Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
Holy Dilemma! Is this the end for the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder? Will the Joker and the Riddler have the last laugh? Tune in again tomorrow: same Bat-time, same Bat-channel! | |
Today's thrilling story has been brought to you by Mushies, the great new cereal that gets soggy even without milk or cream. Join us soon for more spectacular adventure starring... Tippy, the Wonder Dog! -- Bob & Ray | |
We're constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products. Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spirtual and emotional feelings. It might taste good or clever, but in the long run, it's not going to do anything for you. -- Bob Dylan, "LA Times", September 5, 1984 | |
"Even more amazing was the realization that God has Internet access. I wonder if He has a full newsfeed?" (By Matt Welsh) | |
"I wonder", he said to himself, "what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures and battles." -- Bastian B. Bux | |
Sometimes I wonder if I'm in my right mind. Then it passes off and I'm as intelligent as ever. -- Samuel Beckett, "Endgame" | |
In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It changes into a bird whose winds are like clouds filling the sky. When this bird moves across the land, it brings a message from Corporate Headquarters. This message it drops into the midst of the programmers, like a seagull making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with the blue sky at its back, returns home. The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands it not. The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears its message. The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he does not know that the bird has come and gone. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
No wonder Clairol makes so much money selling shampoo. Lather, Rinse, Repeat is an infinite loop! | |
Welcome to UNIX! Enjoy your session! Have a great time! Note the use of exclamation points! They are a very effective method for demonstrating excitement, and can also spice up an otherwise plain-looking sentence! However, there are drawbacks! Too much unnecessary exclaiming can lead to a reduction in the effect that an exclamation point has on the reader! For example, the sentence Jane went to the store to buy bread should only be ended with an exclamation point if there is something sensational about her going to the store, for example, if Jane is a cocker spaniel or if Jane is on a diet that doesn't allow bread or if Jane doesn't exist for some reason! See how easy it is?! Proper control of exclamation points can add new meaning to your life! Call now to receive my free pamphlet, "The Wonder and Mystery of the Exclamation Point!"! Enclose fifteen(!) dollars for postage and handling! Operators are standing by! (Which is pretty amazing, because they're all cocker spaniels!) | |
I believe that part of what propels science is the thirst for wonder. It's a very powerful emotion. All children feel it. In a first grade classroom everybody feels it; in a twelfth grade classroom almost nobody feels it, or at least acknowledges it. Something happens between first and twelfth grade, and it's not just puberty. Not only do the schools and the media not teach much skepticism, there is also little encouragement of this stirring sense of wonder. Science and pseudoscience both arouse that feeling. Poor popularizations of science establish an ecological niche for pseudoscience. - Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 | |
"I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true. - Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 | |
I believe that if people would learn to use LSD's vision-inducing capability more wisely, under suitable conditions, in medical practice and in conjution with meditation, then in the future this problem child could become a wonder child. - Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD | |
"Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed." -- Robin, The Boy Wonder | |
"What a wonder is USENET; such wholesale production of conjecture from such a trifling investment in fact." -- Carl S. Gutekunst | |
Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management. -- Senator Soaper | |
Ever wonder if taxation without representation might have been cheaper? | |
Ever wonder why fire engines are red? Because newspapers are read too. Two and Two is four. Four and four is eight. Eight and four is twelve. There are twelve inches in a ruler. Queen Mary was a ruler. Queen Mary was a ship. Ships sail the sea. There are fishes in the sea. Fishes have fins. The Finns fought the Russians. Russians are red. Fire engines are always rush'n. Therefore fire engines are red. | |
For thee the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers. -- Titus Lucretius Carus | |
Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English. Many people wonder where the word "eggnog" comes from. The first syllable comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know where the "nog" comes from. To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine gin and, if they are in season, eggs... | |
Q: What do agnostic, insomniac dyslexics do at night? A: Stay awake and wonder if there's a dog. | |
No wonder you're tired! You understood so much today. | |
The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledegook than the rest of the world put together. -- Sir Peter Medawar | |
Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science. | |
My geometry teacher was sometimes acute, and sometimes obtuse, but always, always, he was right. [That's an interesting angle. I wonder if there are any parallels?] | |
The Man Who Almost Invented The Vacuum Cleaner The man officially credited with inventing the vacuum cleaner is Hubert Cecil Booth. However, he got the idea from a man who almost invented it. In 1901 Booth visited a London music-hall. On the bill was an American inventor with his wonder machine for removing dust from carpets. The machine comprised a box about one foot square with a bag on top. After watching the act -- which made everyone in the front six rows sneeze -- Booth went round to the inventor's dressing room. "It should suck not blow," said Booth, coming straight to the point. "Suck?", exclaimed the enraged inventor. "Your machine just moves the dust around the room," Booth informed him. "Suck? Suck? Sucking is not possible," was the inventor's reply and he stormed out. Booth proved that it was by the simple expedient of kneeling down, pursing his lips and sucking the back of an armchair. "I almost choked," he said afterwards. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?" "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said. | |
And if you wonder, What I am doing, As I am heading for the sink. I am spitting out all the bitterness, Along with half of my last drink. | |
Don't be concerned, it will not harm you, It's only me pursuing something I'm not sure of, Across my dreams, with neptive wonder, I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love. | |
Oh, when I was in love with you, Then I was clean and brave, And miles around the wonder grew How well did I behave. And now the fancy passes by, And nothing will remain, And miles around they'll say that I Am quite myself again. -- A. E. Housman | |
Once there was a little nerd who loved to read your mail, And then yank back the i-access times to get hackers off his tail, And once as he finished reading from the secretary's spool, He wrote a rude rejection to her boyfriend (how uncool!) And this as delivermail did work and he ran his backfstat, He heard an awful crackling like rat fritters in hot fat, And hard errors brought the system down 'fore he could even shout! And the bio bug'll bring yours down too, ef you don't watch out! And once they was a little flake who'd prowl through the uulog, And when he went to his blit that night to play at being god, The ops all heard him holler, and they to the console dashed, But when they did a ps -ut they found the system crashed! Oh, the wizards adb'd the dumps and did the system trace, And worked on the file system 'til the disk head was hot paste, But all they ever found was this: "panic: never doubt", And the bio bug'll crash your box too, ef you don't watch out! When the day is done and the moon comes out, And you hear the printer whining and the rk's seems to count, When the other desks are empty and their terminals glassy grey, And the load is only 1.6 and you wonder if it'll stay, You must mind the file protections and not snoop around, Or the bio bug'll getcha and bring the system down! | |
Picking up the pieces of my sweet shattered dream, I wonder how the old folks are tonight, Her name was Ann, and I'll be damned if I recall her face, She left me not knowing what to do. Carefree Highway, let me slip away on you, Carefree Highway, you seen better days, The morning after blues, from my head down to my shoes, Carefree Highway, let me slip away, slip away, on you... Turning back the pages to the times I love best, I wonder if she'll ever do the same, Now the thing that I call livin' is just bein' satisfied, With knowing I got noone left to blame. Carefree Highway, I got to see you, my old flame... Searching through the fragments of my dream shattered sleep, I wonder if the years have closed her mind, I guess it must be wanderlust or tryin' to get free, From the good old faithful feelin' we once knew. -- Gordon Lightfoot, "Carefree Highway" | |
Proposed Country & Western Song Titles She Ain't Much to See, but She Looks Good Through the Bottom of a Glass If Fingerprints Showed Up On Skin, I Wonder Who's I'd Find On You I'm Ashamed to be Here, but Not Ashamed Enough to Leave It's Commode Huggin' Time In The Valley If You Want to Keep the Beer Real Cold, Put It Next to My Ex-wife's Heart If You Get the Feeling That I Don't Love You, Feel Again I'm Ashamed To Be Here, But Not Ashamed Enough To Leave It's the Bottle Against the Bible in the Battle For Daddy's Soul My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, And I Sure Miss Him Don't Cut Any More Wood, Baby, 'Cause I'll Be Comin' Home With A Load I Loved Her Face, But I Left Her Behind For You | |
The Junior God now heads the roll In the list of heaven's peers; He sits in the House of High Control, And he regulates the spheres. Yet does he wonder, do you suppose, If, even in gods divine, The best and wisest may not be those Who have wallowed awhile with the swine? -- Robert W. Service | |
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 | |
"Thirty days hath Septober, April, June, and no wonder. all the rest have peanut butter except my father who wears red suspenders." | |
Tiger got to hunt, Bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?" Tiger got to sleep, Bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand. -- The Books of Bokonon | |
While walking down a crowded City street the other day, I heard a little urchin To a comrade turn and say, "Say, Chimmey, lemme tell youse, I'd be happy as a clam If only I was de feller dat Me mudder t'inks I am. "She t'inks I am a wonder, My friends, be yours a life of toil An' she knows her little lad Or undiluted joy, Could never mix wit' nuttin' You can learn a wholesome lesson Dat was ugly, mean or bad. From that small, untutored boy. Oh, lot o' times I sit and t'ink Don't aim to be an earthly saint How nice, 'twould be, gee whiz! With eyes fixed on a star: If a feller was de feller Just try to be the fellow that Dat his mudder t'inks he is." Your mother thinks you are. -- Will S. Adkin, "If I Only Was the Fellow" | |
"And wow! Hey! What's this thing coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding word like... ow... ound... round... ground! That's it! That's a good name - ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?" - For the sperm whale, it wasn't. | |
"`Hand me the rap-rod, Plate Captain.' The little waiter's eyebrows wandered about his forehead in confusion. `I beg your pardon, sir?' he said. `The phone, waiter,' said Zaphod, grabbing it off him. `Shee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off.'" - Zaphod discovers that waiters are the least hip people in the Universe. | |
Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get _____there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
Microsoft seems to have gotten a lot of mileage out of the C2 rating for NT with no network connection. I wonder if a B3 rating for Linux with no power cord might be of value. | |
It's no wonder they call it WinNT; WNT = VMS++; -- Chris Abbey | |
Peace, Love and Compile the kernel... -- Justin L. Herreman | |
If we added up all of the 2 cents that Slashdot readers gave, I wonder how much sense vs. cents we'd have. -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
Do-It-Yourself IPO You too can get rich quick by translating an existing Linux distribution into one of the following untapped markets: - Babylonian - Hittite - Ancient Egyptian (hieroglyphics may be a challenge, though) - Pig Latin (this may be the strongest type of encryption allowed by the DOJ in the near future) - Mayan - Cherokee - Cyrillic (to take advantage of the booming Russian economy) - Redneck - Klingon (it's a wonder this hasn't been done yet) - Wingdings Once you start marketing your new product, a highly lucrative self-underwritten IPO is just months away! | |
Class-Action Lawsuit Filed Against Linus Torvalds SILLYCON VALLEY -- Nearly 130 former system administrators have filed suit against Linus Torvalds in which they claim Linux cost them their jobs. Recently several companies migrated from Windows to Linux, increasing their productivity but decreasing the need for a large staff of tech workers, prompting a wave of layoffs. "The good old days when it required five full-time system administrators to maintain a Microsoft Exchange server are history, all because of that cancer known as Linux," explained the lead litigant in the lawsuit. "It all started two years ago when some pimply-faced idiot down in Accounting decided to smuggle in a Linux box to automate some of his work. Before long every tech-savvy person in Accounting, Billing, and Sales was secretly using Linux." "That's when the troubles started. Productivity soared. Downtime was limited to an average of three milliseconds per day. Macro viruses ceased to spread. It was horrible! The entire IT staff was replaced by one part-time bearded wonder, who was able to administrate the entire Linux network! Due to the layoffs, I'm now sitting in a homeless shelter with little hope to find work. Nobody wants to hire an MCSE anymore!" | |
Mass Exodus From Hollywood During the past week, over 150 Hollywood actors, musicians, writers, directors, and key grips have quit their day jobs and moved to the Midwest to engage in quieter occupations such as gardening or accounting. All of the these people cite piracy as the reason for giving up their careers. "I simply can't sit by and let my hard work be stolen by some snot nosed punk over the Internet," explained millionaire movie director Steve Bergospiel. "There's absolutely no incentive to create movies if they're going to be transmitted at the speed of light by thousands of infringers. Such criminal acts personally cost me hundreds -- no, thousands -- of dollars. I can't take that kind of fear and abuse anymore." MPAA President Pei Pervue considers the exodus to be proof that Hollywood is waking up to the fact that they are being "held hostage" by copyright infringers. "Without copyright protection and government-backed monopolies on intellectual property, these's absolutely no reason to engage in the creative process. Now the Internet, with its click-and-pirate technology, makes it easy for anybody to flout the law and become a copyright terrorist. With the scales tipped so much in favor of criminals, it's no wonder some of Hollywood's elite have thrown in the towel. What a shame." | |
He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder. -- M.C. Escher | |
Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind; it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear, and despair -- these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and the starlike things and thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy and the game of life. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair. So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from man, and from the Infinite, so long you are young. -- Samuel Ullman | |
It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start life as children. -- Kingsley Amis | |
It is so soon that I am done for, I wonder what I was begun for. -- Epitaph, Cheltenham Churchyard | |
Youth. It's a wonder that anyone ever outgrows it. | |
"I wonder if this is the first constitution in the history of mankind where you have to calculate a square root to determine if a motion passes. :-)" -- Seen on Slashdot | |
<gecko> Hmm... I wonder what else seperates Debian from the rest of the Linux distributions. <Knghtbrd> gecko - We Don't Suck <gecko> Knghtbrd: you don't say that when addressing a bunch of people FROM those distros <Knghtbrd> gecko - point. | |
<netgod> my client has been owned severely <netgod> this guy got root, ran packet sniffers, installed .rhosts and backdoors, put a whole new dir in called /lib/" ", which has a full suite of smurfing and killing tools <netgod> the only mistake was not deleting the logfiles <netgod> question is how was root hacked, and that i couldnt tell u <netgod> it is, of course, not a debian box * netgod notes the debian box is the only one left untouched by the hacker -- wonder why | |
Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain but there in the sandbox at nursery school. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt someone. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup -- they all die. So do we. And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living. Think of what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world it is best to hold hands and stick together. -- Robert Fulghum, "All I ever really needed to know I learned in kindergarten" | |
Two men were sitting over coffee, contemplating the nature of things, with all due respect for their breakfast. "I wonder why it is that toast always falls on the buttered side," said one. "Tell me," replied his friend, "why you say such a thing. Look at this." And he dropped his toast on the floor, where it landed on the dry side. "So, what have you to say for your theory now?" "What am I to say? You obviously buttered the wrong side." | |
Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. -- Socrates, quoting Plato [Huh? That's like Johnson quoting Boswell] | |
Even more amazing was the realization that God has Internet access. I wonder if He has a full newsfeed? -- Matt Welsh | |
<alaint> joey--very clever !!! <alaint> joey--no wonder that Debian is a good distrib with coder like you -- Seen on #Debian (referring to my RAID article for the LJ) | |
modconf (0.2.37) stable unstable; urgency=medium [...] * Eduard Bloch: - fixed Makefile broken Marcin Owsiany a while ago. The default manpage has been overwritten with the polish translation. I still wonder why nobody noticed this before. Closes: #117474 [...] -- Eduard Bloch <blade@debian.org> Sun, 28 Oct 2001 12:53:27 +0100 | |
So... did you ever wonder, do garbagemen take showers before they go to work? | |
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 | |
> This made me wonder, suddenly: can telnet be written in perl? Of course it can be written in Perl. Now if you'd said nroff, that would be more challenging... -- Larry Wall | |
I am having FUN... I wonder if it's NET FUN or GROSS FUN? | |
I can't decide which WRONG TURN to make first!! I wonder if BOB GUCCIONE has these problems! | |
I wonder if I could ever get started in the credit world? | |
I wonder if I ought to tell them about my PREVIOUS LIFE as a COMPLETE STRANGER? | |
I wonder if I should put myself in ESCROW!! | |
I wonder if there's anything GOOD on tonight? | |
It's a lot of fun being alive ... I wonder if my bed is made?!? | |
JAPAN is a WONDERFUL planet -- I wonder if we'll ever reach their level of COMPARATIVE SHOPPING ... | |
Spreading peanut butter reminds me of opera!! I wonder why? | |
There are those who claim that magic is like the tide; that it swells and fades over the surface of the earth, collecting in concentrated pools here and there, almost disappearing from other spots, leaving them parched for wonder. There are also those who believe that if you stick your fingers up your nose and blow, it will increase your intelligence. -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VII |