Seen on the door to a light-wave lab: "Do not look into laser with remaining good eye."

The philosophy exam was a piece of cake---which was a bit of a surprise, actually, because I was expecting some questions on a sheet of paper.

A rolling stone gathers momentum.

I went to the doctor for a check-up. It was ok, he was there.

I said to my doctor, "I've broken my arm in several places." He said, "Don't go to those places." -- [Possibly Henry Youngman?]

I went up into the attic with the wife the other day. Dirty, filthy, covered in cobwebs. But she's good with the kids. I found this violin and this picture. I took them along to the auctioneer, he says what you've got there is a Stradivarius and a Rembrandt. Unfortunately, Stradivarius was a rotten painter, and Rembrandt couldn't make violins. (Sticks violin through picture.)

That was Zen. This is Tao. -- Peter da Silva

The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore so it eats it! (It's rather like getting tenure.) -- Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained, p. 177

Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.

Pizza is a lot like sex. When it's good, it's really good. When it's bad, it's still pretty good.

Eschew obfuscation.

Where would we be without rhetorical questions?

Illiterate? Write for help!

If of all words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, `It might have been,'
More sad are these we daily see:
`It is, but hadn't ought to be.'
-- Francis Brett Hart

In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms. -- Stephen Jay Gould

Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof. -- Ashley Montague

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. -- Frank Herbert, Dune

Oh, don't mind the tree monsters. Their bark is worse than their bite. -- The Winter Warlock, in Santa Claus is Comin' to Town

"I see!", said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw.

It is not enough to succeed; others must fail. -- Gore Vidal

It is well known, that among the blind the one-eyed man is king. -- Erasmus (c1465-1536)

Men should be like Kleenex; soft, strong and disposable. -- Mrs. White, Clue

This is a one line proof...if we start sufficiently far to the left. -- Cambridge University Math Department

The Creation of the Universe was made possible by a grant from Texas Instruments. -- PBS

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. -- Somerset Maugham

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you. -- Rita Mae Brown

A physicist is just an atom's way of looking at itself. -- Niels Bohr

Inside this fat body there's a skinny person screaming to get out. I ate her.

"The prince wants your daughter for his wife." "Well, tell him his wife can't have her." -- Blackadder III

Politically-incorrect T-Shirt idea: What part of "AWW C'MON, PLEASE?" don't you understand? -- Roger Crew

The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views...which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering. -- Doctor Who, Face of Evil

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. -- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Time is the best teacher. Unfortunately, it kills all its pupils. -- Hector-Louis Berlioz

You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away. A rat would probably be killed, though it can fall safely from the eleventh story of a building, a man is broken, a horse splashes. -- J. B. S. Haldane, On Being the Right Size

Once the most important inhabitants of a world at the center of the known cosmos, now we human beings had been reduced to the status of the far-flung denizens of a minor, tangential blip on somebody else's universe. -- John Boslough, Masters of Time

When you come to a fork in the road, take it. -- Yogi Berra

They all laughed at Albert Einstein. They all laughed at Columbus. Unfortunately, they also all laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- William H. Jefferys

If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm. -- Vince Lombardi

Ninety percent of the game is half mental. -- Yogi Berra

You can build a throne with bayonets, but you can't sit on it for long. -- Boris Yeltsin

Two rights don't make a wrong, but three will get you back on the freeway. -- James Wesley Jackson

Football combines two of the worst things about American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings. -- George Will

Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once.

Heisenberg may have been here.

An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys. -- Van Roy's Law

Now and then an innocent person is sent to the legislature.

If I traveled to the end of the rainbow
As Dame Fortune did intend,
Murphy would be there to tell me
The pot's at the other end.
-- Bert Whitney

We are too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet.

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. -- John Lennon

Quantum particles: the dreams that stuff is made of. -- David Moser

I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. -- Chang-tzu

"Do you know what Freud said about dreams of flying? It means you're really dreaming about having sex." "Indeed? Tell me, then, what does it mean when you dream about having sex?" -- Morpheus and Rose Walker

In view of all the deadly computer viruses that have been spreading lately, Weekend Update would like to remind you: when you link up to another computer, you're linking up to every computer that that computer has ever linked up to. -- Dennis Miller, SNL Weekend Update

Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done. -- Andy Rooney

Television: A medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well done. -- Ernie Kovacs

A physicist visits a colleague and notices a horseshoe hanging on the wall above the entrance. "Do you really believe that a horseshoe brings luck?" he asks. "No," replies the colleague, "but I've been told that it works even if you don't believe in it." -- Told by Niels Bohrs

Pluralitas non ponenda est sine necessitate. (Multiplicity is not to be asserted when it is unnecessary.) -- William of Occam [Occam's Razor]

Do not regret growing old; many are denied the privilege.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. -- Mark Twain

Chemistry is physics without thought; mathematics is physics without purpose.

Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet. -- Dave Barry

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies. -- Groucho Marx

Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot. -- Groucho Marx

It is fast approaching the point where I don't want to elect anyone stupid enough to want the job. -- Erma Bombeck

Never trust anybody who says "trust me." Except just this once, of course. -- John Varley, "Steel Beach"

From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it. -- Groucho Marx

When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me. -- Woody Allen

Her figure described a set of parabolas that could cause cardiac arrest in a yak. -- Woody Allen

Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions. -- Woody Allen

Life is a concentration camp. You're stuck here and there's no way out and you can only rage impotently against your persecutors. -- Woody Allen

Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. -- Woody Allen

Don't knock masturbation---it's sex with someone I love. -- Woody Allen

What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists? -- Woody Allen

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet. -- Woody Allen

There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more. -- Woody Allen

Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, it's one of the best. -- Woody Allen

In brief, she assumed that, being a man, I was vain to the point of imbecility, and this assumption was correct, as it always is. -- H. L. Mencken

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H. L. Mencken

Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. -- George Bernard Shaw

I went to a store and asked if they had anything to put under coasters. -- Steven Wright

In bed the other night my girlfriend asked "if you could know exactly when and where you would die, would you want to?" I said "no". She said, "ok, then forget it". -- Steven Wright

To my daughter Leonora without whose never failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been completed in half the time. -- P.G. Wodehouse -- [Quoted in Pepper's _The Wit and Wisdom of the 20th Century_, p.199, #14]

We now present the conclusion of...The Never-ending Story. -- From a cable TV broadcast of the movie

KRQR, home of the million dollar guarantee. You give us a million dollars, we'll play any song you want. Guaranteed.

Playing a billion in a row on KRQR, the station that doesn't count too good.

Are tectonic plates dishwasher-safe? -- Herb Caen, S. F. Chronicle, 8/12/93

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. -- G. K. Chesterton

On the business front, UNIX has been under attack from a variety of sources, primarily by the nonexistant Windows NT. Luckily, the UNIX vendors have their own nonexistant products with which to answer the threat. -- Stephen C. Johnson, President (Usenix)

Lisp in action is like a finely choreographed ballet. Basic in action is like a waltz of drugged elephants. C in action is like a sword dance on a freshly waxed floor.

I like having a machine called 'elvis' on the network because that way, I can say 'ping elvis' and have it come back with 'elvis is alive'. -- Carl Shipley

USENET: Post to exotic, distant machines. Meet exciting, unusual people. And flame them. -- Dan Sorenson

But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers"

One item could not be deleted because it was missing. -- Mac System 7.0b1 error message

The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation. -- Lew Mammel, Jr.

A distributed system is one that stops you from getting any work done when a machine you've never even heard of crashes. -- Leslie Lamport (Attributed)

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald Knuth

Any computer project will take twice as long as you think it will even when you take into account Hofstadter's law. -- Hofstadter's law (Douglas Hofstadter)

There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. -- C. A. R. Hoare

People who take issue with control of population do not understand that if it is not done in a graceful way, nature will do it in a brutal fashion. -- H. Kendall

At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. -- The Washington Post Magazine, June 9, 1985

If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 22, it would have changed the history of music...and of aviation. -- Tom Stoppard

If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem. -- John Paul Getty

The hypochondriac's epitaph: "NOW will you believe me?"

Evelyn Waugh, when Randolph Churchill had a benign tumour removed from his lung: "It seems to me to be a typical triumph of modern science to find the only part of Randolph that was not malignant, and remove it."

Dear Mrs, Mr, Miss, or Mr and Mrs Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action. -- Joseph Heller, Catch-22

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. -- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

[The shooting in Yosemite] would never have happened if we had exercised our right to arm bears.

I've got Parkinson's disease. And he's got mine.

The quickest way to a man's heart is through his chest, with an axe.

But be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. -- Shakespeare, Twelfth Night [II.v]

University President: "Why is it that you physicists always require so much expensive equipment? Now the Department of Mathematics requires nothing but money for paper, pencils, and erasers...and the Department of Philosophy is better still. It doesn't even ask for erasers." -- Told by Isaac Asimov

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated. -- Poul Anderson

It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in 5 years. -- John Von Neumann (ca. 1949)

If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside. -- Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorld

It's a well known fact that computing devices such as the abacus were invented thousands of years ago. But it's not well known that the first use of a common computer protocol occured in the Old Testament. This, of course, was when Moses aborted the Egyptians' process with a control-sea... -- Tom Galloway

Artificial Intelligence: the art of making computers that behave like the ones in movies. -- Bill Bulko

Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. -- E. W. Dijkstra

After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi. -- P. J. O'Rourke

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. -- H. L. Mencken

Company slogan: The Mandatory Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves.

There was a young lady of Crewe whose limericks stopped at line two.

You know how dumb the average guy is? Well, by definition, half of them are even dumber than THAT. -- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs

[Blackadder, _Duel and Duality_] Edmund Blackadder: "After all, did not Our Lord send a lowly earthworm to comfort Moses in his torment?" Prince George: "No."

Jurassic Park (the movie) Ian Malcolm: "God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs." Ellie Sattler: "Dinosaurs...eat man. Woman inherits the Earth."

"But John, when the Pirates of the Carribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists." -- Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

Death: To stop sinning suddenly. -- Ellen Hubbard

"Ella, Ella, Ella...Never knock on Death's door. Ring the bell and run away! Death *really* hates that." -- Doctor, Doctor

Ros: Do you think death could possibly be a boat? Guil: No, no, no...Death is...not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat. Ros: I've frequently not been on boats. Guil: No, no, no---what you've been is not on boats. -- Tom Stoppard

The only problem with Haiku is that you just get started and then

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, however, there is.

The light at the end of the tunnel is usually a "No Exit" sign.

Knock Knock.
Who's There?
Recursion.
Recursion who?
Knock Knock...

In capitalism, man exploits man. In Communism, it's exactly the opposite.

A little incompatibility is the spice of life, as long has he has income and she is pattable. -- Ogden Nash

[On the difference between political life and academic life:] In Washington, it's dog eat dog. In academia, it's exactly the opposite. -- Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor and Harvard lecturer, on NPR

They say that after a brush with death the world looks different and that was true for me, but by the time I caught my breath, I realized that it was because I had lost my glasses. -- Michael Dorris, The Broken Cord