Great minds discuss ideas;
Average minds discuss events;
Small minds discuss people. -- Eleanor Roosevelt

On two occasions I have been asked, – "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. -- George Orwell

Long after his death his poems were found and wondered over. News of them spread like morning sunlight. For centuries they illuminated and watered the lives of many people whose lives might otherwise have been darker and drier. -- Douglas Adams, Life The Universe And Everything

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. -- Susan B. Anthony

Men's magazines often feature pictures of naked women. Women's magazines also feature pictures of naked women. This is because the female body is a beautiful work of art, while the male body is lumpy and hairy and should not be seen by the light of day. -- Dave Barry

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same in any country. -- Hermann Goering (1893 - 1946)

Considered as an inadvertent and largely unsupervised experiment, [Ultima Online] raises questions about whether people can manage to coexist peacefully even when they don't really exist. -- Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, 05/28/2001

When did it become the job of our government to ensure that a company remains profitable when technological advances make its products obsolete? -- Ryland Sanders

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. -- Gene Roddenberry

Malign reptilian creatures crawled out of everything, danced around, and announced that they ruled reality and the world. Later, I told this vision to the old shaman. The Shaman said - "Oh yes. They are always saying that. Don't take them so seriously. They are only the lords of the outer darkness. You have to move past them." -- Wade Davis

The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment. -- d'Espagnat

You'll never go broke underestimating the taste of the American public. -- H.L. Mencken

For you to insult me, I must first value your opinion. -- Unknown

American Democracy is asking for a cup of coffee and getting to choose between Coke or Pepsi. -- Unknown

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We are the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no great war, no Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression...is our lives. -- Fight Club

On Wisdom:

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. -- Bertrand Russell

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. -- Mark Twain

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- Carl Sagan

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is very probably wrong. Arthur C. Clarke

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. -- Carl Sagan

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them. -- Issac Asimov

There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back. -- Robert Heinlein

If we persist in believing that evil and suffering are due to something Adam and Eve did, or that they are caused by devils, we will never be able to overcome them. When we come to understand that we inflict suffering upon ourselves through our ignorance and craving, we have taken the first step in overcoming that suffering. Knowing the true cause of a problem is the beginning of overcoming it- And it is not sufficient to just believe - we must strive to understand. Understanding requires intelligence, careful observation, weighing up the facts, openness; and in trying to develop insight, these qualities are strengthened. A. L. de Silva

On Life:

Then I will tell you a great secret, Captain, perhaps the greatest of all time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station, and the nebula outside-- that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff. We are the Universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. -- Delenn, Babylon 5

"It's like the folk who elect a government who preaches self interest and are then surprised when they govern for their own personal self interest not the folk who voted for them." -- Zeinfeld

You've been dead before, remember. What was the first 15 billion years of the universe like for you? -- wallern@aol.com

And she, maybe, was beginning to think that if Hiro was so convinced in his own mind that he was unworthy of her, maybe he knew something she didn't. -- Neil Stephenson, Snow Crash

For best results, avoid doing stupid things. -- Acme Klein Bottles, specifications page

I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. -- Thomas Jefferson, To Samuel Kercheval, Monticello, July 12, 1816