General Wisdom

!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH

(1) Alexander the Great was a great general. (2) Great generals are forewarned. (3) Forewarned is forearmed. (4) Four is an even number. (5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. (6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms.

(1) Everything depends. (2) Nothing is always. (3) Everything is sometimes.

10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.

100 buckets of bits on the bus 100 buckets of bits Take one down, short it to ground FF buckets of bits on the bus FF buckets of bits on the bus FF buckets of bits Take one down, short it to ground FE buckets of bits on the bus ad infinitum...

$100 invested at 7\% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at which time it will be worth absolutely nothing.

— Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"

186,282 miles per second: It isn't just a good idea, it's the law!

2180, U.S. History question: What 20th Century U.S. President was almost impeached and what office did he later hold?

$3,000,000

7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National Redwood Forest.

7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) The Bionic Dog gets a hormonal short-circuit and violates the Mann Act with an interstate Greyhound bus.

99 blocks of crud on the disk, 99 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 100 blocks of crud on the disk! 100 blocks of crud on the disk, 100 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 101 blocks of crud on the disk! ...

A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a "Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.

— Mahatma Ghandi

A [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific game. The player should estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there, preferably atop a nice firm tuft of grass.

— Donald A. Metz

A [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed in the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the rough. Such veering right or left frequently results from friction between the face of the club and the cover of the ball and the player should not be penalized for the erratic behavior of the ball resulting from such uncontrollable physical phenomena.

— Donald A. Metz

A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other.

A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.

— Carl Sandburg

A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce.

— Don Quinn

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

— Mark Twain

A billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know it adds up to be real money.

— Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen

A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him.

A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.

A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose.

... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you have turned into a pile of dust.

A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours.

A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward.

A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other.

A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.

A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is not mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators.

— Dave Barry

A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five.

A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon. Avoid him. He's a Commie.

A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election.

— Bill Vaughan

A city is a large community where people are lonesome together

— Herbert Prochnow

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

— Mark Twain

A closed mouth gathers no foot.

A computer, to print out a fact, Will divide, multiply, and subtract. But this output can be No more than debris, If the input was short of exact.

— Gigo

A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.

A CONS is an object which cares.

— Bernie Greenberg.

A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it.

A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper.

— Dyer

A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample.

— Rebecca West

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.

— Ben Franklin

A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison And had an affair with a Saracen. She was not oversexed, Or jealous or vexed, She just wanted to make a comparison.

A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen lantern.

— Edgar A. Shoaff

A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it?

A day without sunshine is like night.

A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur coat.

A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip.

A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat." The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that, the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an architect." The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"

A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.

— Ogden Nash

A dozen, a gross, and a score, Plus three times the square root of four, Divided by seven, Plus five times eleven, Equals nine squared plus zero, no more.

A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a Xerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser. Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network with the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the Undergraduate replied "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly pressed the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, while simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thick Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened.

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

— Winston Churchill

A fool must now and then be right by chance.

A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.

— G. B. Shaw

A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.

A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used.

— D. Gries

"A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension."

— Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature"

A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.

— Adlai Stevenson

A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.

— H. L. Mencken

A general leading the State Department resembles a dragon commanding ducks.

— New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981

A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort of).

A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.

— John Ciardi

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

— William James

A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century.

A hypothetical paradox: What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet?

— Tom Galloway

A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears. C is for Clair who wasted away, D is for Desmond thrown out of the sleigh. E is for Ernest who choked on a peach, F is for Fanny, sucked dry by a leech. G is for George, smothered under a rug, H is for Hector, done in by a thug. I is for Ida who drowned in the lake, J is for James who took lye, by mistake. K is for Kate who was struck with an axe, L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks. M is for Maud who was swept out to sea, N is for Nevil who died of enui. O is for Olive, run through with an awl, P is for Prue, trampled flat in a brawl Q is for Quinton who sank in a mire, R is for Rhoda, consumed by a fire. S is for Susan who parished of fits, T is for Titas who flew into bits. U is for Una who slipped down a drain, V is for Victor, squashed under a train. W is for Winie, embedded in ice, X is for Xercies, devoured by mice. Y is for Yoric whose head was bashed in, Z is for Zilla who drank too much gin.

— Edward Gorey "The Gastly Crumb Tines"

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.

A jury consists of 12 persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

— Robert Frost

A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.

A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.

A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.

A lady with one of her ears applied To an open keyhole heard, inside, Two female gossips in converse free -- The subject engaging them was she. "I think", said one, "and my husband thinks That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!" As soon as no more of it she could hear The lady, indignant, removed her ear. "I will not stay," she said with a pout, "To hear my character lied about!"

— Gopete Sherany

A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.

A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do.

— Dennis M. Ritchie

A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work by being declared to work.

— Anatol Holt

A Law of Computer Programming: Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find the programmers cannot write in English.

A limerick packs laughs anatomical Into space that is quite economical. But the good ones I've seen So seldom are clean, And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.

— H. H. Munroe

A long memory is the most subversive idea in America.

A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any price.

A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and exceptional ability in that particular field."

A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths.

— Steve Wright

A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks.

— Lew Col

A man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. The first thing he notices is that the arms are too long. "No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbow and hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine." "But the collar is up around my ears!" "It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little ... no, a little more ... that's it." "But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation. "Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There you go. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly." So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto the street. Reba and Florence see him go by. "Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!" "Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit."

— Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"

A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."

— Stephen Crane

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package.

A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant," said the master. "Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice. "It is," came the reply. "Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice. "It is even in a video game," said the master. "And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?" The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson is over for today," he said.

— "The Tao of Programming"

A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems.

A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the paper reports, "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins fall over gently onto their backs.

— Audobon Society Magazine

A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if ..." "If what?" asked the composer. "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?"

A neighbor came to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey. "It is out on loan," the teacher replied. At that moment, the donkey brayed loudly inside the stable. "But I can hear it bray, over there." "Whom do you believe," asked Nasrudin, "me or a donkey?"

A new dramatist of the absurd Has a voice that will shortly be heard. I learn from my spies He's about to devise An unprintable three-letter word.

A new koan: If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you. If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you. It is an ice cream koan.

A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary. Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a round tuit now has no excuse for further procrastination.

A New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the movies insist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have the right to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them.

A novel approach is to remove all power from the system, which removes most system overhead so that resources can be fully devoted to doing nothing. Benchmarks on this technique are promising; tremendous amounts of nothing can be produced in this manner. Certain hardware limitations can limit the speed of this method, especially in the larger systems which require a more involved & less efficient power-down sequence. An alternate approach is to pull the main breaker for the building, which seems to provide even more nothing, but in truth has bugs in it, since it usually inhibits the systems which keep the beer cool.

A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly: "You can not fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked.

A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.

A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.

— Gloria Steinem

A penny saved is ridiculous.

A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry.

A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.

— George Wald

A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt -- A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt. When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig, Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig, You'll never go wrong with a pig!

— Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"

"A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!"

— Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra"

A priest asked: What is Fate, Master? And he answered: It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence. It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs. It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness. And that is Fate? said the priest. Fate ... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master. That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was too.

— Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"

A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came upon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope. "That's what I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow man". As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well, he sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing."

A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.

"A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place."

— IEEE Grid news magazine

A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that your wife will give you for free.

A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which was intended for her preservation.

— Colton

A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as "you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants to make a travesty of the game.

— Donald A. Metz

"A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon."

— Steel City News

"A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives."

A reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20: Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, "Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."

— Monty Python, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works.

A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and the real reason.

A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects ...

A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized rosewater.

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those that are worth committing.

— Samuel Butler

A Severe Strain on the Credulity As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt ... for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react ... Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.

— New York Times Editorial, 1920

A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard

— Prof. Steiner

... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.

— Mark Twain

A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.

— O'Henry

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

— Daniel Webster

A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam.

A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt. As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it true," asked the student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as Lisp?" Almost before the student had finished his question, Greenblatt shouted, "FOO!", and hit the student with a stick.

A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author.

— S. C. Johnson

A tautology is a thing which is tautological.

A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first.

A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle.

A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.

A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.

— John Ciardi

"A University without students is like an ointment without a fly."

— Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin

A UNIX saleslady, Lenore, Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more. She found a good way To combine work and play: She sells C shells by the seashore.

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.

— Tennessee Williams

A very intelligent turtle Found programming UNIX a hurdle The system, you see, Ran as slow as did he, And that's not saying much for the turtle.

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets people's attention.

"A witty saying proves nothing."

— Voltaire

"A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times."

— The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII

A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

A.A.A.A.A.: An organization for drunks who drive

Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.

"About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends."

— Herbert Hoover

Absence makes the heart go wander.

Absent, adj.: Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered.

Absentee, n.: A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Abstainer, n.: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.

— Wallace Sayre

Accident, n.: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better.

Accidents cause History. If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd.

— Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"

According to Arkansas law, Section 4761, Pope's Digest: "No person shall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer than fifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the opening of the polls until the completion of the count and the certification of the returns."

According to Kentucky state law, every person must take a bath at least once a year.

According to my best recollection, I don't remember.

— Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo

According to the latest official figures, 43\% of all statistics are totally worthless.

According to the obituary notices, a mean and unimportant person never dies.

"According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place to live in America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York came in twenty-fifth. Here in New York we really don't care too much. Because we know that we could beat up their city anytime."

— David Letterman

Accordion, n.: A bagpipe with pleats.

Accuracy, n.: The vice of being right

ACHTUNG!!! Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das pockets. Relaxen und vatch das blinkenlights!!!

Acid absorbs 47 times it's weight in excess Reality.

Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

"Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing."

Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had everyone glued in their seats!" Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of it!"

Actor: So what do you do for a living? Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving dishes for Chinese restaurants.

— Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"

Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families.

ADA, n.: Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA awareness."

Admiration, n.: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Adolescence, n.: The stage between puberty and adultery.

"Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to look like you ..."

— Gilda Radner

Adore, v.: To venerate expectantly.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Adult, n.: One old enough to know better.

Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.

— Sinclair Lewis

Advice to young men: Be ascetic, and if you can't be ascetic, then at least be asceptic.

After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted many important electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today, skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact that it sinks like a stone.

— Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"

After a few boring years, socially meaningful rock 'n' roll died out. It was replaced by disco, which offers no guidance to any form of life more advanced than the lichen family.

— Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do"

After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn.

"... After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations."

— H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare

After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.

— P. J. O'Rourke

After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found on the bench.

After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon to be created." "This is true," He replied. "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly. "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the right to make his laws?" "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to make his own." It was so granted.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

"After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the cost to others, to win advancement."

— Norman Thomas

After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK?

After living in New York, you trust nobody, but you believe everything. Just in case.

After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed.

Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a change.

Afternoon, n.: That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning.

Age before beauty; and pearls before swine.

— Dorothy Parker

Age, n.: That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise to commit.

— Ambrose Bierce

Ah say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball.

Ah, but the choice of dreams to live, there's the rub. For all dreams are not equal, some exit to nightmare most end with the dreamer But at least one must be lived ... and died.

"Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the Blacks, 'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact that life's one big, scary, glorious, complex and ultimately unfathomable crapshoot -- and the only reason THEY can't seem to keep up is they're a bunch of misfits and losers."

— A analysis of Neo-Nazis, from "The Badger" comic

Air is water with holes in it

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.

— Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed

Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."