A collection of sayings, some humorous, others adolescent,
and a few containing a wisp of truth:
A chubby "systems" guy
"My parrot is smarter than my graduate student."
Anonymous Professor
"There, there it is again -- the invisible hand of the marketplace
giving us the finger."
Charles Barsotti
"No man can ever be secure until he has been forsaken by Fortune."
Anicius Boethius
"Speak to the Sakyans, Ananda ... My back is aching and I need to
stretch myself."
Attributed to Buddha
"Forecasts usually tell us more of the forecaster than of the future."
Warren Buffett
"Would you get upset at a small tree in the forest for not being
tall and straight like some of the others?"
Ajahn Chah
"The best lesson life has taught me is that the idiots in many cases
are right."
Winston Churchill
"Look, I only have one eye. Do you want me to keep it on the
speedometer or on the road?"
Moshe Dayan
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
Albert Einstein
"I have seen the builder of the house."
Siddharta Gautama
"The gut is not an organ from which you wish to receive frequent
progress reports."
Michael Gershon
"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life
is serious."
Brendan Gill
"If the flesh came into being because of spirit, that is a marvel, but if
spirit came into being because of the body, that is a marvel of marvels."
Attributed to Jesus
"University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are
so small."
Henry Kissinger
"Cogito ergo cogito."
Minimalist Professor
"So when a person's intellect overcomes his sensuality, he is better
than the angels, but when his sensuality overcomes his intellect, he is
worse than the beasts."
Muhammad
"There is pleasure when a sore is scratched,
but to be without sores is more pleasurable still.
Just so, there are pleasures in worldly desires,
but to be without desires is more pleasurable still."
Nagarjuna
meditation v. wisdom
"There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're
talking about."
John von Neumann
"One should never know too precisely whom one has married."
Friedrich Nietzsche
"Tonight I feel like Zsa Zsa Gabor's fifth husband. I know what to
do but how do I make it interesting?"
David Niven
"The heart has reasons that reason doesn't understand."
Blaise Pascal
"This isn't right, this isn't even wrong."
Wolfgang Pauli
"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being
governed by those who are dumber."
Plato
"It often happens that I wake at night and begin to think about a
serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake
up completely and remember that I am the Pope."
Pope John XXIII
"Sip it, savor it, cup it, photostat it, underline it in red,
put it in the album, hang it on the wall: George Bush is the next
president of the United States."
Dan Rather
"Democrats are weasels, Republicans can't count, and
Independents are nuts. What's a normal person to do?"
Rational Professor
"You fight until hell freezes over. Then you fight on the ice."
Richard Russell
"Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat."
Jean-Paul Sartre
"The optimist believes that we live in the best of all possible
worlds, whereas the pessimist, it is said, fears this is true."
Amartya Sen [original source?]
"Where is there enough leather to cover the surface of the earth?
But just by having leather on the soles of one's feet is the
same as covering the whole earth."
Shantideva
"The main rule of marriage seems to be that you can't have sex
with other women."
Joel Stein
"My music is best understood by children and animals."
Igor Stravinsky
"If smoking cigars is not permitted in heaven, I won't go."
Mark Twain
"Some theorists believe that sleep does nothing but keep us
out of trouble for a few hours."
Frank Vertosick
"For instance, noses were made to support spectacles, hence
we wear spectacles. So those who say that everything is well
are speaking foolishly; they should say that everything is
best."
Voltaire
"Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men
should be happier than others."
Oscar Wilde
"No farmer ever plowed a field by turning it over in his mind."
George Woodbury
