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
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.You cannot build character & courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.You ...cannot help people by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln
Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion.
Robert Burton
William Safire's Rules for Writers:
Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used.
Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to agree with their
subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. If you reread your work,
you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by
rereading and editing. A writer must not shift your point of view. And don't
start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a
terrible word to end a sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place
pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more
words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be
avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions
that sound flaky. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with
singular nouns in their writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb
always follows the verb. Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague;
seek viable alternatives.
If we do not change our direction we are
likely to end up where we are headed.
Hanlon's Razor:
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Gummidge's Law:
The amount of expertise varies in inverse ratio to the number of statements understood
by the general public.
Cheop's Law:
Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
Due to the shortage of robots, some of our workers are
human and may react unpredictably when approached.
Gumperson's Law:
The probability of anything happening is in inverse ratio to it's desirability.
This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.
Wolfgang Pauli
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one
that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny...."
Isaac Asimov
There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who
understand binary and those who don't.
Your actions speak so loud I can’t hear a
word you’re saying.
Lyrics from “I Want to Conquer the World” by
Bad Religion
Engineers think that equations approximate the real world.
Scientists think that the real world approximates equations.
Mathematicians are unable to make the connection...