Magazine Quotes

Hanson's Treatment of Time: There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days before Saturday.

Happiness, n.: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

hard, adj.: The quality of your own data; also how it is to believe those of other people.

Hardware, n.: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.

Harriet's Dining Observation: In every restaurant, the hardness of the butter pats increases in direct proportion to the softness of the bread.

Harris's Lament: All the good ones are taken.

Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined.

Harrison's Postulate: For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

Hartley's First Law: You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, you've got something.

Hatred, n.: A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Hawkeye's Conclusion: It's not easy to play the clown when you've got to run the whole circus.

Heaven, n.: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

heavy, adj.: Seduced by the chocolate side of the force.

Heller's Law: The first myth of management is that it exists. Johnson's Corollary: Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the organization.

Hempstone's Question: If you have to travel on the Titanic, why not go first class?

Herth's Law: He who turns the other cheek too far gets it in the neck.

Hewett's Observation: The rudeness of a bureaucrat is inversely proportional to his or her position in the governmental hierarchy and to the number of peers similarly engaged.

Hildebrant's Principle: If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.

Hippogriff, n.: An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

History, n.: Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view.

— Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab"

Hitchcock's Staple Principle: The stapler runs out of staples only while you are trying to staple something.

Hoare's Law of Large Problems: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.

Hoffer's Discovery: The grand act of a dying institution is to issue a newly revised, enlarged edition of the policies and procedures manual.

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.

Hollerith, v.: What thou doest when thy phone is on the fritzeth.

honeymoon, n.: A short period of doting between dating and debting.

— Ray C. Bandy

Honorable, adj.: Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Horner's Five Thumb Postulate: Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.

Horngren's Observation: Among economists, the real world is often a special case.

Household hint: If you are out of cream for your coffee, mayonnaise makes a dandy substitute.

HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: #1040 Your income tax refund cheque bounces.

HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: #15 Your pet rock snaps at you.

HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: #32: You call your answering service and they've never heard of you.

Howe's Law: Everyone has a scheme that will not work.

Hubbard's Law: Don't take life too seriously; you won't get out of it alive.

Hurewitz's Memory Principle: The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to... to... uh.....

IBM Pollyanna Principle: Machines should work. People should think.

IBM's original motto: Cogito ergo vendo; vendo ergo sum.

IBM: [International Business Machines Corp.] Also known as Itty Bitty Machines or The Lawyer's Friend. The dominant force in computer marketing, having supplied worldwide some 75\% of all known hardware and 10\% of all software. To protect itself from the litigious envy of less successful organizations, such as the US government, IBM employs 68\% of all known ex-Attorneys' General.

IBM: I've Been Moved Idiots Become Managers Idiots Buy More Impossible to Buy Machine Incredibly Big Machine Industry's Biggest Mistake International Brotherhood of Mercenaries It Boggles the Mind It's Better Manually Itty-Bitty Machines

IBM: It may be slow, but it's hard to use.

idiot box, n.: The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves.

— Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

Idiot, n.: A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

idleness, n.: Leisure gone to seed.

ignisecond, n: The overlapping moment of time when the hand is locking the car door even as the brain is saying, "my keys are in there!"

— Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

ignorance, n.: When you don't know anything, and someone else finds out.

Iles's Law: There is always an easier way to do it. When looking directly at the easy way, especially for long periods, you will not see it. Neither will Iles.

Imbesi's Law with Freeman's Extension: In order for something to become clean, something else must become dirty; but you can get everything dirty without getting anything clean.

Immutability, Three Rules of: (1) If a tarpaulin can flap, it will. (2) If a small boy can get dirty, he will. (3) If a teenager can go out, he will.

Impartial, adj.: Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

inbox, n.: A catch basin for everything you don't want to deal with, but are afraid to throw away.

incentive program, n.: The system of long and short-term rewards that a corporation uses to motivate its people. Still, despite all the experimentation with profit sharing, stock options, and the like, the most effective incentive program to date seems to be "Do a good job and you get to keep it."

Incumbent, n.: Person of liveliest interest to the outcumbents.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

index, n.: Alphabetical list of words of no possible interest where an alphabetical list of subjects with references ought to be.

Infancy, n.: The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, "Heaven lies about us." The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.

— Ambrose Bierce

Information Center, n.: A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is to tell you why you cannot have the information you require.

Information Processing: What you call data processing when people are so disgusted with it they won't let it be discussed in their presence.

Ingrate, n.: A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of indigestion.

ink, n.: A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime.

— H.L. Mencken

innovate, v.: To annoy people.

insecurity, n.: Finding out that you've mispronounced for years one of your favorite words. Realizing halfway through a joke that you're telling it to the person who told it to you.

interest, n.: What borrowers pay, lenders receive, stockholders own, and burned out employees must feign.

Interpreter, n.: One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

intoxicated, adj.: When you feel sophisticated without being able to pronounce it.

Iron Law of Distribution: Them that has, gets.

ISO applications: A solution in search of a problem!

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.

It is fruitless: to become lachrymose over precipitately departed lactate fluid. to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers.

"It's in process": So wrapped up in red tape that the situation is almost hopeless.

italic, adj: Slanted to the right to emphasize key phrases. Unique to Western alphabets; in Eastern languages, the same phrases are often slanted to the left.

Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government: No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.

Jenkinson's Law: It won't work.

Jim Nasium's Law: In a large locker room with hundreds of lockers, the few people using the facility at any one time will all have lockers next to each other so that everybody is cramped.

job Placement, n.: Telling your boss what he can do with your job.

jogger, n.: An odd sort of person with a thing for pain.

Johnny Carson's Definition: The smallest interval of time known to man is that which occurs in Manhattan between the traffic signal turning green and the taxi driver behind you blowing his horn.

Johnson's First Law: When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the most inconvenient possible time.

Johnson's law: Systems resemble the organizations that create them.

Jones' Motto: Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.

Jones' Second Law: The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on.

Juall's Law on Nice Guys: Nice guys don't always finish last; sometimes they don't finish. Sometimes they don't even get a chance to start!

Justice, n.: A decision in your favor.

Kafka's Law: In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

— Franz Kafka, "RS's 1974 Expectation of Days"

Karlson's Theorem of Snack Food Packages: For all P, where P is a package of snack food, P is a SINGLE-SERVING package of snack food. Gibson the Cat's Corrolary: For all L, where L is a package of lunch meat, L is Gibson's package of lunch meat.

Katz' Law: Men and nations will act rationally when all other possibilities have been exhausted. History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.

— Abba Eban

Kaufman's First Law of Party Physics: Population density is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the keg.

Kaufman's Law: A policy is a restrictive document to prevent a recurrence of a single incident, in which that incident is never mentioned.

Keep in mind always the four constant Laws of Frisbee: (1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this force is technically termed "car suck"). (2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive than "Watch this!" (3) The probability of a Frisbee hitting something is directly proportional to the cost of hitting it. For instance, a Frisbee will always head directly towards a policeman or a little old lady rather than the beat up Chevy. (4) Your best throw happens when no one is watching; when the cute girl you've been trying to impress is watching, the Frisbee will invariably bounce out of your hand or hit you in the head and knock you silly.

Kennedy's Market Theorem: Given enough inside information and unlimited credit, you've got to go broke.

Kent's Heuristic: Look for it first where you'd most like to find it.

kern, v.: 1. To pack type together as tightly as the kernels on an ear of corn. 2. In parts of Brooklyn and Queens, N.Y., a small, metal object used as part of the monetary system.

kernel, n.: A part of an operating system that preserves the medieval traditions of sorcery and black art.

Kettering's Observation: Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.

Kime's Law for the Reward of Meekness: Turning the other cheek merely ensures two bruised cheeks.

Kin, n.: An affliction of the blood.

Kington's Law of Perforation: If a straight line of holes is made in a piece of paper, such as a sheet of stamps or a check, that line becomes the strongest part of the paper.

Kinkler's First Law: Responsibility always exceeds authority. Kinkler's Second Law: All the easy problems have been solved.

Kliban's First Law of Dining: Never eat anything bigger than your head.

Kludge, n.: An ill-assorted collection of poorly-matching parts, forming a distressing whole.

— Jackson Granholm, "Datamation"

Knebel's Law: It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.

knowledge, n.: Things you believe.

Kramer's Law: You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the tracks.

Krogt, n. (chemical symbol: Kr): The metallic silver coating found on fast-food game cards.

— Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

Labor, n.: One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Lackland's Laws: (1) Never be first. (2) Never be last. (3) Never volunteer for anything

Lactomangulation, n.: Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side.

— Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

Langsam's Laws: (1) Everything depends. (2) Nothing is always. (3) Everything is sometimes.

Larkinson's Law: All laws are basically false.

laser, n.: Failed death ray.

Laura's Law: No child throws up in the bathroom.

Law of Communications: The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding.

Law of Continuity: Experiments should be reproducible. They should all fail the same way.

Law of Procrastination: Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do.

Law of Selective Gravity: An object will fall so as to do 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. Law of the Perversity of Nature: You cannot determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.

Law of the Jungle: He who hesitates is lunch.

Laws of Computer Programming: (1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete. (2) Any given program costs more and takes longer. (3) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed. (4) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented. (5) Any given program will expand to fill all available memory. (6) The value of a program is proportional the weight of its output. (7) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it.

Laws of Serendipity: (1) In order to discover anything, you must be looking for something. (2) If you wish to make an improved product, you must already be engaged in making an inferior one.

lawsuit, n.: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out as a sausage.

— Ambrose Bierce

Lawyer's Rule: When the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When both are against you, call the other lawyer names.

learning curve, n.: An astonishing new theory, discovered by management consultants in the 1970's, asserting that the more you do something the quicker you can do it.

Lee's Law: Mother said there would be days like this, but she never said that there'd be so many!

Leibowitz's Rule: When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you hold the hammer with both hands.

Lemma: All horses are the same color. Proof (by induction): Case n = 1: In a set with only one horse, it is obvious that all horses in that set are the same color. Case n = k: Suppose you have a set of k+1 horses. Pull one of these horses out of the set, so that you have k horses. Suppose that all of these horses are the same color. Now put back the horse that you took out, and pull out a different one. Suppose that all of the k horses now in the set are the same color. Then the set of k+1 horses are all the same color. We have k true => k+1 true; therefore all horses are the same color. Theorem: All horses have an infinite number of legs. Proof (by intimidation): Everyone would agree that all horses have an even number of legs. It is also well-known that horses have forelegs in front and two legs in back. 4 + 2 = 6 legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a horse to have! Now the only number that is both even and odd is infinity; therefore all horses have an infinite number of legs. However, suppose that there is a horse somewhere that does not have an infinite number of legs. Well, that would be a horse of a different color; and by the Lemma, it doesn't exist.

leverage, n.: Even if someone doesn't care what the world thinks about them, they always hope their mother doesn't find out.

Lewis's Law of Travel: The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to anyone, ever.

Liar, n.: A lawyer with a roving commission.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Liar: one who tells an unpleasant truth.

— Oliver Herford

Lie, n.: A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one discovered to date.

Lieberman's Law: Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens.

life, n.: A whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.

life, n.: That brief interlude between nothingness and eternity.

lighthouse, n.: A tall building on the seashore in which the government maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.

like: When being alive at the same time is a wonderful coincidence.

Linus' Law: There is no heavier burden than a great potential.

lisp, v.: To call a spade a thpade.

Lockwood's Long Shot: The chances of getting eaten up by a lion on Main Street aren't one in a million, but once would be enough.

love, n.: Love ties in a knot in the end of the rope.

love, n.: When it's growing, you don't mind watering it with a few tears.

love, n.: When you don't want someone too close--because you're very sensitive to pleasure.

love, n.: When you like to think of someone on days that begin with a morning.

love, n.: When, if asked to choose between your lover and happiness, you'd skip happiness in a heartbeat.

love, v.: I'll let you play with my life if you'll let me play with yours.

Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: There's always one more bug.

Lunatic Asylum, n.: The place where optimism most flourishes.

Machine-Independent, adj.: Does not run on any existing machine.

Mad, adj.: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence ...

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Madison's Inquiry: If you have to travel on the Titanic, why not go first class?

MAFIA, n: [Acronym for Mechanized Applications in Forced Insurance Accounting.] An extensive network with many on-line and offshore subsystems running under OS, DOS, and IOS. MAFIA documentation is rather scanty, and the MAFIA sales office exhibits that testy reluctance to bona fide inquiries which is the hallmark of so many DP operations. From the little that has seeped out, it would appear that MAFIA operates under a non-standard protocol, OMERTA, a tight-lipped variant of SNA, in which extended handshakes also perform complex security functions. The known timesharing aspects of MAFIA point to a more than usually autocratic operating system. Screen prompts carry an imperative, nonrefusable weighting (most menus offer simple YES/YES options, defaulting to YES) that precludes indifference or delay. Uniquely, all editing under MAFIA is performed centrally, using a powerful rubout feature capable of erasing files, filors, filees, and entire nodal aggravations.

— Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"

Magary's Principle: When there is a public outcry to cut deadwood and fat from any government bureaucracy, it is the deadwood and the fat that do the cutting, and the public's services are cut.

Magnet, n.: Something acted upon by magnetism. Magnetism, n.: Something acting upon a magnet. The two definition 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.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Magnocartic, adj.: Any automobile that, when left unattended, attracts shopping carts.

— Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"

Magpie, n.: A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Maier's Law: If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.

— N.R. Maier, "American Psychologist", March 1960 Corollaries: (1) The bigger the theory, the better. (2) The experiment m

Main's Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.

Maintainer's Motto: If we can't fix it, it ain't broke.

Major premise: Sixty men can do sixty times as much work as one man. Minor premise: A man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds. Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Secondary Conclusion: Do you realize how many holes there would be if people wo

Majority, n.: That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law.

Male, n.: A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the human race is commonly known to the female as Mere Man. The genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Malek's Law: Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.

malpractice, n.: The reason surgeons wear masks.

management, n.: The art of getting other people to do all the work.

manic-depressive, adj.: Easy glum, easy glow.

Manly's Maxim: Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.

manual, n.: A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The information you need is in the others.

— Ray Simard

Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery: Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a simple yes or no answer.

marriage, n.: An old, established institution, entered into by two people deeply in love and desiring to make a committment to each other expressing that love. In short, committment to an institution.

marriage, n.: Convertible bonds.

Marriage, n.: The evil aye.

Marxist Law of Distribution of Wealth: Shortages will be divided equally among the peasants.

Maryann's Law: You can always find what you're not looking for.

Maslow's Maxim: If the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat everything like a nail.

Mason's First Law of Synergism: The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut.

Matz's Law: A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

May's Law: The quality of correlation is inversly proportional to the density of control. (The fewer the data points, the smoother the curves.)

McEwan's Rule of Relative Importance: When traveling with a herd of elephants, don't be the first to lie down and rest.

McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom: If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not $19.95.

Meade's Maxim: Always remember that you are absolutely unique, just like everyone else.

Meader's Law: Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to everyone you know, only more so.

meeting, n.: An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or department not represented in the room must solve a problem.

meetings, n.: A place where minutes are kept and hours are lost.

memo, n.: An interoffice communication too often written more for the benefit of the person who sends it than the person who receives it.

Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American: The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife.

Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American: The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the cork makes when it is popped.

Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American: All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards.

Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American: Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can never hope to acquire it.

Menu, n.: A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of.

Meskimen's Law: There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over.

meterologist, n.: One who doubts the established fact that it is bound to rain if you forget your umbrella.

Micro Credo: Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift.

micro: Thinker toys.

Miksch's Law: If a string has one end, then it has another end.

Miller's Slogan: Lose a few, lose a few.

millihelen, n.: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship.

Minicomputer: A computer that can be afforded on the budget of a middle-level manager.

MIPS: Meaningless Indicator of Processor Speed

Misfortune, n.: The kind of fortune that never misses.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

MIT: The Georgia Tech of the North

Mitchell's Law of Committees: Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are held to discuss it.

mittsquinter, adj.: A ballplayer who looks into his glove after missing the ball, as if, somehow, the cause of the error lies there.

— "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends

Mix's Law: There is nothing more permanent than a temporary building. There is nothing more permanent than a temporary tax.