Brainy Smurf 178 and R.I.P. Great Writ of Habeas Corpus (d. 2006)

"Virtue is its own punishment." --Aneurin Bevan

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 177

"We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before the police." --Jeff Marder

"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." --Paul Dirac

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 176

"America is not only big and rich, it is mysterious; and its capacity for the humorous or ironical concealment of its interests matches that of the legendary inscrutable Chinese." --David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 175

"In politics, absurdity is not a handicap."
--Napoleon Bonaparte

"Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out." --Samuel Johnson

"People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest." --Hermann Hesse

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 174

"Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing... you are talking about the Internet, you are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This doesn't affect two-thirds of the people of the world." --Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, Nobel laureate (1924- )

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 173

"The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions." --James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891)

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 172

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."
--William Congreve, "The Mourning Bride"

"I had an epiphany a few years ago where I was out at a celebrity party and it suddenly dawned on me that I had yet to meet a celebrity who is as smart and interesting as any of my friends." --Moby, quoted on CNN.com, March 2005

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 171

"Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them."
--Suzanne Necker, author (1739-1794)

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 170

"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing -- to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." --John Keats, poet (1795-1821)

"One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end." --William Butler Yeats, W. B. Yeats Memoirs

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 169

"You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play." --Warren Beatty

"The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough." --Bede Jarrett, The House of Gold

"Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions ... are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends." --Walter Lippman, journalist (1889-1974)

"If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow." --Chinese Proverb

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 168

"At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone." --Jean de la Bruyere, essayist and moralist (1645-1696)

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 167

"It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life." --PD James

"We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action."
--Frank Tibolt

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 166

"Failure is not the only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others." --Jules Renard

"All things are difficult before they are easy."
--Dr. Thomas Fuller

A TSA interlude...

George R R Martin on airline security, or lack thereof.

Kyle=

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 165

Doubly true for me?

"Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment." --Robert Benchley

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"What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?" --Woody Allen

"In the small matters trust the mind, in the large ones the heart." --Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 164

"Whenever morality is based on theology, whenever right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established." --Ludwig Feuerbach, philosopher (1804-1872)

"I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it." --Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )

"Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments." --Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-92)

"Near and far, near and far
I am happy where you are;
Likewise I have never larnt
How to be it where you aren't.
Then grudge me not my fond endeavor
To hold you in my sight forever;
Let none, not even you, disparage
Such a valid reason for a marriage."
-- Ogden Nash, "Tin Wedding Whistle"

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Hag: Two things you must know about the wise woman. First...she is a woman. Second...she is...

Blackadder: Wise?

Hag: Oh! You know her then?

Blackadder: No, just a stab in the dark, which is what you'll be getting in a minute if you don't become more helpful.

--EB to Old Hag : Bells, Blackadder 2

Quotations from Brainy Smurf 163

"Never tell anyone that you're: writing a book, going on a diet, exercising, taking a course, or quitting smoking. They'll encourage you to death." --Lynn Johnston

"The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive."
--Robert Heinlein