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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

If an average person on the subway turns to you, like an ancient mariner,
and starts telling you her tale, you turn away or nod and hope she stops,
not just because you fear she might be crazy.  If she tells her tale on
camera, you might listen.  Watching strangers on television , even
responding to them from a studio audience, we're disengaged -- voyeurs
collaborating with exhibitionists in rituals of sham community.  Never
have so many known so much about people for whom they cared so little.
                -- Wendy Kaminer commenting on testimonial television
                   in "I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional".
Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop writing.
                -- R. Geis
"[In 'Doctor' mode], I spent a good ten minutes telling Emacs what I
thought of it.  (The response was, 'Perhaps you could try to be less
abusive.')"
(By Matt Welsh)
Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system.  Therefore, users
tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space.  It has
been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is the
message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files.
                -- System V.2 administrator's guide
        A girl spent a couple hours on the phone talking to her two best
friends, Maureen Jones, and Maureen Brown.  When asked by her father why she
had been on the phone so long, she responded "I heard a funny story today
and I've been telling it to the Maureens."
However, on religious issures there can be little or no compromise.
There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious
beliefs.  There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than
Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being.
But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf
should be used sparingly.  The religious factions that are growing
throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom.
They are trying to force government leaders into following their position
100 percent.  If you disagree with these religious groups on a
particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of
money or votes or both.  I'm frankly sick and tired of the political
preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be
a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D."  Just who do
they think they are?  And from where do they presume to claim the
right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?  And I am even more angry as
a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who
thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll
call in the Senate.  I am warning them today:  I will fight them every
step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all
Americans in the name of "conservatism."
- Senator Barry Goldwater, from the Congressional Record, September 16, 1981
"Despite its suffix, skepticism is not an "ism" in the sense of a belief
or dogma.  It is simply an approach to the problem of telling what is
counterfeit and what is genuine.  And a recognition of how costly it may
be to fail to do so.  To be a skeptic is to cultivate "street smarts" in
the battle for control of one's own mind, one's own money, one's own
allegiances.  To be a skeptic, in short, is to refuse to be a victim.
-- Robert S. DeBear, "An Agenda for Reason, Realism, and Responsibility,"
New York Skeptic (newsletter of the New York Area Skeptics, Inc.), Spring 1988
It took a while to surface, but it appears that a long-distance credit card
may have saved a U.S. Army unit from heavy casualties during the Grenada
military rescue/invasion. Major General David Nichols, Air Force ... said
the Army unit was in a house surrounded by Cuban forces.  One soldier found
a telephone and, using his credit card, called Ft. Bragg, N.C., telling Army
officiers there of the perilous situation. The officers in turn called the
Air Force, which sent in gunships to scatter the Cubans and relieve the unit.
                -- Aviation Week and Space Technology
17th Rule of Friendship:
        A friend will refrain from telling you he picked up the same amount of
        life insurance coverage you did for half the price when yours is
        noncancellable.
                -- Esquire, May 1977
Ambiguity:
        Telling the truth when you don't mean to.
insecurity, n.:
        Finding out that you've mispronounced for years one of your
        favorite words.

        Realizing halfway through a joke that you're telling it to
        the person who told it to you.
job Placement, n.:
        Telling your boss what he can do with your job.
"God gives burdens; also shoulders"

Jimmy Carter cited this Jewish saying in his concession speech at the
end of the 1980 election.  At least he said it was a Jewish saying; I
can't find it anywhere.  I'm sure he's telling the truth though; why
would he lie about a thing like that?
                -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
Earl Wiener, 55, a University of Miami professor of management science,
telling the Airline Pilots Association (in jest) about 21st century aircraft:

        "The crew will consist of one pilot and a dog.  The pilot will
        nurture and feed the dog.  The dog will be there to bite the
        pilot if he touches anything.
                -- Fortune, Sept. 26, 1988
                   [the *magazine*, silly!]
                Hard Copies and Chmod

And everyone thinks computers are impersonal
cold diskdrives hardware monitors
user-hostile software

of course they're only bits and bytes
and characters and strings
and files

just some old textfiles from my old boyfriend
telling me he loves me and
he'll take care of me

simply a discarded printout of a friend's directory
deep intimate secrets and
how he doesn't trust me

couldn't hurt me more if they were scented in lavender or mould
on personal stationery
                -- terri@csd4.milw.wisc.edu
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...
So, you better watch out!
You better not cry!
You better not pout!
I'm telling you why,
Santa Claus is coming, to town.

He knows when you've been sleeping,
He know when you're awake.
He knows if you've been bad or good,
He has ties with the CIA.
So...
When my fist clenches crack it open,
Before I use it and lose my cool.
When I smile tell me some bad news,
Before I laugh and act like a fool.

And if I swallow anything evil,
Put you finger down my throat.
And if I shiver please give me a blanket,
Keep me warm let me wear your coat

No one knows what it's like to be the bad man,
        to be the sad man.
Behind blue eyes.
No one knows what its like to be hated,
        to be fated,
To telling only lies.
                        -- The Who
You say you are lying.  But if everything you say is a lie, then you are
telling the truth.  You cannot tell the truth because everything you say
is a lie.  You lie, you tell the truth ... but you cannot, for you lie.
                -- Norman the android, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3
"`...You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call
attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling
anyone or anything.'
`But the plans were on display...'
`On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to
find them.'
`That's the display department.'
`With a torch.'
`Ah, well the lights had probably gone.'
`So had the stairs.'
`But look you found the notice didn't you?'
`Yes,' said Arthur, `yes I did. It was on display in the
bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused
lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The
Leopard".'"

- Arthur singing the praises of the local council planning
department.
Man 1:        Ask me the what the most important thing about telling a good joke is.

Man 2:        OK, what is the most impo --

Man 1:        ______TIMING!
Invasion of the Dancing Penguin

Those annoying, dancing cartoon characters embedded in software applications
are no longer confined to Microsoft programs.  They have entered the realm
of Linux.  A new Linux distribution under development, called LinTux,
promises to provide a more "user-friendly" environment through its "Dancing
Penguin" assistant.

Dancing Tux will "guide" users through the installation process and will be
a permanent fixture of the X root window.  The LinTux staff demonstrated a
prototype version of the Dancing Tux program to this Humorix reporter.  It
was certainly impressive, but, like the Dancing Paper Clip in Microsoft
Office, it becomes annoying very fast.

The one redeeming feature of LinTux is that, when the system is idle,
Dancing Tux becomes a make-shift screen saver.  The animations included in
the prototype were quite amusing.  For instance, in one scene, Tux chases
Bill Gates through an Antarctic backdrop.  In another animation, Tux can be
seen drinking beers with his penguin pals and telling Microsoft jokes.
Brief History Of Linux (#25)

By the mid-1990's the Linux community was burgeoning as countless geeks
fled Redmond monopolistic oppression, Armonk cluelessness, and Cupertino
click-and-drool reality distortion fields. By late 1991 there was an
informal Linux User Group in Finland, although its primary focus was Linux
advocacy, not drinking beer and telling Microsoft jokes as most do today.

Kernel development continued at a steady clip, with more and more people
joining in and hoping that their patches would be accepted by the
Benevolent Dictator himself. To have a patch accepted by Linus was like
winning the Nobel Prize, but to face rejection was like being rejected
from Clown College. The reputation game certainly sparked some flame wars.

One of the most memorable crisis was over the behavior of the delete and
backspace keys. A certain faction of hackers wanted the Backspace key to
actually backspace and the Delete key to actually delete. Linus wasn't too
keen on the proposed changes; "It Works For Me(tm)" is all he said. Some
observers now think Linus was pulling rank to get back at the unknown
hacker who managed to slip a patch by him that replaced the "Kernel panic"
error with "Kernel panic: Linus probably fscked it all up again".
        Excellence is THE trend of the '80s.  Walk into any shopping
mall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as
"Garfield Gets Spayed", and you'll see a half-dozen books telling you
how to be excellent: "In Search of Excellence", "Finding Excellence",
"Grasping Hold of Excellence", "Where to Hide Your Excellence at Night
So the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It", etc.
                -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in
my body.  Then I realized who was telling me this.
                -- Emo Phillips
People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't
what they want that they don't want it.
                -- Ogden Nash
Telling the truth to people who misunderstand you is generally promoting
a falsehood, isn't it?
                -- A. Hope
The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds
the other fellow of a dull one.
                -- Sid Caesar
You've been telling me to relax all the way here, and now you're telling
me just to be myself?
                -- The Return of the Secaucus Seven
When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but
only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered
glass and splintered wood, like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat
crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard
powerless to stop it.  It's only afterwards that it becomes anything
like a story at all.  When you are telling it, to yourself or to
someone else.
                -- Margaret Atwood, "Alias Grace"
Linus Torvalds wrote:
> Ehh.. Telling people "don't do that" simply doesn't work. Not if they can
> do it easily anyway. Things really don't get fixed unless people have a
> certain pain-level to induce it to get fixed.

Umm... How about the following:  you hit delete on patches that introduce
new ioctls, I help to provide required level of pain.  Deal?

        - Al Viro on linux-kernel
> Not that the kernel list is the best place to bring this up, but NVIDIA
> would NOT be on that list.  They are by far one of the best companies out
> there providing support for their cards.  I bought my GF2 for exactly that
> reason too....

Sure. I spent much happy time telling people to report bugs to nvidia because
their closed drivers mean that only nvidia can debug all the crashes people
see with them loaded - at least some of which dont occur without the modules

        - Alan Cox on linux-kernel
Oh, and before people start telling me that RCU was successfully used in
AIX/projectX/xxxx/etc, you have to realize that I don't give a rats *ss
about the fact that there are OS's out there that are "more scalable".

        - Linus Torvalds
On Mon, 5 Nov 2001, Martin Dalecki wrote:
> Every BASTARD out there telling the world, that parsing ASCII formatted
> files

What was your username, again?

        - Alexander Viro in BOFH mode on linux-kernel
Are you a parent?  Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to
say in those awkward situations?  Worry no more...

        Are you sure you're telling the truth?  Think hard.
        Does it make you happy to know you're sending me to an early grave?
        If all your friends jumped off the cliff, would you jump too?
        Do you feel bad?  How do you think I feel?
        Aren't you ashamed of yourself?
        Don't you know any better?
        How could you be so stupid?
        If that's the worst pain you'll ever feel, you should be thankful.
        You can't fool me.  I know what you're thinking.
        If you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all.
<Knghtbrd> r0bert: in short, we're moving several things the client
           currently is responsible for telling the server into things the
           server checks for itself
<Knghtbrd> If Neo says "There is no spoon", The Matrix will say "Oh yes
           there is---no cheating!"
<hollis> But he knows kung fu...
<Knghtbrd> Sure he does, but I have a rocket launcher.
Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy.
Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired.
                -- R. Geis
Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down.
[In 'Doctor' mode], I spent a good ten minutes telling Emacs what I
thought of it.  (The response was, 'Perhaps you could try to be less
abusive.')
        -- Matt Welsh
I'm telling you that the kernel is stable not because it's a kernel,
but because I refuse to listen to arguments like this.
        -- Linus Torvalds
Everybody but Sam had signed up for a new company pension plan that
called for a small employee contribution.  The company was paying all
the rest.  Unfortunately, 100% employee participation was needed;
otherwise the plan was off.  Sam's boss and his fellow workers pleaded
and cajoled, but to no avail.  Sam said the plan would never pay off.
Finally the company president called Sam into his office.
        "Sam," he said, "here's a copy of the new pension plan and here's
a pen.  I want you to sign the papers.  I'm sorry, but if you don't sign,
you're fired.  As of right now."
        Sam signed the papers immediately.
        "Now," said the president, "would you mind telling me why you
couldn't have signed earlier?"
        "Well, sir," replied Sam, "nobody explained it to me quite so
clearly before."
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near
the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people
to do so.
                -- Bertrand Russell
Perl itself is usually pretty good about telling you what you shouldn't
do. :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <11091@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
We didn't put in ^^ because then we'd have to keep telling people what
it means, and then we'd have to keep telling them why it doesn't short
circuit.  :-/
             -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
(Never thought I'd be telling Malcolm and Ilya the same thing... :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199711071819.KAA29909@wall.org>
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
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