quoth/naelyn

Quote #3131

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:23:39 -0800

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
- James D. Nicoll

Quote #3074

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:33:13 -0700

We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink, for dining alone is leading the life of a lion or wolf.
- Epicurus

Quote #3023

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:42:54 -0700

Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly.
- Rose Franken, writer

Quote #2991

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 06:33:56 -0800

I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.
- George W. Bush
Article »

Quote #2990

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 20:20:30 -0800

There. Is. No. Long-Term. Data. Storage. Solution. There is only a series of short-term solutions punctuated by data migration from one medium to the next.
- Mark Pilgrim
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Quote #2988

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:28:39 -0800

Being an atheist doesn't mean that life isn't important. It means that we get to create our own sense of importance. The human scale is where we live. It's what we have. And if we decide that that's the most important scale for us, there's nobody out there to tell us otherwise.
- Greta Christina
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Quote #2824

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 22:20:27 -0700

Here's something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Here's something four-year-olds know: Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for.
- Clay Shirky
Blog post »

Quote #2821

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:31:33 -0700

A reg exp is a thing of beauty but it is not a joy forever. Instead, it makes my head hurt.
- Liz Henry
Blog post »

Quote #2804

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:48:30 -0800

There are no secrets in life, just hidden truths that lie beneath the surface.
- Dexter Morgan
TV: Dexter

Quote #2801

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:20:23 -0800

I find people around me are all making some kind of connection, like friendship or romance but human bonds always lead to messy complications; commitment, sharing, driving people to the airport. Besides if I let someone get that close, they'd see who I really am and I can't let that happen. So, time to put on my mask.
- Dexter Morgan
TV: Dexter

Quote #2800

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:19:32 -0800

Everyone hides who they are at least some of the time. Sometimes you bury that part of yourself so deeply that you have to be reminded that it's there at all, and sometimes you just want to forget who you are altogether.
- Dexter Morgan
TV: Dexter

Quote #2799

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:16:48 -0800

Tonight's the night. And it's going to happen again, and again. It has to happen. Nice night.
- Dexter Morgan
TV: Dexter

Quote #2798

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:15:45 -0800

People fake a lot of human interactions, but I feel like I fake them all, and I fake them very well, that's my burden, I guess.
- Dexter Morgan
TV: Dexter

Quote #2791

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 06:19:05 -0800

Python is executable pseudocode. Perl is executable line noise.
Book: “Thinking in Python” by Bruce Eckel

Quote #2788

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:27:16 -0800

At heart, this really is a math problem. Last time these talk shows were off the air for any length of time was after September 11th. And at that time, most shows were off for about a week. So if my math is correct, the Writer's Strike is now nine times worse than September 11th.
- Jon Stewart
TV: The Daily Show: 7 Jan 2008

Quote #2764

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 08:37:51 -0800

If you want to tell people the truth, make 'em laugh; otherwise, they'll kill you.
- Oscar Wilde

Quote #2763

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 00:30:47 -0700

I burned up many chips and circuits. I discovered how electronic components work: They are full of smoke. If the smoke gets out, they don't work anymore.

- Paul Jones

Quote #2761

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:57:16 -0700

Being an expert in XML is like being an expert in comma-separated values.
- Terence Parr

Quote #2732

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 10:47:53 -0700

When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
- Sinclair Lewis - 1935

Quote #2728

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 18:46:19 -0700

Ideas rot if you don't do something with them. I used to try to hoard them, but they rotted. Now I just blog them or tell people about them. Sometimes they still rot, but sometimes someone finds them useful in one way or another.
- Edd Dumbill
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Quote #2727

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 20:12:25 -0700

If it wasn't for the Enlightenment, you wouldn't be reading this right now. You'd be standing in a smock throwing turnips at a witch.
- Charlie Brooker
Article »

Quote #2722

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 23:59:11 -0700

If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.
- Hunter S. Thompson

Quote #2717

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:51:10 -0700

Debating a religionist is like playing tennis with someone who lowers the net for their shots and raises it for yours.
- Daniel Dennett

Quote #2652

Fri, 11 May 2007 21:43:58 -0700

Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven. What a weapon! Religious faith deserves a chapter to itself in the annals of war technology, on an even footing with the longbow, the warhorse, the tank, and the hydrogen bomb.
- Richard Dawkins - 1976

Quote #2650

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:41:43 -0700

To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise...without plunging into the fathomless abyss of dreams and phantasms. I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.
- Thomas Jefferson - letter to John Adams, August 15, 1820

Quote #2643

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 10:14:28 -0700

Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.
- Tim O'Reilly
Article »

Quote #2642

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 06:36:51 -0700

It's possible to be a conservative without appearing to be an idiot.
- Roscoe Bartlett - Republican from Maryland
Article »

Quote #2639

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:28:41 -0700

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
- Ernest Hemingway

Quote #2638

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 17:43:52 -0700

Don't let other people belittle your ambitions. Only small people do that. Truly great people make you feel that you, too, can also become great.
- Mark Twain

Quote #2620

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 11:01:05 -0800

The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.
- Lin Yutang

Quote #2619

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 11:00:38 -0800

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.
- Peter Ustinov

Quote #2618

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 11:00:18 -0800

The difference between science and fuzzier subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship.
- Robert Heinlein

Quote #2617

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:59:41 -0800

Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, not an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.
- Emily Post

Quote #2616

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:59:16 -0800

The happy people are those who are producing something; the bored people are those who are consuming much and producing nothing.
- William Ralph Inge

Quote #2615

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:58:42 -0800

If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve their dignity and their equality as a human being, they must not bow their neck to any dictatorial government.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Quote #2614

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:57:07 -0800

Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day.
- Thornton Wilder

Quote #2613

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:51:22 -0800

People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn, persistent illusion.
- Albert Einstein

Quote #2612

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:50:54 -0800

I claim the right to contradict myself. I don't want to deprive myself of the right to talk nonsense and I ask humbly to be allowed to be wrong sometimes.
- Federico Fellini

Quote #2611

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:50:19 -0800

Organized religion is dangerous and a mass psychosis.
- Bill Maher - September 24, 2006

Quote #2610

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:49:33 -0800

All that was required of them (i.e. the brain-washed masses) was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice.
- George Orwell
Book: 1984

Quote #2609

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:48:25 -0800

Highly intelligent people are mostly atheists. Not a single member of either house of Congress admits to being an atheist. It just doesn't add up. Either they're stupid, or they're lying. And have they got a motive for lying? Of course they've got a motive! Everybody knows that an atheist can't get elected.
- Richard Dawkins
Article »

Quote #2563

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:48:45 -0800

"You know, there's nothing to fear, but fear itself." Yeah, that's called recursion and that would lead to infinite fear, so thank you.
- Ze Frank
Blog post »

Quote #2552

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 06:16:28 -0800

When you're writing a novel you're working at the most extreme limit of your capabilities. What you're doing is beyond logic, so far out at the limits of what you can do that there's no hope of your having a short and manageable simulation of the process by which to figure out what you're doing, it's computationally irreducible. When you get into this zone, out on the very surface of your brain, you become sensitive to the tiniest chaotic emanations of the world outside. At times it feels as if the world, feeling your sensitivity, gladly dances back. Dosie-do. Keep your eyes peeled.
- Rudy Rucker - http://www.rudyrucker.com/writing/
Article: A Writer’s Toolkit

Quote #2548

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:32:36 -0800

Geeks get it done. Nerds don't.
- Richard A. Clarke
TV: The Colbert Réport: 17 Jan 2007

Quote #2547

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:19:08 -0800

The only long-term effect of copy protection is to ensure that those who defeat it are immortalized.
- Mark Pilgrim
Blog post »

Quote #2540

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 23:41:55 -0800

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.
- Epictetus

Quote #2533

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 00:38:47 -0800

Doesn't information itself have a liberal bias?
- Stephen Colbert
TV: The Colbert Réport: 27 Nov 2006

Quote #2478

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 10:57:12 -0800

You're putting words in my mouth just like you put artificial facts in your head.
- David Letterman - to Bill O'Reilly
TV: Late Night with David Letterman - 27 Oct 2006

Quote #2476

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 13:22:23 -0700

You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.
- The Doctor
TV: Doctor Who - from the 4th doctor in the episode “The Face of Evil”

Quote #2475

Sat, 21 Oct 2006 18:40:08 -0700

Natural selection is about as non-random a force as you could possibly imagine.
- Richard Dawkins
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