Kev's Collection of Cool Quotes
| Education |
| Computers (Windows vs. the World) |
| Computers (ActiveX) |
| Computers (General Observations) |
| Media and Markets |
| Politics |
| Life |
| Kev Sez |
Education
The collection of education quotes has been moved to its own page:
Education Quotes
Computers (Windows vs. the World)
"Microsoft netted around $4 billion from OS sales last year -- you'd think they could spend a few bucks fixing it all. But it's more likely that O.J. will nab the real killer on the back nine at Pebble Beach than that Microsoft will voluntarily banish the heartache it puts users through."
-Paul Somerson, PC Computing"Never ask a man what sort of computer he drives. If it's a Mac, he'll tell you. If not, why embarrass him?"
-- Tom Clancy"I understand Windows as well as most technical-support personnel. I can edit a config.sys file and delete bad lines in an autoexec.bat with the best of them. I can partition a hard drive in FAT32, manually configure a dialup adapter and scour my systems folder for obsolete DLL's.
But why would I want to?"
-- Douglas Rushkoff, "A Prodigal Son Returns to the Mac", The Globe and Mail (Canada), November 14, 1998"The iMac embodies a lot of the things I'm talking about [computers designed as networking machines]. Sometimes what Apple does has an electrifying effect on the rest of us."
-- Intel chairman Andy Grove, October 1998"Windows 98 is a six-story building on DOS's log cabin foundation."
--BYTE Magazine, June 1998"In a world without walls and fences, who needs windows and gates?"
"My current computer, in addition to 'DOS,' has 'Windows,' which is another invention of Bill Gates, designed as a security measure to thwart those users who are somehow able to get past DOS."
-- Dave Barry"Around the [mid-1980s], [Vice President Al Gore] purchased his first home computer: one of the original, clunky IBM PCs. Shortly after that, he bought the newly introduced Apple Macintosh computer -- and immediately fell in love with it. 'I was a big Mac fan,' he said. Gore upgraded through several Macintosh models, eventually to a laptop that would 'dock' in a desktop unit. But last year, in what Gore calls 'a sad story,' he reluctantly switched over to PCs that run on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system. 'I did it because of the problem in getting new software on a timely basis and the fact that some programs are not done for the Mac now,' he said. 'I still believe it's a superior format and I still prefer it. But for my purposes I've had to switch over, and I hate it.'"
-- Washington Post, Nov. 29, 1997"DOS computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form."
-- New York Times, November 26, 1991"Good evening, doctors. I have taken the liberty of removing Windows 95 and all references to it from my hard drive."
-- The winning entry chosen by Arthur Clarke in a "birthday" celebration contest asking what the HAL 9000's first words would be today."The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he, by peddling second-rate technology, who led them into it in the first place."
-- The Guardian (UK)"I don't do .INI, .BAT, or .SYS files. I don't assign apps to files. I don't configure peripherals or networks before using them. I have a computer to do all that. I have a Macintosh, not a hobby."
-- Shane Anderson"You recommend Macs to your friends, and Intel machines to those whom you don't mind billing by the hour."
"Windows didn't steal everything it has from Macintosh. It also stole from OS/2 and UNIX."
-- Jim Louderback, "Windows Sources" magazine"For some reason unbeknownst to us, Apple management refuses to abandon the theory that the best technology wins."
-- William Gurley, First Boston Corp"Do you really want to support an operating system made by a company whose goal is to eliminate every other software company? It's like shopping at the Martian Boutique and then wondering where they get all that money they spend on cow mutilation equipment."
-- William Shipley"To say that Windows 95 is just like the Mac is like finding a potato in the shape of Jesus and thinking you have witnessed the second coming"
-- Guy Kawasaki"When I want to do something mindless to relax, I reinstall Windows 95."
-- Jean-Louis Gassee"Imagine the disincentive to software development if after months of work another company could come along and copy your work and market it under its own name ... without legal restraints to such copying, companies like Apple could not afford to advance the state of the art."
-- Bill Gates (New York Times, 25 Sep 1983, p. F2)"If I had a dime for every original idea Bill Gates had ... why I'd have nothing!"
-- Christopher Meinck"Indeed it would not be an exaggeration to describe the history of the personal computer industry as a massive effort to keep up with Apple...[The Macintosh] went on to pioneer or popularize almost every innovation in personal computers."
-- BYTE, December 1994"It's not like Windows users don't have any power. I think they are happy with Windows, and that's an incredibly depressing thought"
-- Steve Jobs"[Steve Jobs] is about as visionary as a flexible sigmoidoscope."
-- Brad Hutchings"Enough is enough. The cult of personality surrounding Steve Jobs has reached levels that would make even Joseph Stalin feel self-conscious."
-- Cliff Mason, CNBC"...there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them."
-- Machiavelli, "The Prince", chapter 6
Computers (General Observations)
"You know you've achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away."
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, writer and French aviation pioneer"Open Source is free like a puppy is free."
"For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three."
-- Alice Kahn"I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone."
-- Bjarne Stroustrup"In order to understand recursion, one must first understand recursion."
"I've got to tell you, the Internet is a place you go when you want to turn your brain on, and television is a place you go when you want to turn your brain off. I'm not at all convinced that the twain will meet."
-- Steve Jobs (quoted in BusinessWeek, May 25, 1998)"Steve Jobs made the case to Xerox PARC execs directly that they had great technology but that Apple knew how to make it affordable enough to change the world. This was very open. In the end, Xerox got a large block of Apple stock for sharing the technology. That's not stealing outright."
-- Steve Wozniak"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo."
-- Andy Finkel"It would be just like programmers to shorten 'the year 2000 problem' to 'Y2K'-- exactly the kind of thinking that created this situation in the first place."
-- Steven C. Meyer"The single most damaging influence on user interfaces is the necessity to impress strolling executives in the trade-show context, by showing off lots of features in the minimal time."
-- "Tim", quoted on Bruce Tognazzini's website"Seldom is a concept as brain-damaged as 'zero administration' hyped with such straight-faced sincerity. The idea, promoted in slightly altered forms by Microsoft and various NC proponents, is that we can reduce the administrative headache for MIS departments by centrally managing software and preventing individual users from making any changes to their desktop computers. It's sort of like taking away your kid's bike: sure, it may keep them out of harm's way, but you've just made yourself their full-time chauffeur."
-- Steve Steinberg (in Wired magazine)"Think about all the paper you see today. For practically all of it, the source is an electronic file."
-- John Jessen, CEO of Electronic Evidence Discovery"I looked up 'standard' in the dictionary. There are eleven different definitions."
-- Dave Winer"Industry Mistake Number One was to leave Pascal and move to C thereby allowing programmers who could not program in assembler to make assembler level mistakes."
-- James Goebel"It is very easy to be blinded by the essential uselessness of [these devices] by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all"
-- Douglas Adams, "So Long, and Thanks for the Fish""Their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws"
-- Douglas Adams, "So Long, and Thanks for the Fish""The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair."
-- Douglas Adams"There are 10 types of people in the world, those who can read binary, and those who can't."
"As great visions move out, all the best parts get stripped away"
-- Alan Kay"I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind."
-- Alan Kay"Artificial intelligence is what we don't know how to do yet"
-- Alan Kay"The problem is not software 'friendliness'. It is conceptual clarity. A globe does not say, 'good morning'. It is simple and clear, not 'friendly'."
-- Ted NelsonA candid error message: "Bad User on Device"
"(The computer) is a medium that can dynamically simulate the details of any other medium, including media that cannot exist physically. It is not a tool, although it can act like many tools. It is the first metamedium, and as such it has degrees of freedom for representation and expression never before encountered and as yet barely investigated."
-- Alan Kay, "Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984"Computers still feel more like erector sets -- lots of hard, inflexible little parts -- than like clay."
-- Dave Johnson, develop Magazine, March 1993What's the difference between obsolete and cutting edge? Obsolete works.
"Complexity is Preserved." (also known as Tesler's Second Law. It means that complexity can be moved around from one area to another, say, from the user to the developer, but the total amount is constant.)
"The fax machine has been a serious blemish on the computer landscape. ... Around 1980 the previous steady growth in computer-readability took a nosedive because of the fax."
-- Nicholas Negroponte[In designing computer systems] "Do what's good for humans, modeled on how humans already do things; ignore what's convenient for computers."
-- Stewart Brand"The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance."
-- Robert R. Coveyou, Oak Ridge National LaboratoryDefinition of "word": a series of characters between two spaces.
"On the Internet, you can form a community without having to go through the trouble of meeting anyone."
-- Ian Jack, MRI"One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate termination of their C strings"
-- Robert FirthWhy do programmers get Halloween and Christmas mixed up?
Because OCT 31 = DEC 25"Well you know, C isn't that hard, for example, void (*(*f[])())() defines f as an array of unspecified size, of pointers to functions that return pointers to functions that return void... I think"
-- author unknownWhen cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.
I really hate this damned machine
I think that I should sell it.
It never does quite what I want
But only what I tell it.
-- author unknown
Media and Markets
"A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time."
-- Henry Ford"The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper."
-- Thomas Jefferson"Advertising ... is an important historical factor in the West's version of a free press. ... Not until the present century was it possible, in many parts of Europe, for newspapers to operate under a banner of political neutrality. It was advertising that enabled the doctrine of impartiality or objectivity to take root in newspapers."
-- Anthony Smith"Remove advertising, disable a person or firm from proclaiming its wares and their merits, and the whole of society and of the economy is transformed. The enemies of advertising are the enemies of freedom."
-- David Ogilvy"The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be."
-- David Ogilvy"When MTV formally acknowledged the obvious -- that it is no longer a music channel -- it was also symbolically acknowledging that video did not kill the radio star."
-- David Hinckley, New York Daily News, February 24th 2010"Imagine if TV were actually good: It would be the end of life as we know it."
-- Marvin Minsky"The only thing I like about television is its ephemerality."
-- P.J. O'Rourke"Television is often called a medium because it's so rarely well done."
--Ernie Kovacs"What advertisers call brand loyalty is merely the consumer's defense against the need to waste energy differentiating among things that barely differ."
-- Ellen Goodman, 1987"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."
-- Thomas Jefferson"If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed."
-- Mark Twain"The more heavily the government regulates the market, the more competition is impeded."
-- Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit"There is one and only one social responsibility of business -- to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as its stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."
-- Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 1962."Once a new technology rolls, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road."
-- Stewart Brand"Want to know where the action in a culture is? Watch where new language is turning up and where the lawyers collect, usually in that sequence."
-- Stewart Brand"Everything is similar if you're willing to look far out of focus."
-- Marvin Minsky"The amusements of broadcast consist mainly of songs, stories, and games, just as in tribal life. The songs and stories are mostly about courtship, the games mostly played by men, just as in tribal life."
-- Stewart Brand"Somebody who's designing something for himself has at least got a market of one that he's very close to."
-- Steve Wozniak"Turn that damned thing off!"
-- first words spoken on WLS radio, April 12, 1924
Politics
"Government has become ungovernable; that is, it cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of our time is the meekness of the mob and the madness of the government."
-- G.K. Chesterton, "Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State." (1922)"Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory."
-- Sir Bernard Ingham"When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."
"Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power -- power sufficient to interfere with property."
-- Lord Acton"It is amazing how many people think that the government's role is to give them what they want by overriding what other people want."
-- Thomas Sowell, Ph.D."It is truly a triumph of rhetoric over reality when people can believe that going into politics is 'public service,' but that producing food, shelter, transportation, or medical care is not."
-- Thomas Sowell, Ph.D."If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, that doesn't matter if it coos like a dove at Senate confirmation hearings."
-- Thomas Sowell, Ph.D."There is nothing that politicians like better than handing out benefits to be paid for by someone else."
-- Thomas Sowell, Ph.D."Congressman Frank and Senator Dodd wanted the government to push financial institutions to lend to people they would not lend to otherwise, because of the risk of default. ... The idea that politicians can assess risks better than people who have spent their whole careers assessing risks should have been so obviously absurd that no one would take it seriously."
-- Thomas Sowell, Ph.D."Too many policies, programs and institutions are judged by what they are supposed to do, rather than by what they actually do and the consequences of their actions."
-- Thomas Sowell, Ph.D."The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
-- H. L. Mencken"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery."
-- Winston Churchill"A government policy to rob Peter to pay Paul can be assured of the support of Paul."
-- George Bernard Shaw"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."
-- Thomas Sowell"If you spend your own money on yourself, you care how much you spend and how well you spend it. If you spend your own money on someone else, you care how much you spend, but you don't care how well it is spent. If you spend someone else's money on yourself, you don't care how much you spend, but you do care how well it is spent. And finally, if you spend someone else's money on someone else, you don't care how much you spend, and you don't care how well it is spent. That is government."
-- Milton Friedman"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
-- Margaret Thatcher"The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop."
-- P. J. O'Rourke"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."
-- P. J. O'Rourke"Whenever people tell you they are going to wipe the slate clean, it's your slate they mean to wipe."
-- P. J. O'Rourke"You can't have employment and despise employers ... No goose, no golden eggs."
-- Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-Massachusetts)"We got more done for the poor by pursuing the competition agenda for a few years than we got done by pursuing a poverty agenda for decades."
-- Vijay Kelkar, former finance secretary of India"The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage."
-- Thucydides"Do you kids want to be like the real U.N., or do you just want to squabble and waste time?"
-- "Principal Skinner" on The Simpsons"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
-- Benjamin Franklin"Republics decline into democracies, and democracies degenerate into despotisms"
-- Aristotle-- Thomas Jefferson
"I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
-- Thomas Jefferson"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude."
-- Thomas Jefferson"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 1823"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
-- Thomas Jefferson"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe."
-- Thomas Jefferson"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work, and give to those who would not."
-- Thomas Jefferson"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."
-- Thomas Jefferson"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."
-- Thomas Jefferson"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
-- Thomas Jefferson"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."
-- Thomas Jefferson"What more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens, a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
-- Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of poper no longer suceptible to any definition."
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1791-------------------------- -> "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"
-- Ronald Reagan"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow."
-- James Madison, Federalist Number 62"Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value."
-- Dean Steacy, Canadian Human Rights Commission"Where justice is denied ... where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."
-- Frederick Douglass"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."
-- Ecclesiastes 10:2"When you put the clowns in charge, don't be surprised when a circus breaks out."
-- unknown"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools." -- Herbert Spencer, British philosopher
"I distinguish between two kinds of politicians. There are those who view politics as a tactical game, a game in which they do not reveal any individuality, in which they lose their own face. There are, however, leaders for whom politics is a means of defending and furthering values. For them, it is a moral pursuit. They do so because the values they cherish are endangered. They're convinced that there are values worth living for, and even values worth dying for. Otherwise they would consider their life and work pointless. Only such politicians are great politicians and Ronald Reagan was one of them."
-- Lech Walesa, started the Solidarity trade union in Poland that defied the Communist rulers, won the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize, and went on to lead Poland to a free society as its president from 1990 to 1995."Enron, of course, is exactly the kind of corporation which could not exist in pure capitalism ... [I]t was deliberately converted from a small pipeline company into an international conglomerate by conniving scoundrels who designed it from the beginning to use the power of their favor-selling politician friends to give it government contracts, subsidies, monopoly powers, and favorable regulations to force prospective customers to do business with them, essentially at gunpoint."
-- Rick Gaber"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."
-- Frederic Bastiat, The Law"We believe that Social Security legislation, now billed as a great victory for the poor and for the worker, is a great defeat for Christianity. It is an acceptance of the idea of force and compulsion."
-- Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker, 1945"Some people have suggested that our tax laws should be simplified so that the taxpayers could actually understand them. How could this be done? My friend John Dorschner proposes this system: Every year, on April 15, all members of Congress would be placed in individual prison cells with the necessary tax forms and a copy of the Tax Code. They would remain locked in the cells, without food or water, until they had completed their tax returns and successfully undergone a full IRS audit. Of course this system would probably result in a severe shortage of congresspersons. But there might also be some drawbacks."
-- Dave Barry"Goliath lost"
-- miniusa.com"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."
-- George Washington, January 7, 1790
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there'd be a shortage of sand."
-- Milton Friedman"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
-- Noam Chomsky"We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man."
-- C. S. Lewis"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people." -- G. K. Chesterton
"It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem." -- G. K. Chesterton
Life
"Everything starts as somebody's daydream."
-- Larry NivenWhy park rangers hate Emerson:
"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson"Wanna start a business? Ok, just don't charge too much or you'll be shut down for price gouging. But don't charge too little because then that's illegal under predatory pricing laws. Oh, and also don't charge the exact same price as your competitors either. That's collusion."
-- Austin Petersen"There is nothing more genuine than breaking away from the chorus to learn the sound of your own voice."
-- Po Bronson"Your son at five is your master, at ten your slave, at fifteen your double, and after that, your friend or foe, depending on his bringing up."
-- Hasdai Ibn Shaprut, Jewish scholar, physician to Abd-ar-Rahman, Ban HaMelek VeHaNazir, ch. 7"If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders."
-- David Wright"'Euphemism' is a euphemism for lying."
-- Bobbie Gentry"Two wrongs don't make a right -- but three lefts do."
"Kahaha ko'u na'au i ke 'ano o ka mea 'ai ma keia mokulele."
(Hawaiian for "I am filled with admiration for my in-flight meal.")"In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore ... in the Old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long ... seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long. ... There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."
-- Mark Twain"She was not quite what you would call refined.
She was not quite what you would call unrefined.
She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot."
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar", maxims from "Following the Equator"Castle: How do you know when you're in love?
Beckett: All the songs make sense.
-- from TV show Castle"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
-- attributed to Albert Einstein, explaining radio"Two individuals, arguing a topic in front of a blackboard, will refer each other to diagrams, equations and terms on the basis of where they had been written, even long after they have been erased"
-- Richard Bolt, discussing "motor-memory reinforcement""There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
-- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity"
"The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money."
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1773"All solutions should be as simple as possible and no simpler."
-- Albert Einstein"If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
-- Albert EinsteinColumbus' journal on Day 35: "Maybe it's Mars that's the round one."
-- Mister Boffo cartoon by Joe Martin"If you can't write about things you know, write about things you know no one knows anything about.
-- Mister Boffo cartoon by Joe Martin"Anytime you see a turtle atop a fence post, you know it had some help."
-- Alex HaleyAs lacking in insight as a fortune cookie that says, "You will soon be finishing dinner"
-- idea from P. J. O'Rourke"I have a 10 year old at home, and she is always saying, 'That's not fair.' When she says that, I say, "Honey, you're cute; that's not fair. Your family is pretty well off; that's not fair. You were born in America; that's not fair. Honey, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you."
-- P. J. O'Rourke
Irish wish: "May you live to be 100, plus an extra year to repent"
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it"
-- Alan Kay"Indecision is the key to flexibility"
"One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety nine who only have interest"
-- John Stuart Mill"The swallow may fly south with the sun, or the house martin or the plummer may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land."
"Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?"
-- Monty Python and the Holy Grail"Nothing matters but the weekend from a Tuesday point of view."
-- The Kings, Switching to Glide"Beware the lollipop of mediocrity. Lick it once and you suck forever."
"Number one on list of worries if I ran the space program: 'The duct tape might burn off on re-entry'"
-- Mister Boffo cartoon by Joe Martin"As inevitable as the Wright Brothers' second flight"
"Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer"Think of how stupid the average person is and realize that half of everybody is stupider than that."
-- George Carlin"Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc...and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons."
-- Douglas Adams"I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, 'Where's the self-help section?' She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose."
-- unknown"Some of the things that live the longest in peoples` memories never really happened."
-- Manoj Srivastava"We may perhaps learn to deprive large masses of their gravity and give them absolute levity, for the sake of easy transport."
-- Benjamin Franklin"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives."
-- Tolstoy"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
-- Thomas Edison"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur."
(Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)
Heisenberg was driving down the Autobahn when he was pulled over. The policeman asked him, "Do you know how fast you were going back there?" to which Heisenberg replied, "No, but I know where I am.""If the Lord Almighty had consulted me before embarking on the Creation, I should have recommended something simpler."
-- Alfonso X, King of Castile (1226--1284)"When someone asks you, 'A penny for your thoughts' and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny?"
-- George Carlin"You cannot bring prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further brotherhood of men by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."
-- William J. H. Boetcker"You'll be entering into a cryogenic chamber where you'll be frozen until such time as you can be revived and brought back into society to serve a useful purpose" -- Things they tell turkeys.
-- Mister Boffo cartoon by Joe Martin"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."
-- Arthur Carlson, WKRP"Those TV weathermen are so unpredictable."
-- Kev's MomAll my life I've wanted to be somebody, I realize now that I should have been more specific.
When my time on earth is completed, I want to go quietly in my sleep, like my grandfather ... not screaming in terror, like his passengers.
If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the precipitate.
Is the glass half empty, or half full, or twice as big as it needs to be?
668: The Neighbor of the Beast
Kev Sez...
- Things about which little is known tend to sound terrific.
- Technology has a way of taking the marginally interesting and making it mandatory.
- Every solution needs a problem.
- Knowledge is knowing the difference between what you don't know
and what no one knows.
- The present is where the past ends and the future starts.