Monday, December 19, 2005

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 26

"For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner ... on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies. ... That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very good for us to understand that."
--Carl Sagan, astronomer, writer, Cornell professor (1934-1996)

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 25

"Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own."
--John M. Barrie

"Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it."
-Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)

Friday, December 16, 2005

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 24

which makes me a graverobber, I s'pose...

"The average Ph.D. thesis is nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to another."
--J. Frank Dobie

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 23

"The trouble with opportunity is that it always comes disguised as hard work."
--Herbert V. Prochnow

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 22

"I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it."
--Groucho Marx

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
--Franklin D. Roosevelt

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 21

"The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites.'"
--Larry Hardiman

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 20

"Extreme justice is extreme injustice."
--Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 B.C.)

Monday, December 12, 2005

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 19

"Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest."
--Douglas William Jerrold

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them."
--George Bernard Shaw

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 18

"Whoever, in the pursuit of science, seeks after immediate practical utility, may generally rest assured that he will seek in vain."
--H.L.F. von Helmholtz, physiologist and physicist (1821-1894)

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 17

"The quickest way to a man's heart really is through his stomach, because then you don't have to chop through that pesky rib cage."
-- J. Jacques

"A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not be endured with patient resignation."
--Bertrand Russell

"A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments, soccer games, romances, best friends, location of friend's houses, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house."
--Unknown

"People like you are the reason people like me take pills!"
--Neva Faith Linn

"He's too nervous to kill himself. He wears his seat belt in a drive-in movie."
--Neil Simon

"There is a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot."
--Steven Wright

"Better to be forgotten than sued."
--Dave Weinbaum

"Nothing in the world is friendlier than a wet dog."
--Unknown

"You can't say civilization isn't advancing: in every war, they kill you in a new way."
--Will Rogers

"I am not a vegetarian because I love animals. I am a vegetarian because I hate plants."
--A. Whitney Brown

"If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers."
--Doug Larson

"There isn't much that I can do, but I can share an hour with you, and I can share a joke with you . . . as on our way we go."
--Maude V. Preston

Monday, December 05, 2005

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 16

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation."
--Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."
--Henry David Thoreau, attributed

[see this post]

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 15

From René Descartes (1596-1650)...

"Of all things, good sense is the most fairly distributed: everyone thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those who are the hardest to satisfy in every other respect never desire more of it than they already have."
--Discours de la Méthode, 1637

"I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery."
--La Geometrie

"It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well."
--Discours de la Méthode, 1637

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 14

"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right."
--Laurens Van der Post

"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
--Eugene Ionesco

"The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling."
--Paula Poundstone