General Wisdom

A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that begins to bunch them.

— Mencken

A man arrived home early to find his wife in the arms of his best friend, who swore how much they were in love. To quiet the enraged husband, the lover suggested, "Friends shouldn't fight, let's play gin rummy. If I win, you get a divorce so I can marry her. If you win, I promise never to see her again. Okay?" "Alright," agreed the husband. "But how about a quarter a point on the side to make it interesting?"

A man can have two, maybe three love affairs while he's married. After that it's cheating.

— Yves Montand

A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she's a tramp.

— Joan Rivers

A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself.

— Du Bois

A man fell off a mountain and, as he fell, saw a branch and grabbed for it. By superhuman effort he was able to get a precarious grip on it. As he was hanging there for dear life, he looked up and cried out, "Is anybody there?" A deep majestic voice answered, "Yes my son, I am here. What do you need?" "Help me!!" cried the man. "I will help you", said the voice, "Just let go of the branch and you'll be safe. All you have to do is trust." The man thought for a moment and cried out: "Anybody ELSE up there?"

A man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.

— Alexander Smith

A man goes into a bar and begins to tell a Polish joke. The man sitting next to him, a big hulking powerhouse, turns and says menacingly, "*I'm* Polish." He then calls out, "Ivan! Come over here and bring your brother." Two men, bigger than the first, appear from the back room. "Josef!" the man calls out, "come here a second, and bring Lendl with you." Two more men appear, and all five men crowd around the man with the joke. "Now," says the first Polish man, "do you want to finish that joke?" "Nah," says the man. "Oh, no? And why not? I'm sure it was very funny," says the Polish man, opening and closing his fist. "Are you scared?" "No," replies the man. "I just don't feel like having to explain it five times."

A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished.

— Zsa Zsa Gabor, "Newsweek"

A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him.

— Brendan Francis

A man is crawling through the Sahara desert when he is approached by another man riding on a camel. When the rider gets close enough, the crawling man whispers through his sun-parched lips, "Water... please... can you give... water..." "I'm sorry," replies the man on the camel, "I don't have any water with me. But I'd be delighted to sell you a necktie." "Tie?" whispers the man. "I need *water*." "They're only four dollars apiece." "I need *water*." "Okay, okay, say two for seven dollars." "Please! I need *water*!", says the man. "I don't have any water, all I have are ties," replies the salesman, and he heads off into the distance. The man, losing track of time, crawls for what seems like days. Finally, nearly dead, sun-blind and with his skin peeling and blistering, he sees a restaurant in the distance. Summoning the last of his strength he staggers up to the door and confronts the head waiter. "Water... can I get... water," the dying man manages to stammer. "I'm sorry, sir, ties required."

A man is known by the company he organizes.

— A. Bierce

A man is like a rusty wheel on a rusty cart, He sings his song as he rattles along and then he falls apart.

— Richard Thompson

A man is only as old as the woman he feels.

— Groucho Marx

A man is walking along when he sees a funeral procession going by, the longest procession he's ever seen. It seems to consist of the hearse, followed by a man with a Doberman on a leash, followed by several hundred other men. After watching for a few minutes, he can restrain his curiosity no longer, and walks up to one of the mourners. "Excuse me, sir, I don't mean to bother you in your moment of grief, but this is the strangest procession I've ever seen. What happened, who is the funeral for?" "Well, it's nothing special, really, the funeral is for the mother- in-law of the man at the front of the procession. You see, his Doberman attacked and killed her." "That's awful!", replies the onlooker. "But... um... tell me, you don't think he'd let me borrow that dog, do you?" "Get in line, buddy," replies the mourner, "get in line."

A man is walking down the street when he sees a man with four arms, and antennae coming out of his head. He goes up to him and says, "You're not from around here, are you?" "No," replies the man with the antennae. "You know," continues the man, "I don't think you're an American, either. In fact, I bet you don't even come from this planet!" "Right again," says the man with four arms. "I'm from Mars." "Well," says the man, "that's quite some configuration you've got there, with those four arms and those antennae and everything." "We Martians all have four arms and antennae." "Well, that's just amazing," replies the man, "and how about that big gold colored plate in the middle of your chest, what's that, do all Martians have that?" "Well, no," says the Martian. "Not the *goyim*."

A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.

— W. Somerset Maugham, "The Circle"

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

— Samuel Johnson

A man may sometimes be forgiven the kiss to which he is not entitled, but never the kiss he has not the initiative to claim.

A man may well bring a horse to the water, but he cannot make him drink with he will.

— John Heywood

A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

— James Joyce, "Ulysses"

A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.

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 took his wife deer hunting for the first time. After he'd given her some basic instructions, they agreed to separate and rendezvous later. Before he left, he warned her if she should fell a deer to be wary of hunters who might beat her to the carcass and claim the kill. If that happened, he told her, she should fire her gun three times into the air and he would come to her aid. Shortly after they separated, he heard a single shot, followed quickly by the agreed upon signal. Running to the scene, he found his wife standing in a small clearing with a very nervous man staring down her gun barrel. "He claims this is his," she said, obviously very upset. "She can keep it, she can keep it!" the wide-eyed man replied. "I just want to get my saddle back!"

A man usually falls in love with a woman who asks the kinds of questions he is able to answer.

— Ronald Colman

A man was griping to his friend about how he hated to go home after a late card games. "You wouldn't believe what I go through to avoid waking my wife," he said. "First, I kill the engine a block away from the house and coast into the garage. Then I open the door slowly, take off my shoes, and tiptoe to our room. But just as I'm about to slide into bed, she always wakes up and gives me hell." "I make a big racket when I go home," his friend replied. "You do?" "Sure. I honk the horn, slam the door, turn on all the lights, stomp up to the bedroom and give my wife a big kiss. `Hi, Alice,' I say. `How about a little smooch for your old man?'" "And what does she say?" his friend asked in disbelief. "She doesn't say anything," his buddy replied. "She always pretends she's asleep."

A man was kneeling by a grave in a cemetery, crying and praying very loudly, "Oh why..eeeee did you die...eeeeee, Oh Why..eeeeee, why did you Di......eeee" The caretaker walks up, pardons himself and asks politely, "Excuse me, sir, but I've been seeing you for hours now, carrying on at this grave. You must have been very close to the deceased." "No, I never met him. Oh why....eeeee did you dieeeeee, why....eeeee did you.." "Sir, you say you never met this person, yet you carry on so? Tell, me who is buried here?" "My wife's first husband."

A man who cannot seduce men cannot save them either.

— Soren Kierkegaard

A man who carries a cat by its tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

A man who fishes for marlin in ponds will put his money in Etruscan bonds.

A man who likes to lie in bed can usually find a girl willing to listen to him.

A man who turns green has eschewed protein.

A man with 3 wings and a dictionary is cousin to the turkey.

A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never quite sure.

A man without a God is like a fish without a bicycle.

A man without a woman is like a fish without gills.

A man without a woman is like a statue without pigeons.

A man would still do something out of sheer perversity - he would create destruction and chaos - just to gain his point... and if all this could in turn be analyzed and prevented by predicting that it would occur, then man would deliberately go mad to prove his point.

— Feodor Dostoevsky, "Notes From the Underground"

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

A man's best friend is his dogma.

A man's gotta know his limitations.

— Clint Eastwood, "Dirty Harry"

A man's house is his castle.

— Sir Edward Coke

A man's house is his hassle.

A master was asked the question, "What is the Way?" by a curious monk. "It is right before your eyes," said the master. "Why do I not see it for myself?" "Because you are thinking of yourself." "What about you: do you see it?" "So long as you see double, saying `I don't', and `you do', and so on, your eyes are clouded," said the master. "When there is neither `I' nor `You', can one see it?" "When there is neither `I' nor `You', who is the one that wants to see it?"

A mathematician, a doctor, and an engineer are walking on the beach and observe a team of lifeguards pumping the stomach of a drowned woman. As they watch, water, sand, snails and such come out of the pump. The doctor watches for a while and says: "Keep pumping, men, you may yet save her!!" The mathematician does some calculations and says: "According to my understanding of the size of that pump, you have already pumped more water from her body than could be contained in a cylinder 4 feet in diameter and 6 feet high." The engineer says: "I think she's sitting in a puddle."

A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.

— P. Erdos

A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost.

A memorandum is written not to inform the reader, but to protect the writer.

— Dean Acheson

A method of solution is perfect if we can forsee from the start, and even prove, that following that method we shall attain our aim.

— Leibnitz

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 mighty creature is the germ, Though smaller than the pachyderm. His customary dwelling place Is deep within the human race. His childish pride he often pleases By giving people strange diseases. Do you, my poppet, feel infirm? You probably contain a germ.

— Ogden Nash

A mind is a wonderful thing to waste.

A modem is a baudy house.

A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object in the whole creation.

— Goldsmith

A Mormon is a man that has the bad taste and the religion to do what a good many other people are restrained from doing by conscientious scruples and the police.

— Mr. Dooley

A mother mouse was taking her large brood for a stroll across the kitchen floor one day when the local cat, by a feat of stealth unusual even for its species, managed to trap them in a corner. The children cowered, terrified by this fearsome beast, plaintively crying, "Help, Mother! Save us! Save us! We're scared, Mother!" Mother Mouse, with the hopeless valor of a parent protecting its children, turned with her teeth bared to the cat, towering huge above them, and suddenly began to bark in a fashion that would have done any Doberman proud. The startled cat fled in fear for its life. As her grateful offspring flocked around her shouting "Oh, Mother, you saved us!" and "Yay! You scared the cat away!" she turned to them purposefully and declared, "You see how useful it is to know a second language?"

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

— Frost

A motion to adjourn is always in order.

A mouse is an elephant built by the Japanese.

A mushroom cloud has no silver lining.

A musician, an artist, an architect: the man or woman who is not one of these is not a Christian.

— William Blake

A myth is a religion in which no-one any longer believes.

— James Feibleman, "Understanding Philosophy"

A narcissist is anyone better-looking than you.

— Gore Vidal

A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.

— Gore Vidal

A nasty looking dwarf throws a knife at you.

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.

— Alexander Hamilton

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 'chutist had just jumped from the plane at 10,000 feet, and soon discovered that all his lines were hopelessly tangled. At about 5,000 feet, still struggling, he noticed someone coming up from the ground at about the same speed as he was going towards the ground. As they passed each other at 3,000 feet, the 'chutist yells, "HEY! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT PARACHUTES?" The reply came, fading towards the end, "NO! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT COLEMAN STOVES?"

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 taste had been acquired and a new appetite began to grow. The time had long since arrived to crush the technical intelligentsia, which had come to regard itself as too irreplaceable and had not gotten used to catching instructions on the wing. In other words, we never did trust the engineers - and from the very first years of the Revolution we saw to it that those lackeys and servants of former capitalist bosses were kept in line by healthy suspicion and surveillance by the workers.

— Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago"

A New Way of Taking Pills A physician one night in Wisconsin being disturbed by a burglar, and having no ball or shot for his pistol, noiselessly loaded the weapon with small, hard pills, and gave the intruder a "prescription" which he thinks will go far towards curing the rascal of a very bad ailment.

— Nevada Morning Transcript, January 30, 1861

A New Yorker is riding down the road in his new Mercedes. So intent is he on the cocaine in his hand he completely misses a turn and his car plunges over the five-hundred-foot cliff to be smashed into pieces at the bottom. As the on-lookers rush to the edge of the cliff they see him fifty feet from the top of the cliff clinging to a stunted bush with all his strength. "Dear Lord," he prays, "I never asked you for nothin' before, but I'm askin' you now: Save me, Lord, save me." Booms the Lord: "LET GO OF THE BRANCH." "But Lord, if I do that, I'll fall!" "TRUST ME, LET GO OF THE BRANCH." "But Lord, I'm gonna fall and die..." "TRUST ME TO SAVE YOU. LET GO OF THE BRANCH." Okay, Lord, I'll trust you, here I... here I go!" And he falls to his death. "DUMB YANKEE."

A New Yorker was driving through Berkeley when he saw a big crowd gathered by the side of the street. Curiousity got the better of him and he leaned out of his window to ask an onlooker what was going on. The fellow explained that a protestor against the U.S. position in South America had doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. "That's terrible," gasped the man. "But why is everyone still standing around?" "Well, they're taking up a collection for his wife and kids," the onlooker explained. "Would you be willing to help?" "Well, sure," replied the New Yorker. "I suppose I could spare a gallon or two."

A newspaper is a circulating library with high blood pressure.

— Arthure "Bugs" Baer

A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.

— Yogi Berra

A Nixon [is preferable to] a Dean Rusk -- who will be passionately wrong with a high sense of consistency.

— J.K. Galbraith

A non-vegetarian anti-abortionist is a contradiction in terms.

— Phyllis Schlafly

A novice asked the Master: "Here is a programmer that never designs, documents or tests his programs. Yet all who know him consider him one of the bests programmer in the world. Why is this?" The Master replies: "That programmer has mastered the Tao. He has gone beyond the need for design; he does not become angry when the system crashes, but accepts the universe without concern. He has gone beyond the need for documentation; he no longer cares if anyone else sees his code. He has gone beyond the need for testing; each of his programs are perfect within themselves, serene and elegant, their purpose self-evident. Truly, he has entered the mystery of Tao."

A novice of the temple once approached the Chief Priest with a question. "Master, does Emacs have the Buddha nature?" the novice asked. The Chief Priest had been in the temple for many years and could be relied upon to know these things. He thought for several minutes before replying. "I don't see why not. It's got bloody well everything else." With that, the Chief Priest went to lunch. The novice suddenly achieved enlightenment, several years later. Commentary: His Master is kind, Answering his FAQ quickly, With thought and sarcasm.

A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.

A pain in the ass of major dimensions.

— C.A. Desoer, on the solution of non-linear circuits

A Parable of Modern Research: Bob has lost his keys in a room which is dark except for one brightly lit corner. "Why are you looking under the light, you lost them in the dark!" "I can only see here."

A paranoid is a man who knows a little of what's going on.

— William S. Burroughs

A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants.

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

— Gloria Steinem

A pencil with no point needs no eraser.

"A penny for your thoughts?" "A dollar for your death."

— The Odd Couple

A penny saved has not been spent.

A penny saved is a penny taxed.

A penny saved is ridiculous.

A penny saved kills your career in government.

A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures on armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain.

— Anatole France

A perfectly honest woman, a woman who never flatters, who never manages, who never cajoles, who never conceals, who never uses her eyes, who never speculates on the effect which she produces, who never is conscious of unspoken admiration, what a monster, I say, would such a female be!

— Thackeray

A person forgives only when they are in the wrong.

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

A person who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal.

A person who has nothing looks at all there is and wants something. A person who has something looks at all there is and wants all the rest.

A person who is more than casually interested in computers should be well schooled in machine language, since it is a fundamental part of a computer.

— Donald Knuth

A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.

— Elbert Hubbard

A physicist is an atoms way of knowing about atoms.

— George Wald

A pickup with three guys in it pulls into the lumber yard. One of the men gets out and goes into the office. "I need some four-by-two's," he says. "You must mean two-by-four's" replies the clerk. The man scratches his head. "Wait a minute," he says, "I'll go check." Back, after an animated conversation with the other occupants of the truck, he reassures the clerk, that, yes, in fact, two-by-fours would be acceptable. "OK," says the clerk, writing it down, "how long you want 'em?" The guy gets the blank look again. "Uh... I guess I better go check," he says. He goes back out to the truck, and there's another animated conversation. The guy comes back into the office. "A long time," he says, "we're building a house".

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 pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth.

A place for everything and everything in its place.

— Isabella Mary Beeton, "The Book of Household Management" [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when refe

A platitude is simply a truth repeated till people get tired of hearing it.

— Stanley Baldwin

A plethora of individuals with expertise in culinary techniques contaminate the potable concoction produced by steeping certain edible nutriments.

A plucked goose doesn't lay golden eggs.

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.

A Polish worker walks into a bank to deposit his paycheck. He has heard about Poland's economic problems, and he asks what would happen to his money if the bank collapsed. "All of our deposits are guaranteed by the finance ministry, sir," the teller replies. "But what if the finance ministry goes broke?" the worker asks. "Then the government will intercede to protect the working class," the teller says. "But what if the government goes broke?" the worker asks. "Our socialist comrades in the Soviet Union naturally will come to our assistance," the teller responds with growing irritation. "And if the Soviet Union goes broke?" the worker asks. "Idiot!" the teller snorts. "Isn't that worth losing one lousy paycheck?"

— Making the rounds in Warsaw, 1984

A political man can have as his aim the realization of freedom, but he has no means to realize it other than through violence.

— Jean Paul Sartre

A possum must be himself, and being himself he is honest.

— Walt Kelly

A pound of salt will not sweeten a single cup of tea.

A "practical joker" deserves applause for his wit according to its quality. Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling. But staking him out on an anthill should be reserved for the very wittiest.

— Lazarus Long

A prediction is worth twenty explanations.

— K. Brecher

A pretty foot is one of the greatest gifts of nature... please send me your last pair of shoes, already worn out in dancing... so I can have something of yours to press against my heart.

— Goethe

A pretty woman can do anything; an ugly woman must do everything.

A priest advised Voltaire on his death bed to renounce the devil. Replied Voltaire, "This is no time to make new enemies."

A priest asked: What is Fate, Master? And the Master 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

A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions.

— George Eliot

A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.

— Sir Winston Churchill, 1952

A private sin is not so prejudicial in the world as a public indecency.

— Miguel de Cervantes

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 incomprehensible 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 newsmagazine

A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.

A prohibitionist is the sort of man one wouldn't care to drink with -- even if he drank.

— Mencken

A prominent broadcaster, on a big-game safari in Africa, was taken to a watering hole where the life of the jungle could be observed. As he looked down from his tree platform and described the scene into his tape recorder, he saw two gnus grazing peacefully. So preoccupied were they that they failed to observe the approach of a pride of lions led by two magnificent specimens, obviously the leaders. The lions charged, killed the gnus, and dragged them into the bushes where their feasting could not be seen. A little while later the two kings of the jungle emerged and the radioman recorded on his tape: "Well, that's the end of the gnus and here, once again, are the head lions."

A promiscuous person is usually someone who is getting more sex than you are.

— Victor Lownes

A proper wife should be as obedient as a slave... The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities -- a natural defectiveness.

— Aristotle

A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive questions your wife asks you for nothing.

— Joey Adams

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

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 rabbi and a priest are sitting together on a train, and the rabbi leans over and asks, "So, how high can you advance in your organization?" The priest replies, "Well, if I am lucky, I guess I could become a Bishop." "Well, could you get any higher than that?" "I suppose that if my works are seen in a very good light that I might be made an Archbishop." "Is there any way that you might go higher than that?" "If all the Saints should smile, I guess I could be made a Cardinal." "Could you be anything higher than a Cardinal?" Hesitating a little bit, the priest said, "I supose that I could be elected Pope, but only if it's God's will." "And could you be anything higher than that, is there any way to go up from being the Pope?" "What?! I should be the Messiah himself?!" The rabbi leaned back and smiled. "One of our boys made it."

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 racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family.

— Saul Alinsky

A real diplomat is one who can cut his neighbor's throat without having his neighbour notice it.

— Trygve Lie

A real estate agent, looking over a farmer's house for possible sale, commented to the farmer how sturdy the house looked. The farmer replied, "Yep, built it with my bare hands... did it the hard way. The steps to the front door, here, carved 'em out of field stones... did it the hard way. That hardwood floor in the living room, dovetailed the pieces myself... did it the hard way. The ceiling beams, made 'em out of my own oak trees... did it the hard way." Just then, the farmer's gorgeous daughter walked in. The farmer looks over at the real estate agent who is trying not to stare too obviously and smiles. "Yep... standing up in a canoe."

A real friend isn't someone you use once and then throw away. A real friend is someone you can use over and over again.

A real gentleman never takes bases unless he really has to.

— Overheard in an algebra lecture.

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

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 rich man told me recently that a liberal is a man who tells other people what to do with their money.

— Imamu Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones)

A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you.

— Ramsey Clark

A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all Heaven in a rage.

— Blake

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 rolling disk gathers no MOS.

A rolling stone gathers momentum.

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

— Publilius Syrus

A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?" holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. Yet, added he, none of you can tell where it pinches me.

— Plutarch

A rope lying over the top of a fence is the same length on each side. It weighs one third of a pound per foot. On one end hangs a monkey holding a banana, and on the other end a weight equal to the weight of the monkey. The banana weighs two ounces per inch. The rope is as long (in feet) as the age of the monkey (in years), and the weight of the monkey (in ounces) is the same as the age of the monkey's mother. The combined age of the monkey and its mother is thirdy years. One half of the weight of the monkey, plus the weight of the banana, is one forth as much as the weight of the weight and the weight of the rope. The monkey's mother is half as old as the monkey will be when it is three times as old as its mother was when she she was half as old as the monkey will be when when it is as old as its mother will be when she is four times as old as the monkey was when it was twice as its mother was when she was one third as old as the monkey was when it was old as is mother was when she was three times as old as the monkey was when it was one fourth as old as it is now. How long is the banana?

A rose is a rose is a rose. Just ask Jean Marsh, known to millions of PBS viewers in the '70s as Rose, the maid on the BBC export "Upstairs, Downstairs." Though Marsh has since gone on to other projects, ... it's with Rose she's forever identified. So much so that she even likes to joke about having one named after her, a distinction not without its drawbacks. "I was very flattered when I heard about it, but when I looked up the official description, it said, `Jean Marsh: pale peach, not very good in beds; better up against a wall.' I want to tell you that's not true. I'm very good in beds as well."

A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space.

— Thomas Carlyle, looking at the stars

A sadist is a masochist who follows the Golden Rule.

A Scholar asked his Master, "Master, would you advise me of a proper vocation?" The Master replied, "Some men can earn their keep with the power of their minds. Others must use thier strong backs, legs and hands. This is the same in nature as it is with man. Some animals acquire their food easily, such as rabbits, hogs and goats. Other animals must fiercely struggle for their sustenance, like beavers, moles and ants. So you see, the nature of the vocation must fit the individual. "But I have no abilities, desires, or imagination, Master," the scholer sobbed. Queried the Master... "Have you thought of becoming a salesperson?"

A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

— Max Planck

A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1831

A sense of desolation and uncertainty, of futility, of the baselessness of aspirations, of the vanity of endeavor, and a thirst for a life giving water which seems suddenly to have failed, are the signs in conciousness of this necessary reorganization of our lives. It is difficult to believe that this state of mind can be produced by the recognition of such facts as that unsupported stones always fall to the ground.

— J.W.N. Sullivan

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 sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to imitating yourself.

— Don Marquis

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 sharper perspective on this matter is particularly important to feminist thought today, because a major tendency in feminism has constructed the problem of domination as a drama of female vulnerability victimized by male aggression. Even the more sophisticated feminist thinkers frequently shy away from the analysis of submission, for fear that in admitting woman's participation in the relationship of domination, the onus of responsibility will appear to shift from men to women, and the moral victory from women to men. More generally, this has been a weakness of radical politics: to idealize the oppressed, as if their politics and culture were untouched by the system of domination, as if people did not participate in their own submission. To reduce domination to a simple relation of doer and done-to is to substitute moral outrage for analysis.

— Jessica Benjamin, "The Bonds of Love"

A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.

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

— Prof. Steiner

A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.

— Joseph Stalin

A single flow'r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet-- One perfect rose. I knew the language of the floweret; "My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose." Love long has taken for his amulet One perfect rose. Why is it no one ever sent me yet One perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it's always just my luck to get One perfect rose.

— Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose"

A sinking ship gathers no moss.

— Donald Kaul

A small town that cannot support one lawyer can always support two.

A Smith & Wesson beats four aces.

A snake lurks in the grass.

— Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil)

A social scientist, studying the culture and traditions of a small North African tribe, found a woman still practicing the ancient art of matchmaking. Locally, she was known as the Moor, the marrier.

A society in which women are taught anything but the management of a family, the care of men, and the creation of the future generation is a society which is on its way out.

— L. Ron Hubbard

A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger.

— Proverbs 15:1

A soft drink turneth away company.

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

— Mark Twain

A song in time is worth a dime.

A squeegee by any other name wouldn't sound as funny.

A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years.

— Harry S. Truman

A statistician, who refused to fly after reading of the alarmingly high probability that there will be a bomb on any given plane, realized that the probability of there being two bombs on any given flight is very low. Now, whenever he flies, he carries a bomb with him.

A stitch in time saves nine.

"...A strange enigma is man!" "Someone calls him a soul concealed in an animal," I suggested. "Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes. "He remarked that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician."

— Sherlock Holmes, "The Sign of Four"

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

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

— O'Henry

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

A stunning blonde, but probably all bean dip above the eyebrows.

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

— S.C. Johnson

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.

— Burt Bacharach

A tall, dark stranger will have more fun than you.

A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.

— Michael Winner, British film director

A Texan, impressing the hell out of a Bostonian with tales about the heroes of the Alamo, commented, "I'll bet you never had anyone that brave around *Boston*." "Ever hear of Paul Revere?", snarled the Bostonian. "Paul Revere?", pondered the Texan. "Isn't he the guy who ran for help?"

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

— Oscar Wilde, "The Portrait of Mr. W.H."

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

— Ambrose Bierce

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

A traveling salesman was driving past a farm when he saw a pig with three wooden legs executing a magnificent series of backflips and cartwheels. Intrigued, he drove up to the farmhouse, where he found an old farmer sitting in the yard watching the pig. "That's quite a pig you have there, sir" said the salesman. "Sure is, son," the farmer replied. "Why, two years ago, my daughter was swimming in the lake and bumped her head and damned near drowned, but that pig swam out and dragged her back to shore." "Amazing!" the salesman exlaimed. "And that's not the only thing. Last fall I was cuttin' wood up on the north forty when a tree fell on me. Pinned me to the ground, it did. That pig run up and wiggled underneath that tree and lifted it off of me. Saved my life." "Fantastic! the salesman said. But tell me, how come the pig has three wooden legs?" The farmer stared at the newcomer in amazement. "Mister, when you got an amazin' pig like that, you don't eat him all at once."

A true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.

— Shaw

A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.

A truly wise woman never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.

A truth that's told with bad intent Beats all the lies you can invent.

— William Blake

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

— John Ciardi

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

— Tenessee Williams