Journal disposable60's Journal: Dada Ballet II (quotefile, part 2)
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In the beginning there was nothing... which exploded.
- The shortened Big Bang theory
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Cognitive Dissonance Is Your Friend.
- J. Michael Straczynski
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Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
- Voltaire
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Landing: a controlled mid-air collision with a planet.
- Unknown
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Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman
she meets and then teams up with three complete stangers to kill again.
- TV listing for the movie, _The Wizard of Oz_,
in the Marin Paper.
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Big Bird meets Salvador Dali has been brought to you by the numbers L
and ), and by the letter 3.
-- D. J. Green
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Why did the chicken cross the Moebius strip?
To get to the other... er... um..."
- Unknown, via Kim Asher
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You can't lick the system, but you can certainly give it a damn good
fondling..."
- the Discordian Quote File
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They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted
me.
- Nathaniel Lee, on being consigned to a mental institution,
circa 17th century.
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In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished
from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.
- Ambrose Bierce
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A free society is a place where it's safe to be unpopular.
- Adlai Stevenson
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Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human
soul.
- Samuel Clemens
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Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to
live in the real world.
- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
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Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to
time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
- Oscar Wilde
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Half of the world's misery comes from ignorance.
The other half comes from intelligence.
- Bonar Thompson
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The most violent element in society is ignorance.
- Emma Goldman
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The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant
and the most rascally individuals of mankind.
- Thomas Paine
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A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy,
education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would
indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment
and hope of reward after death.
- Albert Einstein
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The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more
certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie
through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but
through striving after rational knowledge.
- Albert Einstein
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Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities.
- Albert Einstein
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Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.
- Bertrand Russell
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Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
- Bertrand Russell
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The Christian view that all intercourse outside marriage is immoral was,
as we see in the above passages from St. Paul, based upon the view that
all sexual intercourse, even within marriage, is regrettable. A view of
this sort, which goes against biological facts, can only be regarded by
sane people as a morbid aberration. The fact that it is embedded in
Christian ethics has made Christianity throughout its whole history a
force tending towards mental disorders and unwholesome views of life.
- Bertrand Russell
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I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
- Galileo Galilei
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I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world,
and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one
redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.
- Thomas Jefferson
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The clergy believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be
exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I
have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of
tyrrany known to the mind of man.
- Thomas Jefferson
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A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least
expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your
unit.
- In the August 1993 issue, page 9, of PS magazine,
the Army's magazine of preventive maintenance
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The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what
to think - rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for
ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men.
- Bill Beattie
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Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
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I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
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Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
- Napoleon
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Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.
- Kurt Vonnegut
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An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at
all.
- Oscar Wilde
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No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If
we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people
for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love
of power.
- P. J. O'Rourke
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Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian's fault. The country
was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and
independence by daring to exercise them.
- Joseph Heller, _Catch-22_
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People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true.
It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking
responsibility for what they know.
- Brook Atkinson, _Once Around the Sun_
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All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a
philosopher.
- Ambrose Bierce
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History, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which
are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.
- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devils Dictionary_
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Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the
nature of the Unknowable.
- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devils Dictionary_
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It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no
God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
- Thomas Jefferson
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It is not disbelief that is dangerous to our society, it is belief.
- George Bernard Shaw
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I think anybody who surveys past history in an impartial manner will be
driven to the conclusion that religion has caused more suffering than it
has prevented.
- Bertrand Russell "What is an Agnostic"
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If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in,
I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my
efforts.
- Bertrand Russell "Cosmic Purpose"
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I'd hate to be a teenager at the cusp of the 21st century. It's nothing
but a siege of enforced arrested development.
- Susie Bright
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The petitions which were offered on the altars of Jupiter or Apollo
expressed the anxiety of their worshippers for temporal happiness, and
their ignorance or indifference concerning future life. The important
truth of the immortality of the soul was inculcated with more diligence
as well as success in India, in Assyria, in Egypt, and in Gaul; and
since we cannot attribute such a difference to the superior knowledge
of the barbarians, we must ascribe it to the influence of an established
priesthood, which employed the motives of virtue as the instrument of
ambition.
- Edward Gibbon
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The church of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had
acquired by fraud.
- Edward Gibbon
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The invitations of a master are scarcely distinguished from commands
- Edward Gibbon
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- Edward Gibbon
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applause
- Edward Gibbon
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apt to despise the profane virtues of sincerity and moderation.
- Edward Gibbon
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There exists in human nature a strong propensity to deprecate the
advantages, and to magnify the evils, of present times.
- Edward Gibbon
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character.
- Edward Gibbon
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the calamities of the wicked are judgements, and those of the righteous,
trials.
- Edward Gibbon
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ignorance; and the intolerant spirit, which could find neither idolaters
nor heretics, was reduced to the persecution of Jews.
- Edward Gibbon
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nations, by the most solemn protestations that each party was sincerely
desirous of peace.
- Edward Gibbon
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superior merit.
- Edward Gibbon
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It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any further reformations.
- Edward Gibbon
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His passions were strong; his understanding was feeble
- Edward Gibbon
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This opinion is only rhetoric turned into logic.
- Edward Gibbon
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- Edward Gibbon
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the human fancy can paint with more energy the misery than the bliss of
a future life.
- Edward Gibbon
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was elapsed, and he was now commanded to propagate his religion by the
sword.
- Edward Gibbon
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- Edward Gibbon
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Ignorance is the ground of suspicion
- Edward Gibbon
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Prejudice is blind, hunger is deaf
- Edward Gibbon
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The Catholic inquisitors of Europe, who defended nonsense by cruelty
- Edward Gibbon
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But it is always easy, as well as agreeable, for the inferior ranks of
mankind to claim a merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure
which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue of the primitive
Christians, like that of the first Romans, was frequently guarded by
poverty and ignorance.
- Edward Gibbon
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The voice of history, which is often little more than the organ of
hatred or flattery...
- Edward Gibbon
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In every art that he attempted his lively genius enabled him to succeed;
and as his genius was destitute of judgement, he attempted every art
except the important ones of war and government.
- Edward Gibbon
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Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
- Edward Gibbon
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But the nobles of Rome were more tenacious of property than of freedom.
- Edward Gibbon
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Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in this world,
an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.
- Edward Gibbon
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Suspicion was equivalent of proof; trial to condemnation.
- Edward Gibbon
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His virtues, and even his vices were artificial
- Edward Gibbon on Ceasar Augustus
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The fool thinks he knows many things, but really he is incapable of
fixing his gaze on the things that truly matter.
- John Paul II, pope.
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Now, at the end of this century, one of the greatest threats is the
temptation to despair.
- John Paul II, pope.
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It is a stupid society that runs an experiment to see what its breaking
points are.
- Lester Thurow
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People in general love the familiar and predictable and have "crawly"
sensations at the unfamiliar and unpredictable.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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There are only two kinds of artists: the plagiarists and the
revolutionaries.
- Paul Gauguin
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[B]ourgeois "niceness" is its own imperialism.
- Camille Paglia
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We have a gigantic educational assembly line that coercively processes
students and treats them with Ritalin or therapy if they can't sit still
in the cage.
- Camille Paglia
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The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history.
The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext
is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what
was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept
your fucking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions.
- Zappa
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Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of.
- Bumper Sticker
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If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
- Bumper Sticker
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Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
- Bumper Sticker
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The early bird gets the worm,
but the second mouse gets the cheese.
- Bumper Sticker
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When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty.
- Bumper Sticker
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Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else get your way.
- Bumper Sticker
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Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
- Bumper Sticker
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Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
- Bumper Sticker
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The first boat people were white
- Bumper Sticker
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Happiness is an automatic weapon with a belt feed
- Bumper Sticker
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A man is not truly drunk until he can't lie on the floor without
holding on.
- Dean Martin
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Clap one hand if you love Budda
- Bumper Sticker
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When evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve.
- Jello Biafra
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Normal people worry me
- Bumper Sticker
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Do Not Meddle In The Affairs Of Dragons For You Are Crunchy And Good
With Ketchup.
- Bumper Sticker
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Where There's A Whip, There's A Way.
- Bumper Sticker
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After all, religion is an adolescent social device; it takes serious
and grown-up concern -- spirituality -- and by its very nature reduces
it to both an adolescent sense of eternity and an adolescent moral
scheme in which absolutely everything is cast in stark contrasts, in
which whatever doubt and mystery can't be bleached out of human
experience is codified into ritual and myth.
- Steve Erikson, Salon Magazine, Mar. 3, 1999
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Stealing, if you do not already have money, is a perilous matter.
- C. Wright Mills
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Be satisfied with discontent. It is a road.
- Sallie Tisdale, _Second Thoughts_
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Without the influence of certain hormones, striptease is nothing but
dadaist ballet.
- Rolf Potts, Salon Magazine, Jan. 20, 1999
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Puritanism is insatiable and feeds on its own excrement.
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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You can starve in the middle of a field of wheat if your mind hasn't
identified wheat as edible.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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It was like Salvador Dali complaining Picasso wasn't realistic.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
- Pablo Picasso
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I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
- Zappa
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[A]fter the Utopian hopes of the American Declaration of Independence
and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, almost as if in
reaction, an employee of the British East India Company, Thomas Malthus,
created the first "scientific" argument that the ideals of those documents
could never be achieved. Malthus had discovered that at his time world
population was growing faster than known resources, and he assumed that
this would always be true, and that misery would always be the fate of
the majority of humanity.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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After the coming of the Holy Inquisition, nobody discovered any new
chemical elements in the Catholic nations of Europe; all the new
chemical discoveries, i.e., the majority of the elements now known,
came from Protestant nations.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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Citizens of the U.S. now suffer the surrealist humiliation of urine
testing on the job by our new Piss Police, a kind of totalitarian lunacy
never dreamed of in the wildest satires of Kafka or Orwell.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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[W]e more and more live with a technology that our alleged rulers do not
understand well enough to regulate in any way.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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[S]ome people get curious about books they are forbidden to read
- Robert Anton Wilson
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Cynics will say that, since deities and divinities do not appear in
person, this is not only Argument by Authority but also Argument by
Imposture.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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The doctrine of eminent domain, which allows the government to steal
anything it wants, is regarded with repugnance by most people, but
lawyers say it is legal and proper, because government has been stealing
things for a long time.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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The universe is a giant Rorschach ink-blot.
- Alan Watts
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[A] few weird moments can be a liberating experience for those who
aren't scared to death by them.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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These intolerable cults have served to confirm me in my agnosticism by
presenting further evidence to support my contention that when dogmas
enter the brain, all intellectual activity ceases.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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"Reality" is a word in the English language which happens to be (a) a
noun and (b) singular. Briefly, the main thing I learned in my experiments
is that "reality" is always plural and mutable.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as
one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops
thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes,
the less there is left to think about, and a person sure of everything
would never have any need to think about anything and might be
considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where
absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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[M]any people make decisions on the basis of scientific evidence, either
because they understand it, or because they think it is another form of
Argument by Authority and they are conditioned to accept whatever
Authority tells them. That's why there are so many nuclear plants around
these days.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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I believe that everything admirable in the modern world results from the
use of Argument by Experiment together with Argument by Logic (without
making an Idol of either), whereas everything heinous and terrible
results from the persistence of the older habits of Arguments by
Authority, Intimidation, Self-Interest and Legal Precedent, or the
various forms of calling the other side sons of bitches.
- Robert Anton Wilson
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[A]n Englishman never believes anybody is moral unless they are
uncomfortable.
- George Bernard Shaw
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Republicanism is a problem, but if he still has a sense of humor, maybe
you can kid him out of it.
- Mr. Blue (Garrison Keillor)
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Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
- Groucho
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If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve
enough to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts.
- Vonnegut
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Remember there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.
- Zappa
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Don't mind your make-up, you'd better make your mind up.
- Zappa
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Jazz is not dead...it just smells funny.
- Zappa
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Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?
- Zappa
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Diamonds on velvets on goldens on vixen
On comet & cupid on donner & blitzen
On up & away & afar & a go-go
Escape from the weight of your corporate logo!
- Zappa
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Some Scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the
basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is
more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of
the universe.
- Zappa
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I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm
not white.
- Zappa
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Information is not knowledge, Knowledge is not wisdom, Wisdom is not
truth, Truth is not beauty, Beauty is not love, Love is not music and
Music is THE BEST
- Zappa
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There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do
something we'd all love one another.
- Zappa
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The person who stands up and says, ``This is stupid,'' either is asked
to `behave' or, worse, is greeted with a cheerful ``Yes, we know! Isn't
it terrific!''
- Zappa
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The more BORING a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the
child, receive adulation for being GOOD PARENTS -- because they have a
TAME CHILD-CREATURE in their house.
- Zappa
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The language and concepts contained herein are guaranteed not to cause
eternal torment in the place where the guy with the horns and pointed
stick conducts his business.
- Zappa
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My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy
child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.
- Zappa
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The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the
exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows.
- Zappa
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There is no hell. There is only France.
- Zappa
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Some people crave baseball -- I find this unfathomable -- but I can
easily understand why a person could get excited about playing a bassoon.
- Zappa
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Whatever you have to do to have a good time, let's get on with it, so
long as it doesn't cause a murder.
- Zappa
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Politics is the showbiz of industry.
- Zappa
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Let's just admit that public education is mediocre at best.
- Zappa
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Without deviation from the norm, 'progress' is not possible.
- Zappa
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A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting
air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.
- Zappa
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There is no such thing as a dirty word. Nor is there a word so powerful,
that it's going to send the listener to the lake of fire upon hearing it.
- Zappa
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When did mediocrity and banality become a good image for your children?
- Zappa
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Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people
think you are?
- Zappa
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Information doesn't kill you...
- Zappa
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A lot of things wrong with society today are directly attributable to
the fact that the people who make the laws are sexually maladjusted.
- Zappa
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You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want sometimes, so
you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.
- Zappa
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Kid's heads are filled with so many nonfacts that when they get out of
school they're totally unprepared to do anything. They can't read, they
can't write, they can't think. Talk about child abuse. The U.S. school
system as a whole qualifies.
- Zappa
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Nobody looks good with brown lipstick on
- Zappa
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Filipinos want beauty. I have to look beautiful so that the poor
Filipinos will have a star to look at from their slums.
- Imelda Marcos
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I say I'm Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin all wrapped up into
one. If I die early
- Dennis Rodman, 1997
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I'm not an egomaniac like a lot of people say. But I am the world's best
dancer, that's for sure.
- Michael Flatley
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I'm not conceited. Conceit is a fault and I have no faults.
- David Lee Roth
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I am a great mayor; I am an upstanding Christian man; I am an intelligent
man; I am a deeply educated man; I am a humble man.
- Marion Barry, Mayor of Washington, DC
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I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.
- Marshall McLuhan
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Of all the things I've ever lost I miss my mind the most.
- Steven Tyler
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I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.
- David Dinkins
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I get so tired listening to one million dollars here, one million dollars
there, it's so petty.
- Imelda Marcos
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Moses dragged us through the desert to the one place in the Middle East
where there is no oil.
- Golda Meir
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Somebody's boring me . . . I think it's me.
- Dylan Thomas
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Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released
by vegetation, so let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough
emission standards from man-made sources.
- Ronald Reagan (10 Sept. 1980)
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Blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed.
- Bruce Springsteen
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Be sure to wear a good cologne, a nice aftershave lotion, and a strong
underarm deoderant. And it might be a good idea to wear some clothes,
too.
- George Burns
~
Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
- Dorothy Parker
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Buy land. They ain't making any more of the stuff.
- Will Rogers
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Have no fear of perfection- you'll never reach it.
- Salvador Dali
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If it has tires or testicles, you're going to have trouble with it.
- Linda Furney
~
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.
- Dan Quayle
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If you can't convince them, confuse them.
- Harry S Truman
~
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten.
- George Carlin
~
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
- Neil Peart
~
Impropriety is the soul of wit.
- W. Somerset Maugham
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It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
- George Bernard Shaw
~
It is useless to hold a person to anything he says while he's in love,
drunk, or running for office.
- Shirley MacLaine
~
Money will not make you happy, and happy will not make you money.
- Groucho Marx
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Red meat is not bad for you. Now blue-green meat, that's bad for you!
- Tommy Smothers
~
Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.
- Abbie Hoffman
~
Success is a great deodorant.
- Elizabeth Taylor
~
The fastest way to a man's heart is through his chest.
- Roseanne Arnold
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The future will be better tomorrow.
- Dan Quayle
~
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity.
- Nick Diamos
~
Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.
- Shelley
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We are as gods. We might as well get good at it.
- Stewart Brand
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Dare to be naive.
- R. Buckminster Fuller
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Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
- Wilde
~
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people
very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
- Douglas Adams
~
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no
account be allowed to do the job.
- Douglas Adams
~
Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because
he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst
all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good
time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more
intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons.
- Douglas Adams
~
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what
the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and
be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexeplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
- Douglas Adams
~
Arthur's consciousness approached his body as from a great distance, and
reluctantly. It had had some bad times in there.
- Douglas Adams
~
There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the
chronicler's mind.
- Douglas Adams
~
`You know they've reintroduced the death penalty for insurance
company directors?'
`Really?' said Arthur. `No I didn't. For what offence?'
Trillian frowned.
`What do you mean, offence?'
`I see.'
- Douglas Adams, from Mostly Harmless
~
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to
consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family
anatidae on our hands.
- Douglas Adams
~
The [eagle's] beak was a major piece of armoury. It was a beak that
would frighten any animal on earth, even one that was already dead and
in a tin.
- Douglas Adams
~
Virtually everything we were told in Indonesia turned out not to be true,
sometimes almost immediately. The only exception to this was when we were
told that something would happen immediately, in which case it turned out
not to be true over an extended period of time.
- Douglas Adams
~
Gratitude is a euphemism for resentment.
- Heinlein
~
Man is the animal that laughs.
- Heinlein
~
A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty
percent of all human wisdom . . . and the other twenty percent isn't
very important.
- Heinlein
~
[L]ook at it this way. Religion is a solace to many people and it is
even conceivable that some religion, somewhere, really is Ultimate Truth.
But in many cases, being religious is merely a form of conceit. The Bible
Belt faith in which I was brought up encouraged me to think that I was
better than the rest of the world; I was 'saved' and they were 'damned'
-- we were in a state of grace and the rest of the world were 'heathens'
. . . and by 'heathen' they meant such people as our brother Mahmoud.
It meant that an ignorant, stupid lout who seldom bathed and planted his
corn by the phase of the Moon could claim to know the final answers of
the Universe. That entitled him to look down his nose at everybody else.
Our hymn book was loaded with such arrogance--mindless, conceited,
self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a
high opinion he had of us and us alone, and what hell everybody else was
going to catch come Judgement Day.
- Heinlein
~
They laugh because it hurts so much . . . because it's the only thing
that'll make it stop hurting.
- Heinlein
~
Abstract design is all right--for wallpaper or linoleum. But art is the
process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very
human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of
unemotional pseudo-intellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art
is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce--render
emotional--his audience, each time.
- Heinlein
~
[O]bscurity is usually the refuge of incompetence.
- Heinlein
~
If a man swore to me on a stack of his own Bibles that he had refrained
from coveting another man's wife because the code forbade it, I would
suspect either self-deception or subnormal sexuality.
- Heinlein
~
Age does not bring wisdom
saddest perspective of all is to see far, far behind you, the temptations
you've passed up.
- Heinlein
~
Goodness without wisdom invariably accomplishes evil.
- Heinlein
~
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I
tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free
because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
- Heinlein
~
Women are amazing creatures--sweet, soft, gentle, and far more savage
than we are.
- Heinlein
~
[G]overnment is a dangerous servant and a terrible master.
- Heinlein
~
. . when faced with a problem you do not understand, do any part of it
you do understand, then look at it again.
- Heinlein
~
Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which
we live.
- Albert Einstein
~
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm
not sure about the former.
- Albert Einstein
~
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge
is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
- Albert Einstein
~
If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for
reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
- Albert Einstein
~
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
~
Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour.
Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's
relativity
- Albert Einstein
~
Faith is precious. Religion is politics.
- Don Symes
~
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious.
- Oscar Wilde
~
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about
- Oscar Wilde
~
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars
- Oscar Wilde
~
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure, and never simple
- Oscar Wilde
~
The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the
young know everything.
- Oscar Wilde
~
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is
absolutely fatal.
- Oscar Wilde
~
Scandal is gossip made tedious with morality.
- Oscar Wilde
~
Room service? Send up a larger room.
- Groucho
~
Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?
- Groucho
~
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.
- Groucho
~
You've got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I'll bet he was glad to
get rid of it.
- Groucho
~
A man's only as old as the woman he feels.
- Groucho
~
Why, I'd horse-whip you if I had a horse.
- Groucho
~
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
- Groucho
~
Reality is what you can get away with.
- Robert Anton Wilson
~
I much prefer the rules governing criminal cases in civilized countries
to the rules in the United States.
- Robert Anton Wilson
~
The argument between Left and Right now consists only of debating which
are the correct groups to hate.
- Robert Anton Wilson
~
The Constitution admittedly has a few defects and blemishes, but it still
seems a hell of a lot better than the system we have now.
- Robert Anton Wilson
~
The courts apply all criminal laws in this nation in a mild, rational
and humane manner, if the defendant is rich.
- Robert Anton Wilson
~
You know how dumb the average guy is? Well, mathematically, by definition,
half of them are even dumber than that.
- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs
~
Racism designates the ignorant, bigoted, politically incorrect dogma that
O.J. must be guilty because he is black.
Feminism designates the enlightened, educated, politically correct dogma
that O.J. must be guilty because he is male.
Please note carefully the important difference between these dogmas.
Please ignore the overwhelming similarity between them, or you will
become ah-um unfashionable.
- Robert Anton Wilson
~
Only idiots like Jesus (a potential rapist) and Buddha (another of that
ilk) ever proposed living without hate of any groups.....Oh, and
Korzybski, who described group hatreds as neurolinguistic hallucinations
symptomatic of what he called unsanity. But he was another potential
rapist.
- Robert Anton Wilson
~
Cultural configurations have a spooky fascination. The atheistic
religions of the East (Buddhism, Taoism) have the relativistic tolerance
of their theistic rivals (Hinduism, Shinto.). The atheistic religions of
the West (Marxism, Objectivism,CSICOP) have the fanatic intolerance of
their theistic rivals (Christianity, Islam etc.) I guess our cultural
configuration (emic reality) determines us in more ways that we realize.
- Robert Anton Wilson
~
When you understand that we have no "war on drugs" but only a "war on
some drugs," consult the passages on double-think and duck-speak in
Orwell's "1984" for further enlightenment on neurolinguistic mindwarping.
- Robert Anton Wilson
~
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
- Byron
~
When red-haired girls scamper like roses
over the rain-green grass,
and the sun drips honey.
- Laurie Lee
~
With just enough of learning to misquote.
- Byron
~
A thousand years scarce serve to form a state:
An hour may lay it in the dust.
- Byron
~
In solitude, where we are least alone.
- Byron
~
I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.
- Byron
~
Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.
- Byron
~
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
- Byron
~
All who joy would win
Must share it,--happiness was born a twin.
- Byron
~
But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
- Byron
~
The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.
- Byron
~
'T is strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.
- Byron
~
Society is now one polish'd horde,
Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.
- Byron
~
'T is strange, but true; for truth is always strange,--
Stranger than fiction.
- Byron
~
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because
there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not
every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite
number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is
as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all
the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows
that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any
persons you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a
deranged imagination.
- Douglas Adams
~
Some creatures that live in the lower intestines of rats would disagree,
but then creatures that live in the lower intestines of rats are highly
disagreeable anyway, so their opinions can and SHOULD be discluded.
- Douglas Adams
~
Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes
something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that,
in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.
It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though.
- Douglas Adams
~
Since this Galaxy began, vast civilizations have arisen and fallen,
risen and fallen, risen and fallen so often that it's quite
tempting to think that life in the Galaxy must be:
(a) something akin to seasick - space-sick, time sick, history
sick or some such thing, and
(b) stupid.
- Douglas Adams
~
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the
breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which
runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
- Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator, 1890
~
The hair was a Vaseline cathedral, the mouth a touchingly uncertain
sneer of allure.
- Brad Darrach, on Elvis Presley, Life, Winter, 1977
~
I have a most peaceable disposition. My desires are for a modest hut, a
thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, very fresh milk and butter,
flowers in front of my window and a few pretty trees by my door. And
should the good Lord wish to make me really happy, he will allow me the
pleasure of seeing about six or seven of my enemies hanged upon those
trees.
- Heinrich Heine
~
A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a
living thought, and may vary greatly in color and content according to
the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, opinion, Towne v. Eisner,
Jan 7, 1918
~
Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go
away.
- Carl Sandburg
~
To see the sun sink down, drowned in his pink and purple and golden
floods, and overwhelm Florence with tides of color that make all the
sharp lines dim and faint and turn the solid city to a city of dreams,
is a sight to stir the coldest nature, and make a sympathetic one drunk
with ecstasy.
- Mark Twain
~
Any political party that can't cough up anything better than a trecherous
brain-damaged old vulture like Hubert Humphrey deserves every beating it
gets. They don't hardly make 'em like Hubert any more - but just to be on
the safe side, he should be castrated anyway.
- Hunter S. Thompson
~
What makes him think a middle-aged actor, who's played with a chimp,
could have a future in politics?
- Ronald Reagan (about Clint Eastwood running for mayor of Carmel)
~
Dan Quayle is more stupid than Ronald Reagan put together.
- Matt Groening, 1993
~
If life were fair, Dan Quayle would be making a living asking, "Do you
want fries with that?"
- John Cleese
~
There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the
other is to read Pope.
- Wilde
~
America is a melting pot, the people at the bottom get burned while all
the scum floats to the top.
- Charlie King
~
He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to
a political career.
- George Bernard Shaw
~
What is art? Prostitution.
- Charles Baudelaire
~
He had delusions of adequacy.
- Walter Kerr
~
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
- Winston Churchill
~
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.
- Wilde
~
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
- Wilde
~
~
