The quotes on this page are a sorted lot...some are from literature, some are from music, but most of them will be things I've heard by oddball friends here say at one time or another. My goal is collect any little nuggets of knowledge that they may happen to utter withing earshot, so this page should grow and grow as time goes on...

"Common sense is not so common."

Voltaire

"Damn it, I hate youth! Everyone's so fucking naive and fatalistic. I'm ready to be 30."

Melissa Stratton

Mace: "We should go get totally drunk off our asses."

LaBate: "To what end?"

Mace: "To that end."

"If a man hasn't discovered something that he would die for, he isn't fit to live."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim."

George Santayana

"A commune is where people join together to share their lack of wealth."

Richard Stallman

"Political history is far too criminal a thing to be fit to teach children."

W. H. Auden

"Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils."

Hector Berlioz

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."

Seneca

"We praise or blame as one or the other affords more opportunity for exhibiting our power of judgement."

Friedrich Nietzsche

"It's good to own people."

Ananth Sarathy (Hootie)

"April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four."

Mark Twain

"Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: that you are dreadfully like other people."

James Russell Lowell

"You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends."

Joseph Conrad

"So when you have green tea, do you like piss green then?"

Mike Cavino

"There is no darkness but ignorance."

William Shakespeare

"Fear not those who argue but those who dodge."

Marie von Ebner Eschenbach

"Every man is the architect of his own fortune."

Sallust

"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence."

Robert Frost

"The most wasted day of all is that in which we have not laughed."

Sebastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort

"Confirm they soul in self-control, thy liberty in law."

Katherine Lee Bates

"Age does not depend upon years, but upon temperament and health. Some men are born old, and some never grow so."

Tryon Edwards

"I drink to make other people interesting."

George Jean Nathan

"How was I supposed to know the light was going to turn red?!"

"Because it turned yellow first."

"Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future."

Niels Bohr

"When the candles are out all women are fair."

Plutarch

"The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious of the rose."

Kahlil Gibran

"It is indeed desirable to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors."

Plutarch

"The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed."

Baron de Montesquieu

"Economists are still trying to figure out why the girls with the least principle draw the most interest."

Anonymous (from /usr/games/fortune)

"Tell me what company you keep, and I'll tell you what you are."

Miguel de Cervantes

"...better to have words left unsaid than misunderstood..."

Cowboy Junkies

"There are two things a real man likes - danger and play. And he likes women because she is the most dangerous of playthings."

Friedrich Nietzsche

"It was great! I could pimp all night without having to look over my shoulders (for player haters)!"

Dan Gaies

"It is a great ability to be able to conceal one's ability."

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, But it's very funny -- did you ever try buying them without money?"

Ogden Nash

"The first and best victory is to conquer self; to be conquered by self is, of all things, the most shameful and vile."

Plato

"Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know."

Michel de Montaigne

"Pray - To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner who confesses to his unworthiness."

Ambrose Bierce

"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't."

Erica Jong

"We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet, and, amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us."

Maurice Maeterlinck

"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral."

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten."

Indira Gandhi

"A fair exterior is a silent recommendation."

Pubilius Syrus

"If ever the pleasure of one has to be bought by the pain of the other, there better be no trade. A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud."

Dagny Taggart

"It's all about the chase...the chase is key."

Neda Dawood

"The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends."

Marcus Tullius Cicero

"No one worth possessing can be quite possessed."

Sara Teasdale

"It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to resort to mathematics to avoid pregnancy, although she is still forbidden resort to physics or chemistry."

H. L. Mencken

"Yeah, I could hook up with her, but never date her."

"Huh? How's that?"

"Well, for one, she smokes. Besides...how can you repeatedly hook up with a girl that has no butt??"

"Randomness scares people. Religion is a way to explain randomness."

Fran Lebowitz

"In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point."

Friedrich Nietzsche

"It is only the wisest and the stupidest that cannot change."

Confucius

"College: the fountains of knowledge, where everyone goes to drink."

Anonymous (from /usr/games/fortune)

"Well, we don't really have accounting at this point. We're kind of running the symposium like Zaire."

Chris LaBate

"In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends."

John Churton Collins

"Yeah, if I went both ways, I'd be Banderas all the way!"

Dan Gaies

"Ambition (n): An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead."

Ambrose Bierce

"Hildebrant's Principle: If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there."

Anonymous (from /usr/games/fortune)

"I'm kind of what you would call...a brown stud."

Harpriye Juneja

"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines."

Bertrand Russell

"Kime's Law for the Reward of Meekness: Turning the other cheek merely ensures two bruised cheeks."

Anonymous (from /usr/games/fortune)

"I wonder...I wonder why there don't seem to be more gay Smurfs...they live in such a prison slash Hopkins world...so why not more? It's odd, don't you think?"

Dan Gaies

"To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant."

Amos B. Alcott

"Let me tell you...charity friendships only go so far..."

Ananth Sarathy

"If your life at night is good, you think you have everything."

Euripides

"I rely on my personality for birth control."

Liz Winston

"Outside every thin woman is a fat man trying to get in."

Katherine Whitehorn

"Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war, you can only be killed once."

Winston Churchill

"Lunatic Asylum, n.: The place where optimism most flourishes."

Anonymous (from /usr/games/fortune)

"Ask a woman's advice, and whatever she advise, do the the reverse and you are sure to be wise."

Thomas Moore

"Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

Karl Marx

"Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

Herman Melville

"If a woman hasn't got a tiny streak of harlot in her, she is a dry stick as a rule."

D. H. Lawrence

"Art is making something out of nothing and then selling it."

Frank Zappa

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idoits. So far, the Universe is winning."

Rich Cook

"Neurotics build castles in the sky, and psychotics live in them, and people like me just pretend to live in them."

Andvari Huntress

"God damn it! Why can't I just find a nice pagan girl?"

Chris LaBate

"Ohhh...so the dirt that they're digging from the tunnel is *darker* than the dirt on top around the camp!?" (5 minutes after this was completely explained in the movie, The Great Escape)

Kushal Vepa

"I'm Indian -- I remember the pennies."

Manuj Singhal

"Not only is life a bitch, but it is always having puppies."

Adrienne Gusoff

"Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause."

Voltaire

Mike: "I don't comb my hair to look good for girls."
Bill: "So...what? Do you do it to look good when you look in the mirror to jerk off?!?"
Mike: "Yeah, I did that once."

Mike Cavino (or is it Elvis?)

"Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans."

A. J. Marshall

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

Oscar Wilde

"Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant intelligence."

Henrik Tikkanen

"Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest."

Mark Twain

"But if we kill off all of the stupid people on the planet, who will we enslave?"

Sung Kyu

"Remember: Silly is a state of mind, Stupid is a way of life."

Dave Butler

"If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for al l the organizations with titles beginning with the word "National"."

George Will

"Yeah, like the more you jerk off...if you do it a lot, it's just like brushing your teeth."

Ananth Sarathy

"Absurdity: a statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion."

Ambrose Bierce

"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."

H. L. Mencken

"I need to find a nice place with a lot of caves to settle down." (to allow construction of the "Bat Cave")

Ananth Sarathy

"When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity."

Albert Einstein

"It's funny how as we grow old, we cling to the past as we cling to the air...and feel nostalgia for things that were...maybe never there!"

The The

"If you have another one of those, you are going to float home!"

Brooke Jennett's mom

"Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why you should."

Anonymous

"Once, adv.: Enough."

Ambrose Bierce

"Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example."

La Rouchefoucauld

"Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off."

Raymond Chandler

"Egotist. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me."

Ambrose Bierce

"It's just the beast in me..."

Elvis (or was it Mike Cavino?)

"Elvis transcends his talent to the point of dispensing with it altogether."

Greil Marcus

"Sex is like money; Only too much is enough."

John Updike

"If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts."

Camille Paglia

"Yo, slow yo roll!"

Bill Bergenty

The Man on the Dump

Day creeps down. The moon is creeping up.
The sun is a corbeil of flowers the moon Blanche
Places there, a bouquet. Ho-ho... the dump is full
Of images. Days pass like papers from a press.
The bouquets come here in the papers. So the sun,
And so the moon, both come, and the janitor's poems
Of every day, the wrapper on the can of pears,
The cat in the paper-bag, the corset, the box
From Esthonia: the tiger chest, for tea.

The freshness of night has been fresh a long time.
The freshness of morning, the blowing of day, one says
That it puffs as Cornelius Neops reads, it puffs
More than, less than or it puffs like this or that.
The green smacks in the eye, the dew in the green
Smacks like fresh water in a can, like the sea
On a cocoanut -- how many men have copied dew
For buttons, how many women have covered themselves
With dew, dew dresses, stones and chains of dew, heads
Of the floweriest flowers dewed with the dewiest dew.
One grows to hate these things except on the dump.

Now, in the time of spring (azaleas, trilliums,
Myrtle, viburnums, daffodils, blue phlox),
Between that disgust and this, between the things
That are on the dump (azaleas and so on)
And those that will be (azaleas and so on),
One feels the purifying change. One rejects
The trash.

That's the moment when the moon creeps up
To the bubbling of bassoons. That's the time
One looks at the elephant-colorings of tires.
Everything is shed; and the moon comes up as the moon
(All its images are in the dump) and you see
As a man (not like an image of a man),
You see the moon rise in the empty sky.

One sits and beats an old tin can, lard pail.
One beats and beats for that which one believes.
That's what one wants to get near. Could it after all
Be merely oneself, as superior as the ear
To a crow's voice? Did the nightingale torture the ear,
Pack the heart and scratch the mind? And does the ear
Solace itself in peevish birds? Is it peace,
Is it a philosopher's honeymoon, one finds
On the dump? Is it to sit among mattresses of the dead,
Bottles, pots, shoes and grass and murmur aptest eve:
Is it to hear the blatter of grackles and say
Invisible priest; is it to eject, to pull
The day to pieces and cry stanza my stone?
Where was it one first heard of the truth? The the.

Wallace Stevens

If you have a nugget of knowledge yourself, then write it to me, and maybe you'll get your own place in history on my page! Otherwise, you know the drill:

Send all beefs to cklempay@acm.jhu.edu.