General Wisdom

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 Christian is a man who feels repentance on Sunday for what he did on Saturday and is going to do on Monday.

— Thomas Ybarra

A chronic disposition to inquiry deprives domestic felines of vital qualities.

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 clash of doctrine is not a disaster - it is an opportunity.

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

— Mark Twain, "The Disappearance of Literature"

A clever prophet makes sure of the event first.

A closed mouth gathers no foot.

A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed, if feels an impulsion... this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.

— Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul

A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: 1. DO NOT EXPECT YOUR DOCTOR TO SHARE YOUR DISCOMFORT. Involvement with the patient's suffering might cause him to lose valuable scientific objectivity. 2. BE CHEERFUL AT ALL TIMES. Your doctor leads a busy and trying life and requires all the gentleness and reassurance he can get. 3. TRY TO SUFFER FROM THE DISEASE FOR WHICH YOU ARE BEING TREATED. Remember that your doctor has a professional reputation to uphold.

A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: 4. DO NOT COMPLAIN IF THE TREATMENT FAILS TO BRING RELIEF. You must believe that your doctor has achieved a deep insight into the true nature of your illness, which transcends any mere permanent disability you may have experienced. 5. NEVER ASK YOUR DOCTOR TO EXPLAIN WHAT HE IS DOING OR WHY HE IS DOING IT. It is presumptuous to assume that such profound matters could be explained in terms that you would understand. 6. SUBMIT TO NOVEL EXPERIMANTAL TREATMENT READILY. Though the surgery may not benefit you directly, the resulting research paper will surely be of widespread interest.

A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: 7. PAY YOUR MEDICAL BILLS PROMPTLY AND WILLINGLY. You should consider it a privilege to contribute, however modestly, to the well-being of physicians and other humanitarians. 8. DO NOT SUFFER FROM AILMENTS THAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD. It is sheer arrogance to contract illnesses that are beyond your means. 9. NEVER REVEAL ANY OF THE SHORTCOMINGS THAT HAVE COME TO LIGHT IN THE COURSE OF TREATMENT BY YOUR DOCTOR. The patient-doctor relationship is a privileged one, and you have a sacred duty to protect him from exposure. 10. NEVER DIE WHILE IN YOUR DOCTOR'S PRESENCE OR UNDER HIS DIRECT CARE. This will only cause him needless inconvenience and embarrassment.

A Code of Honour: never approach a friend's girlfriend or wife with mischief as your goal. There are too many women in the world to justify that sort of dishonourable behaviour. Unless she's really attractive.

— Bruce J. Friedman, "Sex and the Lonely Guy"

A committee is a group that keeps the minutes and loses hours.

— Milton Berle

A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.

— Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love"

A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom.

— Parkinson

A commune is where people join together to share their lack of wealth.

— R. Stallman

A company is known by the men it keeps.

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.

A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.

— Victor Hugo

[A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy.

— Joseph Campbell

A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention, with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequilla.

— Mitch Ratcliffe

A computer salesman visits a company president for the purpose of selling the president one of the latest talking computers. Salesman: "This machine knows everything. I can ask it any quesstion and it'll give the correct answer. Computer, what is the speed of light?" Computer: 186,000 miles per second. Salesman: "Who was the first president of the United States?" Computer: George Washington. President: "I'm still not convinced. Let me ask a question. Where is my father?" Computer: Your father is fishing in Georgia. President: "Hah!! The computer is wrong. My father died over twenty years ago!" Computer: Your mother's husband died 22 years ago. Your father just landed a twelve pound bass.

A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken.

A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard.

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

A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing but together can decide that nothing can be done.

— Fred Allen

A CONS is an object which cares.

— Bernie Greenberg.

A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.

— Elbert Hubbard

A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time.

— Alfred E. Wiggam

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who has never learned to walk.

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

A conservative is one who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.

A couch is as good as a chair.

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

— B. Franklin

A couple of young fellers were fishing at their special pond off the beaten track when out of the bushes jumped the Game Warden. Immediately, one of the boys threw his rod down and started running through the woods like the proverbial bat out of hell, and hot on his heels ran the Game Warden. After about a half mile the fella stopped and stooped over with his hands on his thighs, whooping and heaving to catch his breath as the Game Warden finally caught up to him. "Let's see yer fishin' license, boy," the Warden gasped. The man pulled out his wallet and gave the Game Warden a valid fishing license. "Well, son", snarled the Game Warden, "You must be about as dumb as a box of rocks! You didn't have to run if you have a license!" "Yes, sir," replied his victim, "but, well, see, my friend back there, he don't have one!"

A cousin of mine once said about money, money is always there but the pockets change; it is not in the same pockets after a change, and that is all there is to say about money.

— Gertrude Stein

A cow is a completely automated milk-manufacturing machine. It is encased in untanned leather and mounted on four vertical, movable supports, one at each corner. The front end of the machine, or input, contains the cutting and grinding mechanism, utilizing a unique feedback device. Here also are the headlights, air inlet and exhaust, a bumper and a foghorn. At the rear, the machine carries the milk-dispensing equipment as well as a built-in flyswatter and insect repeller. The central portion houses a hydro- chemical-conversion unit. Briefly, this consists of four fermentation and storage tanks connected in series by an intricate network of flexible plumbing. This assembly also contains the central heating plant complete with automatic temperature controls, pumping station and main ventilating system. The waste disposal apparatus is located to the rear of this central section. Cows are available fully-assembled in an assortment of sizes and colors. Production output ranges from 2 to 20 tons of milk per year. In brief, the main external visible features of the cow are: two lookers, two hookers, four stander-uppers, four hanger-downers, and a swishy-wishy.

A critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste.

— Whitney Balliett

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 orange juice is like a day without orange juice.

A day without sunshine is like a day without Anita Bryant.

A day without sunshine is like a day without orange juice.

A day without sunshine is like night.

A dead man cannot bite.

— Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey)

A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions that make it fail.

— Jerry Ogdin

A decade after Vietnam, we still cannot understand why "their" Salvadorans fight better than "our" Salvadorans. It is not a matter of their training or their equipment. It has to do with the quality of the society we are asking them to risk death defending. The metaphor of the domino obscures this reality, and the cost our self-imposed blindness is high. San Salvador is closer to Saigon than to Munich.

— William LeoGrande, "New York Times", 3/9/83

A Difficulty for Every Solution.

— Motto of the Federal Civil Service

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

A diplomat is a man who can tell you to go to hell and make the trip sound pleasurable.

— Samuel Clemens

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

— Caskie Stinnett, "Out of the Red"

A diplomat is man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never her age.

— Robert Frost

A diplomatic husband said to his wife, "How do you expect me to remember your birthday when you never look any older?"

A diplomat's life consists of three things: protocol, Geritol, and alcohol.

— Adlai Stevenson

A distraught patient phoned her doctor's office. "Was it true," the woman inquired, "that the medication the doctor had prescribed was for the rest of her life?" She was told that it was. There was just a moment of silence before the woman proceeded bravely on. "Well, I'm wondering, then, how serious my condition is. This prescription is marked `NO REFILLS'".

A diva who specializes in risque arias is an off-coloratura soprano.

A doctor calls his patient to give him the results of his tests. "I have some bad news," says the doctor, "and some worse news." The bad news is that you only have six weeks to live." "Oh, no," says the patient. "What could possibly be worse than that?" "Well," the doctor replies, "I've been trying to reach you since last Monday."

A doctor was stranded with a lawyer in a leaky life raft in shark-infested waters. The doctor tried to swim ashore but was eaten by the sharks. The lawyer, however, swam safely past the bloodthirsty sharks. "Professional courtesy," he explained.

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

— Ogden Nash

A drama critic is a person who surprises a playwright by informing him what he meant.

— Wilson Mizner

A dream will always triumph over reality, once it is given the chance.

— Stanislaw Lem

A Dublin lawyer died in poverty and many barristers of the city subscribed to a fund for his funeral. The Lord Chief Justice of Orbury was asked to donate a shilling. "Only a shilling?" exclaimed the man. "Only a shilling to bury an attorney? Here's a guinea; go and bury twenty of them."

A fail-safe circuit will destroy others.

— Klipstein

A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final inspection.

A fair exterior is a silent recommendation.

— Publilius Syrus

A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved.

— R.A. Heinlein

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 farmer is a man outstanding in his field.

A feed salesman is on his way to a farm. As he's driving along at forty m.p.h., he looks out his car window and sees a three-legged chicken running alongside him, keeping pace with his car. He is amazed that a chicken is running at forty m.p.h. So he speeds up to forty-five, fifty, then sixty m.p.h. The chicken keeps right up with him the whole way, then suddenly takes off and disappears into the distance. The man pulls into the farmyard and says to the farmer, "You know, the strangest thing just happened to me; I was driving along at at least sixty miles an hour and a chicken passed me like I was standing still!" "Yeah," the farmer replies, "that chicken was ours. You see, there's me, and there's Ma, and there's our son Billy. Whenever we had chicken for dinner, we would all want a drumstick, so we'd have to kill two chickens. So we decided to try and breed a three-legged chicken so each of us could have a drumstick." "How do they taste?" said the farmer. "Don't know," replied the farmer. "We haven't been able to catch one yet."

A fellow bought a new car, a Nissan, and was quite happy with his purchase. He was something of an animist, however, and felt that the car really ought to have a name. This presented a problem, as he was not sure if the name should be masculine or feminine. After considerable thought, he settled on an naming the car either Belchazar or Beaumadine, but remained in a quandry about the final choice. "Is a Nissan male or female?" he began asking his friends. Most of them looked at him pecularly, mumbled things about urgent appointments, and went on their way rather quickly. He finally broached the question to a lady he knew who held a black belt in judo. She thought for a moment and answered "Feminine." The swiftness of her response puzzled him. "You're sure of that?" he asked. "Certainly," she replied. "They wouldn't sell very well if they were masculine." "Unhhh... Well, why not?" "Because people want a car with a reputation for going when you want it to. And, if Nissan's are female, it's like they say... `Each Nissan, she go!'" [No, we WON'T explain it; go ask someone who practices an oriental martial art. (Tai Chi Chuan probably doesn't count.) Ed.]

A few hours grace before the madness begins again.

A figure with curves always offers a lot of interesting angles.

A fisherman from Maine went to Alabama on his vacation. He rented a boat, rowed out to the middle of the lake, and cast his line, but when he looked down into the water he was horrified to see a man wrapped in chains lying on the bottom of the lake. He quickly rowed to shore and ran to the police station. "Sheriff, sheriff," he gasped, there's a guy wrapped in chains, drowned in the lake!" "Now ain't that jest like a Yankee," drawled the sheriff, "to steal more chain than he can swim with?"

A fitter fits; Though sinners sin A cutter cuts; And thinners thin And an aircraft spotter spots; And paper-blotters blot A baby-sitter I've never yet Baby-sits -- Had letters let But an otter never ots. Or seen an otter ot. A batter bats (Or scatters scats); A potting shed's for potting; But no one's found A bounder bound Or caught an otter otting.

— Ralph Lewin

A flashy Mercedes-Benz roared up to the curb where a cute young miss stood waiting for a taxi. "Hi," said the gentleman at the wheel. "I'm going west." "How wonderful," came the cool reply. "Bring me back an orange."

A fool and his honey are soon parted.

A fool and his money are soon popular.

A fool and your money are soon partners.

A fool is a man who worries about whether or not his lover has integrity. A wise man, on the other hand, busies himself with deeper attributes.

A fool must now and then be right by chance.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

— G.B. Shaw

A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used.

— D. Gries

A Fortran compiler is the hobgoblin of little minis.

A fox is wolf who sends flowers.

— Ruth Weston

A freelance is one who gets paid by the word -- per piece or perhaps.

— Robert Benchley

A friend in need is a pest indeed.

A friend is a present you give yourself.

— Robert Louis Stevenson

A friend of mine is into Voodoo Acupuncture. You don't have to go. You'll just be walking down the street and... Ooohh, that's much better.

— Steven Wright

A friend of mine won't get a divorce, because he hates lawyers more than he hates his wife.

A friend with weed is a friend indeed.

A full belly makes a dull brain.

— Ben Franklin [and the local candy machine man. Ed]

A 'full' life in my experience is usually full only of other people's demands.

A furore Normanorum libera nos, O Domine!

A gambler's biggest thrill is winning a bet. His next biggest thrill is losing a bet.

A gangster assembled an engineer, a chemist, and a physicist. He explained that he was entering a horse in a race the following week and the three assembled guys had the job of assuring that the gangster's horse would win. They were to reconvene the day before the race to tell the gangster how they each propose to ensure a win. When they reconvened the gangster started with the engineer: Gangster: OK, Mr. engineer, what have you got? Engineer: Well, I've invented a way to weave metallic threads into the saddle blanket so that they will act as the plates of a battery and provide electrical shock to the horse. G: That's very good! But let's hear from the chemist. Chemist: I've synthesized a powerful stimulant that disolves into simple blood sugars after ten minutes and therefore cannot be detected in post-race tests. G: Excellent, excellent! But I want to hear from the physicist before I decide what to do. Physicist? Physicist: Well, first consider a spherical horse in simple harmonic motion...

A gentleman is a man who wouldn't hit a lady with his hat on.

— Evan Esar [ And why not? For why does she have his hat on? Ed.]

A gentleman never strikes a lady with his hat on.

— Fred Allen

A gift of a flower will soon be made to you.

A girl and a boy bump into each other -- surely an accident. A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident. But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- *that had to mean something*.

— S. Morganstern, "The Silent Gondoliers"

A girl with a future avoids the man with a past.

— Evan Esar, "The Humor of Humor"

A girl's best friend is her mutter.

— Dorothy Parker

A girl's conscience doesn't really keep her from doing anything wrong-- it merely keeps her from enjoying it.

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

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 good man always knows his limitations.

— Harry Callahan

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and deaf husband.

— Michel de Montaigne

A good memory does not equal pale ink.

A good name lost is seldom regained. When character is gone, all is gone, and one of the richest jewels of life is lost forever.

— J. Hawes

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

— Patton

A good reputation is more valuable than money.

— Publilius Syrus

A good scapegoat is hard to find.

A good supervisor can step on your toes without messing up your shine.

A GOOD WAY TO THREATEN somebody is to light a stick of dynamite. Then you call the guy and hold the burning fuse to the phone. "Hear that?" you say. "That's dynamite, baby."

— Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.

A gossip is one who talks to you about others, a bore is one who talks to you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself.

— Lisa Kirk

A gourmet restaurant in Cincinnati is one where you leave the tray on the table after you eat.

A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart that looks at her watch.

— James Beard

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

— Barry Goldwater

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

— Barry Goldwater

A grammarian's life is always intense.

A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.

— B. Franklin

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

— William James

A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselvse, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly's supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D.H. Holmes department store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one's soul.

— John Kennedy Toole, "Confederacy of Dunces"

A group of politicians deciding to dump a President because his morals are bad is like the Mafia getting together to bump off the Godfather for not going to church on Sunday.

— Russell Baker

A guilty conscience is the mother of invention.

— Carolyn Wells

A guy has to get fresh once in a while so a girl doesn't lose her confidence.

A hacker does for love what others would not do for money.

A hammer sometimes misses its mark - a bouquet never.

A handful of friends is worth more than a wagon of gold.

A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.

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

— John Updike

A help wanted add for a photo journalist asked the rhetorical question: If you found yourself in a situation where you could either save a drowning man, or you could take a Pulitzer prize winning photograph of him drowning, what shutter speed and setting would you use?

— Paul Harvey

A Hen Brooding Kittens A friend informs us that he saw at the Novato ranch, Marin county, a few days since, a hen actually brooding and otherwise caring for three kittens! The gentleman upon whose premises this strange event is transpiring says the hen adopted the kittens when they were but a few days old, and that she has devoted them her undivided care for several weeks past. The young felines are now of respectable size, but they nevertheless follow the hen at her cluckings, and are regularly brooded at night beneath her wings.

— Sacramento Daily Union, July 2, 1861

A hermit is a deserter from the army of humanity.

A highly intelligent man should take a primitive woman. Imagine if on top of everything else, I had a woman who interfered with my work.

— Adolf Hitler

A holding company is a thing where you hand an accomplice the goods while the policeman searches you.

A Hollywood producer calls a friend, another producer on the phone. "Hello?" his friend answers. "Hi!" says the man. "This is Bob, how are you doing?" "Oh," says the friend, "I'm doing great! I just sold a screenplay for two hundred thousand dollars. I've started a novel adaptation and the studio advanced me fifty thousand dollars on it. I also have a television series coming on next week, and everyone says it's going to be a big hit! I'm doing *great*! How are you?" "Okay," says the producer, "give me a call when he leaves."

A homeowner's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a weekend for?

"A horrible little boy came up to me and said, `You know in your book The Martian Chronicles?' I said, `Yes?' He said, `You know where you talk about Deimos rising in the East?' I said, `Yes?' He said `No.' -- So I hit him."

— attributed to Ray Bradbury

A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!

— Wm. Shakespeare, "Henry VI"

A hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong!

A hundred years from now it is very likely that [of Twain's works] "The Jumping Frog" alone will be remembered.

— Harry Thurston Peck (Editor of "The Bookman"), January 1901.

A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.

— Helen Rowland

A hypocrite is a person who ... but who isn't?

— Don Marquis

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 is for Apple.

— Hester Pryne

A is for awk, which runs like a snail, and B is for biff, which reads all your mail. C is for cc, as hackers recall, while D is for dd, the command that does all. E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys, and F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees. G is for grep, a clever detective, while H is for halt, which may seem defective. I is for indent, which rarely amuses, and J is for join, which nobody uses. K is for kill, which makes you the boss, while L is for lex, which is missing from DOS. M is for more, from which less was begot, and N is for nice, which it really is not. O is for od, which prints out things nice, while P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice. Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable, and R is for ranlib, for sorting ar table. S is for spell, which attempts to belittle, while T is for true, which does very little. U is for uniq, which is used after sort, and V is for vi, which is hard to abort. W is for whoami, which tells you your name, while X is, well, X, of dubious fame. Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and Z is for zcat, which handles compression.

— THE ABC'S OF UNIX

A joint is just tea for two.

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

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

— Lao Tsu

A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's feet.

— Lao Tsu

A jug of wine, a bowl of rice with it; Earthen vessels Simply handed in through the window. There is certainly no blame in this.

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

— Robert Frost

A key to the understanding of all religions is that a God's idea of a good time is a game of Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.

A kid'll eat the middle of an Oreo, eventually.

A kind of Batman of contemporary letters.

— Philip Larkin on Anthony Burgess

A king's castle is his home.

A kiss is a course of procedure, cunningly devised, for the mutual stoppage of speech at a moment when words are superfluous.

A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.

A lady is one who never shows her underwear unintentionally.

— Lillian Day

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.

— D.M. Ritchie

A lanky Texan was mad because Texas had just become the second largest state in the Union, so he made up his mind to move to Alaska. He drove for three days and three nights to get there and finally he came to what looked like the state line. He halted his car and walked up to the border guard. "Hi, there! How do I become a resident of this here biggest state?" demanded the Texan. The guard looked him up and down and grinned. "Waal," he answered, there are three things you gotta do to get in. First, drink down a quart of 110 proof corn liquor without blinkin'. Second, kill a grizzly bear, and third, make love to an Eskimo woman." "Sounds easy enough," said the Texan. "Where can I get a quart of this here corn liquor?" "Got one right here," replied the guard. The Texan gulped down the whiskey without batting an eyelash. "Now, do you happen to know where I can find me a grizzly?" "Yep," answered the guard, "there's a big b'ar over that way, 'bout a mile... lives in a cave on that cliff." The Texan lurched merrily off. About an hour later he returned with his clothes almost torn off and his face scratched and bloody. He was smiling happily. "Now," he roared, "where's that damn Eskimo woman you want killed?"

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

— Anatol Holt

A large spider in an old house built a beautiful web in which to catch flies. Every time a fly landed on the web and was entangled in it the spider devoured him, so that when another fly came along he would think the web was a safe and quiet place in which to rest. One day a fairly intelligent fly buzzed around above the web so long without lighting that the spider appeared and said, "Come on down." But the fly was too clever for him and said, "I never light where I don't see other flies and I don't see any other flies in your house." So he flew away until he came to a place where there were a great many other flies. He was about to settle down among them when a bee buzzed up and said, "Hold it, stupid, that's flypaper. All those flies are trapped." "Don't be silly," said the fly, "they're dancing." So he settled down and became stuck to the flypaper with all the other flies. Moral: There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.

— James Thurber, "The Fairly Intelligent Fly"

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

A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.

— Robert Frost

A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake at the moment.

— Willis Player

A liberal is someone too poor to be a capitalist, and too rich to be a communist.

A lie in time saves nine.

A lie is an abomination unto the Lord and a very present help in time of trouble.

— Adlai Stevenson

A life spent in search of the perfect hash brownie is a life well spent.

A lifetime isn't nearly long enough to figure out what it's all about.

A light wife doth make a heavy husband.

— Wm. Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"

A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.

— Aristotle

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

— Alan Perlis

A list is only as strong as its weakest link.

— Don Knuth

A little experience often upsets a lot of theory.

A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation.

— C.E. Ayres

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.

— H.H. Munro, "Saki"

A little kid went up to Santa and asked him, "Santa, you know when I'm bad right?" And Santa says, "Yes, I do." The little kid then asks, "And you know when I'm sleeping?" To which Santa replies, "Every minute." So the little kid then says, "Well, if you know when I'm bad and when I'm good, then how come you don't know what I want for Christmas?"

A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects, those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers. Consider Unix, APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS.

— Fred Brooks

A little word of doubtful number, A foe to rest and peaceful slumber. If you add an "s" to this, Great is the metamorphosis. Plural is plural now no more, And sweet what bitter was before. What am I?

A log may float in a river, but that does not make it a crocodile.

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 lost ounce of gold may be found, a lost moment of time never.

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 lover without indiscretion is no lover at all.

— Thomas Hardy

A major, with wonderful force, Called out in Hyde Park for a horse. All the flowers looked round, But no horse could be found; So he just rhododendron, of course.

A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who has never owned a car.

— Carrie Snow

A man always needs to remember one thing about a beautiful woman. Somewhere, somebody's tired of her.