812) A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Douglas Adams
Mostly Harmless (1992)
posted by Kevin Anthony Boudreaux [UAQ] (4/28/95)

813) One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike - and yet it is the most precious thing we have.

Albert Einstein
letter to Hans Muehsam (7/9/1951)
Einstein Archive 38-408 [QE]
posted by Kevin Anthony Boudreaux [UAQ] (4/28/95)

814) For herself, she declared that she paid no attention to her birthdays - didn't give a hoot about them; and it is true that when you have amassed several dozen of the same sort of thing, it loses that rarity which is the excitement of collectors.

Dorothy Parker
"Lolita"
The New Yorker (8/27/1955)
posted by Kevin Anthony Boudreaux [UAQ] (4/28/95)

815)

• The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.



• There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Mark Twain's Notebook (1935),
edited by Albert Bigelow Paine
[CQ] / posted by Kevin Anthony Boudreaux [UAQ] (4/28/95)

[Note: While these two quotes are from the same source, I have not been able to determine if they are connected in the original text. See also #832 Cabell.]

816) Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Notebook (1904)
posted by Jeff Shepherd [UAQ] (4/28/95)

817) They talk about the meeting of minds on the Internet. It turns out a lot of those minds are petty, vulgar, deranged, rude, abusive and have other qualities that do not make them good companions for conversation or debate.

Eugene Spafford (attributed)
posted by Nancy J. Gill [AFU] (4/28/95)

[Note: This quote does not appear on Spafford's home page, but see #846-848 Spafford, which do. Also cf. #663 Godwin and #934-935 unknown.]

818) If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it.

Isadora Duncan (widely attributed)
posted by George Osner [IQM] (4/29/95)

[Note: Also, this:

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

Attribution of this quote is uncertain (see here), but the leading contenders seem to be Laurie Anderson, David Breskin, Elvis Costello, Steve Martin or Martin Mull, dating from the mid- or early-80's. [QV]]

Sources

[AFU] - Usenet alt.folklore.urban newsgroup
[CQ] - Columbia Dictinary of Quotations (1993)
[IQM] - Internet Quotations mailing list
[QE] - The New Quotable Einstein (2005), Alice Calaprice, ed.
[QV] - The Quote Verifier (2006), Ralph Keyes
[UAQ] - Usenet alt.quotations newsgroup


Note: "3089/898" is the designation I've given to the project of posting all my collected quotes, excerpts and ideas (3089 of them) in the remaining days of the Bush administration (of which there were 898 left when I began).

As of today, there are 663 days remaining in the administration of the worst American President ever.