Date: 22 Sep 93 11:15:24 PDT (Wednesday)
Subject: Life A.Q
The following were sifted out of alt.quotations
----------------------------------------------------
the following were sifted out of alt.quotations by
Keith Hendrickson:omaha
--------------------------
From: fnord@cs.mcgill.ca (Andrew KUCHLING)
Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while
Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United
States.
- J. Bartlett Brebner
I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical, / I
understand equations, both the simple and quadratical, / About
binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot of news-- / With many
cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
- Gilbert & Sullivan
- The Pirates of Penzance
If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a
conformist it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to
the prevailing standard of nonconformity.
- Bill Vaughan
A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits.
- Woodrow Wilson
A person who lacks the means, within himself, to live a
good and happy life will find any period of his existence
wearisome.
- Cicero
- On Old Age
Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is
finite. This is a very comforting thought-- particularly for
people who can never remember where they have left things.
- Woody Allen
--------------------------
From: pbray@envy.reed.edu (Public account)
ROGER ASCHAM 1515 1568
I said how, and why, young children, were sooner allured by love,
than driven by beating, to attain good learning.
The Schoolmaster (1570), preface
There is no such whetstone, to sharpen a good wit and encourage
a will to learning, as is praise.
FRANCIS BACON 1561 1626
For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge)
is an impression of pleasure in itself.
Advancement of Learning, I.i.3
--------------------------
From: caldwell@engin.umich.edu (Bob Topping)
Being bored the other day, and having access to a copy of Bartlett's Familiar,
I decided to go through and find a variety of "last words". These are all
from the "Fifteenth and 125th Anniversary Edition", 1980.
This is the fourth?
-Thomas Jefferson, 4 July 1826.
This is the last of earth! I am content.
-John Quincy Adams, 21 February 1848.
Of course he [God] will forgive me; that's his business. [Bien sur, il me
pardonnera; c'est son metier.]
-Heinrich Heine, 1856.
I now have no time to be tired.
-Wilhelm I, 8 March 1888.
So little done--so much to do.
-Cecil John Rhodes {Founder of the Rhodes Scholarships}, 1902.
Turn up the lights--I don't want to go home in the dark.
-O. Henry [William Sydney Porter], 5 June 1910.
I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or
bitterness towards anyone.
-Edith Cavell, before her execution by the Germans,
12 October 1915.
--------------------------
From: johna@bigboy (John Abbe)
"Everybody experiences far more than he understands. Yet it is
experience, rather than understanding, that influences behavior."
--Marshall Mcluhan
--------------------------
From: CSMSPCN@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU
"As my friends will tell you, I have an very good memory.
It just isn't very long." -- Keneth Iverson
--------------------------
From: adwright@iastate.edu ()
"In a cats mind, all things belong to cats"
--------------------------
From: haavardf@elektron.uio.no (Haavard Fosseng)
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the
ability to learn from the experience of others, are also
remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
-- Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had
been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good
divine that follows his own instructions; I can easier teach twenty
what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine
own teaching.
-- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
Why waste time learning when ignorance is instantaneous?
Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.
-- B. F. Skinner
We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them
to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up.
-- Phyllis Diller
--------------------------
From: "John Lacey" [johnl@cs.indiana.edu]
A young man went to Socrates and asked to be taught.
Socrates led the man down to the sea, and waded in. The young man
hesitated, but followed Socrates until they were both chest deep
in the water. Socrates then pushed the young man's head under the
water and held it there for some time, though the young man
struggled (Socrates was known for being hale).
Finally he released the young man, and waded back to dry land. Then
Socrates questioned the man. `What did you most want just now?'
The young man replied, `Air.' `When you want knowledge as much as
you just wanted air, you shall have it.'
----------------------------------------------------
From: reda@watnow.uwaterloo.ca (Reda Ezzat FAYEK)
Subj: From a father to his son
Read in ths month's Reader's Digest.
Condensed from "Life's Little Instruction Book, Volume II"
by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
-----
Remember that no time spent with your children is ever wasted.
Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
Do your homework and know your facts, but remember that it's
passion that persuades.
Learn three knock-knock jokes so you'll always be ready to
entertain children.
When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile
and say "Why do you want to know?"
Don't be so concerned with your rights that you forget your
manners.
Don't dismiss a good idea just because you don't like the source.
Rake a big pile of leaves every fall and jump in it with someone
you love.
--------------------------
The following are selections from a Terry Prachett quote file maintained by:
leo@cp.tn.tudelft.nl (Leo Breebaart)
--------
"I saw a film where there was an alien crawling around inside a spaceship's
air ducts and it could come out wherever it liked," said Johnny reproachfully.
"Doubtless it had a map," said the Captain.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)
"What is this thing, anyway?" said the Dean, inspecting the implement in
his hands.
"It's called a shovel," said the Senior Wrangler. "I've seen the gardeners
use them. You stick the sharp end in the ground. Then it gets a bit
technical."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)
"'E's fighting in there!" he stuttered, grabbing the captain's arm.
"All by himself?" said the captain.
"No, with everyone!" shouted Nobby, hopping from one foot to the other.
-- Making Friends and Hitting People
(Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)
Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in
your home.
-- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)
Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant "idiot".
-- (Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic)
The only way housework could be done in this place was with a shovel or,
for preference, a match.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)
Nanny Ogg quite liked cooking, provided there were other people around to
do things like chop up the vegetables and wash the dishes afterwards.
-- Home Pragmatics
(Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)
Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam.
Many worthwhile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and
subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of
understanding of this simple fact.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)
"The thing is that Mr. Dibbler can even sell sausages to people who have
bought them off him *before*."
-- Now *that's* marketing
(Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)
"I'm vice-president of Throwing Out People Mr Dibbler Doesn't like the
Face of."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)
"These people where not only cheering, they were throwing flowers and hats.
The hats were made of stone, but the thought was there."
-- Life among the primitive Discworld tribes
(Terry Pratchett, Eric)
Not matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got
there first, and is waiting for it.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)
Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was like a
red flag to a bu-- was like putting something very annoying in front of
someone who was annoyed by it.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)
In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the
cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat
could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
-- Schrodinger's Moggy explained
(Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)
The labyrinth of Ephebe is ancient and full of one hundred and one amazing
things you can do with hidden springs, razor-sharp knives, and falling
rocks.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
"Not a man to mince words. People, yes. But not words."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Shadwell hated all southerners and, by inference, was standing at the
North Pole.
-- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)
Wobbler had written an actual computer game like this once. It was called
"Journey to Alpha Centauri". It was a screen with some dots on it.
Because, he said, it happened in *real time*, which no-one had ever heard
of until computers. He'd seen on TV that it took three thousand years to
get to Alpha Centauri. He had written it so that if anyone kept their
computer on for three thousand years, they'd be rewarded by a little dot
appearing in the middle of the screen, and then a message saying, "Welcome
to Alpha Centauri. Now go home."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)
The only things known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy,
according to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you
can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap
between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to
the heir *instantaneously*. Presumably, he said, there must be some
elementary particles -- kingons, or possibly queons -- that do this job,
but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an
anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to
send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to
modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the
bar closed.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Mort)
- I USHERED SOULS INTO THE NEXT WORLD. I WAS THE GRAVE OF ALL HOPE. I
WAS THE ULTIMATE REALITY. I WAS THE ASSASSIN AGAINST WHOM NO LOCK
WOULD HOLD.
- "Yes, point taken, but do you have any particular skills?"
-- Death consults a job broker
(Terry Pratchett, Mort)
"It's going to look pretty good, then, isn't it," said War testily, "the
One Horseman and Three Pedestrians of the Apocralypse."
-- The Four Horsemen of the Apocralypse encounter
unexpected difficulties
(Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)
He moved in a way that suggested he was attempting the world speed record
for the nonchalant walk.
-- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)
Something small and distant broke through the cloud layer, trailing shreds
of vapour. In the stratospheric calm the sounds of bickering came sharp and
clear.
"You said you could fly one of these things!"
"No I didn't; I just said *you* couldn't!"
-- Rincewind and Twoflower attempt broomstick flying
(Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)
The librarian was, ex officio, a member of the college council. No-one had
been able to find any rule about orang-utans being barred, although they
had surreptiously looked very hard for one.
-- Unseen University politics at work
(Terry Pratchett, Eric)
People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across
the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from
behind rocks then say things like, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone
else."
-- Carrot travels to Ankh-Morpork
(Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)
He nodded to the troll which was employed by the Drum as a splatter
[footnote: Like a bouncer, but trolls use more force].
-- Nobby takes Carrot for a drink in The Mended Drum
(Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)
The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2)
Books must be returned no later than the date last shown; and 3) Do not
interfere with the nature of causality.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)
"This isn't how I imagined it, chaps," said War. "I haven't been waiting
for thousands of years just to fiddle around with bits of wire. It's not
what you'd call *dramatic*. Albrecht Duerer didn't waste his time doing
woodcuts of the Four Button-Pressers of the Apocalypse, I do know that."
-- Armageddon delayed by technical difficulties
(Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)
They both savoured the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than
ordinary people, who were only ignorant of ordinary things.
-- Discworld scientists at work
(Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)
"You get more air close to the ground," said Angalo. "I read that in a
book. You get lots of air low down, and not much when you go up."
"Why not?" said Gurder.
"Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."
-- The nomes discuss science
(Terry Pratchett, Wings)
- "What's the human singing about, Thing?" said Masklin.
- "It is a little difficult to follow. However, it appears that the singer
wishes it to be known that he did something his way."
- "Did what?"
- "Insufficient data at this point. But whatever it was, he did it at
a) each step along life's highway and b) not in a shy way..."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)
Granny's remedies, made from simple, honest, and generally nearly poisonous
herbs and roots, were amazing things. After one dose of stomache-ache
jollop, you made sure you never complained of stomach ache ever again. In
its way, it was a sort of cure.
-- No, not that Granny. The other one.
(Terry Pratchett, Truckers)
On the fifth day the Governor of the town called all the tribal chieftains
to an audience in the market square, to hear their grievances. He didn't
always do anything about them, but at least they got *heard*, and he nodded
a lot, and everyone felt better about it at least until they got home. This
is politics.
-- Carpet politics are very similar to Discworld politics
(Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People)
"Right, you bastards, you're... you're geography"
-- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)
I'm sure we can arrange an academic scholarship for Detritus. Troll
cheerleaers would be nice: 'Two... four.... er.. many... lots'.
-- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)
- "America?" said Mrs Liberty. "Won't we get scalped?"
- "Good grief, no!" said William Stickers, who was a bit more up to date
about the world.
- "*Probably* not," said Mr Fletcher, who had been watching the news lately
and was even more up to date than William Stickers.
-- Still looking for a good place to party
(Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead)
Sergeant Comely was working on the general assumption that where you got
lots of people gathered together, something illegal was bound to happen
sooner or later.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead)
It's not enough to be able to pick up a sword. You have to know which end to
poke into the enemy.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)
The Monks of Cool, whose tiny and exclusive monastery is hidden in a really
cool and laid-back valley in the lower Ramtops, have a passing-out test for a
novice. He is taken into a room full of all types of clothing and asked: Yo,
my son, which of these is the most stylish thing to wear? And the correct
answer is: Hey, whatever I select.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)
Granddad was superstitious about books. He thought that if you had enough
of them around, education leaked out, like radioactivity.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the dead)
"What's a philosopher ?" said Brutha.
"Someone who's bright enough to find a job with no heavy lifting,"
said a voice in his head.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
--
Henry Cate III [cate3@netcom.com]
The Life collection maintainer, selections of humor from the internet
From: "Patrick Ryan" [p.ryan@uws.edu.au]
"Honour thy father" does not mean repeat his mistakes.
Back to my Life Humor Page
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