"You know, I've gone to a lot of psychics, and they've told me a lot of different things, but not one of them has ever told me 'You are an undercover policewoman here to arrest me.'"
- New York City undercover policewoman
"At this point you could have two hours of George Lucas' hairy butt and it would beat Titanic."
- Starwarz.com's Lou Tambone on the chances of The Phantom Menace sinking Titanic's box office record
"Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies,
but let wasps and hornets break through."
Jonathan Swift
"The Internet, of course, is more than just a place to find pictures of people having sex with dogs."
- Time Magazine, 3 July 1995
"Those who learn from history are doomed to have it repeated to them anyway."
WARNING:This Product Warps Space and Time in Its Vicinity.
WARNING:This Product Attracts Every Other Piece of Matter in the Universe, Including the Products of Other Manufacturers, with a Force Proportional to the Product of the Masses and Inversely Proportional to the Distance Between Them.
CAUTION:The Mass of This Product Contains the Energy Equivalent of 85 Million Tons of TNT per Net Ounce of Weight.
HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE:This Product Contains Minute Electrically Charged Particles Moving at Velocities in Excess of Five Hundred Million Miles Per Hour.
CONSUMER NOTICE:Because of the "Uncertainty Principle," It Is Impossible for the Consumer to Find Out at the Same Time Both Precisely Where This Product Is and How Fast It Is Moving.
ADVISORY:There is an Extremely Small but Nonzero Chance That, Through a Process Know as "Tunneling," This Product May Spontaneously Disappear from Its Present Location and Reappear at Any Random Place in the Universe, Including Your Neighbor's Domicile. The Manufacturer Will Not Be Responsible for Any Damages or Inconvenience That May Result.
READ THIS BEFORE OPENING PACKAGE:According to Certain Suggested Versions of the Grand Unified Theory, the Primary Particles Constituting this Product May Decay to Nothingness Within the Next Four Hundred Million Years.
THIS IS A 100% MATTER PRODUCT:In the Unlikely Event That This Merchandise Should Contact Antimatter in Any Form, a Catastrophic Explosion Will Result.
PUBLIC NOTICE AS REQUIRED BY LAW:Any Use of This Product, in Any Manner Whatsoever, Will Increase the Amount of Disorder in the Universe. Although No Liability Is Implied Herein, the Consumer Is Warned That This Process Will Ultimately Lead to the Heat Death of the Universe.
NOTE:The Most Fundamental Particles in This Product Are Held Together by a "Gluing" Force About Which Little is Currently Known and Whose Adhesive Power Can Therefore Not Be Permanently Guaranteed.
ATTENTION:Despite Any Other Listing of Product Contents Found Hereon, the Consumer is Advised That, in Actuality, This Product Consists Of 99.9999999999% Empty Space.
NEW GRAND UNIFIED THEORY DISCLAIMER:The Manufacturer May Technically Be Entitled to Claim That This Product Is Ten-Dimensional. However, the Consumer Is Reminded That This Confers No Legal Rights Above and Beyond Those Applicable to Three-Dimensional Objects, Since the Seven New Dimensions Are "Rolled Up" into Such a Small "Area" That They Cannot Be Detected.
PLEASE NOTE:Some Quantum Physics Theories Suggest That When the Consumer Is Not Directly Observing This Product, It May Cease to Exist or Will Exist Only in a Vague and Undetermined State.
COMPONENT EQUIVALENCY NOTICE:The Subatomic Particles (Electrons, Protons, etc.) Comprising This Product Are Exactly the Same in Every Measurable Respect as Those Used in the Products of Other Manufacturers, and No Claim to the Contrary May Legitimately Be Expressed or Implied.
HEALTH WARNING:Care Should Be Taken When Lifting This Product, Since Its Mass, and Thus Its Weight, Is Dependent on Its Velocity Relative to the User.
IMPORTANT NOTICE TO PURCHASERS:The Entire Physical Universe, Including This Product, May One Day Collapse Back into an Infinitesimally Small Space. Should An other Universe Subsequently Re-emerge, the Existence of This Product in That Universe Cannot Be Guaranteed.
"As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools"
"Laugh alone and the world thinks you're an idiot."
"I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather ... Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car...."
"Your kid may be an honor student but you're still an IDIOT!"
"My kid can beat the shit out of your honor student"
"How's my driving? 1-800-EAT-SHIT"
"It's as BAD as you think, and they ARE out to get you."
"Smile, it's the second best thing you can do with your lips."
... well, actually, I'd say it's third or fourth, but who's counting?
"I took an IQ test and the results were negative."
"Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately it kills all its students!"
"Forget about World Peace.....Visualize Using Your Turn Signal!"
"Give me ambiguity or give me something else."
"Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot."
"He who laughs last thinks slowest"
"Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math."
"Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes."
"Be nice to your kids. They'll choose your nursing home."
"There are 3 kinds of people: those who can count and those who can't."
"It's not the one bullet with your name on it that you have to worry about; it's the twenty-thousand-odd rounds labeled 'occupant.'"
- Murphy's Laws of Combat
"Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together...."
"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."
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
"Astronomers say the universe is finite, which is a comforting thought for those people who can't remember where they leave things."
"In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time."
"It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
"Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it."
"The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest."
"I'm astounded by people who want to `know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown."
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
"There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for."
"We are an impossibility in an impossible universe."
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us."
- Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)
"Creating shared vision produces its own order; trying to control produces the opposite effect - dysfunctional disorder or chaos."
- Stephen R. Covey, "First Things First"
"Remember, there is no such thing as organizational behavior; there is only behavior of individuals within the organization."
- Stephen R. Covey, "First Things First"
"Most executives neglect [effective] leadership and focus on management. But this menagement focus actually generates the need for *more* management to deal with all the problems that result from neglecting leadership."
- Stephen R. Covey, "First Things First"
"Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. ... It is the comparison that makes you proud; the pleasure of being above the rest."
"The Chinese bamboo tree is planted after the earth is prepared, and for the first four years, all of the growth is underground. The only thing visible above the ground is a little bulb and a small shoot coming out of it."
"Then, in the fifth year, the bamboo tree grows up to 80 feet."
- Stephen R. Covey, "First Things First"
"Someone once said of sex, 'When it's good it's marvelous, and when it's bad it's still pretty good.'"
- Al Alvarez, "Feeding the Rat: Profile of a Climber"
"The multitiude is always in the wrong."
- Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon
"It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true."
"Quieta movere magna merces videbatur."
(Just to stir things up seemed a great reward in itself.)
"For an idea ever to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned."
"Architecture in general is frozen music."
- Friedrich von Schelling
"Mit der Dummheit kampfen Gotter selbst vergebens."
(With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain.)
"Small is beautiful."
- Professer E. F. Schumacher
"We trained hard ... but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization."
- Petronius Arbiter 210 BC
"The problem with you programmers is you are all friends."
- Jim Fretz, manager at Lockheed Martin
You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight-savings time.
You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
The most powerful force in the universe is gossip.
The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above-average drivers.
There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age 11.
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."
People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word
"The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.
If there really is a God who created the entire universe with all of its glories, and He decides to deliver a message to humanity, He WILL NOT use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.
You should not confuse your career with your life.
A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.
No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.
When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.
Your friends love you, anyway.
Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced, if the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero, 55 B.C.
The sand remembers
once there was beach and sunshine
but chip is warm too
The optimist says the glass is half full. The pessimist says the glass is half empty. The engineer says the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
When life has got you down
and you're ready to give up,
just remind yourself:
"I'm the one in control here.
I have the gun and the hostages.
So just back off, man, okay?"
"One of the things I am very grateful to my father for is that, contrary to conventional educational principles, he allowed me to read comics. I think that is how I developed a love for English and for reading."
- Nobel Prize Winner Bishop Desmond Tutu
"A commonly overlooked area for read-aloud is the comic book, and my first choice would be the incomparable Tintin - a comic book can be viewed as an interesting sequential diagram of conversation - a language blueprint. Once the blueprint is understood, the child will be ready and willing to follow it on his own without your reading it aloud."
- Author and Educator Jim Trelease, The Read-Along Handbook
"The average comic book introduces children to nearly twice as many new words as the average children's book and more than five times as many as the average child-adult conversation."
- from a 1993 study published in The Journal of Child Language
"I sense much NT in you, NT leads to Blue Screen. Blue Screen leads to downtime, downtime leads to suffering. NT is the path to the Dark Side."
A TRUE STORY
Two kids and their mom were in a store. One of the kids was upset because they were not getting x-mas gifts - he was about 7.
His mother explained that they were Jewish and were in the middle of Chanukah.
The little kid said he didn't care. He wanted Santa to bring something to him.
His mother said that Santa did not visit Jews.
At this point the kid started to cry.
So then, the older kid says, "Santa gave toys to Hitler, Jerome. Do you want toys from someone who gave stuff to Hitler?"
The mom said nothing; they looked around for a minute and then left.
-- This is not a joke - this was actually overheard in a store.
"... it seems like a pretty secure script since many people use it ..."
- David, a DSL Reports user whose cable[1] line runs 'from the telephone straight to my bedroom.'
[1] The one connected to his cable modem, one would assume.