The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared

for not by our labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in his
infinite wisdom has given control of property interests of the country, and
upon the successful management of which so much remains.
-- George F. Baer, railroad industrialist

I might be able to shoehorn a reference count in on top of the numeric

value by disallowing multiple references on scalars with a numeric value,
but it wouldn't be as clean. I do occasionally worry about that. --lwall

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

I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern,

any adequate account of that nature with which I am acquainted. Mythology
comes nearest to it of any.
-- Henry David Thoreau

I. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of
its situation.
Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He
loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to
look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per
second per second takes over.
II. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter
intervenes suddenly.
Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon
characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone
pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely.
Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the
stooge's surcease.
III. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation
conforming to its perimeter.
Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the
speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless
cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through
the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The
threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.
-- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980

A nasty looking dwarf throws a knife at you.

"Confound these ancestors.... They've stolen our best ideas!"

-- Ben Jonson

<hoponpop> my program works if i take out the bugs.

<Knghtbrd> "... you will more than likely see all kinds of compiler
warnings scrolling by on the screen. These are normal and can
be safely ignored."
<LordHavoc> Knghtbrd: is that a note attached to some M$ code?
<Knghtbrd> No, it's a note about a bunch of GNU stuff.

Let him choose out of my files, his projects to accomplish.

-- Shakespeare, "Coriolanus"

You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog.

-- Alfred Kahn

I am firm. You are obstinate. He is a pig-headed fool.

 -- Katharine Whitehorn

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

Nature abhors a virgin -- a frozen asset.

-- Clare Booth Luce

The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse.

This here's the wattle,

The emblem of our land.
You can stick it in a bottle;
You can hold it in your hand.
Amen!
-- Monty Python

Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes
may not be the same.
-- George Bernard Shaw

Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings.

You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable
proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do.

Kime's Law for the Reward of Meekness:

Turning the other cheek merely ensures two bruised cheeks.

The essential ideas of Algol 68 were that the whole language should be
precisely defined and that all the pieces should fit together smoothly.
The basic idea behind Pascal was that it didn't matter how vague the
language specification was (it took *years* to clarify) or how many rough
edges there were, as long as the CDC Pascal compiler was fast.
-- Richard A. O'Keefe

Never be afraid to tell the world who you are.

-- Anonymous

If your hands are clean and your cause is just and your demands are
reasonable, at least it's a start.

I need another lawyer like I need another hole in my head.

-- Fratianno

Eisenhower!! Your mimeograph machine upsets my stomach!!

It'll be just like Beggars' Canyon back home.

-- Luke Skywalker

A man with one watch knows what time it is.

A man with two watches is never quite sure.

The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest is held ever year at San Jose State
Univ. by Professor Scott Rice. It is held in memory of Edward George
Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), a rather prolific and popular (in his
time) novelist. He is best known today for having written "The Last
Days of Pompeii."
Whenever Snoopy starts typing his novel from the top of his doghouse,
beginning "It was a dark and stormy night..." he is borrowing from Lord
Bulwer-Lytton. This was the line that opened his novel, "Paul Clifford,"
written in 1830. The full line reveals why it is so bad:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents -- except
at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of
wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene
lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty
flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Lizzie Borden took an axe,

And plunged it deep into the VAX;
Don't you envy people who
Do all the things YOU want to do?

There are no accidents whatsoever in the universe.

-- Baba Ram Dass

Humor in the Court:

Q: So, after the anesthesia, when you came out of it, what did you observe
with respect to your scalp?
A: I didn't see my scalp the whole time I was in the hospital.
Q: It was covered?
A: Yes, bandaged.
Q: Then, later on.. what did you see?
A: I had a skin graft. My whole buttocks and leg were removed and put on top
of my head.

Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
-- Publilius Syrus

I want the presidency so bad I can already taste the hors d'oeuvres.

Subject: Linux box finds it hard to wake up in the morning

I've heard of dogs being like their owners, but Linux boxen?
-- Peter Hunter <[Link]@[Link]>

Of course it's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well.
-- Charles Bukowski

"How would I know if I believe in love at first sight?" the sexy

social climber said to her roommate. "I mean, I've never seen a Porsche
full of money before."

<Overfiend> xhost +localhost should only be done by people who would

paint their hostname and root password on an interstate
overpass.

Once upon this midnight incoherent,

While you pondered sentient and crystalline,
Over many a broken and subordinate
Volume of gnarly lore,
While I pestered, nearly singing,
Sudddenly there came a hewing,
As of someone profusely skulking,
Skulking at my chamber door.
Any girl can be glamorous; all you have to do is stand still and look stupid.
-- Hedy Lamarr

<Mongoose> knghtbrd: and the meek shall inherit k-mart

The Patrician relaxed, in a way which only then drew gentle attention to
the foregoing moment of tension.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)

Etymology, n.:
Some early etymological scholars came up with derivations that
were hard for the public to believe. The term "etymology" was formed
from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy"
("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow."
-- Mike Kellen

Cohen's Law:
There is no bottom to worse.

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

The cost of living has just gone up another dollar a quart.

-- W. C. Fields

Sam: What's going on, Normie?

Norm: My birthday, Sammy. Give me a beer, stick a candle in
it, and I'll blow out my liver.
-- Cheers, Where Have All the Floorboards Gone

Woody: Hey, Mr. P. How goes the search for Mr. Clavin?
Norm: Not as well as the search for Mr. Donut.
Found him every couple of blocks.
-- Cheers, Head Over Hill

You get along very well with everyone except animals and people.

WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?

The Death of Rats looked up from the feast of potato.
SQUEAK, he said.
Death waved a hand dismissively. WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY *ME*, he said.
I JUST WONDERED IF THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE.
-- (Terry Pratchett, The Truth)

"Say yur prayers, yuh flea-pickin' varmint!"

-- Yosemite Sam

"The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug

someone with it."
-- M. Devine, Computer Science 340
Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get
another chance later on.

Hoffer's Discovery:
The grand act of a dying institution is to issue a newly
revised, enlarged edition of the policies and procedures manual.

World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced dress code!

Random, n.:
As in number, predictable. As in memory access, unpredictable.

I'm not prejudiced, I hate everyone equally.

Rules for Academic Deans:

(1) HIDE!!!!
(2) If they find you, LIE!!!!
-- Father Damian C. Fandal

"I believe it's very hard to have fun in Iceland without fish being
involved in some way."
-- Looking for a good place to party
(Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead)

Distance doesn't make you any smaller, but it does make you part of a
larger picture.

I'm the only person I know that's lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one
year.... It's very character-building
-- Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

* james would be more impressed if netgod's magic powers could stop the
splits in the first place...
* netgod notes debian developers are notoriously hard to impress
-- Seen on #Debian

Pittsburgh driver's test

(4) Exhaust gas is

(a) beneficial.
(b) not harmful.
(c) toxic.
(d) a punk band.

The correct answer is (b). The meddling Washington eco-freak communist

bureaucrats who say otherwise are liars. (Message to those who answered (d).
Go back to California where you came from. Your kind are not welcome here.)

Journalism is literature in a hurry.

-- Matthew Arnold

I put contact lenses in my dog's eyes. They had little pictures of cats
on them. Then I took one out and he ran around in circles.
-- Steven Wright

Murder is always a mistake -- one should never do anything one cannot

talk about after dinner.
-- Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
 I think for the most part that the readership here uses the c-word in
a similar fashion. I don't think anybody really believes in a new, revolution-
ary literature --- I think they use `cyberpunk' as a term of convenience to
discuss the common stylistic elements in a small subset of recent sf books.
-- Jeff G. Bone

SHIFT TO THE LEFT!

SHIFT TO THE RIGHT!
POP UP, PUSH DOWN,
BYTE, BYTE, BYTE!

Lisp, Lisp, Lisp Machine,

Lisp Machine is Fun.
Lisp, Lisp, Lisp Machine,
Fun for everyone.

As usual, this being a 1.3.x release, I haven't even compiled this

kernel yet. So if it works, you should be doubly impressed.
-- Linus Torvalds, announcing kernel 1.3.3 on LKML

By the middle 1880's, practically all the roads except those in

the South, were of the present standard gauge. The southern roads were
still five feet between rails.
It was decided to change the gauge of all southern roads to standard,
in one day. This remarkable piece of work was carried out on a Sunday in May
of 1886. For weeks beforehand, shops had been busy pressing wheels in on the
axles to the new and narrower gauge, to have a supply of rolling stock which
could run on the new track as soon as it was ready. Finally, on the day set,
great numbers of gangs of track layers went to work at dawn. Everywhere one
rail was loosened, moved in three and one-half inches, and spiked down in its
new position. By dark, trains from anywhere in the United States could operate
over the tracks in the South, and a free interchange of freight cars everywhere
was possible.
-- Robert Henry, "Trains", 1957

Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd

be irresponsible, too.
-- Lichty & Wagner

I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they

could do was to go away.

For example, if \thinmskip = 3mu, this makes \thickmskip = 6mu. But if

you also want to use \skip12 for horizontal glue, whether in math mode or
not, the amount of skipping will be in points (e.g., 6pt). The rule is
that glue in math mode varies with the size only when it is an \mskip;
when moving between an mskip and ordinary skip, the conversion factor
1mu=1pt is always used. The meaning of '\mskip\skip12' and
'\baselineskip=\the\thickmskip' should be clear.
-- Donald Knuth, TeX 82 -- Comparison with TeX80

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to

see it tried on him personally.
-- Abraham Lincoln

What a misfortune to be a woman! And yet, the worst misfortune is not to

understand what a misfortune it is.
-- Kierkegaard, 1813-1855.
 Has your family tried 'em?

POWDERMILK BISCUITS

Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious!

They're made from whole wheat, to give shy persons

the strength to get up and do what needs to be done.

POWDERMILK BISCUITS

Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of
the biscuit on the front, or in the brown bag with the dark
stains that indicate freshness.

Each of us bears his own Hell.

-- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil)

Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist!

<Lubaf> “yo dawg, we heard you like recursion, so we put a yo dawg, we

heard you like recursion, so we put a yo dawg, we heard you
like recursion…”
<rindolf> Lubaf: :-)
<Lubaf> Further variation: “yo dawg, we heard you don’t like
fractals.”

-- Yo Dawg
-- #wikipedia, Freenode

It is Fortune, not Wisdom, that rules man's life.

You can't play your friends like marks, kid.

-- Henry Gondorf, "The Sting"

I do note with interest that old women in my books become young women on
the covers... this is discrimination against the chronologically gifted.
-- (Terry Pratchett, [Link])

Don't compare floating point numbers solely for equality.

Cabbage, n.:
A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as
a man's head.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Self

Both praise and blame cause concern,

For they bring people hope and fear.
The object of hope and fear is the self -
For, without self, to whom may fortune and disaster occur?
Therefore,
Who distinguishes himself from the world may be given the world,
But who regards himself as the world may accept the world.
-- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching"

If you are looking for a kindly, well-to-do older gentleman who is no

longer interested in sex, take out an ad in The Wall Street Journal.
-- Abigail Van Buren

Five is a sufficiently close approximation to infinity.

-- Robert Firth

"One, two, five."

-- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

You're growing out of some of your problems, but there are others that
you're growing into.

Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each
day as it comes.
-- Donald Kaul

Mort isn't fashionable UK movie material -- there's no parts in it for Hugh

or Emma, it's not set it Sheffield, and no one shoves drugs up their bum...
-- (Terry Pratchett, [Link])

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

If we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it,

and involve others in our doom.
-- Samuel Adams

question = ( to ) ? be : ! be;
-- Wm. Shakespeare

Post proelium, praemium.

[After the battle, the reward.]

The telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer

them a drink.
-- Fran Lebowitz, "Interview"

It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions.

-- Robert Bly

Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #37:

The early investor reaps the most interest.
-- Reservoir Ferengi (DS9 novella)

Woman was taken out of man -- not out of his head, to rule over him; nor
out of his feet, to be trampled under by him; but out of his side, to be
equal to him -- under his arm, that he might protect her, and near his heart
that he might love her.
-- Henry

In specially marked packages only.

Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time alloted it.

Authors are easy to get on with -- if you're fond of children.

-- Michael Joseph, "Observer"