Favourite Fortunes

Philosophy

• Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?

• This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't.
  -- Hofstadter

• What is mind? No matter.
  What is matter? Never mind.
  -- Thomas Hewitt Key, 1799-1875

• "I think not" said Rene Descartes. Just then, he vanished.

• Gods exists! If not, who pops up the next Kleenex?

• Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL.
  -- Mae West

The Modern World

• "I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's a knob called `brightness', but it doesn't work."
  -- Gallagher

• Lewis's Law of Travel:
  The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to anyone, ever.

• Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, "Part of this complete breakfast". The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old will be watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show a commercial for a children's compressed breakfast compound such as "Froot Loops" or "Lucky Charms", and they always show it sitting on a table next to some actual food such as eggs, and the announcer always says: "Part of this complete breakfast". Don't that really mean, "Adjacent to this complete breakfast", or "On the same table as this complete breakfast"? And couldn't they make essentially the same claim if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of shaving cream there, or a dead bat?

  Answer: Yes.

  -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"

Children

• Cleaning up while having children is like clearing the driveway before it stops snowing.

• You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.
  -- Franklin P. Jones

• Sweater, n.:
  A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly.

Academia

• "Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree."
  -- Professor W.

Physics

• The Heineken Uncertainty Principle:
  You can never be sure how many beers you had last night.

Computer Science

• Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1 1/2 tons.
  ---Popular Mechanics, March 1949

• The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.
  -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers

Literature

• "What's another word for Thesaurus?"
  -- Steven Wright

• "... After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations."
  -- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare

Facts of Life

• Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning:
  It's on the other side.

• Oliver's Law:
  Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

• "If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars."
  -- J. Paul Getty

Important definitions

• Lactomangulation, n.:
  Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side.
  -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

• Furbling, v.:
  Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank even when you are the only person in line.
  -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

• Checkuary, n.:
  The thirteenth month of the year. Begins New Year's Day and ends when a person stops absentmindedly writing the old year on his checks.
  -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

• Experience, n.:
  That marvelous thing which enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
  -- F. P. Jones

• Antonym, n.:
  The opposite of the word you're trying to think of.

• Spirtle, n.:
  The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in your eye.
  -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"