"Be a realist. The glass is twice as large as it needs to be." --Greg Kaiser

"It's everything about 0's and 1's... or much ado about nothing and its complement." --Prof. Loui of Boolean Algebra

"The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed." --William Gibson

"The algorithms you pull out of your ass are pretty shitty." --Dave Morgan

To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.

Golf is a game who's aim it is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose. - Winston Churchill

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour. - Winston Churchill

Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. - Winston Churchill

We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat, and France has suffered even more than we have. - Winston Churchill

We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender! - Winston Churchill

I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks. - Winston Churchill

I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught. - Winston Churchill

The Americans will always do the right thing... after they've exhausted all the alternatives. - Winston Churchill

In the dark days and darker nights when England stood alone--and most men save Englishmen despaired of England's life--he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle. -John F. Kennedy (on Winston Churchill)

"We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance." Japanese Proverb

Two sages were standing on a bridge over a stream. One said to the other, "I wish I were a fish. They are so happy." The other replied, "How do you know whether fish are happy or not? You're not a fish." The first said, "But you're not me, so how do you know whether or not I know how fish feel?"

A student said to the chief monk, "Help me to pacify my mind!" The chief monk said, "Bring your mind over here and I will pacify it." The student said, "But I don't know where my mind is!" The monk replied, "Then I have already pacified it."

Joshu asked the teacher Nansen, "What is the True Way?" Nansen answered, "Every way is the true Way." Joshu asked, "Can I study it?" Nansen answered, "The more you study, the further from the Way." Joshu asked, "If I don't study it, how can I know it?" Nansen answered, "The Way does not belong to things seen: nor to things unseen. It does not belong to things known: nor to things unknown. Do not seek it, study it, or name it. To find yourself on it, open yourself as wide as the sky."

A monk asked Nansen, "Is there any great spiritual teaching that has not been preached to the people?" Nansen said, "There is." "What is the truth that has not been taught?" "Nothing," Nansen replied.

Lightning flashes,
Sparks shower.
In one blink of your eyes
You have missed seeing.


Not many years ago I began to play the cello. Most people would say that what I am doing is ``learning to play'' the cello. But these words carry into our minds the strange idea that there exists two very different processes: 1) learning to play the cello; and 2) playing the cello. They imply that I will do the first until I have completed it, at which point I will stop the first process and begin the second; in short, that I will go on ``learning to play'' until I have ``learned to play'' and that then I will begin to play. Of course, this is nonsense. There are not two processes, but one. We learn to do something by doing it. There is no other way.

Cold-hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colors from our sight
Red is gray, and yellow white
But we decide which is right
And which is a quantization error.
-- ppmtopgm manual

"It's pretty scary looking ... and it's only like nine polygons"

There are other languages that are nice for certain kinds of applications, but if I were stuck on a desert island with only one compiler I'd want a C compiler. -- Brian Kernighan

The trouble with teaching Perl as a first computer language is that your students won't appreciate it till they start learning their second. The trouble with teaching Perl as a second language is that there's no single suitable first language to go in front. -- Larry Wall

When they say that Perl is a `glue language', what they really mean is that it is good for cleaning up after the mistakes of other programs. -- Mark-Jason Dominus in comp.lang.perl.misc

Occam lent me his razor, and I chose not to shave. -- David Fischer

It's better to not try and succeed than to try and fail. -- Jeff Bush

Be Inc's relationship with its shareholders continues to resemble one of those weird sex games where you hold your breath just long enough to avoid death by asphyxiation. -- The Register, in an article about Be at Comdex

I think a better idea is a contest to see how many types of pasta one can recognize in the Mozilla Spaghetti Code. --howard berkey

"If I have hacked deeper than them, it is because I stand in their trenches." -- Graham Nelson

A program without a "main" is like a fish without a bicycle. --Jon Watte

"no.. a freudian slip is when you say one thing but you mean your mother." -- Unknown, via KC Smith on IRC

Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work." --Unknown

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is a big difference."

A UNIX saleslady, Lenore,
Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more.
She found a good way
To combine work and play:
She sells C shells by the seashore.


To err is human, to moo bovine.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!", but "That's funny ... --Isaac Asimov

For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. --H. L. Mencken

"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here. This is the War Room." --Dr. Strangelove

What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the sound of a wall that people have stopped banging their heads against?" --Larry Wall

"If it's not on fire then it's a software problem."

"Those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others." --Groucho Marx

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read." --Groucho Marx
( Thanks Wendy )

"Employees must wash their hands before returning to work." -- Sign in Borders men's restroom

"Beware of programmers carrying screwdrivers." -- Chip Salzenberg

America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization. —-Georges Clemenceau

America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair. —-Arnold Joseph Toynbee

How ironic that foreign lands are stumbling to the light while we are striving mightily to put it out. —-Roy Traband

A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy but won't cross the street to vote in a national election. —-Bill Vaughan

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. —-Sir Winston Churchill

You won't learn much about capitalism at a university. How could you? Capitalism is a matter of risks and rewards, and a tenured professor doesn't have much to do with either. —-Jerry Pournelle

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. —-Noam Chomsky, 1992

The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting. --Gloria Leonard

Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink. - Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

No two persons ever read the same book.

People don't see the world as it is, but as they are

Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people. - Giordano Bruno

The smallest good deed is better than the greatest intention.

"A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most." (George Bernard Shaw)

Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of.

Dawn is nature's way of telling you to go to bed.

Living in fear is the same as fear of living. Either way, you have no life.

Sacred cows make the best burgers.

Sometimes the squeaky wheel doesn't get the grease, it just gets replaced.

"fine art of positive hacking," which he defines as "hands-on, in-depth self-education and exploration of any subject that fascinates you."

Do not like, Do not dislike.

Learn how to be unreceptive to external forms.

The snowflake never falls in the wrong place.

See everything as illusion.

Everything will come exactly as it does.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. - Winston Churchill

Possessed by delusion, a man tolls.

The game is not about becoming somebody, It's about becoming nobody.

The moment we desire to be something we are no longer free.

All that happens is the cause of all that happens.

How can the drops of water know themselves to be a river?

The water has no mind to receive the image of the wild geese.

There is no need to seek truth, only stop having views.

The biggest bowl fills last.
( Tony, is it full yet? )

Attachment creates illusion.

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. —-C. S. Lewis

A man who has never made a woman angry is a failure in life. —Christopher Morley

The trouble with referees is that they just don't care which side wins. —Tom Canterbury

There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot. —Steven Wright

Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end? —Tom Stoppard

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true. —J. Robert Oppenheimer

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever. —Napoleon Bonaparte

In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these. —Paul Harvey

The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones. —William Shakespeare

Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little. —Edmund Burke

When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all. —Justice William O. Douglas

And what country can preserve it's liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms....What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. —Thomas Jefferson

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission. —John F. Kennedy

In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then, they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew...Then they came for the Catholics. I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up. —Rev. Martin Neimoller

I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could. —Orson Welles

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. —Gen. George S. Patton, Jr

The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything. -- Friedrich Nietzsche