A Cynic

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

-- H. L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

Moral Standards

Whenever 'A' attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon 'B', 'A' is most likely a scoundrel.

-- H. L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

All Men Are Frauds

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

-- H. L. Mencken

Common Sense

It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

-- H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

Common Sense

It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

-- H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

Reality Must Take Precedence

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.

-- Richard Feynmann

Under The Law

With all its defects, delays and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the Executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations.

-- Supreme Court Justice J. Jackson's concurring opinion in Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer

What Is Done Well

What is done well is done quickly enough.

-- Augustus Caesar

Drugs And Dreams

I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough.

-- Maurits Cornelis Escher, 1898 - 1972

Nothing Is Enough

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

-- Epicurus (c.341-270 BC, Greek philosopher)

I Just Need Enough

I just need enough to tide me over until I need more.

-- Bill Hoest

Under Control

If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.

-- Mario Andretti (1940-, Italian-born American auto racer)

Unfit

We are born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.

-- Judith Martin, (Miss Manners)

Never Be A Civilized Country

This will never be a civilized country until we spend more money for books than we do on chewing gum.

-- Elbert Hubbard

Hesitate To Say Anything Nice

I hesitate to say anything nice about him, for fear that it would be used against him. And that's a terrible commentary on the state of politics and the political climate today.

-- Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, on Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut. New York Times, July 16, 2006

An Insult Instead Of A Stone

The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.

-- Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)

The Right To Be Let Alone

The right to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.

-- Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, (November 13, 1856 - October 3, 1941)

A Gift Of God

Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of God's gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences.

-- Freeman Dyson

True Civilization

The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.

-- Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

War Is Hell

It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.

-- William Tecumseh Sherman, Union General in the American Civil War (1820-1891)

Landis

One day before he was the leader, then he was defeated. But he was no coward, and thanks to his great heart, it is a very great performance.

-- Jean-Marie LeBlanc, director of the Tour de France, on the performance of Floyd Landis. New York Times, 7/26/07

--

Landis had the overall lead after the first really tough mountain stage in the Alps. He then lost the lead by eight minutes the next day, falling into 11th place. It appeared that his chances of winning were over.

The very next day Landis rode a solo, 145-km breakaway on the final mountain stage, winning by 7:30 and rising to second place, 30 seconds out. Two days later, in the final stage before the arrival in Paris, Landis won the individual time trial by a minute and a half, ultimately winning the overall by 59 seconds in one of the closest, most back-and-forth tours ever. Unfortunately, several days later it was revealed that Landis tested positive for synthetic testosterone on the day of his epic comeback.

Wildness Is A Necessity

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.

-- John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

Indictments Of Civilization

One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.

-- William Feather (1888-1981, American writer, businessman)

Acknowledge A Fault

Always acknowledge a fault quite frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

-- Mark Twain, 1835 - 1910

Every Great Advance

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.

-- Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)

Our Memories Are Card Indexes

Our memories are card indexes -- consulted, and then put back in disorder, by authorities whom we do not control.

-- Cyril Connolly

To Punish Me

To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.

-- Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

Unthinking Respect

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

-- Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

Always Right

Under the law of war, the President is always right.

-- Justice Department representative Steven Bradbury; cited by Rosa Brooks, Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2006

Undesirable To Believe

It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.

-- Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays (1928), "On the Value of Scepticism"

One Of The Commonest Mistakes

It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive.

-- C. W. Leadbeater

The Power Of The Symbol

The power of the symbol comes from the nature of perception and thought. The train whistle makes us see the train, the footstep in the hall reminds us of the family relative. The oranges bring back the breakfast table.

-- Delmore Schwartz

Syd Barrett

My head kissed the ground
I was half the way down, treading the sand
Please, please, lift a hand
I'm only a person whose armbands beat
On his hands, hang tall
Won't you miss me?
Wouldn't you miss me at all?

-- Syd Barrett (January 6, 1946 - July 7, 2006), Co-founder of British psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd, lyrics to "Dark Globe" from the album "The Madcap Laughs"

Chastity Of The Intellect

Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon, or to the first comer.

-- George Santayana, 1863 - 1921

What And How

Once the "what" is decided, the "how" always follows. We must not make the "how" an excuse for not facing and accepting the "what".

-- Pearl Buck

Free And Unrestrained Press

Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.

-- Hugo Black, Supreme Court Justice

Skepticism A Virtue

Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.

-- Robert King Merton, sociologist (1910-2003)

Pessimist?

To the question whether I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hoping are optimistic.

-- Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)

Listen To The Mustn'ts

Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.

-- Shel Silverstein. American poet, cartoonist and composer best known in children's literature for his poetry, 1930-1999

Weak And Sottish

There is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is managed by order, method, and discipline.

-- Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist, lawyer, and policitian

No Horse Gets Anywhere

No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.

-- Harry Emerson Fosdick

Bringing Up A Family

Bringing up a family should be an adventure, not an anxious discipline in which everybody is constantly graded for performance.

-- Milton R. Saperstein

Creativity

Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.

-- Norman Podhoretz

Great End Of Education

The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others.

-- Tryon Edwards

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.

-- Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961, Swedish Statesman, Secretary-general of U.N.)

Class

Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It's the sure-footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life.

-- Ann Landers (1918-2003, American Advice Columnist)

Discipline Ourselves

If we do not discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us.

-- William Feather (1888-1981, American writer, businessman)

Ben Franklin

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.

-- David Comins

If A Man Empties His Purse

If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it away from him. An investment of knowledge always pays the best interest.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Making Excuses

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Many Will Seem Few

If you desire many things, many things will seem few.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Very Odd Creatures

Mankind are very odd creatures: One half censure what they practise, the other half practise what they censure; the rest always say and do as they ought.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Suppress The First Desire

It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Actions Show Meaning

Words may show a man's wit, but actions his meaning.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Subject Of Controversy

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.

-- William Hazlitt

Not Forgotten

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are gone, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Wikipedia, Number of the Beast, 666

In honor of today's date, 6-6-6:

The number 666 retains a peculiar significance in the culture and psychology of Western societies, where some perceive it as "the Devil's number", even in contexts usually remote from superstition. The fear of the number 666 is called hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.

For example:

* When the CPU manufacturer Intel introduced the 666 MHz Pentium III in 1999, they chose to market it as the "Pentium III 667", claiming that, since the actual clock speed was 666.666 MHz, 667 was the more accurate approximation, against their usual rounding practice, examples of which are the 66.666 MHz "486-66", the 466.666 MHz "Celeron 466" and the later 866.666 MHz "Pentium III 866".

* U.S. Route 666, "the Highway of the Beast", was renumbered as U.S. Route 491 in 2003 after controversy over the supposed reference to the Biblical beast, which also made the road signs a common target for theft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_the_beast

Buying Pleasure

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

National Security Letters

According to the Justice Department, in 2005 the FBI issued 9,254 National Security Letters, a rate of approximately one every 57 minutes.

Necessity

Necessity never made a good bargain.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Money Will Do Everything

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat)

Curious Confusion

By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.

-- G. K. Chesterton

Amateur Hour

You get a lot more authority when the workforce doesn't think it's amateur hour on the top floor.

-- General Michael V. Hayden, President Bush's newly-confirmed C.I.A. director, New York Times, May 19, 2006

There Is Always Danger

In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.

-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)

Every Crisis

Every crisis offers you extra desired power.

-- William Moulton Marston

Bad Season

Remember that it only takes one hurricane in your neighborhood to make it a bad season.

-- Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, New York Times, May 23, 2006

Producer Of Meanings

One way to describe the great struggle of our time is as the endeavor to become a producer of meanings rather than a consumer of them -- in an age when meaning as advertising and marketing, as others' definitions of pleasure and terror, is daily forced down our throats.

-- Rebecca Solnit, author, commencement address for the English Department at UC Berkeley, May 2006

Political Anxiety

Political anxiety in an election year is to blame for a lot of the bad bills Congress passes.

-- Representative Jeff Flake, R-AZ, on a (now-dead) proposed $100 rebate to taxpayers to compensate for higher gas prices. New York Times, 5/2/06

Complicate Simplicity

Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity.

-- Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian ethnologist, 1914-2002

Ride Of Silence

Across the nation, over 600 cyclists are killed on the road every year (662 in 2002, to 626 in 2003 according to NHTSA). A small number compared to the estimated 300,000 premature deaths estimated to result from overweight and obesity-related illnesses.
-- American League of Cyclists

Bicycling is part of the solution to many of our nation's problems: the obesity epidemic, traffic congestion, air pollution and more. Some 64% of adults and over 15% of kids are overweight today, resulting in 300,000 premature deaths and a cost to society of $117 billion a year. Over 22% of all motor vehicle trips Americans take are less than one mile long, and 50% of the working population commutes five miles or less to work, an easily bikeable distance. If the average person biked to work or shopping once every two weeks instead of driving, we could prevent the pollution of close to one billion gallons of gasoline from entering the atmosphere every year. The League of American Bicyclists' new television and radio PSA campaign encourages Americans to visit www.bike-to-work.com and bike to work instead of driving. The League promotes bicycling for fun, fitness and transportation, and works for a bicycle-friendly America.
-- League of American Cyclists

"No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little." -- Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797)

http://www.rideofsilence.org/

Happy Death

As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

-- Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

Don't Rust

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.

-- Leonardo Da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

Knocked Down More

I got knocked down more than any champion and I got up more than every champion.

-- Floyd "The Gentleman of Boxing" Patterson (January 4, 1935 - May 11, 2006), American heavyweight boxer

River Of Time

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.

-- Leonardo da Vinci, 1452 - 1519

A Healthy Male Adult Bore

A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience.

-- John Updike

The Younger Generation

In case you're worried about what's going to become of the younger generation, it's going to grow up and start worrying about the younger generation.

-- Roger Allen

Live To Be One Hundred

If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.

-- George Burns

A Firm Anchor In Nonsense

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled sea of thought.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 - April 29, 2006) Canadian-born economist, Harvard professor

If All Else Fails

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

-- John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 - April 29, 2006) Canadian-born economist, Harvard professor

The Modern Conservative

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 - April 29, 2006) Canadian-born economist, Harvard professor

Comfort The Afflicted

In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 - April 29, 2006) Canadian-born economist, Harvard professor, in London Guardian, July 29, 1989

All The Rich People

If all the rich people in the world divided up their money among themselves there wouldn't be enough to go around.

-- Christina Stead, House of All Nations (1938) "Credo"

Ignorance Begets Confidence

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

-- Charles Darwin, 1871

Change And Stress

I have always argued that change becomes stressful and overwhelming only when you've lost any sense of the constancy of your life. You need firm ground to stand on. From there, you can deal with that change.

-- Richard Nelson Bolles

In Your Own Image

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

-- Anne Lamott, author

This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb

OU agrees to replace destroyed bicycle
Friday, March 31, 2006
Jim Phillips
FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

ATHENS, Ohio - A graduate student whose bike was mistaken for a pipe bomb and destroyed by authorities will get a new ride at Ohio University's expense.

OU Director of Legal Affairs John Burns said he'll write a check to 28-year-old Patrick Hanlin "once I figure out how much."

The university has agreed to replace Hanlin's bike, which bomb squad personnel dismantled looking for an explosive device earlier this month because the bike had a sticker on it promoting the punk band This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb.

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/03/31/20060331-E1-04.html

Never Invest

Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repairing.

-- Billy Rose

T E Lawrence On Iraq

The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. ... We are today not far from a disaster.

-- T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia), Sunday Times, August 1920; cited in Dahr Jamail, "The Ongoing War on Truth in Iraq" (antiwar.com, April 19)

http://www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=8871

Easier To Be Critical

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

-- Benjamin Disraeli, Speech at the House of Commons, January 24, 1860

Something Must Be Done

A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.

-- Daniel Webster

Fugitive

I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages.

-- William H. Mauldin

Sad Truth

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

-- Shana Alexander

Complexity Kills

Complexity kills.

-- Ray Ozzie, chief technical officer, who joined Microsoft last year; cited in Steve Lohr and John Markoff, "Windows Is So Slow, but Why?" (New York Times, March 27)
Ray is also a former member of the PLATO (now NovaNET) system staff

Your True Value

Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with.

-- Bob Wells

Fearful People

Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures. ... They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities.

-- George Gerbner, who headed the Annenberg School for Communication for 25 years; cited in Molly Ivins, "The 'Long War'? Oh, Goodie" (Boulder Daily Camera, Colorado), March 18/Common Dreams)

Rain Without Thunder And Lightning

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters.

-- Frederick Douglass

Satisfaction Is Death

As long as I have a want I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.

-- George Bernard Shaw, Overruled

You Never Know

You never know how well an election will go for an indicted person.

-- Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX), in an interview with Reuters shortly before winning the 2006 Republican house primary

010203040506

Tomorrow, Wednesday, April 5th at 2 minutes and 3 seconds past 1am it will be 01:02:03 on 04/05/06.

All Religions Are Equally Good

All religions are equally good. God is the fruit of any religion truly practised. Make no mistake about it. God is one. Truth is one. The colour of the cow may be different, but milk is white.

-- Sivananda (1887 - 1963)