Aaron Fuegi's Quotations (secondary set)

Please also be welcome at the Last Homely House, run by Aaron.

Note on Secondary Quotes

My main page of quotations represents those quotes which are in some way meaningful to me. I have recently realized that there are a significant set of other quotes which are not "meaningful" but which are still worth collecting, generally for their humor value. This page contains this collection and will likely grow more quickly than the other page as I will not be quite so selective. Also included on this page are a set of quotes from my favorite movies. I also have a set of quotes from Babylon 5, the television series.
-Enjoy, Aaron

And now for the QUOTES

When a thing has been said, and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

Anatole France

What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.

Richard Harkness, The New York Times, 1960

Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Samuel Johnson (this applies so well to the WWW and is part of the reason I spend so much time on it)

Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out a candle, and blows in a fire.

De La Rochefoucauld.

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.

Dave Barry

Look, in particular, at the people who, like you, are making average incomes for doing average jobs--bank vice presidents, insurance salesman, auditors, secretaries of defense--and you'll realize they all dress the same way, essentially the way the mannequins in the Sears mens wear department dress. Now look at the real successes, the people who make a lot more money than you--Elton John, Captain Kangaroo, anybody from Saudi Arabia, Big Bird, and so on. They all dress funny--and they all succeed. Are you catching on?

Dave Barry, How to Dress for Real Success

668: The Neighbor of the Beast

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

In a survey taken several years ago, all incoming freshman at MIT were asked if they expected to graduate in the top half of their class. Ninety-seven percent responded that they did.

Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty but only the pig enjoys it.

Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease". Disraeli replied, "That all depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."

[actually, it was John Wilkes and some nameless MP, a generation or two ahead of Gladstone and Disraeli. -- grs]

An Animated Cartoon Theology:
1. People are animals.
2. The body is mortal and subject to incredible pain.
3. Life is antagonistic to the living.
4. The flesh can be sawed, crushed, frozen, stretched, burned, bombed, and plucked for music.
5. The dumb are abused by the smart and the smart destroyed by their own cunning.
6. The small are tortured by the large and the large destroyed by their own momentum.
7. We are able to walk on air, but only as long as our illusion supports us.

E. L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel

On one occasion a student burst into his office. "Professor Stigler, I don't believe I deserve this F you've given me." To which Stigler replied, "I agree, but unfortunately it is the lowest grade the University will allow me to award."

"If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?"
"Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area."

Somewhere in No Man's Land, BA4

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.

Hunter S. Thompson

I have taken more good from alcohol than alcohol has taken from me.

Winston Churchill

I think you should defend to the death their right to march, and then go down and meet them with baseball bats.

Woody Allen, on the KKK

Q: What did the instructor at the school for Kamikazi pilots say to his students?
A: Watch closely. I'm only going to do this once.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1933

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle

It's so much more friendly with two.

Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne

Slight not what's near through aiming at what's far.

Euripides

All a man can betray is his conscience.

Joseph Conrad

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.

Herman Melville

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

Shakespeare

To see what is right and not to do it, is want of courage.

Confucius Analects

To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be.

Anna Louise Strong

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

Thomas Paine

Everybody wants to get old, but nobody wants to be old.

Goethe

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow grow, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

George Washington

The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.

Alan Saporta

"I wasn't kidding. I do have a test today. It's on European Socialism."
"What's the big deal? I'm not European. I don't plan on becoming European. So why should I care if they're socialists? They could be facist, anarchist pigs. It still wouldn't change the fact that I don't have a car."

Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
Neither a follower nor a leader be.

Computer : a million morons working at the speed of light.

David Ferrier

Out the 10Base-T, through the router, down the T1, over the leased line, off the bridge, past the firewall...nothing but Net.

I am Homer of Borg! Prepare to be... Ooooooo! Donuts!

The Simpsons

Time to stop beating around the bush. Beat the bush itself. Give it a good thrashing, and say "bad bush!" in a loud stern tone.

Fred Barling, Humorscope

As your attorney, it is my duty to inform you that it is not important that you understand what I'm doing or why you're paying me so much money. What's important is that you continue to do so.

Hunter S. Thompson's Samoan attorney

The Soviet propaganda ministry ordered 10 million condoms from an American manufacturer, all 16" long and 3" in diameter. The American manufacturer filled the order, sending the merchandise in boxes marked 'medium.'

Music I heard with you was more than music, and bread I broke with you was more than bread. Now that I am without you, all is desolate; all that was once so beautiful is dead.

Conrad Aiken

Signore Gaspare replied: 'And what do you say about the game of chess?'
'That is certainly a refined and ingenious recreation,' said Federico, 'but it seems to me to possess one defect; namely, that it is possible for it to demand too much knowledge, so that anyone who wishes to become an outstanding player must, I think, give to it as much time and study as he would to learning some noble science or performing well something or other of importance; and yet for all his pains when all is said and done all he knows is a game. Therefore as far as chess is concerned we reach what is a very rare conclusion: that mediocrity is more to be praised than excellence.'

Baldesar Castiglione, Etiquette for Renaissance Gentlemen, 1528 A.D.

"KGB, most feared organisation on planet!" Purchaser flashes his IRS ID.
"Hokay, KGB, second most feared organisation on planet!"

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.

Tao Te Ching

Forget trying to pass for normal. Follow your geekdom. Embrace your nerditude. In the immortal words of Lafcadio Hearn, a geek of incredible obscurity whose work is still in print after a hundred years, "Woo the muse of the odd." . . . You may be a geek. You may have geek written all over you. You should aim to be one geek they'll never forget. Don't aim to be civilized. Don't hope that straight people will keep you on as some kind of pet. To hell with them. You should fully realize what society has made of you and take a terrible revenge. Get weird. Get way weird. Get dangerously weird. Get sophisticatedly, thoroughly weird, and don't do it halfway. Put every ounce of horsepower you have behind it. . . . Don't become a well rounded person. Well rounded people are smooth and dull. Become a thoroughly spiky person. Grow spikes from every angle. Stick in their throats like a pufferfish.

Bruce Sterling, speech on The Wonderful Power of Storystelling to the Computer Game Developers Conference, March 1991

"I went to the airport, with my ticket to Los Angeles. I brought three bags and told the Skycap, "I want this on to go to Seattle, this one to St. Louis and this one to Chicago."
He said, "I'm sorry sir, but we can't do that."
I said, "Why not? You did it last time."

Henny Youngman

I gave my books their own room. Now they want the whole house.

The Web isn't better than sex, but sliced bread is in serious trouble.

You came to me without my asking and crooked your finger and invited me to try for you. And I went for it because that's what men do when fate or a woman or the brass ring comes their way. They reach their hand out and try for it. And when they are found wanting--as much of the time they are--they feel like they've been made a fool of, but they get over it, and go on with their lives because otherwise nothing would ever happen again.

David Lance Goines, Also Ran

I know that if I just beat my head against the wall long enough, that an idea will infallibly result, but there is always the nameless terror that maybe this time the Muse is not merely hitch-hiking through Georgia, but has been kidnapped, murdered and tumbled into a ditch. Or maybe she's mad at me.

David Lance Goines, Graphic Designer

A not unfamiliar expression in the description of human relations is "the Hawthorne effect," Many people assume that the Hawthorne somehow refers to a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, but actually it is the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company in Chicago. There in 1924 C. E. Snow of the National Research Council undertook to study the influence of lighting on the productivity of industrial workers, in this case women working on assembly lines making telephone components such as electrical relays.
At first Snow and his colleagues measured the productivity at the normal level of illumination. Then they raised the level of illumination. The productivity of the workers increased. Then they raised the level again; the productivity increased again. They raised it still more; the productivity continued to increase.
Being good scientists, Snow and his colleagues now LOWERED the level of illumination below what it had been at first. To their surprise, the productivity continued to increase. They lowered the level of illumination still more, with the same result. Finally when the level was so low that the workers could hardly see what they were doing, the productivity fell off. It suddenly dawned on everyone. The workers were not responding to the changes in illumination. They were responding to someone's paying attention to them. That is the Hawthorne effect.

Dennis Flagan, Flanagan's Version, 1989

It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift.

Roger Angell, New Yorker baseball writer, 1975

Ben Graham told a story 40 years ago that illustrates why investment professionals behave as they do: An oil prospector, moving to his heavenly reward, was met by St. Peter with bad news. "You're qualified for residence", said St. Peter, "but, as you can see, the compound reserved for oil men is packed. There's no way to squeeze you in." After thinking a moment, the prospector asked if he might say just four words to the present occupants. That seemed harmless to St. Peter, so the prospector cupped his hands and yelled, "Oil discovered in hell." Immediately the gate to the compound opened and all of the oil men marched out to head for the nether regions. Impressed, St. Peter invited the prospector to move in and make himself comfortable. The prospector paused. "No," he said, "I think I'll go along with the rest of the boys. There might be some truth to that rumor after all."

Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Letter to Shareholders, 1985

Movie Quotes (from my favorite movies)

Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find: one 45 caliber automatic, two boxes of ammunition, four days concentrated emergency rations, one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills, one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible, one hundred dollars in rubles, one hundred in gold, nine packs of chewing gum, one issue of prophylactics, three lipsticks, three pairs of nylon stockings. Shoot a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, spoken by Major T. J. "King" Kong

Hullo? ... Ah ... Hello, Dm... ah ... Hello, Dmitri? ... Listen, ah, I can't hear too well. Do you suppose you could turn down the music just a little? ... Oh-ho, that's much better. ... yeah ... ha ... yes ... Fine, I can hear you now, Dmitri. ... Clear and plain and coming through fine. ... I'm coming through fine, too, eh? ... Good, then ... well, then, as you say, we're both coming trough fine. ... Good. ... Well, it's good that you're fine and ... and I'm fine. ... I agree with you, it's great to be fine. ... a-ha-ha-ha-ha ... Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb. ... The *bomb*, Dmitri. ... The *hydrogen* bomb! ... Well now, what happened is ... ah ... one of our base commanders had a sort of ... well, he went a little funny in the head ... you know ... just a little ... funny. And, ah ... he went and did a silly thing. ... Well, I'll tell you what he did. He ordered his planes ... to attack your country... Ah... Well, let me finish, Dmitri. ... Let me finish, Dmitri. ... Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?! ... Can you *imagine* how I feel about it, Dmitri? ... Why do you think I'm calling? Just to say hello? ... *Of course* I like to speak to you! ... *Of course* I like to say hello! ... Not now, but anytime, Dmitri. I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened... *It's* a friendly call. Of course it's a friendly call. ... Listen, if it wasn't friendly ... you probably wouldn't have even got it. ... They will *not* reach their targets for at least another hour. ... I am ... I am possitive, Dmitri. ... Listen, I've been all over this with your ambassador. It is not a trick. ... Well, I'll tell you. We'd like to give your air staff a complete run-down on the targets, the flight plans, and the defensive systems of the planes. ... Yes! I mean i-i-i-if we're unable to recall the planes, then ... I'd say that, ah ... well, ah ... we're just gonna have to help you destroy them, Dmitri. ... I know they're our boys. ... All right, well listen now. Who should we call? ... *Who* should we call, Dmitri? The ... wha-whe, the People... you, sorry, you faded away there. ... The People's Central Air Defense Headquarters. ... Where is that, Dmitri? ... In Omsk. ... Right. ... Yes. ... Oh, you'll call them first, will you? ... Uh-hu ... Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Dmitri? ... Whe-ah, what? I see, just ask for Omsk information. ... Ah-ah-eh-uhm-hm ... I'm sorry, too, Dmitri. ... I'm very sorry. ... *All right*, you're sorrier than I am, but I am as sorry as well. ... I am as sorry as you are, Dmitri! Don't say that you're [the] more sorry than I am, because I'm capable of being just as sorry as you are. ... So we're both sorry, all right?! ... All right. ...

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, spoken by the US President to the Russian Premier over the Red phone.

After escaping from prison
"We released ourselves on our own recognizance."
"What Evelle means to say is, we felt that the institution no longer had anything to offer us."

Raising Arizona, spoken by Evelle and Gale

Evelle picks up a pack of balloons.
"Do these blow into funny shapes and all?"
"Well, no, unless round is funny."

Raising Arizona, spoken by Evelle and the Grocer

"We figured there was too much happiness here for just the two of us, so we figured the next logical step was to have us a critter."

Raising Arizona, spoken by H.I. McDonough

A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

Bull Durham, spoken by Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh

"His brain has not only been washed, as they say... It has been dry cleaned."

The Manchurian Candidate, spoken by Dr. Yen Lo

"Have at you!"
"You are indeed brave, sir knight, but the fight is mine."
"Oh, had enough eh?"
"Look, you stupid bastard. You've got no arms left!"
"Yes I have."
"Look!"
"Just a flesh wound!"

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, spoken by the Black Knight and King Arthur

"Oh, king, eh? And how'd you get that? By exploiting the workers! By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society."

"The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering silmite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king!"
"Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"

"Oh, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!"

"Oh but if I went 'round sayin' I was Emperor, just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!"

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, conversation between Dennis and King Arthur

"We live in a bloody swamp. We need all the land we can get."
"But I don't like her."
"Don't like her? What's wrong with her. She's beautiful, she's rich, she's got huge ... tracts of land."

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, spoken by the King of Swamp Castle and his son, Prince Herbert

Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, "Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, spoken by Brother Maynard

Brian: "You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves. You're all individuals!"
The Crowd: "Yes, we're all individuals!"
Brian: "You're all different!"
The Crowd: "Yes, we are all different!"
Dennis in small lonely voice: "I'm not."

Monthy Python's Life of Brian

They all want me as a friend or a fuck. I'm worshiped at Westerburg and I'm only a junior.

Heathers, spoken by Heather Chandler

There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here; because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then then, a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit.

The Shawshank Redemption, spoken by Red

I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend.

The Shawshank Redemption, spoken by Red

"Do you think there really are people who can just go up and say, 'Hi, babe. Name's Charles. This is your lucky night'?"
"Well, if there are, they're not English."

Four Weddings and a Funeral, spoken by Charles and Matthew

I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact and was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice, and I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

A Fish Called Wanda, spoken by Archibald Leech

And I guess that was your accomplice in the woodchipper.

Fargo, spoken by Marge Gunderson

"The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and -"
"Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?"
"Exactly."
"Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?"
"Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?"
"I don't know."
"Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?"
"Put it up to eleven."
"Eleven. Exactly. One louder."
"Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?"
[Pause] "These go to eleven."

This is Spinal Tap, spoken by Nigel Tufnel and Marty DiBergi

This is your receipt for your husband ... and this is my receipt for your receipt.

Brazil, spoken by police officer

You can go pack to my main quotations list or look at the set of quotes from Babylon 5 or my set of quotes relating to playing games. You might also want to look at lists of My Favorites or read more quotations at The Quotations Page. For a set of humorous quotes look at the Fortunes page.

Please send me EMAIL if you have any comments on or suggestions for these pages or if you just want to say hi.

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