856) Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied.

Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
posted by Todd E Van Hoosear [UAQ] (5/5/95)

857) There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovered exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instanstly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Douglas Adams
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (radio program, 1978) [YQ]
posted by Todd E Van Hoosear [UAQ] (5/5/95)

858) In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

unknown
posted by Todd E Van Hoosear [UAQ] (5/5/95)

[Note: This is often attributed to Yogi Berra, but it is not listed in the authoritative reference for Yogi-isms, The Yogi Book (1998), nor does it sound very much like something Yogi would have said. Wikiquote gives an attributon to Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut, a computer scientist and educator, but cites no source. Other attributions on various websites are to Chuck Reid and Richard Moore.]

859) Nothing is like it seems, but everything is exactly like it is.

unknown
posted by Todd E Van Hoosear [UAQ] (5/5/95)

[Note: This is another quote often attributed to Yogi Berra but not listed in The Yogi Book (1998), nor does it sound like Yogi: it's too knowingly ironic. I've been unable to find another attribution.]

860) Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there.

Richard Feynman
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)
posted by Todd E Van Hoosear [UAQ] (5/5/95)

861) God not only plays dice, he also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.

Stephen Hawking
The Nature of Space and Time (1994)
posted by Todd E Van Hoosear [UAQ] (5/5/95)

[Note: cf. #197 Einstein. The quote as given here is a slight paraphrase of the original from a 1994 lecture with Roger Penrose sponsored by Princeton University Press. As given by Wikiquote, the original is:

So Einstein was wrong when he said "God does not play dice". Consideration of black holes suggests, not only that God does play dice, but that He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen.]

862) Maybe this world is another planet's Hell.

Aldous Huxley (widely attributed)
posted by Todd E Van Hoosear [UAQ] (5/5/95)

863) What is called a sincere work is one that is endowed with enough strength to give reality to an illusion.

Max Jacob
Art Poetique (1922)
posted by Todd E Van Hoosear [UAQ] (5/5/95)

864) I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.

Garrison Keillor (widely attributed)
posted by Todd E Van Hoosear [UAQ] (5/5/95)

865) The philosophers of the Middle Ages demonstrated both that the Earth did not exist and also that it was flat. Today they are still arguing about whether the world exists, but they no longer dispute about whether it is flat.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson
The Standardization of Error (1928)
posted by Todd E Van Hoosear [UAQ] (5/5/95)

866) Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.

Jane Wagner
The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe
(one-woman show, 1985)
spoken by the character "Trudy,"
played by Lily Tomlin
posted by Todd E Van Hoosear [UAQ] (5/5/95)

[Note: Often attributed to Lily Tomlin, who performed in the one-woman Broadway show written by her writing partner and life companion, Jane Wagner.]

Sources

[UAQ] - Usenet alt.quotations newsgroup
[WQ] - Wikiquote
[YB] - The Yogi Book (1998)
[YQ] - The Yale Book of Quotations (2006)


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 654 days remaining in the administration of the worst American President ever.

845) STURGEON'S LAW: Ninety percent of everything is crap.

Theodore Sturgeon
talk at New York University (c.1951) [WQ]

[Note: As with many off-hand remarks which later become widely known, the history of this is complicated. To begin with, the version presented here, which is the best known, is a variant of the original as reported by Philip Klass, which was: "Sure, ninety percent of science fiction is crud. That's because ninety percent of everything is crud." Sturgeon reworked this and published it in Venture Science Fiction (3/1958), where he called it "Sturgeon's Revelation", which also used "crud" instead of "crap".

Sturgeon called it his "Revelation", because he reserved "Sturgeon's Law" for another one of his sayings. To complicate matters further, the collection Science Fictionalisms (1992) gives a third "law", unfortunately without attribution. Putting that all together, we could say that there are three Sturgeon's Laws:

STURGEON'S FIRST LAW: Nothing is Absolutely so.

STURGEON'S SECOND LAW: Ninety percent of everything is crud.

STURGEON'S THIRD LAW: It is not possible to assemble a device containing small parts without dropping one of those parts in a deep pile carpet. [SF]]

846) SPAFFORD'S THREE AXIOMS OF USENET

Axiom #1: The Usenet is not the real world. The Usenet usually does not even resemble the real world.

Corollary #1: Attempts to change the real world by altering the structure of the Usenet is an attempt to work sympathetic magic - electronic voodoo.

Corollary #2: Arguing about the significance of newsgroup names and their relation to the way people really think is equivalent to arguing whether it is better to read tea leaves or chicken entrails to divine the future.

Axiom #2: Ability to type on a computer terminal is no guarantee of sanity, intelligence, or common sense.

Corollary #3: An infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of keyboards could produce something like Usenet.

Corollary #4: They could do a better job of it.

Axiom #3: Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap) applies to Usenet.

Corollary #5: In an unmoderated newsgroup, no one can agree on what constitutes the 10%.

Corollary #6: Nothing guarantees that the 10% isn't crap, too.

Gene Spafford (1987)
posted by Russ Allbery [UAQ] (5/11/95)

847) Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea - massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it.

Gene Spafford (1992)
posted by Russ Allbery [UAQ] (5/11/95)

848) Don't sweat it - it's not real life. It's only ones and zeroes.

Gene Spafford (c.1988)
posted by Russ Allbery [UAQ] (5/11/95)

[Note: cf. #663 Godwin, #817 Spafford, and #934-935 unknown. Of course, any observations regarding Usenet are entirely applicable to any other online community.]

849) FEATURE (fee'chr) n. 1. A surprising property of a program. Occasionally documented. To call a property a feature sometimes means the author of the program did not consider the particular case, and the program makes an unexpected, although not strictly speaking an incorrect response. See BUG. "That's not a bug, that's a feature!" A bug can be changed to a feature by documenting it.

"The Jargon File" version 2.1.1 (6/12/1990)
maintained by Guy L. Steele and Eric S. Raymond
latest version 4.4.7 (12/29/2003)
maintained by Eric S. Raymond

[Note: cf. #1057 Kulawiec]

Sources

[SF] - Science Fictionalisms (1995)
[UAQ] - Usenet alt.quotations newsgroup
[WQ] - Wikiquote


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 856 days remaining in the administration of the worst American President ever.

836) [N]ever take seriously anybody who says, "I cannot believe that so-and-so could have evolved by gradual selection." I have dubbed this kind of fallacy "the Argument from Personal Incredulity. Time and again, it has proved the prelude to an intellectual banana-skin experience.

Richard Dawkins
River Out of Eden (1995)

837) Do good by stealth.

Richard Dawkins
River Out of Eden (1995)

838) He was living almost like a young child, among actualities only. He was surprised by nothing, and by everything.

Ursula K. LeGuinn
The Lathe of Heaven (1971)

839) Nothing endures, nothing is precise and certain (except the mind of a pedant) [...]

H.G. Wells
A Modern Utopia (1905)
quoted by Ursula K. LeGuin in
The Lathe of Heaven (1971)

840) The Social Contract is nothing more or less than a vast conspiracy of human being to lie to and humbug themselves and one another for the general Good. Lies are the mortar that bind the savage individual man into the social masonry.

H.G. Wells
Love and Mr. Lewisham (1899) [B16]

841) "We begin well, sir," the fat man purred [...] "I distrust a man who says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink too much it's because he's not to be trusted when he does. [...] Well, sir, here's to plain speaking and clear understanding. [...] You're a close-mouthed man?"

Spade shook his head. "I like to talk."

"Better and better!" the fat man exclaimed. "I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously unless you keep in practice."

Dashiell Hammett
The Maltese Falcon (1929)

842) There are two main human sins from which all the others derive: impatience and indolence. It was because of impatience that they were expelled from Paradise; it is because of indolence that they do not return. Yet perhaps there is only one major sin: impatience. Because of impatience they were expelled, because of impatience they do not return.

Franz Kafka
"The Third Notebook" (10/20/1917) [PH]
published in
Dearest Father: Stories and Other Writings (1954)
and Blue Octavo Notebooks (1991)
edited by Max Brod
both translated by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins

[Note: Alternate translations give "laziness" instead of "indolence" and "cardinal sins" instead of "main human sins."]

843) Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

Henry Ford (widely attributed)

844) History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.

Henry Ford
interviewed by Charles N. Wheeler in
Chicago Tribune (5/25/1916) [B16]

[Note: Given this quote, and Ford's nativist isolationism and support of anti-semitism, the quality of his own thinking must be suspect.]

Sources

[B16] - Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 16th edition (1993)
[PH] - PoemHunter


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 658 days remaining in the administration of the worst American President ever.

Jason's Walking-Around License Gets Revoked

Burly man who pulled frat boy out of tracks: Dude, are you drunk?

Frat boy: Ah... Ah... I don't know. I guess I had something to drink.

Burly man: Dude, next time you get on a train make sure it's there first!

--1-2-3 platform, 96th St

826) It just goes to show you, it's always something.

Gilda Radner
as "Roseanne Roseannadanna" on
Saturday Night Live
(TV series, 1977-1980)

827) No one can consider themselves truly married until they understand every word their spouse is not saying.

Lord Mancroft (attributed)
posted by Howard J. Lambert [IQM] (5/1/95)

828) How do you want your "No", fast or slow?

Mike Todd (attributed)
posted by Howard J. Lambert [IQM] (5/1/95)

829) There must be more to life than having everything.

Maurice Sendak (widely attributed)
posted by Howard J. Lambert [IQM] (5/1/95)

830) If at first you don't succeed, failure might be your style.

Quentin Crisp (widely attributed)
posted by Malcolm Crawford [UAQ] (4/30/95)

831) Your case will be decided by twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Norm Crosby (attributed)
posted by Michael Fuchs [IQM] (5/1/95)

[Note: See #563 Frost. Also,

Jury - A group of twelve men who, having lied to the judge about their hearing, health and business engagements, have failed to fool him.

H.L. Mencken
"Sententiae" (1916) in
A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949) [ALQ]

and
Twelve men of limited information and intelligence, chosen precisely because of their lack of intellectual resilience.

H.L. Mencken
Notes on Democracy (1926) [ALQ]]

832) The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.

James Branch Cabell
The Silver Stallion (1926) [B16]
posted by JR3000 [IQM] (5/2/95)

[Note: cf. #815 Twain]

833) It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.

James Thurber
"The Scotty Who Knew Too Much"
The New Yorker (2/18/1939)
published in
Fables for Our Time (1940) [WQ]

834) Humor [...] is emotional chaos remembered in tranquillity.

James Thurber
in New York Post (2/29/60) [OM]

835) The price of justice is eternal publicity.

Arnold Bennett
"Secret Trials" in
Things That Have Interested Me (1923)
[CQ]

Sources

[B16] - Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 16th edition (1993)
[CQ] - Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1993)
[IQM] - Internet Quotations mailing list
[OM] - Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations (1991)
[UAQ] - Usenet alt.quotations newsgroup
[WQ] - Wikiquote


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 659 days remaining in the administration of the worst American President ever.

• Captain Jeffrey T. Spalding


• Professor Quincy Adams Wigstaff


• Rufus T. Firefly


• Otis B. Driftwood


• Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush


• J. Cheever Loophole


• S. Quentin Quale


• Wolf J. Flywheel


• Ronald Kornblow


• Lionel Q. Deveraux


• Detective Sam Grunion


• Emile J. Kleck


• George Schmidlap


• Julius Henry Marx

[I have absolutely no reason for posting this, I just felt like it. Apologies to Firesign Theatre for stealing half their gag. See IMDB and Wikipedia for more info. -- Ed]

821) He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

Albert Einstein
"The World As I See It"
aka "Mein Weltbild" ["My Worldview"]
Forum and Century (1931)
republished in
Ideas and Opinions (1949)
posted by Todd McMaster [IQM] (5/1/95)

822) Many people fear nothing more terribly than to take a position which stands out sharply and clearly from the prevailing opinion. The tendency of most is to adopt a view that is so ambiguous that it will include everything and so popular that it will include everybody. Not a few men who cherish lofty and noble ideas hide them under a bushel for fear of being called different.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Transformed Nonconformist" (sermon)
Strength to Love (1963)
posted by Todd McMasters [IQM] (5/1/95)

823) When the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the missionaries had the Bible. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.

Jomo Kenyatta (widely attributed)
posted by Deven Naniwadekar [UAQ] (4/30/95)

824) Battles are fought by platoons and squads.

George S. Patton
"Letter of Instruction No. 2" (4/3/1944)
quoted by Samuel Hynes in
"So Many Men, So Many Wars:
50 Years of Remembering World War II" in
New York Times Book Review (4/30/95)

825) I had heard it suggested one time that the seasons in the temperate zone should be six rather than four in number: summer, autumn, locking, winter, unlocking, and spring. And I remembered that as I straightened up beside our manhole, and stared and listened and sniffed.

There were no smells. There was no movement. Every step I took made a gravelly squeak in blue-white frost. And every squeak was echoed loudly. The season of locking was over. The earth was locked up tight.

It was winter, now and forever.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Cat's Cradle (1963)

[Note: Extensive research has failed to turn up any prior source for the concept of six seasons instead of four. It was suggested on the alt.fan.kurt-vonnegut Usenet newsgroup that the originator might be Robert Frost, but nothing has been found to support this contention. It seems that perhaps Vonnegut himself might be the original source.]

Sources

[IQM] - Internet Quotations mailing list
[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 659 days remaining in the administration of the worst American President ever.