first part, by any or all agents authorized by him, the objective being to produce the most possible revenue for the Partnership. | |
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn." -- T.H. White, "The Once and Future King" | |
In the beginning there was nothing. And the Lord said "Let There Be Light!" And still there was nothing, but at least now you could see it. | |
In the beginning there was only one kind of Mathematician, created by the Great Mathamatical Spirit form the Book: the Topologist. And they grew to large numbers and prospered. One day they looked up in the heavens and desired to reach up as far as the eye could see. So they set out in building a Mathematical edifice that was to reach up as far as "up" went. Further and further up they went ... until one night the edifice collapsed under the weight of paradox. The following morning saw only rubble where there once was a huge structure reaching to the heavens. One by one, the Mathematicians climbed out from under the rubble. It was a miracle that nobody was killed; but when they began to speak to one another, SUPRISE of all suprises! they could not understand each other. They all spoke different languages. They all fought amongst themselves and each went about their own way. To this day the Topologists remain the original Mathematicians. -- The Story of Babel | |
The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty ?" he asked. "Begin at the beginning,", the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop." -- Lewis Carroll | |
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. -- Darwin | |
... though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War" | |
Endless the world's turn, endless the sun's spinning Endless the quest; I turn again, back to my own beginning, And here, find rest. | |
Look afar and see the end from the beginning. | |
People are beginning to notice you. Try dressing before you leave the house. | |
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." - The Book just racapping what happened in the last book. "`I am so amazingly cool you could keep a side of meat in me for a month. I am so hip I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis.'" - Zaphod being cool. | |
By golly, I'm beginning to think Linux really *is* the best thing since sliced bread. | |
Alan Cox Releases Quantum Kernel Submitted by Dave Finton A surprising development in the linux-kernel mailing list surfaced when Alan Cox announced the release of a 2.2 Linux kernel existing both as an official stable kernel and as a prepatch kernel. This immediately spurred the creation of two different realities (and hence two different Alan Coxes), where a kernel would not settle down to one or the other state until someone looked at it. "I think this resulted from the large number of 'final' prepatch kernels prior to the 2.2.14 release," said David Miller, kernel networking guru and gas station attendent (he'll settle down to one or the other state when someone looks at him). When word of this development spread to Microsoft, Bill Gates was extremely delighted. The Redmond, WA campus has been plagued with quantum fluctuations ever since the inception of Windows 2000 back in 1992. "Our release date has been existing in infinitely many states since the very beginning," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "This just shows the Linux operating system cannot scale to multiple realities as well as our OS." | |
"Brown Orifice" Is Only The Beginning Last week security holes were found in Netscape's Java implementation that allowed it to act as a web server. Earlier today, a hacker announced that he had found vulnerabilities in Mozilla M17 that allow it to operate as a web browser. And that's just the beginning. Said "3l337h4x0r", the discoverer of the M17 exploit, "This is quite a hack! By manipulating some internal functions, I was able to use M17 to actually surf the web. Slashdot and Humorix rendered beautifully." Mozilla engineers were stunned. "This shouldn't be possible. M17 contains a newsreader, a mail client, an instant messenger client, and a whole bunch of XUL acronymn-enriched stuff, but it shouldn't be able to handle HTTP or HTML. We haven't been planning on adding web-surfing functionality to Mozilla until M30... maybe M25 at the earliest. I suspect this whole thing is a hoax." | |
Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm. -- Tom Robbins | |
Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. | |
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and Earth. The named is the mother of the ten thousand things. Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations. These two spring from the same source but differ in name; this appears as darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gate to all mystery. | |
Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form. Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound. Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible. These three are indefinable; Therefore they are joined in one. From above it is not bright; From below it is not dark: An unbroken thread beyond description. It returns to nothingness. The form of the formless, The image of the imageless, It is called indefinable and beyond imagination. Stand before it and there is no beginning. Follow it and there is no end. Stay with the ancient Tao, Move with the present. Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao. | |
The greatest Virtue is to follow Tao and Tao alone. The Tao is elusive and intangible. Oh, it is intangible and elusive, and yet within is image. Oh, it is elusive and intangible, and yet within is form. Oh, it is dim and dark, and yet within is essence. This essence is very real, and therein lies faith. From the very beginning until now its name has never been forgotten. Thus I perceive the creation. How do I know the ways of creation? Because of this. | |
A truly good man is not aware of his goodness, And is therefore good. A foolish man tries to be good, And is therefore not good. A truly good man does nothing, Yet leaves nothing undone. A foolish man is always doing, Yet much remains to be done. When a truly kind man does something, he leaves nothing undone. When a just man does something, he leaves a great deal to be done. When a disciplinarian does something and no one responds, He rolls up his sleeves in an attempt to enforce order. Therefore when Tao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is kindness. When kindness is lost, there is justice. When justice is lost, there ritual. Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion. Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of Tao. It is the beginning of folly. Therefore the truly great man dwells on what is real and not what is on the surface, On the fruit and not the flower. Therefore accept the one and reject the other. | |
The beginning of the universe Is the mother of all things. Knowing the mother, on also knows the sons. Knowing the sons, yet remaining in touch with the mother, Brings freedom from the fear of death. Keep your mouth shut, Guard the senses, And life is ever full. Open your mouth, Always be busy, And life is beyond hope. Seeing the small is insight; Yielding to force is strength. Using the outer light, return to insight, And in this way be saved from harm. This is learning constancy. | |
Peace is easily maintained; Trouble is easily overcome before it starts. The brittle is easily shattered; The small is easily scattered. Deal with it before it happens. Set things in order before there is confusion. A tree as great as a man's embrace springs up from a small shoot; A terrace nine stories high begins with a pile of earth; A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's feet. He who acts defeats his own purpose; He who grasps loses. The sage does not act, and so is not defeated. He does not grasp and therefore does not lose. People usually fail when they are on the verge of success. So give as much care to the end as to the beginning; Then there will be no failure. Therefore the sage seeks freedom from desire. He does not collect precious things. He learns not to hold on to ideas. He brings men back to what they have lost. He help the ten thousand things find their own nature, But refrains from action. | |
In the beginning those who knew the Tao did not try to enlighten others, But kept it hidden. Why is it so hard to rule? Because people are so clever. Rulers who try to use cleverness Cheat the country. Those who rule without cleverness Are a blessing to the land. These are the two alternatives. Understanding these is Primal Virtue. Primal Virtue is deep and far. It leads all things back Toward the great oneness. | |
"Gentlemen of the jury," said the defense attorney, now beginning to warm to his summation, "the real question here before you is, shall this beautiful young woman be forced to languish away her loveliest years in a dark prison cell? Or shall she be set free to return to her cozy little apartment at 4134 Mountain Ave. -- there to spend her lonely, loveless hours in her boudoir, lying beside her little Princess phone, 962-7873?" | |
Chapter 1 The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, HHGG #2, (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe). | |
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Kindness is the beginning of cruelty. -- Muad'dib [Frank Herbert, "Dune"] | |
By golly, I'm beginning to think Linux really *is* the best thing since sliced bread. -- Vance Petree, Virginia Power | |
The Bible on letters of reference: Are we beginning all over again to produce our credentials? Do we, like some people, need letters of introduction to you, or from you? No, you are all the letter we need, a letter written on your heart; any man can see it for what it is and read it for himself. -- 2 Corinthians 3:1-2, New English translation | |
Interestingly enough, since subroutine declarations can come anywhere, you wouldn't have to put BEGIN {} at the beginning, nor END {} at the end. Interesting, no? I wonder if Henry would like it. :-) --lwall | |
Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable. -- Bruce Lee |