Dictionary De - En
De - Es
De - Pt| Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
| Lay off the muses, it's a very tough dollar. -- S.J. Perelman | |
| Plato, by the way, wanted to banish all poets from his proposed Utopia because they were liars. The truth was that Plato knew philosophers couldn't compete successfully with poets. -- Kilgore Trout (Philip J. Farmer), "Venus on the Half Shell" | |
| There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. -- J.S. Bach | |
| "Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *___can* you believe?!" -- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward] | |
| A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm) -- by Charles Dickens A lawyer who looks like a French Nobleman is executed in his place. The Metamorphosis LITE(tm) -- by Franz Kafka A man turns into a bug and his family gets annoyed. Lord of the Rings LITE(tm) -- by J.R.R. Tolkien Some guys take a long vacation to throw a ring into a volcano. Hamlet LITE(tm) -- by Wm. Shakespeare A college student on vacation with family problems, a screwy girl-friend and a mother who won't act her age. | |
| AWAKE! FEAR! FIRE! FOES! AWAKE! FEAR! FIRE! FOES! AWAKE! AWAKE! -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| "Elves and Dragons!" I says to him. "Cabbages and potatoes are better for you and me." -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels, each delved into a hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall was a gate. -- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Return of the King" [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to system overview.] | |
| Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both yes and no. -- J.R.R. Tolkien | |
| He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom. -- J.R.R. Tolkien | |
| I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. -- J.R.R. Tolkien | |
| My dear People. My dear Bagginses and Boffins, and my dear Tooks and Brandybucks, and Grubbs, and Chubbs, and Burrowses, and Hornblowers, and Bolgers, Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses and Proudfoots. Also my good Sackville Bagginses that I welcome back at last to Bag End. Today is my one hundred and eleventh birthday: I am eleventy-one today!" -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| Never laugh at live dragons. -- Bilbo Baggins [J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Hobbit"] | |
| Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we ourselves possess. -- Gandalf the Grey [J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"] | |
| Writing is turning one's worst moments into money. -- J.P. Donleavy | |
| === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== JCL support as alternative to system menu. In our continuing effort to support languages other than LISP on the CADDR, we have developed an OS/360-compatible JCL. This can be used as an alternative to the standard system menu. Type System J to get to a JCL interactive read-execute-diagnose loop window. [Note that for 360 compatibility, all input lines are truncated to 80 characters.] This window also maintains a mouse-sensitive display of critical job parameters such as dataset allocation, core allocation, channels, etc. When a JCL syntax error is detected or your job ABENDs, the window-oriented JCL debugger is entered. The JCL debugger displays appropriate OS/360 error messages (such as IEC703, "disk error") and allows you to dequeue your job. | |
| By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun. -- P.J. Plauger, "Computer Language", 1988, April Fool's column. | |
| COMPASS [for the CDC-6000 series] is the sort of assembler one expects from a corporation whose president codes in octal. -- J.N. Gray | |
| Dear Sir, I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or to the office, We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive un- employment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry. Yours faithfully, Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J.P. Sevenoaks -- Letters To The Editor, The Times of London | |
| Did you know that for the price of a 280-Z you can buy two Z-80's? -- P.J. Plauger | |
| FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer. -- A.J. Perlis | |
| I think there's a world market for about five computers. -- attr. Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board, IBM), 1943 | |
| It appears that PL/I (and its dialects) is, or will be, the most widely used higher level language for systems programming. -- J. Sammet | |
| Modeling paged and segmented memories is tricky business. -- P.J. Denning | |
| Risch's decision procedure for integration, not surprisingly, uses a recursion on the number and type of the extensions from the rational functions needed to represent the integrand. Although the algorithm follows and critically depends upon the appropriate structure of the input, as in the case of multivariate factorization, we cannot claim that the algorithm is a natural one. In fact, the creator of differential algebra, Ritt, committed suicide in the early 1950's, largely, it is claimed, because few paid attention to his work. Probably he would have received more attention had he obtained the algorithm as well. -- Joel Moses, "Algorithms and Complexity", ed. J.F. Traub | |
| skldfjkljklsR%^&(IXDRTYju187pkasdjbasdfbuil h;asvgy8p 23r1vyui135 2 kmxsij90TYDFS$$b jkzxdjkl bjnk ;j nk;<[][;-==-<<<<<';[, [hjioasdvbnuio;buip^&(FTSD$%*VYUI:buio;sdf}[asdf'] sdoihjfh(_YU*G&F^*CTY98y Now look what you've gone and done! You've broken it! | |
| "Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even one which cannot be justified on any other grounds." -- J. Finnegan, USC. | |
| The road to hell is paved with NAND gates. -- J. Gooding | |
| Time-sharing is the junk-mail part of the computer business. -- H.R.J. Grosch (attributed) | |
| A good name lost is seldom regained. When character is gone, all is gone, and one of the richest jewels of life is lost forever. -- J. Hawes | |
| Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there. -- Sydney J. Harris | |
| Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely. -- P.J. O'Rourke | |
| If two wrongs don't make a right, try three. -- Laurence J. Peter | |
| Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. -- James J. Ling | |
| It's currently a problem of access to gigabits through punybaud. -- J. C. R. Licklider | |
| "By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun." -- P. J. Plauger, from his April Fool's column in April 88's "Computer Language" | |
| "To take a significant step forward, you must make a series of finite improvements." -- Donald J. Atwood, General Motors | |
| "Now here's something you're really going to like!" -- Rocket J. Squirrel | |
| "We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement." -- Richard J. Daley | |
| "Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missile sighted, target Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept." -- The Firesign Theatre movie, _J-Men Forever_ | |
| "Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *can* you believe?!" -- Bullwinkle J. Moose | |
| In his book, Mr. DePree tells the story of how designer George Nelson urged that the company also take on Charles Eames in the late 1940s. Max's father, J. DePree, co-founder of the company with herman Miller in 1923, asked Mr. Nelson if he really wanted to share the limited opportunities of a then-small company with another designer. "George's response was something like this: 'Charles Eames is an unusual talent. He is very different from me. The company needs us both. I want very much to have Charles Eames share in whatever potential there is.'" -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 | |
| "Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!" he said to himself, and it became a favourite saying of his later, and passed into a proverb. "You aren't nearly through this adventure yet," he added, and that was pretty true as well. -- Bilbo Baggins, "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien, Chapter XII | |
| "You'll pay to know what you really think." -- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs | |
| "Pull the wool over your own eyes!" -- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs | |
| Astrology is the sheerest hokum. This pseudoscience has been around since the day of the Chaldeans and Babylonians. It is as phony as numerology, phrenology, palmistry, alchemy, the reading of tea leaves, and the practice of divination by the entrails of a goat. No serious person will buy the notion that our lives are influenced individually by the movement of distant planets. This is the sawdust blarney of the carnival midway. -- James J. Kilpatrick, Universal Press Syndicate | |
| "It is the creationists who blasphemously are claiming that God is cheating us in a stupid way." -- J. W. Nienhuys | |
| 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) | |
| "Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all...." -- Thomas J. Kopp | |
| "The NY Times is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country. The National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running the country..." -- Robert J Woodhead (trebor@biar.UUCP) | |
| Audacity, and again, audacity, and always audacity. -- G.J. Danton | |
| Corruption is not the #1 priority of the Police Commissioner. His job is to enforce the law and fight crime. -- P.B.A. President E. J. Kiernan | |
| Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame. -- Laurence J. Peter | |
| Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -- P.J. O'Rourke | |
| I trust the first lion he meets will do his duty. -- J.P. Morgan on Teddy Roosevelt's safari | |
| I used to be a rebel in my youth. This cause... that cause... (chuckle) I backed 'em ALL! But I learned. Rebellion is simply a device used by the immature to hide from his own problems. So I lost interest in politics. Now when I feel aroused by a civil rights case or a passport hearing... I realize it's just a device. I go to my analyst and we work it out. You have no idea how much better I feel these days. -- J. Feiffer | |
| If built in great numbers, motels will be used for nothing but illegal purposes. -- J. Edgar Hoover | |
| It is easier to be a "humanitarian" than to render your own country its proper due; it is easier to be a "patriot" than to make your community a better place to live in; it is easier to be a "civic leader" than to treat your own family with loving understanding; for the smaller the focus of attention, the harder the task. -- Sydney J. Harris | |
| Man is a military animal, glories in gunpowder, and loves parade. -- P.J. Bailey | |
| My experience with government is when things are non-controversial, beautifully co-ordinated and all the rest, it must be that not much is going on. -- J.F. Kennedy | |
| Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying as an income tax refund. -- F. J. Raymond | |
| Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. -- Winston Churchill Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying as an income tax refund. -- F.J. Raymond | |
| Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. -- S. Johnson, "The Life of Samuel Johnson" by J. Boswell In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. -- Ambrose Bierce When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel, he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word reform. -- Sen. Roscoe Conkling Public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel. -- Boies Penrose | |
| Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. -- J.K. Galbraith | |
| "What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so that we wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running our country. Nice try anyway, George." -- D.J. on KSFO/KYA | |
| When smashing monuments, save the pedstals -- they always come in handy. -- Stanislaw J. Lem, "Unkempt Thoughts" | |
| Bureaucrat, n.: A person who cuts red tape sideways. -- J. McCabe | |
| economics, n.: Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J.K. Galbraith. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
| QOTD: I opened Pandora's box, let the cat out of the bag and put the ball in their court. -- Hon. J. Hacker (The Ministry of Administrative Affairs) | |
| Non-Determinism is not meant to be reasonable. -- M.J. 0'Donnell | |
| ... at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand. -- J. B. White | |
| What scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch? -- J.D. Farley | |
| Q: How was Thomas J. Watson buried? A: 9 edge down. | |
| A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. | |
| As Gen. de Gaulle occassionally acknowledges America to be the daughter of Europe, so I am pleased to come to Yale, the daughter of Harvard. -- J.F. Kennedy | |
| ... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads -- makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number. -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds" | |
| Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know. -- Daniel J. Boorstin | |
| Princeton's taste is sweet like a strawberry tart. Harvard's is a subtle taste, like whiskey, coffee, or tobacco. It may even be a bad habit, for all I know. -- Prof. J.H. Finley '25 | |
| The average Ph.D thesis is nothing but the transference of bones from one graveyard to another. -- J. Frank Dobie, "A Texan in England" | |
| You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers. -- J. D. Salinger | |
| "The New York Times is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country. The National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running the country ..." -- Robert J Woodhead | |
| Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Stepanakert, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region, rioted over much needed spelling reform in the Soviet Union. -- P.J. O'Rourke | |
| Climate and Surgery R C Gilchrist, who was shot by J Sharp twelve days ago, and who received a derringer ball in the right breast, and who it was supposed at the time could not live many hours, was on the street yesterday and the day before -- walking several blocks at a time. To those who design to be riddled with bullets or cut to pieces with Bowie-knives, we cordially recommend our Sacramento climate and Sacramento surgery. -- Sacramento Daily Union, September 11, 1861 | |
| 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 | |
| Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way. -- Alan J. Perlis | |
| 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 | |
| And the French medical anatomist Etienne Serres really did argue that black males are primitive because the distance between their navel and penis remains small (relative to body height) throughout life, while white children begin with a small separation but increase it during growth -- the rising belly button as a mark of progress. -- S.J. Gould, "Racism and Recapitulation" | |
| It's not hard to admit errors that are [only] cosmetically wrong. -- J.K. Galbraith | |
| My message is not that biological determinists were bad scientists or even that they were always wrong. Rather, I believe that science must be understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of robots programmed to collect pure information. I also present this view as an upbeat for science, not as a gloomy epitaph for a noble hope sacrificed on the alter of human limitations. I believe that a factual reality exists and that science, though often in an obtuse and erratic manner, can learn about it. Galileo was not shown the instruments of torture in an abstract debate about lunar motion. He had threatened the Church's conventional argument for social and doctrinal stability: the static world order with planets circling about a central earth, priests subordinate to the Pope and serfs to their lord. But the Church soon made its peace with Galileo's cosmology. They had no choice; the earth really does revolve about the sun. -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" | |
| One can search the brain with a microscope and not find the mind, and can search the stars with a telescope and not find God. -- J. Gustav White | |
| One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid. -- J.D. Watson, "The Double Helix" | |
| One man's constant is another man's variable. -- A.J. Perlis | |
| The spirit of Plato dies hard. We have been unable to escape the philosophical tradition that what we can see and measure in the world is merely the superficial and imperfect representation of an underlying reality. -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" | |
| "The subspace _W inherits the other 8 properties of _V. And there aren't even any property taxes." -- J. MacKay, Mathematics 134b | |
| ... we must be wary of granting too much power to natural selection by viewing all basic capacities of our brain as direct adaptations. I do not doubt that natural selection acted in building our oversized brains -- and I am equally confident that our brains became large as an adaptation for definite roles (probably a complex set of interacting functions). But these assumptions do not lead to the notion, often uncritically embraced by strict Darwinians, that all major capacities of the brain must arise as direct products of natural selection. -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" | |
| We who revel in nature's diversity and feel instructed by every animal tend to brand Homo sapiens as the greatest catastrophe since the Cretaceous extinction. -- S.J. Gould | |
| What is algebra, exactly? Is it one of those three-cornered things? -- J.M. Barrie | |
| A box without hinges, key, or lid, Yet golden treasure inside is hid. -- J.R.R. Tolkien | |
| A Elbereth Gilthoniel, silivren penna m'iriel o menel aglar elenath! Na chaered palan-d'iriel o galadhremmin ennorath, Fanuilos, le linnathon nef aear, s'i nef aearon! -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| A is for awk, which runs like a snail, and B is for biff, which reads all your mail. C is for cc, as hackers recall, while D is for dd, the command that does all. E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys, and F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees. G is for grep, a clever detective, while H is for halt, which may seem defective. I is for indent, which rarely amuses, and J is for join, which nobody uses. K is for kill, which makes you the boss, while L is for lex, which is missing from DOS. M is for more, from which less was begot, and N is for nice, which it really is not. O is for od, which prints out things nice, while P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice. Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable, and R is for ranlib, for sorting ar table. S is for spell, which attempts to belittle, while T is for true, which does very little. U is for uniq, which is used after sort, and V is for vi, which is hard to abort. W is for whoami, which tells you your name, while X is, well, X, of dubious fame. Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and Z is for zcat, which handles compression. -- THE ABC'S OF UNIX | |
| Again she fled, but swift he came. Tin'uviel! Tin'uviel! He called her by her elvish name; And there she halted listening. One moment stood she, and a spell His voice laid on her: Beren came And doom fell on Tin'uviel That in his arms lay glistening. As Beren looked into her eyes Within the shadows of her hair, The trembling starlight of the skies He saw there mirrored shimmering. Tin'uviel the elven-fair, Immortal maiden elven-wise, About him cast her shadowy hair And arms like silver glimmering. Long was the way that fate them bore, O'er stony mountains cold and grey, Through halls of iron and darkling door, And woods of nightshade morrowless. The Sundering Seas between them lay, And yet at last they met once more, And long ago they passed away In the forest singing sorrowless. -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king. -- J.R.R. Tolkien | |
| Azh nazg durbatal^uk, azh nazg gimbatul, Azh nazg thrakatal^uk agh burzum ishi krimpatul! -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| Cold be hand and heart and bone, and cold be sleep under stone; never more to wake on stony bed, never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead. In the black wind the stars shall die, and still on gold here let them lie, till the dark lord lifts his hand over dead sea and withered land. -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| Farewell we call to hearth and hall! Though wind may blow and rain may fall, We must away ere break of day Far over wood and mountain tall. To Rivendell, where Elves yet dwell In glades beneath the misty fell, Through moor and waste we ride in haste, And whither then we cannot tell. With foes ahead, behind us dread, Beneath the sky shall be our bed, Until at last our toil be passed, Our journey done, our errand sped. We must away! We must away! We ride before the break of day! -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| "For a couple o' pins," says Troll, and grins, "I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins. A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet! I'll try my teeth on thee now. Hee now! See now! I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins; I've a mind to dine on thee now." But just as he thought his dinner was caught, He found his hands had hold of naught. Before he could mind, Tom slipped behing And gave him the boot to larn him. Warn him! Darn him! A bump o' the boot on the seat, Tom thoguht, Would be the way to larn him. But harder than stone is the flesh and bone Of a troll that sits in the hills alone. As well set your boot to the mountain's root, For the seat of a troll don't feel it. Peel it! Heal it! Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan, And he knew his toes could feel it. Tom's leg is game, since home he came, And his bootless foot is lasting lame; But Troll don't care, and he's still there With the bone he boned from its owner. Doner! Boner! Troll's old seat is still the same, And the bone he boned from its owner! -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| Get out, you old Wight! Vanish in the sunlight! Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing, Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains! Come never here again! Leave your barrow empty! Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness, Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended. -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| Gil-galad was an Elven-king. Of him the harpers sadly sing: the last whose realm was fair and free between the Mountains and the Sea. His sword was long, his lance was keen, his shining helm afar was seen; the countless stars of heaven's field were mirrored in his silver shield. But long ago he rode away, and where he dwelleth none can say; for into darkness fell his star in Mordor where the shadows are. -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| 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 dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo! Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow! Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo! -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| Hey! Come derry dol! Hop along, my hearties! Hobbits! Ponies all! We are fond of parties. Now let the fun begin! Let us sing together! -- 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 | |
| Hey! now! Come hoy now! Whither do you wander? Up, down, near or far, here, there or yonder? Sharp-ears, Wise-nose, Swish-tail and Bumpkin, White-socks my little lad, and old Fatty Lumpkin! -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| Ho! Ho! Ho! to the bottle I go To heal my heart and drown my woe. Rain may fall and wind may blow, And many miles be still to go, But under a tall tree I will lie, And let the clouds go sailing by. -- 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 | |
| Hop along my little friends, up the Withywindle! Tom's going on ahead candles for to kindle. Down west sinks the Sun; soon you will be groping. When the night-shadows fall, then the door will open, Out of the winfow-panes light will twinkle yellow. Fear no alder black! Heed no hoary willow! Fear neither root nor bough! Tom goes on before you. Hey now! merry dol! We'll be waiting for you! -- 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 | |
| I see a bad moon rising. I see trouble on the way. I see earthquakes and lightnin' I see bad times today. Don't go 'round tonight, It's bound to take your life. There's a bad moon on the rise. -- J. C. Fogerty, "Bad Moon Rising" | |
| I'm an artist. But it's not what I really want to do. What I really want to do is be a shoe salesman. I know what you're going to say -- "Dreamer! Get your head out of the clouds." All right! But it's what I want to do. Instead I have to go on painting all day long. The world should make a place for shoe salesmen. -- J. Feiffer | |
| Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question... Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" -- T.S. Eliot, "Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock" | |
| 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 | |
| O! Wanderers in the shadowed land despair not! For though dark they stand, all woods there be must end at last, and see the open sun go past: the setting sun, the rising sun, the day's end, or the day begun. For east or west all woods must fail ... -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow, Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow. None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master: His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster. -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| Seek for the Sword that was broken: In Imladris it dwells; There shall be counsels taken Stronger than Morgul-spells. There shall be shown a token That Doom is near at hand, For Isildur's Bane shall waken, And the Halfling forth shall stand. -- 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 | |
| Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear! O Queen beyond the Western Sea! O Light to us that wander here Amid the world of woven trees! Gilthoniel! O Elbereth! Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath! Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee In a far land beyond the Sea. O stars that in the Sunless Year With shining hand by her were sown, In windy fields now bright and clear We see you silver blossom blown! O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! We still remember, we who dwell In this far land beneath the trees, Thy starlight on the Western Seas. -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| The leaves were long, the grass was green, The hemlock-umbels tall and fair, And in the glade a light was seen Of stars in shadow shimmering. Tin'uviel was dancing there To music of a pipe unseen, And light of stars was in her hair, And in her raiment glimmering. There Beren came from mountains colds, And lost he wandered under leaves, And where the Elven-river rolled He walked alone and sorrowing. He peered between the hemlock-leaves And saw in wonder flowers of gold Upon her mantle and her sleeves, And her hair like shadow following. Enchantment healed his weary feet That over hills were doomed to roam; And forth he hastened, strong and fleet, And grasped at moonbeams glistening. Through woven woods in Elvenhome She lightly fled on dancing feet, And left him lonely still to roam In the silent forest listening. -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say. -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| There's a thrill in store for all for we're about to toast The corporation that we represent. We're here to cheer each pioneer and also proudly boast, Of that man of men our sterling president The name of T.J. Watson means A courage none can stem And we feel honored to be here to toast the IBM. -- Ever Onward, from the 1940 IBM Songbook | |
| Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. -- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Lord of the Rings" | |
| Troll sat alone on his seat of stone, And munched and mumbled a bare old bone; For many a year he had gnawed it near, For meat was hard to come by. Done by! Gum by! In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone, And meat was hard to come by. Up came Tom with his big boots on. Said he to Troll: "Pray, what is youn? For it looks like the shin o' my nuncle Tim, As should be a-lyin in graveyard. Caveyard! Paveyard! This many a year has Tim been gone, And I thought he were lyin' in graveyard." "My lad," said Troll, "this bone I stole. But what be bones that lie in a hole? Thy nuncle was dead as a lump o' lead, Afore I found his shinbone. Tinbone! Thinbone! He can spare a share for a poor old troll For he don't need his shinbone." Said Tom: "I don't see why the likes o' thee Without axin' leave should go makin' free With the shank or the shin o' my father's kin; So hand the old bone over! Rover! Trover! Though dead he be, it belongs to he; So hand the old bnone over!" -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| 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 | |
| Wake now my merry lads! Wake and hear me calling! Warm now be heart and limb! The cold stone is fallen; Dark door is standing wide; dead hand is broken. Night under Night is flown, and the Gate is open! -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper. Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "Practical Gamekeeping." -- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959) | |
| Answers to Last Fortune's Questions: (1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark). (2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle. (3) I don't know. (4) Who cares? (5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk, Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5. (6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of Papyrus Books). | |
| Linux Ported to Homer Simpson's Brain SPRINGFIELD -- Slashdot recently reported on Homer Simpson's brain "upgrade" to an Intel CPU. Intel hails the CPU transplant as the "World's Greatest Technological Achievement". Intel originally planned to install Microsoft Windows CE (Cerebrum Enhanced) on Homer's new PentiumBrain II processor. However, due to delays in releasing Windows CE, Intel decided to install DebianBrain Linux, the new Linux port for brains. Computer industry pundits applaud the last minute switch from Windows to Linux. One said, "I was a bit concerned for Homer. With Windows CE, I could easily imagine Homer slipping into an infinite loop: "General Protection Fault. D'oh! D'oh! D'oh! D'oh..." Or, at the worst, the Blue Screen of Death could have become much more than a joke." Some pundits are more concerned about the quality of the Intel CPU. "Linux is certainly an improvement over Windows. But since it's running on a PentiumBrain chip, all bets are off. What if the chip miscalculates the core temperature of the power plant where Homer works? I can just imagine the story on the evening news: 'Springfield was obliterated into countless subatomic particles yesterday because Homer J. Simpson, power plant button-pusher, accidentally set the core temperature to 149.992322340948290 instead of 150...' If anything, an Alpha chip running Linux should have been used for Homer's new brain." | |
| Actual Snippet of Windows Source Code! Honest! NOTE: The following snippet of the Windows 95 source code was sent to us via 'unofficial' channels. Don't tell anyone you saw this! We really don't feel like being visited by the Microsoft Intellectual Property Police. void BusyLoop() /* Do nothing loop to kill CPU cycles; added at the request of Intel */ { DisplayRandomSubliminalMessage(); for( int i = 0; i < BIG_INT; i++ ) for( int j = 0; j < BIG_INT; j++ ) for( int k = 0; k < BIG_INT; k++ ) for( int l = 0; l < BIG_INT; l++ ) if( STACK_SPACE_PERCENTAGE_FREE > .05 ) /* There's plenty of stack space left -- let's eat up some more CPU cycles, recursively! */ BusyLoop(); } | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#10) The AnyQuack Computer One electronic machine, Colossus, was used by the British in World War II to decode Nazi transmissions. The code-breakers were quite successful in their mission, except for the tiny detail that nobody knew how to read German. They had decoded unreadable messages into... unreadable messages. Two years later in 1945, a group of professors and students at the Univ. of Pennsylvania were discussing computing theory. An argument ensued, in which one professor yelled, "Any quack can build an electronic computer! The real challenge is building one that doesn't crash every five minutes." One graduate student, J. Presper Eckert, Jr., responded, "I'm any quack! I'll take you up on that challenge. I'll build a device that can calculate 1,000 digits of pi in one hour... without crashing!" Several professors laughed; "Such high-speed calculations are beyond our level of technology." Eckert and his friends did build such a device. As a joke, he called the machine "AnyQuack", which eventually became ENIAC -- ENIAC's Not Intended As Crashware, the first known example of a self-referential acronym. | |
| A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselvse, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly's supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D.H. Holmes department store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one's soul. -- John Kennedy Toole, "Confederacy of Dunces" | |
| After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi. -- P.J. O'Rourke | |
| Ask not what's inside your head, but what your head's inside of. -- J.J. Gibson | |
| Can you buy friendship? You not only can, you must. It's the only way to obtain friends. Everything worthwhile has a price. -- Robert J. Ringer | |
| Don't shout for help at night. You might wake your neighbors. -- Stanislaw J. Lem, "Unkempt Thoughts" | |
| Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; always busy without getting on, always behind hand and lamenting it, without altering her ways; wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity; dissatisfied with her servants, without skill to make them better, and whether helping, or reprimanding, or indulging them, without any power of engaging their respect. -- J. Austen | |
| I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better. -- A.J. Liebling | |
| If you just try long enough and hard enough, you can always manage to boot yourself in the posterior. -- A.J. Liebling, "The Press" | |
| Justice always prevails ... three times out of seven! -- Michael J. Wagner | |
| Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in. -- Sydney J. Harris | |
| Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue. -- J.K. Galbraith | |
| Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy to criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too. -- D.J. Hicks | |
| Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary? -- J.M. Barrie | |
| The difference between common-sense and paranoia is that common-sense is thinking everyone is out to get you. That's normal -- they are. Paranoia is thinking that they're conspiring. -- J. Kegler | |
| To be is to be related. -- C.J. Keyser. | |
| You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" -- George Bernard Shaw, "Back to Methuselah" [No, it wasn't J.F. Kennedy. Ed.] | |
| "I've just come to this group and I don't know what it's all about. I just feel it must be something really serious. Is it really ?" - H. J. Thomas on linux-activists | |
| Tim Schmielau wrote: > the appended patch enables 32 bit linux boxes to display more than > 497.1 days of uptime. No user land application changes are needed. Thank you for doing this labor of love - I will let you know how it goes sometime after March 23, 2003 - - J Sloan on linux-kernel | |
| The modern child will answer you back before you've said anything. -- Laurence J. Peter | |
| Another day, another dollar. -- Vincent J. Fuller, defense lawyer for John Hinckley, upon Hinckley's acquittal for shooting President Ronald Reagan. | |
| Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around -- nobody big, I mean -- except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff -- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye. I know it; I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy. -- J.D. Salinger, "Catcher in the Rye" | |
| Joshu: What is the true Way? Nansen: Every way is the true Way. J: Can I study it? N: The more you study, the further from the Way. J: If I don't study it, how can I know it? N: The Way does not belong to things seen: nor to things unseen. It does not belong to things known: nor to things unknown. Do not seek it, study it, or name it. To find yourself on it, open yourself as wide as the sky. | |
| Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all. -- Thomas J. Kopp | |
| The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it. -- J. Robert Oppenheimer, "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" | |
| Wisdom is knowing what to do with what you know. -- J. Winter Smith | |
| All this big deal about white collar crime -- what's WRONG with white collar crime? Who enjoys his job today? You? Me? Anybody? The only satisfying part of any job is coffee break, lunch hour and quitting time. Years ago there was at least the hope of improvement -- eventual promotion -- more important jobs to come. Once you can be sold the myth that you may make president of the company you'll hardly ever steal stamps. But nobody believes he's going to be president anymore. The more people change jobs the more they realize that there is a direct connection between working for a living and total stupefying boredom. So why NOT take revenge? You're not going to find ME knocking a guy because he pads an expense account and his home stationery carries the company emblem. Take away crime from the white collar worker and you will rob him of his last vestige of job interest. -- J. Feiffer | |
| Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder. -- Dr. Laurence J. Peter | |
| Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. -- James J. Ling | |
| Exxon's 'Universe of Energy' tends to the peculiar rather than the humorous ... After [an incomprehensible film montage about wind and sun and rain and strip mines and] two or three minutes of mechanical confusion, the seats locomote through a short tunnel filled with clock-work dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are depicted without accuracy and too close to your face. "One of the few real novelties at Epcot is the use of smell to aggravate illusions. Of course, no one knows what dinosaurs smelled like, but Exxon has decided they smelled bad. "At the other end of Dino Ditch ... there's a final, very addled message about facing challengehood tomorrow-wise. I dozed off during this, but the import seems to be that dinosaurs don't have anything to do with energy policy and neither do you." -- P.J. O'Rourke, "Holidays in Hell" | |
| Human resources are human first, and resources second. -- J. Garbers | |
| I owe the public nothing. -- J.P. Morgan | |
| If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars. -- J. Paul Getty | |
| In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence ... in time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties ... Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence. -- Dr. Laurence J. Peter, "The Peter Principle" | |
| In every hierarchy the cream rises until it sours. -- Dr. Laurence J. Peter | |
| No committee could ever come up with anything as revolutionary as a camel -- anything as practical and as perfectly designed to perform effectively under such difficult conditions. -- Laurence J. Peter | |
| Or you or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company. -- J. Wellington Wells | |
| Practical people would be more practical if they would take a little more time for dreaming. -- J. P. McEvoy | |
| Some people say a front-engine car handles best. Some people say a rear-engine car handles best. I say a rented car handles best. -- P.J. O'Rourke | |
| The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form. -- Stanley J. Randall | |
| The meek shall inherit the earth, but *not* its mineral rights. -- J.P. Getty | |
| The most delightful day after the one on which you buy a cottage in the country is the one on which you resell it. -- J. Brecheux | |
| When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt. -- Henry J. Kaiser | |
| You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company. -- J. Wellington Wells | |
| One expresses well the love he does not feel. -- J.A. Karr | |
| Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents' shortcomings. -- Laurence J. Peter, "Peter's Principles" | |
