While cleaning out my hard drive I found a folder of text clippings containing various quotes that at one time I found funny, profound or both. I thought I would share them. They are presented here in no particular order and for most I didn’t capture the attribution.
Don’t sweat the petty things, and don’t pet the sweaty things
Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
Winners compare their achievments to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others. * ARMONK, NY – Aug. 8,
-If Bill Gate’s had a penny for every time Windows crashed…….Forget it. He does.
“Best be the idiot that has learnt, than the genius who can’t.”
“Codito ergo sum” (I code, therefore I am)
Roel Schroeven
“I am not young enough to know everything.” -Oscar Wilde
“Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!”
“We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence upon those who would do us harm.” -George Orwell
“One hundred rounds do not constitute firepower. One hit contitutes firepower.” -Gen. Merritt Edson, USMC
Pop culture has come to be an alternate universe for me, a place that exists side by side with the real world. It’s a happier place. It’s full of drama and heroes. It’s certainly better scored and directed.
— James Lileks
> “Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature”
> — Rich Kulawiec
A class system will always be defeated by a system with less class. So there.
A good definition of a communist is someone who can’t build a strip mall without committing crimes against humanity.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes.
“For a Westerner to trash Western culture is like criticizing our nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere on the grounds that it sometimes gets windy, and besides, Jupiter’s is much prettier. You may not realize its advantages until you’re trying to breathe liquid methane.”
(–Neal Stephenson)
Go read 9-11 now in light of all we’ve learned about the Arab world, and marvel at the spectacle of Chomsky’s utter confidence that he understands everything that motivated Bin Laden, and how completely misplaced that confidence has proven to be. Chomsky on 9-11 is like someone who, upon hearing that Reagan was shot, immediately launches into a ten-minute harangue about payback for the Contras, only to finally be told, “Uh, actually it seems to mainly be about Jodie Foster.”
Government power is based ultimately on violence; all else is superstructure
(A Heinlein quote: there is no such thing as a dangerous weapon, only a dangerous man.)
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Yes, that’s the thing about conspiracy theories: in a comforting sort of way, they give rise to the feeling that someone, somewhere, knows what’s going on. –Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit
It is far better to try, and be found wanting, than to want and be found trying.
It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so. –Wil Rogers
What we call the market is really a democratic process involving millions, and in some markets billions, of people making personal decisions that express their preferences. When you hear someone say that he doesn’t trust the market, and wants to replace it with government edicts, he’s really calling for a switch from a democratic process to a totalitarian one. Tyrants always condemn and seek to replace the market process with government coercion because tyrants do not trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrants think they should do. –Walter Williams
“When many cures are offered for a disease, it means the disease is not curable” -Anton Chekov
Its no longer about NIMBY (Not In My Backyard), its BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything).
–RadioFreeTexas
Everyone knows C3PO is way gayer than Jar Jar Binks.
Life in America,” he told students at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, “shows that liberty, paired with law, is not to be feared. In a free society, diversity is not disorder. Debate is not strife. And dissent is not revolution. A free society trusts its citizens to seek greatness in themselves and their country.”
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
H.L. Mencken said, ‘The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.’
It is the means that makes the ends.
“You can observe a lot just by watchin’.” –Yogi Bera
I do wonder what this particular collection of quotes says about me.
I’m glad to see at least one quote from that great sage, Yogi Berra. Casey Stengel is also worth your while. A couple of worldly-wise men, they were.
We all like the Yogi line:
“Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”
Nice collection. Why not add a regular posting category for quotes, like they do over at Samizdata?
I invite you to drop in the usenet group alt.quotations, from time to time.