Before proceeding, I issue the following disclaimer...
A witty saying proves nothing.
-- Voltaire

Author Index

Abraham Maslow

  1. If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

Adolf Hitler

  1. Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death.
  2. There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor, Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and love of the Fatherland.
  3. What luck for rulers that men do not think.

Albert Einstein

  1. Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
  2. Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.
  3. Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
  4. I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
  5. I think that matter must have a separate reality independent of the measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it.
  6. If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.
  7. Imagination is more important than knowledge...
  8. Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.
  9. Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
  10. Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
  11. Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
  12. The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
  13. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.
  14. The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
  15. We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
  16. When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.
  17. You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

Aldous Huxley

  1. An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.
  2. Facts do not cease to exist just because they are ignored.
  3. Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
  4. Maybe this world is another planet's hell.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  1. If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Aristotle

  1. A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
  2. All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
  3. Change in all things is sweet.
  4. Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
  5. Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
  6. Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
  7. I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.
  8. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
  9. Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.
  10. No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
  11. Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
  12. The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
  13. The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
  14. The more thou dost advance, the more thy feet pitfalls will meet. The Path that leadeth on is lighted by one fire- the light of daring burning in the heart. The more one dares, the more he shall obtain. The more he fears, the more that light shall pale - and that alone can guide.

Arthur C. Clarke

  1. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
  2. CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.
  3. The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
  4. There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.

Benjamin Franklin

  1. Admiration is the daughter of ignorance.
  2. Anger is one of the sinews of the soul; he that wants it hath a maimed mind.
  3. As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.
  4. Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.
  5. Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.
  6. Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
  7. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
  8. Distrust and caution are the parents of security.
  9. Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
  10. Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.
  11. Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel.
  12. Games lubricate the body and the mind.
  13. Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
  14. Half a truth is often a great lie.
  15. He that lives upon hope will die fasting.
  16. Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?
  17. How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.
  18. I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.
  19. I hope... that mankind will at length, as they call themselves reasonable creatures, have reason and sense enough to settle their differences without cutting throats; for in my opinion there never was a good war, or a bad peace.
  20. If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him.
  21. Money can help you to get medicines but not health. Money can help you to get soft pillows, but not sound sleep. Money can help you to get material comforts, but not eternal bliss. Money can help you to get ornaments, but not beauty. Money will help you to get an electric earphone, but not natural hearing. Attain the supreme wealth, wisdom;you will have everything.
  22. Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75.
  23. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
  24. The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.
  25. There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.
  26. Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
  27. To Follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.
  28. Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended; but that Tomorrow never comes.
  29. Words may show a man's wit but actions his meaning.

Bertrand Russell

  1. A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
  2. Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
  3. I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.
  4. Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.
  5. Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
  6. Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
  7. So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
  8. The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
  9. The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.
  10. The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
  11. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

Bill Watterson

  1. Such is American business, I guess, where the desire for obscene profit mutes any discussion of conscience.
  2. We're not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery— it recharges by running.

Bob Dylan

  1. What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.

Carl Sagan

  1. In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

Carroll Quigley

  1. The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can "throw the rascals out" at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.

Charlie Chaplin

  1. Humanity is not composed of heroes or traitors, rather simply of men and women, and the passions that agitate them, good and bad, that have been given to them by nature. All roam in blindness. For this, the ignorant one condemns their faults, but the wise one pities them.

Coleman Kane

  1. I'm not an elitist. I can't help that everyone else is below me.

Doris Lessing

  1. Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.

E. W. Dijkstra

  1. Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.

Ecclesiastes

  1. The simulacrum is never what hides the truth -- it is truth that hides the fact that there is none.
    The simulacrum is true.

Ernest Hemingway

  1. Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

Gallagher

  1. Don't you wish there were a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There's one marked 'Brightness,' but it doesn't work.

George Bernard Shaw

  1. A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
  2. A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
  3. A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
  4. Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
  5. Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
  6. England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
  7. Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
  8. He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
  9. He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
  10. I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
  11. If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.
  12. The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
  13. The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
  14. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Hermann Goering

  1. Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Isaac Asimov

  1. Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
  2. Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
  3. Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
  4. The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'
  5. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

James Madison

  1. If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

Johann von Neumann

  1. In mathematics, you don't understand things. You get used to them.

John Adams

  1. I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

John Schlipf

  1. Science is an art, not a science.
  2. Two qualities of a good scientist:
    1. A wild imagination.
    2. A very hard-nosed standard for establishing truth.

Kelly Flannery

  1. Some people are like slinkys: in the grand scheme of things, they are completely useless...but it's still hysterical when they fall down a flight of steps.

Lewis Carroll

  1. Curiouser and curiouser!
  2. Everything has got a moral if you can only find it.

Mario Cuomo

  1. The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us.

Martin Luther

  1. Who loves not women, wine and song remains a fool his whole life long.

Noam Chomsky

  1. All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.
  2. All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.
  3. As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.
  4. Somebody's paying the corporations that destroyed Iraq and the corporations that are rebuilding it. They're getting paid by the American taxpayer in both cases. So we pay them to destroy the country, and then we pay them to rebuild it. Those are gifts from U.S. taxpayer to U.S. corporations.
  5. The point of public relations slogans like "Support our troops" is that they don't mean anything... That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? That's the one you're not allowed to talk about.

Oscar Wilde

  1. Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
  2. But what is the difference between literature and journalism? Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.
  3. Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
  4. I suppose that I shall have to die beyond my means.
  5. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
  6. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
  7. The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
  8. Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
  9. Why was I born with such contemporaries?
  10. Work is the curse of the drinking class.

Pablo Picasso

  1. Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

Paul David Hewson (aka "Bono")

  1. The less you know, the more you believe.

Philip Greenspun

  1. Lisp and Haskell are the only programming languages that I've seen where one spends more time thinking than typing.

Plato

  1. The price good people pay for their indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
  2. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

Rene Descartes

  1. Cogito ergo sum. (I think; therefore I am.)
  2. If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
  3. It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
  4. It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.

Sinclair Lewis

  1. Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.

Sun Tzu

  1. All war is deception.
  2. For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
  3. He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.
  4. Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
  5. Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.
  6. Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
  7. The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.
  8. There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.
  9. Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy.

T.S. Eliot

  1. We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time

Trent Reznor

  1. An integral part of any intimate relationship is knowing that you could be killed in your sleep at any time.
  2. I hurt myself today, To see if I still feel
    I focus on the pain, The only thing that's real.
  3. There are just some things that don't seem very fair in the world, like this fucking hypocrisy of organized religion. I just don't understand how people can blindly believe a bunch of the shit they're fed, to believe it so that they don't think too hard about other issues. 'Be a good boy and you'll go to Heaven.' If it works for you, fine, but it doesn't work for me and that pisses me off because I kind of wish it did.

Voltaire

  1. A witty saying proves nothing.
  2. Common sense is not so common.
  3. Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do.
  4. It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  5. It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.
  6. Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
  7. Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
  8. When the speaker and he to whom he is speaks do not understand, that is metaphysics.

anonymous

  1. If you add a teaspoon of wine to a barrel of sewage, you still have sewage. On the other hand, if you add a teaspoon of sewage to a barrel of wine you now have more sewage.