|
ECONOMICS
The
main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many men
as possible.
-
Bernard Baruch.
An
economic forecaster is like a cross-eyed javelin thrower: they
don't win many accuracy contests, but they keep the crowd's
attention.
Economists are still trying to figure out why the girls with the
least principle draw the most interest.
If all
economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a
conclusion.
EDUCATION
A man
who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but
if he has a university education, he may steal the whole
railroad.
-
Theodore Roosevelt.
No man
who worships education has got the best out of
education....Without a gentle contempt for education no man's
education is complete.
- G.K.
Chesterton.
The
whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
-
Sydney J. Harris.
Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has
learned in school.
-
Albert Einstein.
It'll
be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and
the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers.
-
Author unknown, quoted in You Said a Mouthful.
If you
think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-
Attributed to both Andy McIntyre and Derek Bok.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
-
Edward Everett.
The
object of education is to prepare the young to educate
themselves throughout their lives.
-
Robert Maynard Hutchins.
Rarely
is the question asked: is our children learning?
-
George W. Bush.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from
time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught.
-
Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist.
I read
Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That's what I
call a liberal education.
-
Tallulah Bankhead.
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without
losing your temper.
-
Robert Frost.
The
illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read
and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
- Alvin Toffler.
There
is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the
thing he was educated in.
- Will
Rogers.
Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire.
-
William Butler Yeats.
I
prefer the company of peasants because they have not been
educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
-
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne.
I have
never let my schooling interfere with my education.
- Mark
Twain.
I'm
not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to
school like I did.
- Yogi
Berra.
The
regular course was Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin
with; and then the different branches of Arithmetic - Ambition,
Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.
-
Lewis Carroll.
Harvard University, according to the directory of the American
Society of Colleges and Universities, is a "type of weevil."
- Dave
Barry.
All
the learnin' my father paid for was a bit o' birch at one end
and an alphabet at the other.
-
George Eliot.
I had
just received my degree in Calcium Anthropology... the study of
milkmen.
-
Steven Wright.
You
can get all A's and still flunk life.
-
Walker Percy.
There
are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX.
We don't believe this to be a coincidence.
-
Jeremy S. Anderson.
I
won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner.
We used to write essays like: What I'm going to be if I grow up.
-
Lenny Bruce.
I'm
returning this note to you, instead of your paper, because it
(your paper) presently occupies the bottom of my bird cage.
-
English Professor, Providence College.
Of
course there's a lot of knowledge in universities: the freshmen
bring a little in; the seniors don't take much away, so
knowledge sort of accumulates...
Examinations - Nature's laxative.
I is a
college student.
EFFORT
The
only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.
-
Attributed to both Vidal Sassoon and Donald Kendall.
Hard
work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their
sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at
all.
- Sam
Ewing.
Be not afraid of going
slowly; be afraid only of standing still.
- Chinese Proverb.
If you
can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a
kingdom of the blind.
- Kurt
Vonnegut, Jr.
God
gave us two ends - one to sit on and one to think with. Success
depends on which one you use. Head you win, tail you lose.
The
difference between try and triumph is a little umph.
Why be
difficult? Put in a little more effort and be impossible.
ELECTIONS
Be
Thankful Only One Of Them Can Win.
-
Bumper sticker, Nixon/Kennedy presidential election, 1960.
If
Voting Changed Anything They’d Make It Illegal.
-
Badge, London.
ENEMIES
We
have met the enemy, and he is us.
-
Eddie Cantor.
Enemies are to me the sauce piquante to my dish of life.
- Elsa
Maxwell.
A man
can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
-
Oscar Wilde.
We
should forgive one’s enemies, but not before they are hanged..
-
Heinrich Heine.
The
best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.
-
Friedrich Nietzsche.
Pay
attention to your enemies for they are the first to discover
your mistakes.
-
Antisthenes.
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
Love
your enemy - it’ll drive him nuts.
Love
thine enemies….it really pisses them off.
ENGLAND & BRITAIN
Abroad
is unutterably bloody and foreigners are fiends.
-
Nancy Mitford.
Englishmen will never be slaves: they are free to do whatever
the Government and public opinion allow them to do.
-
George Bernard Shaw.
When I
warned them [the French Government] that Britain would fight on
alone whatever they did, their Generals told their PM and his
divided Cabinet: ‘In three weeks England will have her neck
wrung like a chicken.’ Some chicken! Some neck!
-
Winston Churchill.
Curse
the blasted jelly-boned swines, the slimy bell-wriggling
invertebrates, the miserable sodding rotters, the flaming sods,
the snivelling, dribbling, dithering, palsied pulseless lot that
make up England today. They’ve got white of egg in their veins,
and their spunk is that watery it’s a marvel they can breed . .
. Why, why, why was I born an Englishman!
- D.H.
Lawrence.
When
it’s three o’clock in New York, it’s still 1938 in London.
-
Bette Midler.
London: The monstrous tuberosity of civilized life, the capital
of England.
-
Thomas Carlyle.
An
Englishman, even when he is alone, forms an orderly queue of
one.
-
George Mikes.
Mad
dogs and Englishmen
Go out
in the midday sun,
The
Japanese don’t care to,
The
Chinese wouldn’t dare to,
Hindoos and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one.
But
Englishmen detest a siesta.
- Noël
Coward, ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’.
A man
in a queue is as much the image of a true Briton as a man in a
bull-ring is the image of a Spaniard.
-
George Mikes.
We
were not fairly beaten, my lord. No Englishman is ever fairly
beaten.
-
George Bernard Shaw.
So
little, England. Little music. Little art. Timid. Tasteful.
Nice.
- Alan
Bennett.
Deploring change is the unchangeable habit of all Englishmen.
-
Raymond Postgate.
The
climate of England has been the world’s most powerful colonizing
impulse.
-
Russell Green.
Every
Englishman is convinced of one thing, viz.: That to be an
Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is.
-
Ogden Nash.
Englishmen think over a compliment for a week, so that by the
time they pay it, it is addled, like a bad egg.
- W.J.
Locke.
Being
British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a
Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or
a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and
watch American shows on a Japanese TV.
England and America are two countries separated by the same
language.
The
natives start at Calais.
Yorkshireman: A Scotsman with the generosity removed.
ENVIRONMENT
It
wasn't the Exxon Valdez captain's driving that caused the
Alaskan oil spill. It was yours.
-
Greenpeace advertisement, New York Times, 25 February
1990
Don't
blow it - good planets are hard to find.
-
Quoted in Time.
When a
man throws an empty cigarette package from an automobile, he is
liable to a fine of $50. When a man throws a billboard across a
view, he is richly rewarded.
- Pat
Brown.
I
think the environment should be put in the category of our
national security. Defence of our resources is just as important
as defence abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?
-
Robert Redford, Yosemite National Park dedication, 1985
We do
not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.
-
Native American Proverb.
Take
nothing but pictures.
Leave
nothing but footprints.
Kill
nothing but time.
-
Motto of the Baltimore Grotto, a caving society.
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread
within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All
things are bound together. All things connect.
-
Chief Seattle, 1855.
The
old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart away from nature
becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living
things soon led to lack of respect for humans too.
-
Chief Luther Standing Bear
The
universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
ambition.
- Carl
Sagan.
Man is
a complex being: he makes deserts bloom - and lakes die.
- Gil
Stern.
The
American reading his Sunday paper in a state of lazy collapse is
perhaps the most perfect symbol of the triumph of quantity over
quality....Whole forests are being ground into pulp daily to
minister to our triviality.
-
Irving Babbitt.
We
shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind
is to survive.
-
Albert Einstein.
Man
has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that
he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been
a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers
dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the
land grows poorer and uglier every day.
-
Anton Chekhov, Uncle Vanya, 1897.
The
struggle to save the global environment is in one way much more
difficult than the struggle to vanquish Hitler, for this time
the war is with ourselves. We are the enemy, just as we have
only ourselves as allies.
- Al
Gore.
Arnold
Schwarzenegger is blaming man for global warming. And today Al
Gore agreed with him. That's so typical. Two cyborgs blaming the
humans.
- Jay
Leno.
The word "wilderness"
occurs approximately three hundred times in the Bible, and all
its meanings are derogatory.
- René Dubos, The
Wooing of Earth.
Only
when the last tree is cut; only when the last river is polluted;
only when the last fish is caught; only then will they realise
that you cannot eat money.
- Cree
Indian proverb.
To
live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own
in the midst of abundance.
-
Buddha.
We
must not be forced to explore the universe in search of a new
home because we have made the Earth inhospitable, even
uninhabitable. For if we do not solve the environmental and
related social problems that beset us on Earth - pollution,
toxic contamination, resource depletion, prejudice, poverty,
hunger - those problems will surely accompany us to other
worlds.
-
Donald G. Kaufman and Cecilia M. Franz, Biosphere 2000
Protecting Our Global Environment
Is it
fair to say that there'd be less litter in Britain if blind
people were given pointed sticks?
- Adam
Bloom
Save
the Earth....it's the only planet with chocolate.
Regular or extra crispy, how do you want the environment?
EPITAPHS
Beneath this mound Charles Crocker now reposes;
Step
lightly, strangers - also hold your noses.
-
Ambrose Bierce.
Here
lies my wife: so let her lie!
Now
she’s at rest, and so am I!
- John
Dryden.
She
sleeps alone at last.
-
Robert Banchley - Suggested epitaph for an actress.
Here
lies the body of Ezra Pound,
Lost
at sea and never was found.
- Ezra
Pound.
Here
lies the body of Pavlov’s puppy,
Born
stone deaf and got no suppy.
-
Steve Fitzsimmons
Here
lies the body of Lester Moore,
Three
slugs from a forty-four,
No
Les, no more.
- Boot
Hill cemetery, Tombstone, Arizona.
Life
is a jest, and all things show it.
I
thought so once; but now I know it.
- John
Gay, for his own tombstone.
Here
lies a young author of no reputation,
Who
lived by his pen, and thus died of starvation.
He
forwards to Heaven a soul in dejection -
Enclosing a stamp for the usual rejection.
-
Lambert Jeffries.
I
Would Rather Be Living In Philadelphia.
- W.C.
Fields, suggested epitaph for himself.
Excuse
My Dust.
-
Dorothy Parker, suggested epitaph for herself.
Beneath this slab
John Brown is stowed.
He watched the ads
And not the road.
- Ogden Nash.
Stranger approach this spot with gravity:
John
Birningham is filling his last cavity.
- Anon
(on dentist’s tomb)
God caught his eye.
- David McCord, on
waiter’s gravestone.
"I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK"
Charlie was a Chemist,
but Charlie is no more.
What Charlie thought was
H20
was H2SO4.
Here lies Walter Dudley
He found out too late,
Dobermans aren't cuddly.
Here lies Henry Blake
He stepped on the gas
Instead of the brake
Here lies the body of
Edward Hyde
We laid him here because he died
Remember man, as you
walk by,
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, you soon will be.
Prepare yourself and follow me.
To which someone replied by writing on the tombstone:
To follow you I'll not consent,
Until I know which way you went.
The children of Israel
wanted bread,
And the Lord sent them manna.
Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,
And the Devil sent him Anna.
Under the sod and under the trees,
Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.
He is not here, there's only the pod.
Pease shelled out and went to God
Here lies Johnny Yeast.
Pardon me
For not rising.
On the 22nd of June,
Jonathan Fiddle
Went out of tune.
Here lies the body of
our Anna,
Done to death by a banana.
It wasn't the fruit that laid her low,
But the skin of the thing that made her go.
Here lies a man named
Zeke.
Second fastest draw in Cripple Creek.
Here lies the body of
Samuel Crane
Who ran a race with a passenger train
If only he'd thought to stop, look and listen
He'd be living now instead of missin'
Here I lie - Its no
wonder I'm dead,
For the wheels of a semi rolled over my head.
Here lies the popular
Kevin O'Toole
He thought it was cool to smoke at school.
Here lies Moonshiner
Fred
Lit a cigar & now he's dead
Here lies Melba June
Doak
Drowned when the outhouse planking broke
Here lies the remains of
Margaret Bent
She kicked up her heels, and away she went.
Here lies good old Fred
A great big rock fell on his head
Here lies dear departed
Dave,
He chased a bear into a cave
Here lies Mr. I. B.
Crisp
Fixed the toaster with a knife
Got the shock of his short life!
Here lies ex-spy Nathan
Wood
This time he's underground for good
Mary, Mary, quite
contrary
How does your garden grow?
Quite well I bet
Since it's well fed
By your body down below
Here lies mangled Hiriam
Brown
Peered up the shaft to see
If the elevator was coming down.
It was.
Here lies our dear Ol'
Pop
Twasn't the fall that done him in
But rather the sudden stop!
Here lies Myra Mains
Gorgeous body but alas - no brains
Here lies dearly
departed Blanche
She got run down by an
avalanche
Here like beloved Uncle
Jake
Rode downstairs on a roller skate
Here lies poor old
Martin Hupp
Tried crossing the bridge when the bridge was up
Born of women
Killed by lead
He most likely had
Your wife in bed
Little Willy in the best
of sashes
Played with fire and was burnt to ashes
Very soon the room got chilly
But nobody like to poke poor Willy.
I was
Carolina born
And Carolina bred
And I here I lay -
Carolina dead!
A
victim of fast women and slow horses.
He was
so brave
He was so cute
Until he forgot
His parachute
Here
lies all the remains of Charlotte,
Born a virgin, but died a harlot.
For sixteen years she kept her virginity,
A marvellous thing for this vicinity.
Owen
Moore has passed away,
Owin' More than he could pay.
Here's
to Johnny quite a guy,
Very sad he had to die.
All was well could not be better,
Till he wrote my girl a letter.
Blown
upward, out of sight,
He traced the leak by candle light.
Johann
Bach.
Musician.
Still decomposing,
After all these years.
Dapper
Dan,
Was a lady's man,
And known for miles around .
But he slept with Pearl,
The Gambler's girl,
He now lies six feet under ground.
I AM
NOT THERE
Do not
stand at my grave and weep;
I am
not there. I do not sleep.
I am a
thousand winds that blow.
I am
the diamond glints on snow.
I am
the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am
the gentle autumn's rain.
When
you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am
the swift uplifting rush
of
quiet birds in circled flight.
I am
the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not
stand at my grave and cry;
I am
not there, I did not die.
Pet’s Epitaphs:
Rover
- got run over
Spot -
washed overboard from Grampa's yacht
Fluffy
- went toes up & got real puffy
Champ
- never made it back to camp
Duke -
ate rat poison & started to puke
Fishy
- under Dad's boot became rather squishy
Jet -
done in by our vet
Lassie
- rolled underneath the trash truck's chassis
Shep -
off the balcony was a grave misstep
Rocket
- shouldn't have licked the electrical socket
Gretchen - found out porcupines are not for fetchin'
Tweety
the bird,
Was a great singer and flyer,
Until he took that nap in the dryer.
Here
lies,
All cold and hard,
The last damn dog,
That pooped in my yard!
EQUALITY
The
claim to equality is made only by those who feel themselves to
be in some way inferior.
- C.S.
Lewis.
Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever
turn it into a fact.
-
Honoré de Balzac.
All
animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
-
George Orwell.
Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the
same oven.
-
Yiddish Proverb.
All
the people like us are We,
And
everyone else is They.
-
Rudyard Kipling, We and They.
ESPIONAGE
First
Spy: When you arrive you will meet a man in a black trench coat.
He will ask you for the diamonds.
Second
Spy: And I give him the diamonds?
First
Spy: No. Don’t. He asks everyone for the diamonds. You will then
meet a lovely redhead. Give her the diamonds.
Second
Spy: Who is she?
First
Spy: That will be me.
Second
Spy: Oh, You’ll be in disguise.
First
Spy: No, I’m in disguise now.
- Neil
Simon.
The
British Secret Service was staffed at one point almost entirely
by alcoholic homosexuals working for the KGB.
-
Clive James.
Variety is the life of spies.
ETHICS
Grub
first, then ethics.
-
Bertolt Brecht.
ETIQUETTE
He
found that a fork in his inexperienced hand was an instrument of
chase rather than capture.
- H.G.
Wells.
Etiquette is the noise you don’t make while having soup.
EUROPE, THE EEC & NATO
I do
not see the EEC as a great love affair. It is more like nine
middle-aged couples with failing marriages meeting at a Brussels
hotel for a group grope.
-
Kenneth Tynan.
It's
like carrying frogs in a wheelbarrow.
- Lord
Robertson (General Secretary of NATO), on the difficulties of
getting consensus among all the member states.
EXERCISE
Exercise! I never heard that he used any: he might, for aught I
know, walk to the alehouse; but I believe he was always carried
home again.
-
Samuel Johnson.
I like
long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy
me.
- Fred
Allen.
I
believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t
intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.
- Neil
Armstrong.
Paar:
“What do you do for exercise?”
Oscar
Levant: “I stumble and then I fall into a coma.”
Try
this exercise, it’ll make you feel great:
From a
seated position, get up and walk to the bar. Mix one jigger of
dry vermouth with seven jiggers of gin. Pour over three-quarters
of a cup of cracked ice and stir well. Strain and pour into a
glass. Twist one lemon peel over the top. Sit down and drink.
Repeat.
Build
your stamina slowly and soon you’ll be able to do ten or twelve
of these!
- P.J.
O’Rourke.
If it
weren't for the fact that the TV set and the refrigerator are so
far apart, some of us wouldn't get any exercise at all.
- Joey
Adams.
I take
my only exercise acting as pallbearer at the funerals of my
friends who exercise regularly.
- Mark
Twain.
My
idea of exercise is a good brisk sit.
-
Phyllis Diller.
I am
pushing sixty. That is enough exercise for me.
- Mark
Twain.
George
W. Bush says he spends sixty to ninety minutes a day working
out. He says he works out because it clears his mind. Sometimes
just a little too much.
- Jay
Leno.
I used
to watch golf on TV during the weekend, but my doctor told me I
needed more exercise ... so now I watch tennis.
If I
feel like exercise, I lie down until it passes.
I feel
like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my
doctor’s permission to join a fitness club and start exercising.
I decided to take an aerobics class,. I bent, twisted, gyrated,
jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But, by the time
I got my leotards on, the class was over.
Exercise is a dirty word. Every time I hear it, I wash my mouth
out with chocolate.
EXCUSES
Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.
- Don
Wilder and Bill Rechin.
Never
ruin an apology with an excuse.
-
Kimberly Johnson.
Justifying a fault doubles it.
-
French Proverb.
EXPERIENCE
Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what man does
with what happens to him.
-
Aldous Huxley.
No
physician is really good before he has killed one or two
patients.
-
Hindu Proverb.
Do you
know the difference between education and experience? Education
is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when
you don't.
- Pete
Seeger.
You
should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting
incest and folk-dancing.
- Sir Arnold Bax.
Fool
me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
-
Chinese Proverb.
The
road to wisdom?
-
Well, it's plain
and
simple to express:
Err
and
err
and
err again
but
less
and
less
and
less.
- Piet
Hein, The Road to Wisdom.
You
have to open your mind to every new experience. This week I've
been sneezing with my eyes open.
-
Billy Connolly.
I
learned more about economics from one South Dakota dust storm
than I did in all my years in college.
-
Hubert Humphrey, speech, 1960.
Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a
mistake when you make it again.
Experience is knowledge, Everything else is information.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need
it.
Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.
|
