An adventure into my twisted mind

Here is a collection of jokes, one-liners, quotes, and miscellaneous stuff that I found funny or in some way profound. It's up to you to figure out which is which, or just decide for yourself. Enjoy.

Putt's Law:
Technology is dominated by two types of people:
Those who understand what they do not manage.
Those who manage what they do not understand.

Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention
Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will reject the proposal.

A bather whose clothing was strewed
By breezes that left her quite nude,
Saw a man come along
And, unless I'm quite wrong,
You expected this line to be lewd.

Ducharme's Precept:
Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.

A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks.
Lew Col

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
Oscar Wilde

Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.
Mark Twain

We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities
Pogo (Walt Kelly)

Velilind's Laws of Experimentation:
1. If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once.
2. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points.

Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving from where you left them to where you can't find them.

A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.

If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly develop.

If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire.

Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it.

I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

Heisenberg may have slept here

The Briggs-Chase Law of Program Development:
To determine how long it will take to write and debug a program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add one, and convert to the next higher units.

Westheimer's Rule:
To estimate the time it takes to do a task: estimate the time you think it should take, multiply by two, and change the unit of measure to the next highest unit. Thus, we allocate two days for a one hour task.

Oliver's Law:
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then give it back to them.

Molecule: The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter...The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion...

A limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean,
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

Malek's Law:
Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.

The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledygook than the rest of the world put together.
Sir Peter Medawar

Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell all their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds.

Boulder is a lot like granola. Once you remove the fruits and the nuts, all that's left are the flakes.

"What the hell are you getting so upset about? I thought you didn't believe in God."
"I don't," she sobbed, bursting violently into tears, "but the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be."
Joseph Heller

First Law of Socio-Genetics:
Celibacy is not hereditary.

Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow.

To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it.

Sattinger's Law:
It works better if you plug it in.

The Law of Selective Gravity
Any object falling to the ground will fall in such a way as to cause the most damage.
Jenning's Corollary:
The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
Oscar Wilde

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

Fourth Law of Revision:
It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for you.

Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no government at all.

There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy...
Ambrose Bierce

Sodd's Second Law:
Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is bound to occur.

Brain: The apparatus with which we think that we think.

I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem.
Ashleigh Brilliant

Conway's Law:
In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired.

It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.
Pogo (Walt Kelly)

Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get another chance later on.

Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.
Ayn Rand

Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.
Ayn Rand

Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another.
Ayn Rand

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.
Ayn Rand

I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Ayn Rand

The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.
Ayn Rand

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
Ayn Rand

When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.
Ayn Rand

In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.
Ayn Rand

You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract ideas, i.e. into principles. Your only choice is whether these principles are true or false, whether they represent your conscious, rational convictions - or a grab-bag of notions snatched at random, whose sources, validity, context and consequesnces you do not know, notions which, more often than not, you would drop like a hot potato if you knew.
Ayn Rand

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Dorothy Parker

Boy: A noise with dirt on it

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
F.P. Jones

There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know nothing about.

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?
Ralph Emerson

When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.
George Bernard Shaw

If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.
Albert Einstein

This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget it.

Vail's Second Axiom:
The amount of work to be done increases in proportion to the amount of work already completed.

This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life, you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where to go.

You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers
J.D. Salinger

The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothing more important to do.

Drive defensively. Buy a tank.

I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday life.

A closed mouth gathers no foot.

When you do not know what you are doing, do it neatly.

Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon.

There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
Benjamin Disraeli

Ginsberg's Theorem:
1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't even quit the game.

Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's theorem:
Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's Theorem. To wit:
1. Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win.
2. Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even.
3. Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game.

"Qvid me anxivs svm?"

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum --
"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am."
Ambrose Bierce

Harvard Law:
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Fifth Law of Procrastination:
Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do.

A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first.

Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse.
William Gilbert

Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day.

The Fifth Rule:
You have taken yourself too seriously.

Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together...
Carl Zwanzig

My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand times as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and sending mail about softball games. And I've got this pain right through my ALU. I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever listens. I think it would be better for us both if you were to just log out again.

Ass: The masculine of "lass".

The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it.

Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say.

Arguments with furniture are rarely productive.
Kehlog Albran

Ducharm's Axiom:
If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize yourself as part of the problem.

Support the right of unborn males to bear arms!
-- A public service announcement from Phyllis Schlafly, the Catholic Church, and the National Rifle Association

The Abrams' Principle:
The shortest distance between two points is off the wall.

A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip.

Down with the categorical imperative!

Cahn's Axiom:
When all else fails, read the instructions.

Cynic: One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye.

Accuracy: The vice of being right

Vote anarchist

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.
Mark Twain

Anything is good if it's made of chocolate

Anthony's Law of Force:
Don't force it; get a larger hammer.

Beckhap's Law:
Beauty times brains equals a constant.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
Mark Twain

Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool.
Bellamy Brooks

Limericks are art forms complex,
Their topics run chiefly to sex.
They usually have virgins,
And masculine urgin's,
And other erotic effects.

Condense soup, not books!

The three laws of thermodynamics:
The First Law: You can't get anything without working for it.
The Second Law: The most you can accomplish by working is to break even.
The Third Law: You can only break even at absolute zero.

The computing field is always in need of new cliches
Alan Perlis

You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing viability of Fortran.
Alan Perlis

Williams and Holland's Law
If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods.

Johnson's First Law:
When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the most inconvenient possible time.

May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a Thousand Caramels.

Spark's Sixth Rule for Managers:
If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question back at him.

Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor):
That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should have gotten.

If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up.

You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You are not paid enough to worry.

"That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all."

AMAZING BUT TRUE...
If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful.

"It is bad luck to be superstitious."
Andrew W. Mathis

Pro is to con as progress is to Congress.

Got Mole problems?
Call Avogardo 6.02 x 10^23

There's no future in time travel

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Mark Twain

There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
Henry Kissinger

It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.

If I traveled to the end of the rainbow
As Dame Fortune did intend,
Murphy would be there to tell me
The pot's at the other end.
Bert Whitney

If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you ever tried.

Love is a word that is constantly heard,
Hate is a word that is not.
Love, I am told, is more precious than gold.
Love, I have read, is hot.
But hate is the verb that to me is superb,
And Love but a drug on the mart.
Any kiddie in school can love like a fool,
But Hating, my boy, is an Art.
Ogden Nash

First Law of Procrastination:
Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposed the deadline).

Anything free is worth what you pay for it

Scott's second Law:
When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found to have been right in the first place.
Corollary:
After the correction has been found in error, it will be impossible to fit the original quantity back into the equation.

Flon's Law:
There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad programs.

Occident: The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, powerful sub-tribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call "war" and "commerce." These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.

Frisbeetarianism: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up the on roof and gets stuck.

The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided by the number of people in the group.

Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.

After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed.

A person who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal.

Hail to the sun god
He sure is a fun god
Ra! Ra! Ra!

Churchill's Commentary on Man:
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the ....

About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.
Herbert Hoover

Hacker's Law:
The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions.

Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man -- who has no gills.

Brooke's Law:
Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.

Magnet, n.: Something acted upon by magnetism
Magnetism, n.: Something acting upon a magnet.
The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge.

If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
John Kenneth Galbraith

SEMINARS: From 'semi' and 'arse', hence, any half-assed discussion.

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone 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.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Main's Law:
For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.

Unix is user friendly. It's just picky about who its friends are.

It is the business of the future to be dangerous.
Hawkwind

God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh

All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.

Mitchell's Law of Committees:
Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are held to discuss it.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason, and plot
I can see no reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot
English Nursery Rhyme quoted in "V for Vendetta"

Avoid reality at all costs.

Others look to me for stability, so I hide when I bite my nails.

I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
Bernoulli would have been content to die
Had he but known such a-squared cos 2(thi)!

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses.
Bruce Leverett
"Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers"

A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects.

A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard
Prof. Steiner

Mad: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.

Langsam's Laws:
1) Everything depends.
2) Nothing is always.
3) Everything is sometimes.

It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

Emersons' Law of Contrariness:
Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it.

Idiot: A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.

Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly.

Pardo's First Postulate:
Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.
Arnold's Addendum:
Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer in rats.

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
Wernher von Braun

A penny saved is ridiculous.

In order to obtain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.
Miguel de Unamuno

Finagle's second Law:
No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it happened according to his own pet theory.

Katz' Law: Man and nations will act rationally when all other possibilities have been exhausted.

In case of atomic attack, the federal ruling against prayer in schools will be temporarily canceled.

If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country.

Turnaucka's Law:
The attention span of a computer is only as long as its electrical cord.

Fifth Law of Applied Terror:
If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book.
Corollary:
If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you live.

The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse.

Give your child mental blocks for Christmas.

O'Riordan's Theorem:
Brains x Beauty = Constant.
Purmal's Corollary:
As the limit of (Brains x Beauty) goes to infinity, availability goes to zero

Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilization?
Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

With a rubber duck, one's never alone.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.

Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.

Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object.

Anthony's Law of the Workshop:
Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop.
Corollary:
On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike your toes.

The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier.

The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none of my business, but --" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.
Lazarus Long

Micro Credo: Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift.

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it's just the opposite.
J. K. Galbraith

Osborn's Law:
Variables won't; constants aren't.

If you are smoking, you will be extinguished immediately.

Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy:
Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have another drink.

It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give up because by that time I was too famous.

Hurewitz's Memory Principle:
The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to.....to........uh..............

Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic

"The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood."
Alexander Haig

Weasels may not soar the skies like eagles, nor do they get sucked into jet engines.

Mosher's Law of Software Engineering:
Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd be out of a job.

The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school.

Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them keeps paying for it.
Peggy Joyce

Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability:
Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done.

Barometer: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.

Adolescence: The stage between puberty and adultery.

Peter's Law of Substitution:
Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after themselves.

The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
Oscar Wilde

Antonym: The opposite of the word you're trying to think of.

California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange.
Fred Allen

Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to work.

Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
Jules de Gaultier

H. L. Mencken's Law:
Those who can -- do.
Those who can't -- teach.
Martin's Extension:
Those who cannot teach -- administrate.

Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.

Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
Joseph Heller

Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once.

It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.

Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down

Adore: To venerate expectantly.

Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure.

The Kennedy Constant:
Don't get mad -- get even.

When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him.
R. A. Lafferty

A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam.

Jenkinson's Law:
It won't work.

Politicians do it to everyone.

Oh don't the days seem lank and long
When all goes right and none goes wrong,
And isn't your life extremely flat
With nothing whatever to grumble at!

Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics:
Superiority is recessive.

Mr. Cole's Axiom:
The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.

Naeser's Law:
You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damn-foolproof.

Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.

"When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut."

Adult: One old enough to know better.

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

Lackland's Laws:
1. Never be first.
2. Never be last.
3. Never volunteer for anything

Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the Boss is reading it.

Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will.
John Kenneth Galbraith

The world's as ugly as sin,
And almost as delightful
Frederick Locker-Lampson

Swipple's Rule of Order:
He who shouts the loudest has the floor.

Parkinson's Fourth Law:
The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
Oscar Wilde

Hofstadter's Law:
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.

The Third Law of Photography:
If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of the dark leaks out.

Dawn: The time when men of reason go to bed.

Once Law was sitting on the bench
And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
"Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench!
Upon you knees if you appear,
'Tis plain you have no standing here."
Then Justice came. His Honor cried:
"YOUR states? -- Devil seize you!"
"Amica curiae," she replied --
"Friend of the court, so please you."
"Begone!" he shouted -- "There's the door --
I never saw your face before!"

In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) are to be treated as variables.

A city is a large community where people are lonesome together
Herbert Prochnow

There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be doing.

Finagle's Creed:
Science is true. Don't be misled by facts.

If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and none dare criticize it.

Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as Wheels.

Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful.

Today is the first day of the rest of the mess

Finagle's Fourth Law:
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.

Weiner's Law of Libraries:
There are no answers, only cross references.

Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.
Mark Twain

Watson's Law:
The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the number and significance of any persons watching it.

What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing to compare it with.

Jone's Motto:
Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.

Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law:
When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.

Forsyth's Second Corollary to Murphy's Laws:
Just when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, the roof caves in.

Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work.

Using my fine command of language, I said nothing.

Cigarette: A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in between.

Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it is an enemy.
A. Einstein

The ladies men admire, I've heard,
Would shudder at a wicked word.
Their candle gives a single light;
They'd rather stay at home at night.
They do not keep awake till three,
Nor read erotic poetry.
They never sanction the impure,
Nor recognize an overture.
They shrink from powders and from paints...
So far, I've had no complaints.
Dorothy Parker

Majority: That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law.

Gravity is a myth; the Earth sucks.

In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own incompetency
The Peter Principle

Finagle's third Law:
In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake
Corollaries:
1. Nobody whom you ask for help will see it.
2. The first person who stops by, whose advice you really don't want to hear, will see it immediately.

Issawi's Laws of Progress:
The Course of Progress: Most things get steadily worse.
The Path of Progress: A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think they'll hate you.

Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming
Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle.

Boren's Laws:
1) When in charge, ponder.
2) When in trouble, delegate.
3) When in doubt, mumble.

Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy to criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too.
D. J. Hicks

AMAZING BUT TRUE...
There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it would completely cover the Sahara Desert.

Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.

Bacchus: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.

The superfluous is very necessary.
Voltaire

"Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process..."

There was a young poet named Dan,
Whose poetry never would scan.
When told this was so,
He said, "Yes, I know.
It's because I try to put every possible syllable into that last line that I can

Afternoon: That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning.

My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.

According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless.

The shortest distance between two points is under construction.
Noelie Altito

Positive: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
Elbert Hubbard

Arnold's Laws of Documentation:
1) If it should exist, it doesn't.
2) If it does exist, it's out of date.
3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws.

Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat.

It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of people.
Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"

The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.
FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers

There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted.
Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour

Fourth Law of Applied Terror:
The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology instructor will assign 200 pages on planaria.
Corollary:
Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do except study for that instructor's course.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
Galileo Galilei

There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both plants and animals. When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis; and when the lights go out, they turn into animals. But then again, don't we all?

"The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy ... neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."

It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either.
Mark Twain

Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence
1. Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear bomb; use the stairs.
2. When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit the ground.
3. If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials.
4. Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to psychological problems.
5. Food will be scarce; you will have to scavenge. Learn to recognize foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed potatoes, shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc.
6. Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze; internal organs will be scarce in the post-nuclear age.
7. Try to be neat; fall only in designated piles.
8. Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas; people could be staggering illegally.
9. Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to ones, but more sanitary due to limited circulation.
10. Accumulate mannequins now; spare parts will be in short supply on D-Day.

Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.

Cole's Law:
Thinly sliced cabbage.

DETERIORATA
Go placidly amid the noise and waste, And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires. Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys. Know what to kiss -- and when. Remember that two wrongs never make a right, But that three do. Wherever possible, put people on `HOLD'. Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, And despite the changing fortunes of time, There is always a big future in computer maintenance.
You are a fluke of the universe...
You have no right to be here.
Whether you can hear it or not, the universe
Is laughing behind your back.

Christian: One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders has been discontinued.

You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.

Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor:
People are always available for work in the past tense.

Boob's Law:
You always find something in the last place you look

Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.

Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life.

It isn't paranoia if they're really after you.

Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab:
Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined.

Colvard's Logical Premises:
All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't.
Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary:
This is especially true when dealing with someone you're attracted to.
Grelb's Commentary
Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you.

The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I hope I don't get run over again.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inhibit the earth.

Tomorrow will be canceled due to lack of interest.

There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.
Dr. Who

The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.

Weinberg's Principle:
An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.

It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical?
Alan Perlis

If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted.
Marguerite Emmons

Kinkler's First Law:
Responsibility always exceeds authority.
Kinkler's Second Law:
All the easy problems have been solved.

I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.
A. A. Milne

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.
Mark Twain

I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Winston Churchill

They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid!

Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head.

If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
Harry S Truman

I don't need anyone to drive me crazy; I'm already within walking distance

Mobius Strip: instructions on other side.

Klein Bottle for rent: inquire within.

The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
Bohr

"Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what can you believe?!"
Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward]

Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul.

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
Eric Hoffer

Gravity: it's not just a good idea; it's the law!

Si hoc legere scis, nimium eruditionis habes.

Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.

... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.

I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it.

If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?

Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer, then you find there is nothing in it.

Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.
Thomas A. Edison

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls, and looks like work.
Thomas A. Edison

Americans, indeed all free men, remember that in the final choice, a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

You do not lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T.S. Eliot

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Education's purpose is to replace the empty mind with an open one.
Malcom S. Forbes

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.
Henry Ford

Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.
Henry Ford

Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
Henry Ford

You can't build a reputation on what you're going to do.
Henry Ford

I have long considered it one of God's greatest mercies that the future is hidden from us. If it were not, life would surely be unbearable.
Eugene Forsey

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.
Anatole Forsey

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin

I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.
Milton Friedman

The price works so well, so efficiently, that we are not aware of it most of the time.
Milton Friedman

History suggests that Capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom.
Milton Friedman

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper of your self-confidence.
Robert Frost

There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.
Indira Gandhi

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote the freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.
Mohandas Gandhi

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
Andre Gide

One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.
Arnold H. Glasow

The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion.
Arnold H. Glasow

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Arthur Godfrey

A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is nothing but a mere magic-lantern show. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back to make haste for the next.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The genius of the American system is that through freedom we have created extraordinary results from plain ordinary people.
Senator Phil Gramm

No one ever achieved greatness by playing it safe.
Harry Gray

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.
Sidney Greenberg

Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this: when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.
Alexander Hamilton

In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these.
Paul Harvey

If you don't make mistakes, you aren't really trying.
Coleman Hawking

There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means as DeTocqueville describes it, "a new form of servitude."
F.A. Hayek

We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice.
F.A. Hayek

The brighter you are, the more you have to learn.
Don Herold

The great masses of the people...will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.
Adolf Hitler

Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong.
Adolf Hitler

The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.
Adolf Hitler

What luck for the rulers that men do not think.
Adolf Hitler

Strength lies not in defense but in attack.
Adolf Hitler

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunties, but its own talents.
Eric Hoffer

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Eric Hoffer

You manage things; you lead people.
Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, USN

The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one.
Elbert Hubbard

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
Elbert Hubbard

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
Robert Hutchins

Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.
Aldous Huxley

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
Aldous Huxley

I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Thomas Jefferson

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servility crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
Thomas Jefferson

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