Quotes:

(collected by Robert Otlowski)

• "Do, or do not. There is no 'try'."-Yoda, in George Lucas' sci-fi classic Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

• "Some words breed like adders in my throat."-an adaptation of a quote from Audre Lorde's poem "Coal"

• "Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet."-Jean Jacques Rousseau

• "Back off, man. I'm a scientist."-Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters

• "I wonder why Japanese people keep moving their mouths after they're through talking?"-Calvin

• "A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither."-Thomas Jefferson in a letter to James Madison

• "The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation."-Henry David Thoreau

• "Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."-Jimi Hendrix

• "Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind."-Samuel Taylor Coelridge

• "War is obsolete, General... as we are in danger of becoming."- the Chancellor of the Klingon High Command, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

• "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."-Mohandas Gandhi

• "The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians."-H.L. Mencken

• "Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend."-Albert Camus

• "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."-Mark Twain

• "First get your facts; then you can distort them at your leisure."-Mark Twain

• "The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."-Tom Clancy

• "Cowards die many times before their deaths;
  The valiant never taste of death but once."-William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar II.ii. 32-33

• "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wiseman knows himself to be a fool."-William Shakespeare, As You Like It V.i. 30-31

• "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet II.ii

• "Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves..."-William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar I.ii

• "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"-William Shakespeare, Hamlet III.ii

• "I'll moider da bum."-Heavyweight boxer Tony Galento, when asked what he thought of William Shakespeare

• "Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."-Ralph Waldo Emerson

• "Once the game is over, the King and the pawn go back in the same box."-Italian proverb

• "If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor."-Ralph Waldo Emerson

• "The years teach us much the days never knew."-Ralph Waldo Emerson

• "Hell is a half-filled auditorium."-Robert Frost

• "If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"-Abraham Lincoln

• "Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain."-John F. Kennedy

• "There is no point in living if you have to work."-Andre Breton

• "Dew knot trussed yore spell chequer two fined awl yore mistakes."-Baendan Hills

• "Few things are harder to put up with than a good example."-Mark Twain

• "If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance."-George Bernard Shaw

• "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."-Antoine de Saint Exupery

• "I'll sleep when I'm dead."-Warren Zevon

• "There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread."-Mahatma Gandhi

• "When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."-Friedrich Nietzsche

• "In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."-Martin Luther King Jr.

• "The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them."-Robert Frost

• "Even a fool knows you can't touch the stars, but it doesn't stop a wise man from trying."-Harry Anderson

• "He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever."-Chinese proverb

• "It is not the function of our government to keep the citizens from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error."-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson

• "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."-Smith and Jones

• "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."-John F. Kennedy

• "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."-Niccolo Machiavelli

• "C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg."-Bjarne Stroustrup

• "If you eliminate all logical solutions to a problem the illogical, however impossible, is invariably true."- an adaptation of a quote from a Sherlock Holmes novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

• "Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner."-General Omar Bradley

• "Software is like sex, it's better when it's free."-Linus Torvalds

• "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."-Voltaire

• "...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

• "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."-Henry Louis Mencken

• "I don't even know what street Canada is on."-Al Capone

• "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."-Alan Kay

• "As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it."-Dick Cavett

• "In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take."-Adlai Stevenson

• "There is only one nature - the division into science and engineering is a human imposition, not a natural one. Indeed, the division is a human failure; it reflects our limited capacity to comprehend the whole."-Bill Wulf

• "'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?' 'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. 'I don’t much care where--' said Alice. 'Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,' said the Cat. '--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation. 'Oh, you’re sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.'

  ‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that you were or might have been not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.’

  'Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. 'I’ve had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone: 'so I can’t take more.' 'You mean you can’t take LESS,' said the Hatter: 'it’s very easy to take MORE than nothing.'

  'I see nobody down the road,' said Alice. 'I only wish I had such eyes,' the King remarked in a fretful tone. 'To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!'

  'There is no use in trying,' said Alice; 'one cannot believe impossible things.' 'I dare say you haven’t had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour each day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'"-Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

• "The world's best swordsman doesn't fear the second best; he fears the worst swordsman, because he can't predict what the idiot will do."-Honor Harrington, from David Weber's book The Honor of the Queen

• "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them."-Mark Twain

• "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. "-Albert Einstein

• "Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"-Albert Einstein

• "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."-Albert Einstein

• "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."-Albert Einstein

• "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."-Albert Einstein

• "Two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."-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

• "The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat."-Albert Einstein

• "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"-Albert Einstein

•                "The element of surprise, Scully.
                 Random acts of unpredictability. If we
                 fail to anticipate the unforeseen or
                 expect the unexpected in a universe of
                 infinite possibilities, we find
                 ourselves at the mercy of anyone or
                 anything that cannot be programmed,
                 categorized or easily referenced..."
                             -David Duchovney (Mulder), X-Files
  

• "A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students."-John Ciardi

• "Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all."-Woody Allen [if I didn't know better I'd say he went to RPI]

• "Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer."-Charles Caleb Colton

• "Revenge is a dish best served cold."-Klingon proverb

• "Never trust anyone, not even yourself."-Cobra Commander

• "Carpe diem."[Seize the day.]-Horatius

• "Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research. "-Wilson Mizner

• "An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it."-Orlando A. Battista

• "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-Aldous Huxley

• "If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it badly."-Ashleigh Brilliant

• "Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people try to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people."-George Bernhard Shaw

• "People who know little are usually great speakers, while men who know much say little."-Jean Jacques Rousseau

• "Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."-Abraham Lincoln

• "There are no dangerous thoughts. Thinking itself is dangerous!"-Hannah Arendt

• "The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself."-Washington Allston

• "I have often regretted my speech, never my silence."-Xenocrates

• "Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."-Abraham Lincoln

• "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."-Confucius

• "Elementary, my dear Whatson, elementary."-Sherlock Holmes from novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

• "Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my great concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."-Abraham Lincoln

• "In war there is no substitute for victory."-General Douglas MacArthur

• "If I spoke prose you'd all find out, I don't know what I talk about."-Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph.D., Yellow Submarine

• "You have 15 minutes to take the ethics exam. Try to remember what I taught you: A, A, B, A, C."-King of the Hill's Bounty Hunter School Instructor

• "Earth first! Make Mars our b*tch!"-King of the Hill's Dale Gribble's environmentalist slogan

• "I've got plenty of common sense. I just choose to ignore it."-Calvin

• "You can have any color you want, as long as it's black."-Henry Ford on options for the Model T

• "It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow."-Robert H. Goddard

• "Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do..."-Bertrand Russell

• "You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone. "-Al Capone

• "War does not determine who is right - only who is left."- Bertrand Russell

• "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."-Napoleon Bonaparte

• "Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."-Napoleon Bonaparte

• "If a man does his best, what else is there?"-General George S. Patton

• "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."- General George S. Patton

• "Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate."-Thomas Jones

• "Opportunities multiply as they are seized."-Sun Tzu

• "In difficult ground, press on;
  In encircled ground, devise stratagems;
  In death ground, fight."-Sun Tzu

• "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then give up. No use being a damned fool about it."-W.C. Fields

• "One must wait until the end of the day to see how glorious the day has been."-Sophoclese

• "If you are going through hell, keep going."-Sir Winston Churchill

• "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. "-Mark Twain

• "If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?"-Will Rogers

• "I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body."-Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward.

• "Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana...The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two, but can't remember what they are."-Matt Lauer

• "Not only is there no God, but try finding a plumber on Sunday. "-Woody Allen

• "...better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!"-Emiliano Zapata

• "It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens."-Woody Allen

• "Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies."-Voltaire, on his deathbed in response to a priest requesting that he renounce Satan

• "Why yes - a bulletproof vest."-James Rodges, murderer, his final request before the firing squad

• "Et tu, Brute!"[You too, Brutus?!]-Gaius Julius Caesar

• "Oh Lord, forgive the misprints!"-last words of Andrew Bradford, American book-publisher

• "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..."-General Sedgewick, killed at the American Civil War Battle of Spotsylvania in 1864, imprudently looking over the parapet at the enemy lines

• "I'm looking for loopholes"-W.C. Fields when asked why he was reading the Bible on his deathbed

• "Don’t disturb my circles!"-the last words of one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, Archimedes, who was killed by a Roman soldier that he admonished for disturbing his drawing in the sand in the confusion of the Roman's conquest of Syracuse (which Arcimedes' inventions had been used to defend) during the Second Punic War in 212 B.C. It has been reported that the Roman commander had ordered him not to be harmed, but that during the confusion the soldier that had disturbed him had been too enraged by Archimedes' sheer audacity to control himself

• "As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death."-Leonardo da Vinci

• "Fill what's empty, empty what's full, and scratch where it itches."-the Duchess of Windsor, when asked what is the secret of a long and happy life

• "The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you've caught the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once you've caught the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of the meaning; once you've caught the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?"-Chuang Tzu

• "Time is what keeps everything from happening at once."-John Wheeler

• "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."-George Santayana

• "The beatings will continue until morale is improved!"-Military Proverb

• "Veni, vidi, vici."[He came, he saw, he conquered.]-Gaius Julius Caesar

• "To err is human, to forgive divine."-Marcus Tullius Cicero

• "I think, therefore I am."-Rene Descartes

• "How can we taste the future if we are choking on our past?"-Sean Anderson

• "I am not what is called a civilized man. I have done with society entirely, for reasons that seem to me good. Therefore I don’t obey its laws and I desire you never to elude to them before me again."-Captain Nemo

• "Wish in one hand, shit in the other. See which fills up first."-Neil Gaiman

• "If I am ever prosecuted for my beliefs, I only hope there is enough evidence to convict."-John Wooden

• "I think it would be a good idea."-Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization

• "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"-H. M. Warner, founder of Warner Brothers

• "I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."-Elvis Presley

• "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."-Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles in 1962

• "If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?"-Seymour Cray, father of supercomputing

• "The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance."-Robert R. Coveyou

• "Never trust a computer you can't lift."-the first Macintosh back in good old 1984

• "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."-Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

• "Look at what is said, not he who speaks."-Arabian Proverb

• "The unexamined life is not worth living."-Socrates

• "To share is to truly live."-Plato

• "Give me chastity and continence, but not yet."-Saint Augustine

• "Wise men make proverbs, but fools repeat them. "-Samuel Palmer

• "Fire never dies alone."-Blaze (from the Magic: the Gathering card game by Wizards of the Coast)

• "Tread upon the meek, and they shall wound your feet and make you crawl."-Retribution of the Meek (from the Magic: the Gathering card game by Wizards of the Coast)

• "It's the journey that's important, not the path you take."-Cartoon Network

• "Get N or get out!"-Nintendo

• "Because in real life, there is no reset button."-Playstation

• "When in doubt, throw it out."-my Grandmother

• "With knowledge, comes understanding."-Mrs.Christie (one of my grade school English teachers)

• "Women like it both ways..."-Mr. Karas (HS American History teacher)

• "Life sucks then you die."-Mr. Karas (HS American History teacher)

• "I wish Jackie was my sister so I could ^#@$ her!"-Bart Kumor (the Polish prince)

• "You were making fun of my brownies!"-Monroe Stephens

• "Let's sleep with cacti to keep warm!"-Thomas Appleton

• "Where do I get crack?"-Charles Otlowski, my brother

• "God uses Photoshop."-Charles Otlowski, my brother

• "The grapes make you forget!"-Chris Ziemba

• "Eventually you'll realize the glass is half full, but by then all the water will have evaporated."-Chris Ziemba

• "The mind is a limitation - only when you have lost it can you truly be free."-Chris Ziemba (1:10 am, Thursday, November 20th, 2003)

• "STAB!"-Sam Lee

• "Do you know how many guns I can buy with $2000?"-Sam Lee

• "It's my serve, bitch!"-Michael Eilenberg

• "Take it for what it is Rob, the truth."-Michael Eilenberg

• "Elves are real, I've seen them in the bookstore."-Michael Eilenberg

• "I know Phil better than anyone else in this room."-Micheal Eilenberg

• "I sleep in the same bed as Sam."-Tyler Markkanen, Sam's roomate

• "Eric, stop the rustling, put the dildo away."-Tyler Markkanen, Calculus II TA

• "If I ever got it on with Andrea I would hope that Mr. Marking would join in."-Tyler Markkanen

• "The wrinklier the better!"-Tyler Markkanen

• "This apple almost tastes as good as Ashley!"-Tyler Markkanen

• "Don't eat the bunny rabbit's money!"-Ben Susman

• "Troy sucks."-Professor Hubbell

• "A few people did fairly well."-Professor Bedrosian, my freshman Physics I teacher, in reference to his student's performance on the first exam [the average grade was a 60%]

• "You can't take a class for life, but you sure as hell better study."-Robert Otlowski [me]

• "The hour may grow late and the day may grow old but the night is always young."-Robert Otlowski [me]

• "The secret of life is written on our souls with invisible ink."-Robert Otlowski [me]

• "I dream of a world in which you can get arrested for being an accessory to Windows XP."-Robert Otlowski [me]

• "Insanity is the sincerest form of reality."-Robert Otlowski [me]

• "The rest is silence."-William Shakespeare, Hamlet V.ii