Random Quotes
Say what you want about America – thirteen bucks can still get you a hell of a lot of mice!
I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.
Well, he’s kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace “accidentally” with “repeatedly,” and replace “dog” with “son.”
How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?
Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.
Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals … except the weasel.
Ah, my eye! My doctor said I wasn’t supposed to get pudding in it.
Bart: Look at me! I’m a grad student! I’m 30 years old and I made $600 last year.
Marge: Bart! Don’t make fun of grad students! They just made a terrible life choice.
The jerk store called, they’re running out of you!
Shut up brain or I’ll stab you with a Q-Tip.
It’s Risk. It’s a game of world domination being played by two guys who can barely run their own lives.
You know what the Ukraine is? It’s a sitting duck. A road apple, Newman. The Ukraine is weak. It’s feeble. I think it’s time to put the hurt on the Ukraine.
What’s so great about a mom and pop store? Let me tell you something, if my mom and pop ran a store I wouldn’t shop there.
That’s the true spirit of Christmas; people being helped by people other than me.
I love a good nap, sometimes its the only thing getting me out of bed in the mornings.
Me fail English? That’s unpossible.
Men don’t care what’s on TV. They only care what else is on TV.
It’s amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.
Things aren’t as happy as they used to be down here at the unemployment office. Joblessness is no longer just for philosophy majors. Useful people are starting to feel the pinch.
Ironic, isn’t it Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, and yet if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That’s democracy for you.
Attempted murder, really, what is that? Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?
If you really want something in life you have to work for it. Now quiet, they’re about to announce the lottery numbers.
You couldn’t fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine.
I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying.
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.
To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.
UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.
University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.
If you don’t like your job, you don’t strike. You go in every day and do it really half a–ed. That’s the American way.
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
And the fluffy kitten played with that ball of string all through the night. On a lighter note, a Kwik-E-Mart clerk was brutally murdered last night.
There are many things you can point to as proof that the human is not smart. But my personal favorite would have to be that we needed to invent the helmet. What was happening, apparently, was that we were involved in a lot of activities that were cracking our heads. We chose not to avoid doing those activities but, instead, to come up with some sort of device to help us enjoy our head-cracking lifestyles.
How politically correct can we get? The folks that make these decisions need to get out more often.
Diane, never drink coffee that has been anywhere near a fish.
Diane, if you ever get up this way that cherry pie is worth a stop.
I’d like to see a nature film where an eagle swoops down and pulls a fish out of a lake, and then maybe he’s flying along, low to the ground, and the fish pulls a worm out of the ground. Now that’s a documentary.
I wish outer space guys would conquer the Earth and make people their pets, because I’d like to have one of those little beds with my name on it.
If you’re a cowboy and you’re dragging a guy behind your horse, I bet it would really make you mad if you looked back and the guy was reading a magazine.
Broken promises don’t upset me. I just think, why did they believe me?
One thing vampire children have to be taught early on is, don’t run with a wooden stake.
If you go to a costume party at your boss’s house, wouldn’t you think a good costume would be to dress up like the boss’s wife? Trust me, it’s not.
Consider the daffodil. And while you’re doing that, I’ll be over here, looking through your stuff.
Somebody told me how frightening it was how much topsoil we are losing each year, but I told that story around the campfire and nobody got scared.
I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, Yahoo!, I’d have all my money back.
The difference between a man and a boy is, a boy wants to grow up to be a fireman, but a man wants to grow up to be a giant monster fireman.
To me, it’s a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, “Hey, can you give me a hand?” You can say, “Sorry, got these sacks.”
Instead of having “answers” on a math test, they should just call them “impressions,” and if you got a different “impression,” so what, can’t we all be brothers?
If you go flying back through time and you see somebody else flying forward into the future, it’s probably best to avoid eye contact.
As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.
During the Middle Ages, probably one of the biggest mistakes was not putting on your armor because you were “just going down to the corner.”
When I found the skull in the woods, the first thing I did was call the police. But then I got curious about it. I picked it up, and started wondering who this person was, and why he had deer horns.
Most of the time it was probably real bad being stuck down in a dungeon. But some days, when there was a bad storm outside, you’d look out your little window and think, “Boy, I’m glad I’m not out in that.”
The tired and thirsty prospector threw himself down at the edge of the watering hole and started to drink. But then he looked around and saw skulls and bones everywhere. “Uh-oh,” he thought. “This watering hole is reserved for skeletons.”
Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: “Mankind”. Basically, it’s made up of two separate words – “mank” and “ind”. What do these words mean ? It’s a mystery, and that’s why so is mankind.
The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.
If you ever teach a yodeling class, probably the hardest thing is to keep the students from just trying to yodel right off. You see, we build to that.
If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I’d say Flippy, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong, though. It’s Hambone.
Laurie got offended that I used the word “puke.” But to me, that’s what her dinner tasted like.
The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw.
When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it’s not, mmmmmmm, boy.
If you’re robbing a bank and you’re pants fall down, I think it’s okay to laugh and to let the hostages laugh too, because, come on, life is funny.
I can’t stand cheap people. It makes me real mad when someone says something like, “Hey, when are you going to pay me that $100 you owe me?” or “Do you have that $50 you borrowed?” Man, quit being so cheap!
The next time I have meat and mashed potatoes, I think I’ll put a very large blob of potatoes on my plate with just a little piece of meat. And if someone asks me why I didn’t get more meat, I’ll just say, “Oh, you mean this?” and pull out a big piece of meat from inside the blob of potatoes, where I’ve hidden it. Good magic trick, huh?
If I ever opened a trampoline store, I don’t think I’d call it Trampo-Land, because you might think it was a store for tramps, which is not the impression we are trying to convey with our store. On the other hand, we would not prohibit tramps from browsing, or testing the trampolines, unless a tramp’s gyrations seemed to be getting out of control.
Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
Children from the age of five to ten should watch more television. Television depicts adults as rotten SOB’s, given to fistfights, gunplay, and other mayhem. Kids who believe this about grownups aren’t likely to argue about bedtime.
Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.
Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.
Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
I like to think of anything stupid I’ve done as a “learning experience.” It makes me feel less stupid.
In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.
Marijuana is self-punishing. It makes you acutely sensitive, and in this world, what worse punishment could there be?
Social Security is a government program with a constituency made up of the old, the near old and those who hope or fear to grow old. After 215 years of trying, we have finally discovered a special interest that includes 100 percent of the population. Now we can vote ourselves rich.
Staying married may have long-term benefits. You can elicit much more sympathy from friends over a bad marriage than you ever can from a good divorce.
The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.
The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible.
There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you d— well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government does it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy.
You can’t get rid of poverty by giving people money.
With Epcot Center the Disney corporation has accomplished something I didn’t think possible in today’s world. They have created a land of make-believe that’s worse than regular life.
Admit it, sport-utility-vehicle owners! It’s shaped a little differently, but it’s a station wagon! And you do not drive it across rivers! You drive it across the Wal-Mart parking lot!
Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television’s message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth and fresher breath.
Because of the level of my chess game, I was able – even against a weak opponent, such as my younger brothers or the dog – to get myself checkmated in under three minutes. I challenge any computer to do it faster.
Big business never pays a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer organization that never pays a nickel in taxes.
Buying the right computer and getting it to work properly is no more complicated than building a nuclear reactor from wristwatch parts in a darkened room using only your teeth.
Congress, after years of stalling, finally got around to clearing the way for informal discussions that might lead to possible formal talks that could potentially produce some kind of tentative agreements.
Have you noticed that whatever sport you’re trying to learn, some earnest person is always telling you to keep your knees bent?
If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant’s life, she will choose to save the infant’s life without even considering if there are men on base.
If you surveyed a hundred typical middle-aged Americans, I bet you’d find that only two of them could tell you their blood types, but every last one of them would know the theme song from The Beverly Hillbillies.
It is a well-known fact that although the public is fine when taken individually, when it forms itself into large groups, it tends to act as though it has one partially consumed Pez tablet for a brain.
Never assume that the guy understands that you and he have a relationship.
Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice.
People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
The primary function of the government is – and here I am quoting directly from the U.S. Constitution – “to spew out paper.”
The simple truth is that balding African-American men look cool when they shave their heads, whereas balding white men look like giant thumbs.
Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
Weather forecast for tonight: dark.
I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar.
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.
Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.
And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.
The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, “You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.”.
Ted Kennedy’s car has killed more people than my gun.
Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
I spent like three hours doing shading the upper lip. It’s probably the best drawing I’ve ever done.
Don’t be jealous that I’ve been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I’m training to be a cage fighter
A liger. It’s pretty much my favorite animal. It’s like a lion and a tiger mixed… bred for its skills in magic.
Pedro offers you his protection.
I caught you a delicious bass.
Marge: What’s Brunch?
Jacques: You’d love it, It’s not quite breakfast, it’s not quite lunch, but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end.
Stop that. I love my wife and family. All I’m going to use this bed for is sleeping, eating, and maybe building a little fort.
Marge: How were you a political prisoner?
Homer: I kicked a giant mouse in the butt! Do I have to draw you a picture?
All right, we’re here. Now let us never speak of the shortcut again.
You know, you’re right. This truly was the best vacation ever. Now let us never speak of it again.
The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how much you play, you’ll never be as good as a wall.
An escalator can never break. It can only become stairs. You would never see an escalator “Temporarily Out of Order” sign, just “Escalator Temporarily Stairs… Sorry for the Convenience … We apologize for the fact that you can still get up there.”
All McDonalds commercials end the same way: “prices and participation may vary.” I want to open my own McDonalds and not participate in anything. I want to be a stubborn McDonalds owner. “You got Big Macs?” “Nope. We got spaghetti!…And blankets, but we are not affiliated with that clown, he attracts too many children.”
I had a stick of Carefree gum, but it didn’t work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality.
Rice is great if you’re really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something.
I like Kit-Kat, unless I’m with four or more people.
I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughnut. I don’t need a receipt for the doughnut – I’ll just give you money and you give me the doughnut. End of transaction. We don’t need to bring ink and paper into this. I can’t imagine a scenario in which I would need to prove that I bought a doughnut. Some skeptical friend? “Don’t even act like I didn’t buy a doughnut, I’ve got the documentation right here. Oh wait, it’s back home in the file… under ‘D’, for doughnut.”
Magicians disappear all the time, but as soon as a regular person does it, everyone is all scared. “Tom’s gone!” “Is he a magician?” “No.” “Then let’s print up some flyers!”
I would imagine that if you could understand morse code, a tap dancer would drive you crazy.
I was walking by a drycleaner at 3 AM and there was a sign that said, “Sorry, we’re closed.” You don’t have to be sorry. It’s 3 AM and you’re a drycleaner. It would be ridiculous for me to expect you to be open. I’m not gonna come by at 10 and say, “Hey, I was here at 3 AM and you guys were closed. Someone owes me an apology.”
I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I’m gonna put pins into all the locations that I’ve traveled to. But first, I’m gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map so that it won’t fall down.
I hate turtlenecks. I have such a weak neck. Plus if you wear a turtleneck it’s like being strangled by a really weak guy…all day.
I’m against picketing, but I don’t know how to show it.
I had a bag of Fritos, but these were Texas Grilled Fritos. These Fritos had grill marks on them. Heck yeah. Reminds me of summer time, when we used to fire up the barbeque and throw down some Fritos. I can still see my dad with the apron on. “Better flip that Frito, Dad. You know how I like mine: with grill marks.”
You know they call corn on the cob, corn on the cob, but that’s how it comes out of the ground, man. They should call that “corn.” They should call every other version “corn off the cob.” It’s not like if you cut off my arm you would call it “Mitch.” Then reattach it and call me “Mitch-all-together.”
She’s like a Milk Dud, Lis: sweet on the outside, poison on the inside.
I’m the sweet minister’s daughter and you’re just yellow trash.
Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.
A witty saying proves nothing.
Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.
The second system an engineer designs is the most dangerous system he will ever design, since it will be disastrously overdesigned.
The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.
Beware of computer programmers that carry screwdrivers.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
There never was a chip, it is said, that Bill Gates couldn’t slow down with a new batch of features.
The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.
There are three roads to ruin; women, gambling and technicians. The most pleasant is with women, the quickest is with gambling, but the surest is with technicians.
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.
Marbury v. Madison (1803): Established the principle of “judicial review”–that the Supreme Court has the power to declare laws unconstitutional. Before that, the Court only had the power to check laws for spelling and punctuation.
Yes, we were very accomplished. We discovered electricity, invented stoves, bifocals, the lazy susan, efficient printing presses, and the swivel chair. But in the 18th century it was nearly impossible not to invent something. “What if we put this refuse in a receptacle?” “Oh my, you just invented a sanitation system!”
As heirs to a legacy more than two centuries old, it is understandable why present-day Americans would take their own democracy for granted. A president freely chosen from a wide-open field of two men every four years; a Congress with a 99% incumbency rate; a Supreme Court comprised of nine politically appointed judges whose only oversight is the icy scythe of Death — all these reveal a system fully capable of maintaining itself.
Homer: OK, Marge, but don’t be surprised if a snuggle monster shows up.
Marge: Well, I hope he’s accompanied by the how-was-your-day monster and the foot-rub monster and the let-me-just…
Homer: Don’t worry he’s not showing up.
The fact that the Magna Carta was written in 1215 is, by law, the only thing you are required to know about it.
In fact, the Founding Fathers borrowed many of their ideas from the Roman model, including bicameral legislature, its emphasis on republicanism and civic virtue, and its Freudian fascination with big white columns.
Machiavelli on Himself: “Call me a dreamer, but one day, my name will become an adjective for everything cynical and untrustworthy in human nature.”
In time, the [Roman] Empire itself fell, as history teaches us all empires inevitably must. Its most enduring legacy: a numerical system that allowed future generations to more easily keep track of Super Bowls.
…the world plunged into what would be known as the Dark Ages. It was an apt title for an era when amoebic dysentery was considered the good kind of dysentery.
The first major act of violence occurred in 1770, when British troops fired into an angry mob and killed five citizens in what came to be called The Boston Massacre. (Yes, it was a happier, simpler time, when five deaths were seen as a “massacre,” not the natural consequence of, say, a Detroit Pistons championship celebration.)
If the president is the head of the American body politic, Congress is its gastrointestinal tract. Its vast and convoluted inner workings may be mysterious and unpleasant, but in the end they excrete a great deal of material whose successful passage is crucial to our nation’s survival.
C-SPAN was launched in 1979 in response to the massive public demand for more shows featuring agricultural subcommittee hearings, visits to presidential gravesites, and interviews with obscure professors at small liberal-arts colleges.
Recipients of the Environmental Lobby’s largesse: Anything with birkenstocks and/or gorp.
If…the Consitution is the nation’s owner’s manual, then the judicial branch is America’s helpful 24-hour tech support, always available to explain how things should work. And like any good tech support, it costs extra, takes forever to reach, and you don’t understand their instructions half the time anyway.
It all starts with the U.S. district courts, the first stop whenever someone decides to “make a federal case” of something. Judges in these courts can barely read, and instead of gavels band their think skulls against their desks to bring the court to order. It is not unusual for a district court judge to throw his sandwich at a lawyer he dislikes.
The Republican Party is the party of nostalgia. It seeks to return America to a simpler, more innocent and moral past that never actually existed. The Democrats are utopians. They seek to create an America so fair and non-judgmental that life becomes an unbearable series of apologies.
The candidate can choose one of the two platforms, but remember — no substitutions. For example, do you support universal health care? Then you must also want a ban on assault weapons. Pro-limited government? Congratulations, you are also anti-abortion. Luckily, all human opinion falls neatly into one of the two clearly defined camps.
Savvy candidates know that without a powerful fundraising organization they will lose. “But I have a presciption for what ails our country and can lead…” Stop. You will lose.
Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.
Something has gone seriously awry with this Court’s interpretation of the Constitution.
Libertarians believe in personal liberty and freedom with only the most minimal government intrusion. We are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. People make choices and they are held accountable for their outcome. In short, do all the crystal meth you want, just don’t expect me to pay for your rehab.
They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do Cubans want to come here?
The Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. H—, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock? Peace Corps volunteers? Or maybe the people in Texas were attacked because of abuse. But, if child abuse was the issue, why didn’t Janet Reno tear-gas Woody Allen?
They [the makers of our Constitution] conferred … the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.
…criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard-core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it…
Sunshine is the best disinfectant; electric light the best policeman.
How can you put your faith in a man whose idea of a romantic night spot and an impenetrable fortress are the same thing!?! This is a pub!!!
The humor of the entire situation suddenly gave way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber fell everywhere. Pieces of meat passed high over our heads, while others were falling at our feet.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp a lot.
Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
We’re even wrong about which mistakes we’re making.
Your twenties are always an apprenticeship, but you don’t always know what for.
Don’t worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
Modern invention has been a great leveller. A machine may operate far more quickly than a political or economic measure to abolish privilege and wipe out the distinctions of class or finance.
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
Many who burnt heretics in the ordinary way of their business were otherwise excellent people.
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
Stay away from people named “Some Guy” or “This One Dude”, because they for whatever reason, just punch someone in the face or hit them with a crowbar and run off.
Mr. Eko: Climb that tree, maybe you might get your bearings or see the plane.
Charlie: What if I don’t? You’re gonna beat me with your Jesus stick?
Dude, that was like a Jedi moment.
Samson: Lyle, I’m tellin’ you this operation is 100% legit.
Sheriff Lyle Donovan: I never heard an honest man use “legit”.
Homer: Hmm. I wonder why he’s so eager to go to the garage?
Moe: The “garage”? Hey fellas, the “garage”! Well, ooh la di da, Mr. French Man.
Homer: Well what do you call it?
Moe: A car hole!
Suddenly and without warning, it became a real life game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.
I move that that snivelling grub over there be not further heard. If I have offended the grubs, I withdraw unconditionally.
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.
The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have.
As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
A good plan violently executed today, is far and away better than a perfect plan next week.
A chief is a man who assumes responsibility. He says “I was beaten,” he does not say “My men were beaten”.
I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man’s self-respect is a sin.
Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.
I was a Republican until they lost their minds.
Sheryl: I’m just so glad you’re still here.
Frank: That makes one of us.
The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.
What kind of society isn’t structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system.
Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.
Faith doesn’t mean that you don’t have doubts.
You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away – because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey.
You know you have one when the crash of a computer you’ve never heard of stops you from getting any work done.
At times, in the name of national security, secrecy has put that very security in harm’s way
Back in the 1980s, Yosemite National Park was having a serious problem with bears: They would wander into campgrounds and break into the garbage bins. This put both bears and people at risk. So the Park Service started installing armored garbage cans that were tricky to open — you had to swing a latch, align two bits of handle, that sort of thing. But it turns out it’s actually quite tricky to get the design of these cans just right. Make it too complex and people can’t get them open to put away their garbage in the first place. Said one park ranger, “There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.”
You hate Canada? That’s like saying I hate toast. It’s not the kind of thing that inspires passion in either direction.
Only a stupid idiot would pick Michigan State on the road – and I’m picking Michigan State.
You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path.
That’s why we’re losers around here — because we don’t do the little things right.
Now, I don’t know if Charlie’s silence here today is right or wrong; I’m no judge or jury. But I can tell you this: he won’t sell anybody out to buy his future! And that my friends is called integrity, that’s called courage. Now that’s the stuff leaders should be made of. Now I have come to the crossroads in my days, and I have always known the right path, always, without exception, I knew. But I never took it, you know why? Because it’s too damn hard. Now here’s Charlie; he’s come to the crossroads. And he’s chosen a path, it’s the right path. It’s a path made of principle, that leads to character. Let him continue on his journey.
Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection.
your program n. A maze of non sequiturs littered with clever-clever tricks and irrelevant comments. Compare MY PROGRAM.
my program n. A gem of algoristic precision, offering the most sublime balance between compact, efficient coding on the one hand and fully commented legibility for posterity on the other. Compare YOUR PROGRAM.
The stock market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient.
Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.
State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well and often better than the latter because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.
I don’t know how to put this but I’m kind of a big deal.
So this is how liberty dies…with thunderous applause.
I wonder what the most intelligent thing ever said was that started with the word ‘dude.’
‘Dude, these are isotopes.’
‘Dude, we removed your kidney. You’re gonna be fine.’
‘Dude, I am so stoked to win this Nobel Prize. I just wanna thank Kevin, and Turtle, and all my homies.’
I think that when you get dressed in the morning, sometimes you’re really making a decision about your behavior for the day. Like if you put on flipflops, you’re saying: ‘Hope I don’t get chased today.’
I saw a guy at a party wearing a leather jacket and I thought, ‘That is cool.’ But then I saw another guy wearing a leather vest and I thought, ‘That is not cool’. Then I figured it out: ‘Cool’ is all about leather sleeves.
‘Sort of’ is such a harmless thing to say. Sort of. It’s just a filler. Sort of – it doesn’t really mean anything. But after certain things, sort of means everything. Like after ‘I love you’ or ‘You’re going to live’ or ‘It’s a boy.’
I was in a store and I saw a pocket dictionary and that made me laugh because it’s such…a specific item. I don’t know that many words and I’m going out…and I have pants. Perfect!
When you have a fat friend there are no see-saws. Only catapults.
I like fruit baskets because it gives you the ability to mail someone a piece of fruit without appearing insane. Like, if someone just mailed you an apple you’d be like ‘Huh? What the hell is this?’, but if it’s in a fruit basket you’re like ‘This is nice!.’
I feel stupid when I write the word banana. Its like, how many na’s are on this thing? ‘Cause I’m like ‘Bana … keep going. Bananana … damn.’
I wanna make a jigsaw puzzle that’s 40,000 pieces. And when you finish it, it says ‘go outside.’
Saying ‘I’m sorry’ is the same as saying ‘I apologize.’ Except at a funeral.
The worst time to have a heart attack is during a game of charades.
I like when good things happen to me, but I wait two weeks to tell anyone because I like to use the word ‘fortnight.’
I think vests are all about protection. You know what I mean? Like a lifevest protects you from drowning and bulletproof vests protect you from getting shot and the sweatervest protects you from pretty girls.
I noticed that there are no B batteries. I think that’s to avoid confusion, cause if there were you wouldn’t know if someone was stuttering. ‘Yes, hello I’d like some b-batteries.’ ‘What kind?’ ‘B-batteries.’ ‘What kind?!?’ ‘B-batteries!!!’
An easy way to sound like a creep is to add the word ‘ladies’ to the end of things you say. It can be harmless too, but it just makes you a creep. ‘Yeah after college I spent two years in the peace corps, ladies?’ The more harmless it is, the more of a creep you become. ‘I broke my arm. I need help, ladies?’
My favorite fruit is grapes. Because with grapes, you always get another chance. ‘Cause, you know, if you have a crappy apple or a peach, you’re stuck with that crappy piece of fruit. But if you have a crappy grape, no problem – just move on to the next. ‘Grapes: The Fruit of Hope.’
I went into a clothes store and a lady came up to me and said ‘if you need anything, I’m Jill’. I’ve never met anyone with a conditional identity before.
I think it would be cool, if you were writing a ransom note in Microsoft Word, and it popped up, the paperclip and said, ‘It looks like you’re writing a ransom note… need some help? You should curse more.’
A quick way to start a conversation is to say something like ‘What’s your favorite color?’ A quick way to end a conversation is to say something like ‘What’s your favorite color…person?’
It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
When an engineer says something is “non-trivial,” it’s the equivalent of an airline pilot calmly telling you that you might encounter “just a bit of turbulence” as he flies you into a cat 5 hurricane.
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever…
He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts…for support rather than illumination.
What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Our inability to predict environments subjected to [rare, significant events] coupled with a general lack of the awareness of this state of affairs, means that certain professionals, while believing they are experts, are in fact not. Based on their empirical record, they do not know more about their subject matter than the general population, but they are much better at narrating—or, worse, at smoking you with complicated mathematical models. They are also more likely to wear a tie.
I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not be giving rewards or “incentives” for skill.
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
The ‘real’ mathematics of the ‘real’ mathematicians, the mathematics of Fermat and Euler and Gauss and Abel and Riemann, is almost wholly ‘useless’ (and this is as true of ‘applied’ as of ‘pure’ mathematics). It is not possible to justify the life of any genuine professional mathematician on the ground of the ‘utility’ of his work.
Locke’s definition of a madman: someone “reasoning correctly from erroneous premises.”
Using the confirmation bias, these people will tell you that religion was horrible for mankind by counting deaths from the Inquisition and various religious wars. But they will not show you how many people were killed by nationalism, social science, and political theory under Stalinism or during the Vietnam War. We no longer believe in papal infallibility; we seem to believe in the infallibility of the Nobel [committee], though…
Whenever I’m on my computer, I don’t type “lol”. I type “lqtm”: “laugh quietly to myself”. It’s more honest.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking… is freedom.
I want a tricycle and a dog who won’t chew my Hot Wheels, and a brighter future for America.
Every fighter’s got a plan until they get hit in the mouth.
What I cannot create, I do not understand.
If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn’t have been worth the Nobel Prize.
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.
Moderator: With me here to comment on today’s Democratic debate is […] a print journalist from the Washington Post.
Nelson: Ha Ha! Your medium is dying.
Principal Skinner: Nelson!
Nelson: But it is.
Principal Skinner: There’s being right and there’s being nice.
We don’t claim to have perfect morals, but at least we have a huge area of things that, while legal, are beneath us. We don’t do them. Currently, there’s a culture in America that says anything that won’t send you to prison is okay.
To say accounting for derivatives in America is a sewer is an insult to sewage.
I think liberal arts faculties at major universities have views that are not very sound, at least on public policy issues. However, they may know a lot of French.
Envy is really a stupid sin because it’s the only on you could never possibly have fun at.
We all agree that pessimism is a mark of superior intellect.
Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
Woman in crowd: Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person.
Adlai Stevenson: That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!
You can’t tell how far a frog will jump until you punch him.
For a brief period of time, MySpace was the site where everyone kept their profile and managed their friendships. But soon, the service began to attract fake profiles, the wrong kind of white people, and struggling musicians. In real world terms, these three developments would be equivalent to a check cashing store, a TGIFridays, and a housing project. All which strike fear in the hearts of white people.
Therefore it is a rock-solid guarantee that you will gain white friends if you suggest a social gathering where people drink and play old board games like Candyland, The Game of Life, or Mouse Trap. Just the suggestion of an event like this will get them more excited than word of a new Trader Joe’s opening.
In order for white people to streamline the process of knowing everything, all human beings can be neatly filed into one of two categories: People I Agree With, and People Who are Just Like Adolf
Hitler.
When asking someone about their biggest annoyances in life, you might expect responses like “hunger,” “being poor,” or “getting shot.” If you ask a white person, the most common response will likely be “people who use ‘their’ when they mean ‘there.’ Maybe comma splices, I’m not sure but it’s definitely one of the two.”
When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
How do you tell someone, that you care about, deeply, I told you so. Gently? With a rose? In a funny way? Like it’s a hilarious joke? Or do you just let it go. Because saying it would just make it worse.
Probably the funny way.
See, here is the problem. The auto industry has a product that’s tangible and easy to complain about. I should know. Let me show you something.
My first car — this is true — was an AMC Gremlin. That’s the thing about cars. Even the crappy ones are useful. But you won’t bail out who people that make cars. You only bail out the people who make car loans, not even car loans. The people you bailed out make derivative paper transfers speculating on the future value of enormous groupings of said loans to China.
Fine. Detroit’s business model is bad. We know they lose $2,000 for every car they sell. Wall Street lost $7 trillion without selling anything. At least, when Detroit loses money, we get cars.
Maurice ‘Maury’ Levy: You are feeding off the violence and the despair of the drug trade. You are stealing from those who themselves are stealing the lifeblood from our city. You are a parasite who leeches off the culture of drugs…
Omar Little: Just like you, man.
Maurice ‘Maury’ Levy: Excuse me? What?
Omar Little: I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It’s all in the game though, right?
Boy, you got me confused with a man who repeats himself.
I don’t know much ’bout cards, but, uh, I think these 4 5’s beat that full house
You come at the king, you best not miss.
I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.
I shall constantly bear in mind that as the sword was the last resort for the preservation of our liberties, so it ought to be the first thing laid aside when those liberties are firmly established.
Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
If I had only followed CNBC’s advice, I’d have a million dollars today, provided I’d started with $100 million.
Isn’t there a Slanket somewhere you should be filling with your farts?
A modest man, who has much to be modest about.
Lady Nancy Astor: Winston, if I were your wife, I’d poison your tea.
Winston Churchill: Nancy, if I were your husband, I’d drink it.
You give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.
Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society the farmers, mechanics, and laborers who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government.
<xterm> The problem with America is stupidity. I’m not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don’t we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
<Zybl0re> get up
<Zybl0re> get on up
<Zybl0re> get up
<Zybl0re> get on up
<phxl|paper> and DANCE
* nmp3bot dances :D-<
* nmp3bot dances :D|-<
* nmp3bot dances :D/-<
<[SA]HatfulOfHollow> i’m going to become rich and famous after i invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet
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.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
License plate seen on the way to work this morning: “STFU&DRV”. Getting one past the DMV censors and providing a valuable PSA…well played, sir.
There is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.
I have yet to hear someone say our auto insurance system should be more like our health insurance system: let’s give corporations tax breaks for buying employee auto insurance so your premiums are cheaper when you’re employed and a lot higher when your un/self-employed and make it so that your premium rates are based on your driving record only if you’re un/self-employed.
Palin’s resignation speech should be summarized on a bumper sticker: “Sarah Palin: It’s better for Alaska if she doesn’t have executive power”. Her sentiments, not mine.
I feel about as useless as a mom’s college degree.
Stealing? How could you?! Haven’t you learned anything from that guy who gives those sermons at church? Captain what’s-his-name? We live in a society of laws. Why do you think I took you to all those Police Academy movies? For fun? Well, I didn’t hear anybody laughing, did you?!
Marge: Homer, the plant called. They said if you don’t show up tomorrow don’t bother showing up on Monday.
Homer: Woo-hoo! Four-day weekend!
A book hasn’t caused me this much trouble since Where’s Waldo went to that barber pole factory.
It’s weird in a good way. Like going to the gym drunk.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
All right…all right…but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order…what have the Romans done for us?
My mamma always told me, someday I’d be good at something. Who’d have guessed that something would be zombie killing?
I hate to break it to you but there is no big lie. There is no system. The universe is indifferent.
Listen, I’m not here to tell you about Jesus. You already know about Jesus, either he lives in your heart or he doesn’t.
Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate. But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on government is not libertarian.
It may come as a surprise to some people that once upon a time in the not-too-distant past Republicans actually cared enough about budget deficits that they thought raising taxes was necessary to bring them down. Today, Republicans believe that deficits are nothing more than something to ignore when they are in power and to bludgeon Democrats with when they are out of power.
I don’t believe in a lot of things, but I do believe in duct tape.
Twilight’s like soccer. They run around for 2 hours, nobody scores, and its billion fans insist you just don’t understand.
If, by a “Conservative”, they mean someone incapable of a critical analysis of the Laffer Curve, someone who believes government spending and regulation is useless unless used to kick Muslims, Mexicans, and marijuana users, someone who supports flat taxes for income but not social security, someone who thinks Obamacare is evil but can’t tell you how it differs from Romneycare, someone who likes the idea of meritocracy and supports Sarah Palin…then, no, I guess I’m not a “Conservative”.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
Were the expense of war to be defrayed always by revenue raised within the year … wars would in general be more speedily concluded, and less wantonly undertaken.
Write your own Tom Friedman article:
1. Example of how America used to be great
2. Complaint about how America lost its stomach to innovate/make hard decisions/lead.
3. Gratuitous references to India and China and their pure awesomeness. May need to read with sunglasses on at this point so as not to be blinded by said awesomeness.
4. Name drop some CEO of an Asian company no one’s ever heard of but evidently knows the answer to what ails America.
5. Conclude with questions asking if America will do (4) to rectify (2) and get back to (1).
The only measure of success is how much time you have to kill.
The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-
witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the
simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if
he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of
doubt, what is laid before him.
Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent.
Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.
There’s a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.
In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.
Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.
Conservatives with a libertarian edge often proceed as if government spending as such is an evil to resist, except when they’re defending a free-lunch tax cut (we’ll have more money to wrongly spend!) or the ongoing development of experimental underwater battle helicopters. And liberals with a social-democratic streak often operate within a framework of crypto-Keynesian mysticism according to which handing a dollar to government is like handing a fish to Jesus Christ, the ultimate multiplier of free lunches. When debate takes place on these silly terms, it seems almost impossible to articulate a vision of lean and limited government with principled, rock-solid support for spending on social insurance, education, basic research, essential infrastructure, and necessary defence, despite the likelihood that something along these lines is what most Americans want.
I’d agree with you but then we would both be wrong
I’ve been called worse things by better people.
I would love to have a battle of wits with you, but you appear to be completely unarmed.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
I know it works in practice but does it work in theory?
One of the tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory by a gang of brutal facts.
Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.
BearGrylls
next survival tip: in the jungle, never grab a snake by its anus or you get bit! Lesson learnt the hard way!meunier_louis
@BearGrylls I’ve found that grabbing just about anything by it’s anus turns out badly….BearGrylls
Louis you have a fair point!
Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.
Whenever I watch reruns of sitcoms like Seinfeld and Friends I constantly think a vast majority of their episodes would have never happened if the characters had cell phones.
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory… Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
The values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs.
Obama is not a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away healthcare. You’re thinking of Jesus.
I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.
I’d like to think God let Havel and Hitchens pick the third.
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
I have a list of beliefs and I live by none of them.
Frank Burns: Why does everyone take an instant dislike to me?
Trapper: It saves time, Frank.
Politician’s logic: We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do it.
I used to be a conservative, and I watch these debates and I’m wondering, I don’t think I’ve changed, but it’s a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people’s fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective, and that’s kind of where we are.
The Democrats were deciding which historic nominee excited them most. Republicans can’t decide who depresses them least.
Obama has called the GOP budget social Darwinism. Nice try, but they believe in social creationism.
I think the most important thing I took away from all that time with my nose in happiness research and behavioral econ is that we overestimate the value of what we already have and so underestimate the upside of taking a chance, leaving something behind, and making a big change. Most of us end up where we are through a sort of drift. Sometimes that works out splendidly.
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.”
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
We’re all Keynesians during Republican administrations.
Be worthy of your advantages.
Did you ever grow anything in the garden of your mind? You can grow ideas in the garden of your mind.
You’ve confused the war on your religion with not always getting everything you want. It’s called being part of a society.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
I have a job to do as president, and that does not involve convincing folks that my faith in Jesus is legitimate and real. I do my best to live out my faith, and to stay in the Word, and to make my life look more like His. What I can do is just keep on following Him, and serve others—trying to make folks’ lives a little better using this humbling position that I hold.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
If a man has no children, he will be the first man in a long line of men stretching back to the beginning of human life, not to have a child.
You don’t stop running because you get old. You get old because you stop running.
Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.
The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.
My own suggestion would be that if your reasoning process leads to a conclusion this goofy – that a rape victim must be compelled to bear her assailant’s child – then perhaps you ought to check your work. There’s an error in there somewhere.
Pointy-haired boss: Research is stupid.
Dilbert: Are you saying the studies on this particular topic are flawed? Or are you just generally opposed to science, rational thinking, and all manifestations of common sense?
Pointy-haired boss: Stop being pedantic with your semantics.
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.
This nation of immigrants has been debating the issue of immigration since the first group got off the boat and wanted to know why the second group was coming.
If one argues that it’s the people, not guns, that kill people, then it doesn’t seem to make sense to argue that it’s the guns, not people, that protect people.
Science advances one funeral at a time.
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.
If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.
I’m kind of a big deal, people know me, I’m very important, I have many leather bound books, my apartment smells of rich mahogany
Street smart is just something dumb people say when they want to use the word smart to describe themselves.
No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
They say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.
Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.
Everybody pities the weak; jealousy you have to earn.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
It took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success.
Success isn’t owned. It’s leased and rent is due every day.
We have a tendency to want the other person to be a finished product while we give ourselves the grace to evolve.
Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions.
If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.