Pithy Sayings and Other Entertainments

There are no good system administrators, merely temportarily satisfied users.
--Tim Martin

Be excellent to each other.
--William S. Preston, Esq.

"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."
-- Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letter to a Young Poet

Recipe for Staying Young
  • Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctor worry about them. That is why you pay him/her.
  • Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
  • Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop," the devil's name is Alzheimer's.
  • Enjoy the simple things. When the children are young, that is all you can afford. When they are in college, that is all you can afford. When you are on retirement, that is all you can afford.
  • Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath. Laugh so much that you can be tracked in the store by your distinctive laughter.
  • The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be alive while you are alive, don't put out a mailbox on the highway of death and just wait in residence for your mail.
  • Surround yourself with what you love, whether it is family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
  • Cherish your health. If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
  • Don't take guilt trips. Go to the mall, the next county, a foreign country, but not to guilt country.
    --"Quote of the Week" from the CS Dept Friday Memo, 1/25/2002

    The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
    --Martin Luther King

    You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
    --Mahatma Ghandi

    An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind
    --Mahatma Ghandi

    Watch out! There are crocodiles in denial.
    --Bill Talley

    Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.
    --Dan Quayle

    The superfluous is very necessary.
    --Voltaire

    A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
    --George Bernard Shaw

    Suppose you were an idiot... And suppose you were in Congress... But I repeat myself.
    --Mark Twain

    Love is easy; it's all the other stuff that's so hard.
    --Brad Brown

    Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to 15 years with time off for good behaviour?
    --NY State Senator James Donovan (speaking in support of capital punishment)

    "John was already cultivating his rebellion and anger; Paul was making his Decision for Pop; George was making his Decision for Krishna; and Ringo was having his house painted."
    -- Greil Marcus on The Beatles in Rolling Stone's Illustrated History of Rock and Roll

    Blue Grits -- A true story:

    Laurie was up early cooking, and I should have been suspicious. Usually she's tying knots in her hair, and I'm decanting the dog.

    --Steve Moulton, 7/18/92

    VISUALIZE WHIRLED PEAS
    -- Bumper Sticker

    "Down on the farm we have a saying, `A picture's worth 1000 words, but an example's worth a $1000 in engineering time.'"
    --David Battle, 7/28/93, talking about lack of Sloaris (tm) examples.

    The emergence of humor in 3 year olds:

    "Dad! Dad! Stop the car! I have to tell you something!"

    (This is Cades Cove, so why not... Dad stops the car.)

    "What is it, George?"

    "Get going, Dad! Get going!" (collapses in giggles)

    The incisive knowlege of 7 year olds:

    "Before the caveman, but after the dinosaurs, people were monkeys." --George, 4/1/97

    Sign of the times:

    On 3 May I saw a mockingbird in the Lot 9 parking lot. I heard it's lovely call followed by a car alarm. Then I noticed there wasn't an alarm going off; it was the bird.

    Second sighting: 21 June, and I had a *witness*, Brett Ellis.

    Adventures in Conventioning:

    It tastes like either a drink or a vegetable; I can't remember which. --David Levi

    It's BOTH! --Matt Hecht

    Hey! You guys are upside down!
    --first words from Atlantis Shuttle Crew Commander (Hoot Gibson) to Mir Space Station Crew, after opening the hatch between the two, 6/29/95

    The difference between theory and practice in theory is different than the difference between theory and practice in practice.
    --My interpretation of a Jeff Case/Ken Key(/et al) saying...

    A Bad Night for Keys: a true story from the den of backups.

    Transported into a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets. She then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.
    --A short description of "The Wizard of Oz" seen in the Sharon (PA) Herald TV listings

    from "A Bridge (that Carries Us Over)"

    Love is to share, where words can't compare
    Love is desire, so full of fire

    We all speak well of a bridge that carries us over
    ...over safe
    The art of compromise has surely been our greatest strength
    ...our greatest strength.

    --Clannad (Lore)

    • This is the joy of life
    Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one
    Being a force of nature
    Instead of a ferverish, selfish, little clod of ailments and grievances
    Complaining that the world will not devote itself
    To making you happy.

    I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community
    And as long as I live, it is my privilege
    To do for it what ever I can.
    I want to be thoroughly used up when I die
    For the harder I work, the more I live.
    I rejoince in life for its own sake.

    Life is no brief candle to me,
    It is a sort of splendid torch
    Which I've got a hold of for a moment.
    And I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on
    To future generations.
    -- George Bernard Shaw

    Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
    Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
    It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
    We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?"
    Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
    Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
    There's nothing enlightening about shrinking so that
    Other people won't feel insecure around you.
    We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.
    It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
    And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously
    Give other people permission to do the same.
    As we are liberated from our own fear,
    Our presence automatically liberates others.
    - taken from Nelson Mandela's 1994 Inaugural Speech, quoting from Marianne Williamson's A Return to Love, pages 190-91 of the 1992 edition.

    Some Basic Rules For Living...
  • Gardening Rule: When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.
  • The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.
  • Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.
  • There are two kinds of pedestrians-the quick and the dead.
  • An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.
  • If quitters never win, and winners never quit, then who is the fool who said, "Quit while you're ahead?"
  • Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
  • The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
  • Get the last word in: Apologize.
  • Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.
  • Some people are like Slinkies and not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.
  • Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
  • Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they use to?
  • Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.
  • All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
  • Why does a slight tax increase cost you $200 dollars and a substantial tax cut saves you 30 cents?
  • In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
  • Politicians and Diapers should be changed on regular basis; both for the same reason.
  • How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
    --"Quote of the Week" from the CS Dept Friday Memo, 1/23/2004