"It is easier to train one dog than it is to train a hundred sheep."
(Michael's 1st law of control).
"Just because someone is foreign that doesn't give them the right not to speak English!"
"I'd make a wonderful new man if I wasn't such a lying cheating bastard..."
"When people start referring to you as sheep, you have to start worrying about their intentions."
"Sheep don't write essays saying why they shouldn't be herded into buildings and turned into lamb chops, do they."
"Wise man say, when setting out on the path of revenge, always dig two graves... You may be lucky and get one of your enemies' mates too."
"No matter how advanced a civilisation is, they will never invent something
that means they don't have to chase baddies through corridors."
"Laziness is a good quality, laziness is the mother of genius, invention and ingenuity."
"There is an esoteric aspect here that our gardener hasn't quite sussed".
"Context is for the weak"
"Not enough people in the world believe in fairys."
"Can I torture them 'till they bleed?"
"I like shiny things, even if they don't physically shine. It takes a shiny thing collector to understand that concept."
"Wise man once say, when branching out from building hotels to building cruise liners, it is a good idea to seek advice from sailors."
"See, once more, Asphalt saves the day."
"The best measurement unit of bandwidth? ... Dollars I suspect."
"Mind you, I have taken so many opposing stances to stupid ideas, I can't actually remember what I really do believe any more."
"Of course it's tacky! Do you know how much extra you have to pay for something that will appeal to the modern Internet user?"
"If you nag me on this, I just minimise the little window and you go into the flashing psycho bar. No real skin off my nose!"
"The north has a lot to answer for in terms of music. It's all so grey and lacking in contrast. Dreay musicians with no character in their voices singing at the same monotonous dirge tone as their boringly played instruments. It's about as interesting as listening to a power supply."
"I like to think of myself as one of the New Age lords of Karma. I figure all the old ones have died so someone needs to keep up the traditions."
"In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man goes unnoticed."
"It's a real shame that old people smell so much and break so easily. They would probably be great fun to hang around with otherwise."
"Do really cool websites have "fucking A" records?"
"I don't think they would know investigative journalism if it came with a huge sign and verbal announcements."
"You can garauntee that if I have pictures of naked women on my screen then I am working."
"I am going to convert all my Canadian Dollars to Turkish Lira. I can be an international money trader and make millions!"
"I like Canada, it's a shame about Canadians. They are just like Germans only they speak worse English."
"I don't play any game I can't cheat at, and if I can cheat there's no point in playing."
"Rabbits are not sentient... Rabbits are pies waiting to happen."
"I am more than happy to accept that people know more than me, most people know more than me, my main skill is just in knowing who they are."
"Why do people want to talk to me about security? They never actually want to listen to what I have to say."
"The Yahoo Auction site is sweet. It's like what nursery school kids would build if they were asked to create an auction site out of old washing up bottles and cereal boxes."
"Choosing friends is easy... Be a child again. Ask yourself if this person rang your doorbell and said 'Are you coming out to play?', would you go, or would you make an excuse? If you wouldn't want to play with them as a kid then what hope do you have as a grown up!"
"I have knives and guns, you have a teabag ... Let's be sensible!"
"You simply can't increase safety by protecting people more. People use the added protection as performance enhancing devices and the risks always remain constant. Put simply, airbags are the best go-faster stripes you could add to your car."
"The English like dates because dates show that we planted our flag first. If the fuzzy-wuzzies have neither flags nor calendars, then we can always show we planted our flag first, and therefore their land is actually ours!"
Michael's 10 second Steeley Eyed Dealer of Death Course: "Aquire target, take 2 shots, evaluate damage, reaquire target or if it's twitching aquire a new one, take 2 shots and repeat all of that until you, or all of the bad guys are dead."
"The English are not lazy as such, it's just that we just spend all our time learning good manners and other clever stuff rather than filling our heads with such nonesenses as foreign language, vocabulary and the mastery of gutteral contortions!"
"Tea is why the British Empire worked; which scarily is actually true! Before anyone knew what germs were, the British habit of making tea meant that the British pioneers didn't get killed in places like India and Africa, simply because they boiled the water they drank. Also tea is a natural antiseptic, and killed a lot of other weird tropical diseases so the British stayed alive whilst the other Europeans all died... Quite ironic really. It also allowed the slum based workers in the industrial revolution to survive in their terrible circumstances for the same reasons, meaning we developed a better home industrial base than any other country. Gin and Tonic helped too, but the reader is free to work that one out for themselves".
"I think Kids have a wonderful outlook on life and some brilliant ideas. It's when Kids start trying to act like grownups that the shit sets in and they start becoming deranged."
"You know they say that the world is starting to get fucked up because its best rapper is white and it's best golfer is black. How come they haven't noticed that the best tennis players players seem to be black now too...?"
"No wonder Blaire likes the US, it's just another little Britain being nurtured overseas... We never really left there did we? I think really it was a British long term plan to make them British without them realising it, then we could just join up with them a few hundred years later and so far, it's working beautifully."
"And no, I don't agree the lyrics were brilliant. They showed a complete lack of understanding about the word 'ironic' which was somewhat... Ironic. Somewhat akin to somebody writing a song about failed love and writing about a broken kidney." -- On Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill".
"If you are in a bad mood, for example, then going onto your system and putting everyone else in a foul mood should cheer you up no end. Rather like yoga but without all the stretching." -- Confessions.
"I just realised I was wiping my nose with a kangaroo's bollocks."
"I appear to be fundamentally and somewhat perversely drawn to meals you can eat with a spoon... I figure at the least this will help me in my old age."
"If I could eat my own cheesey goodness, why would I be chatting you up, dearest?"
"Every unsafe old version was a safe new version once."
"I don't read newspapers. I do read the Daily Mail sometimes, but only because they are easy to steal from Little Chefs."
"A glue gun it the answer! Well ... A Glue Gun is the answer to everything."
"If they stopped taking monogamy for granted in Soap Operas, they'd actually have to think up some real plot-lines."
"And not many people have had a Pterodactyl on a stick eaten by a Giant Tiger."
"I fear that was stretching the practical limits of comic-timing to extremes."
"If there is a God then I think it is his biggest joke ever making male and female humans look so similar that one could assume they are nearly the same."
"Never shag someone you wouldn't spend 4 weeks alone in the jungle with."
"I won't try and understand, my brain is small and mushy."
"My cats and I need to have words about how they treat my pornography."
"The US know that North Korea have nuclear weapons, and wants to go to war against them. The US know that Iraq wants to make nuclear weapons, and wants to go to war against them and the US knows that Israel has nuclear weapons and nobody says a thing."
"I guess you could say that some of Bush's speeches sound a bit similar to some of Churchills... The difference is that Churchill wrote his own Speeches whereas Bush probably can't even write his own name."
"If, after so many years, we can't even get anything approaching fair voting in the Eurovision Song Contest... What hope is there for a United European Parliament?"
"I pointed out to him that most of my skills were about 6,000 years to 200 years old anyway, so it didn't really matter; I have seen very little of modern security technology that would be unfamiliar in concept to an iron age hill fort designer."
"Someone accused me of being a tree hugger a few days ago, I pointed out that the last time I even got close to hugging a tree was whilst I was chainsawing down two of them that were in the way of me taking a good photograph."
"Should we visit him in prison and bake him a cake with somebody else's files in it?" -- (On Cliff Stanford being questioned by the police over allegations of reading other people's email)
"Incest may come with really good sex, but some of the other issues can be problematic."
"If I wasn't categorically opposed to them, like I am with midgets then it would be ok."
"Being in a night-club also makes people think that they have the "right" to try and make me dance, which is fine, as long as they accept that I have the right to make their joints go in ways that they weren't meant to go thus causing them short term excrutiating pain. Unfortunately, they seem to not accept this balance of rights so it often causes problems."
"The one thing Americans should never, ever do is try and pass an opinion on Northern Ireland, not if they want to keep friends in either country anyway."
"On the subject of Irony and Americans: Unless it is them quoting somebody else or it comes with a canned laughter track; how on earth are we meant to spot it? It's like expecting quantum theory to come from the paws of squirrels."
"Drugs aside, there are two nearly sure-fire ways to get a woman into bed... A home cooked meal, preferably with an obscure home baked bread on the menu or alternatively, just buy her some wind-chimes."
"I am a crap photographer. I just happen to be in the right place occasionally when a good photograph appears."
"As far as their beligerancy towards humanity goes, goats and donkeys must be the most deadly animals on earth."
"There's nothing much new in the world... There just aren't many people with a decent knowledge of history."
"For the modern geek, Mac is the new black."
"Bouldering seems a little like scuba-diving in a hottub. When I want to plan a long, tortuous and epic ascent to the roof of my car; I will ask a boulderer. Until then I want nothing to do with them."
"I suspect that when I go to hell, it will be an everlasting car boot sale full of fun and exciting things, where I have no money."
"From Enthusiasts and Amateurs, may the good lord protect me."
"The Internet is nothing to do with inventing, it's never the first person to come up with an idea that wins. It's about stealing somebody else's idea at just the right time. It's just luck that wins here, not skill."
"It's like trying to steer a dog-sled pulled by angry cats with ADHD."
(On the subject of driving a Jaguar XJS in the snow).
"My cats are professionals. They are like little furry surgeons who lick up after themselves."
"Lambs are made of wool and meat and cuteness, which are three of my favourite things."
"The only reason aint's apostrophe is there is because it looks a little bit like isn't but it isn't isn't, it's aint and it aint ain't, ok?"
"I just stay looking young and pretty much the same as ever, but the IRC session in my attic gets more and more horrible and ugly every day."
"It worries me that most of the quotes I collect are mine... One day I may have to start agreeing with people that I am egotistical and arrogant. Or maybe... I am just lazy?"
"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned. And hell no fury like a woman scorned." (William Congreve)
"To summon the demons of darkness, there is a price."
"If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?"
"Games are critical to a warlike society." Film: New Eden
"You must be careful what you pretend to be because, in the end, you are what you pretend to be" Film: Mother Night. (Kurt Vonnegut)
"Beware, toes you are stepping on today may be connected to the arse you are kissing tomorrow" Film: Body Count.
"Poor Crusty, he's like a black velvet sheet come to life" - Lisa Simpson
"But you got fired, and you still hang around like a big loser so why can't he?" - some witchy woman in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the series.
"Aren't we forgetting the true meaning of this day? The birth of Santa." - Bart - Simpsons.
"What is your fascination with my forbidden closet of mystery?" - Chief Wigham - Simpsons.
"If you love something set it free if it comes back, it was and always will be yours. If it never returns, it was never yours to begin with"
"Then Fred said "let's have a cup of tea" and I said "Right oh!"".
"Officially, I am here quite unofficially". - Troughton, The two doctors.
"You can't keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once and then move on!" Homer Simpson.
"The first time you buy a shed is undoubtedly a weird experience but after the next time it'll be a lot easier." - Some email that Amy got.
"Spock knew nothing of children except that he had been one, had managed to get over it, and saw no need to dwell upon things that could not be helped."
"If you don't want children get a cat, they can be just as much trouble but at least you get the pleasure of outliving them." - Tim the Goth.
"My kids use the Internet far too much anyway. The only useful it has ever taught them is how to use the mouse with their left hands." - Radio 4.
The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and
therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything.
"You people with hearts," he said, "have something to guide you, and
need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful.
When Oz gives me a heart of course I needn't mind so much."
-- The Wizard of Oz.
"I am a psychopath so I guess the difference is I have to think about not hurting people as opposed to just knowing what is bad. Personally, I can't see that as a bad thing because all I see with you normal people is that you hurt one another all the time because you don't think at all."
"Oh, no, my dear; I'm really a very good man, but I'm a very bad Wizard, I must admit." - Oz, The Wizard of Oz.
"Do I look like someone who cares what God thinks?" Pinhead - Hellraiser.
"That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been pecuiliarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." - Thomas Jefferson
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and the corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their father's conquered." - Thomas Jefferson
"A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson quipping about Shays' Rebellion (1786-1787).
"It's better to have people think you a fool, than to open your mouth, and remove all doubt." - Samuel Clemens / Mark Twain
"The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from. Furthermore, if you do not like any of them, you can just wait for next year's model." - Andrew Tanenbaum
"Does your granny always tell you
that the old songs are the best?
Then she's up and rock and rolling with the rest." - Noddy Holder, Slade.
"Mr Secretary, you are paying me a lot of money to do what I do. Go home and let me earn it." - Michael Ironside, Seaquest 2032.
"I've really got to learn to do the damage and get out of town. It's the stay and gloat that gets me every time." - Ethan Hawke(?), Buffy.
"Everybody who I know is right always agrees with me." - Unknown.
"I see no more than you, but I have trained myself to notice what I see" - Sherlock Holmes.
"Sometimes when live in cage too long, whole world seems like very big place." - Mr Miyage, Karate Kid 4.
"He's a Lawyer, a sense of humour would only get in the way." -- Mr Roarke, Fantasy Island.
"In real life... there is no backspace key" -- Ayla
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." -- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989
"Besides being an infallible cure for enemy constipation, the canister fire does much to alter the geography of the place." -- From the Commander of B Squadron, 1st Armoured Regiment, Royal Australian Armoured Corps, re the use of the 20 pounder gun of the long gone, but, never to be forgotten Centurian Tank, on active service in the Republic of South Viet Nam 1970.
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter." -- Ernest Hemingway, April 1936 issue of Esquire. It was the first line of an article titled "On The Blue Water: A Gulf Stream Letter."
"The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made." -- Jean Gieraudoux
"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." -- Joseph Stalin.
"The plate in front of us is placed over an extra-wide letter box. So that even the largest cheques can get through. LAW OFFICE, it says." -- Peter Hoeg: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow.
"When you can't change the direction of the wind; adjust your sails" -- Max Depree.
Daniel: "Can you break a log like that?"
Miyage: "Don't know, never been attacked by tree."
-- Karate Kid II.
"I like babies and old people... What you see is what you get." -- Elly in Neighbours.
"Ritzys: London, Paris, New York, Accrington" -- Sign outside a Night Club in Accrington somewhere around 1985.
"How do you sleep at night?
On top of a pile of money, with many beautiful ladies." -- The Simpsons.
"This ain't a bridge... It's termites holding hands." -- Removal Van Driver in Chevy Chase's Funny Farm.
"But if you trusted me, you never would have known I was lying to you!" -- Susan in Diagnosis Murder.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." -- Albert Einstein.
"I hate everybody equally! I'm an equal opportunity hater." -- Jerry ex-sas.
"Don't try to teach a pig to sing; it will waste your time and will only annoy the pig." -- old Yiddish saying.
"A fool cannot be protected from his folly. If you attempt to do so, you will not only arouse his animosity but also you will be attempting to deprive him of whatever benefit he is capable of deriving from experience. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig." -- Lazarus Long - Time Enough for Love (though the pig quote is more than likely borrowed from an old Yiddish saying above).
"But the polysemic champion must be 'set'. Superficially it looks like a wholly unassuming monosyllable, the verbal equivalent of the single-celled organism. Yet it has 58 uses as a noun, 126 as a verb, and 10 as a participal adjective. Its meanings are so various and scattered that it takes the OED 60,000 words - the length of a short novel - to discuss them all. A foreigner could be excused for thinking that to know 'set' is to know English." -- Bill Bryson, Mother Tongue.
"Hah! I remember when the police officers used to tell me, 'Slow down'. Now, it's the fucking doctors!" -- Ralph.
"I've got nothing against poofters... but I was bought up to believe that dicky up the chuffter is abnormal, and vile" -- Oz, Auf Wiedersehen Pet.
"[Apartheid] began before I was born and will probably be resolved long after I die. In the meantime I want to run." -- Zola Budd.
"Never wear your best pants when you go to fight for freedom." -- Fortune cookie - http://home.nc.rr.com/rellis/fortunes/best_pants.htm
"You are going to ruin my reputation long before you get to ruin me." -- Unknown.
"In the end, it all comes down to dancing in silly hats." -- Terry Wogan, Eurovision 2002.
"The Sailor never asks for the wind. He learns to sail." --
http://pageoftheday@home.swipnet.se/~w-52132/te3a/jokes/idiom.html
"If God didn't mean for us to eat this animal, why did he make it out of turkey?" -- Clueless.
"Yea, it was cute! Like a puppy with a glock." -- Sofie.
"Ah fuck it Dude, let's go bowling." -- Walter - The Big Lebowski.
"(Beeth) Girls are like internet domain names, the ones I like are already
taken.
(honx) well, you can still get one from a strange country :-P"
"Your Hobbies and Interests cannot exceed 255 characters." -- msn.com
"You can always rely on the Americans to do the right thing... After they've tried everything else" -- Winston Churchill
Will: "Maybe we could hang out sometime"
Max: "Maybe... If you were a woman, and I had a prostrate."
-- Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
"That money talks,
I'll not deny.
I heard it once.
It said, "Goodbye."
-- Richard Armour
".. No one who has something original or important to say will willingly run the risk of being misunderstood; people who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief." -- Peter Medawar
"More information about asparagus can be found at http://www.asparagus.org/" -- From http://www.studentbmj.com/back_issues/0800/education/277.html
"Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand." -- Mark Twain
""There's nothing wrong with having nothing in common, otherwise there'd be no point in having two of us" -- Ben in My Family.
"Geez boss, that's terrible."
"That's why they call them Terrorists, Kent." -- Superman II.
"Hey Mr Burns, can I go with you to get the treasure? I won't eat much and I don't know the difference between right and wrong." -- Bart Simpson.
"When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes." -- Dylan Thomas.
"Listen you little scroat, I own Park Lane, I can borrow as much
money as I want."
-- Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous, on cheating at Monopoly.
"Charlotte Church: Voice of an Angel, brain of a Goldfish." -- RI:SE Newsreader.
"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed; they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!" -- Orson Welles in The Third Man (1949).
A small selection of Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense, quotes from 2002.
"Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them."
"You're acting like you think the world doesn't need a 170 MPH SUV. Are you some sort of tree-hugging commie?" -- Steve Gombosi.
"O what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!
But when we've practised quite a while
How vastly we improve our style!"
-- A Word Of Encouragement by J. R. Pope
"They are basically witless midgets who spend most of their time trying to kill themselves" -- Dylan Moran on children.
"I just don't trust something that bleeds for five days and doesn't die." -- Mr Garrison, Southpark.
"Lisa: Let's put it on the Internet!
Bart: No. We have to reach people who's opinions actually matter." -- Simpsons.
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. A little knowledge of Psychology is downright lethal." -- Amy in Judging Amy.
"I think I have monogamy, I must have caught it from you people!" -- Samantha in Sex and the City.
"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." -- Sir Winston Churchill.
"Don't forget what happened to the man who got everything he ever wanted... He lived happily ever after." -- Charlie, in his Chocolate Factory.
"I should have known, no human being is that humane." -- Ripley, Alien 4.
"If you hang out with me for long enough, you will find out I am not a man with whom to fuck" -- A rather incongruous quote from a bad pirate guy on Alien 4.
"Vampires are bloodsuckers to whom the concept of honour is meaningless" -- Vampire Hunter D.
"Lorry is the mental equivalent of a Dark Alley" -- Alan Cox.
"Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero"
("Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow") -- Horace.
Soldier Woman:
"I'll feel better knowing we have an archeologist guarding our backs..."
Daniel (waving a knife):
"Yea, which end do the bullets go in again?"
-- Stargate SG-1
"Please excuse my rotten English you see Moomins go to school only as long as it amuses them." -- MoominMamma.
"The sociopath, lacking the restraints that hold a normal character
together can become anything. Ammorality frees her to be universally
perfect. A charming chameleon with a scorpion's tail."
or
"A sociopath with no restraints can become anything... Ammorality frees her
to be universally perfect, a charming chameleon with a scorpion's tail..."
-- Color of Night
"I don't want to spoil Lawrie's fun or reputation here, but I feel duty bound to point out that you're writing to someone about an article they wrote that may be true or may be ironic, and in either case you can't be sure whether their reply is true or ironic. There are few Englishmen who, faced with questions from an earnest, truth-seeking American, would be able to resist exploiting their gullability and winding them up something rotten." -- Richard Bartle on "Confessions of an Arch-Wizard".
"Food is shit waiting to happen" -- Will Self.
"True grannies would have nothing to do with electricity.
True grannies were gas-driven." -- Keith Waterhouse.
"I was a Wiccan for a few months, but then I realised it was like being a Brownie and I gave up." -- Gemma.
"... He speaks English like he hates it." -- some film called "Never So Few".
"You know what four dollars buys today? It doesn't even buy three dollars." -- Tony's dad in Saturday Night Fever.
(He's a bisexual...) "He swings both ways, men and boys." -- Saturday Night Fever.
"It's a space, reserved for some kind of activity." -- An archeologist being rather uncommital on Time Team.
"(It's so easy interrogating a German because they are so scared.) You send in a naked woman and a bottle of whisky and they'll tell you anything" -- John Le Carre's daughter quoting him.
Zorro: "Do you know how to use that thing?" (pointing at a sword)
Alejandro: "Yes, the pointy end goes into the other man."
-- Mask of Zorro.
[On the subject of Britain outsourcing call-centre jobs to other countries]
"... When you call British Rail now to find the next train to London you
get put through to Bangladesh and when you call Number 10 [Downing Street]
you get through to The Whitehouse." -- Tony Benn.
"The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either." -- Benjamin Franklin.
"Even peace may be purchased at too high a price." -- Ben, again.
"So, do you cook a lot of kosher food at home?" -- Ainsley Harriet to a conformant Jew.
"I've almost finished the Led Zeppelin book. I'm at the 'nice and big' stage."
"What's the 'nice and big' stage?"
"I go through the text making sure I haven't used any big words. If I find
any fancy adjectives have crept in, I replace them with small words like
'nice' and 'big'. I've liked these words ever since I was told not to use
them in English class at school. After that, I check that the sentences are
short so as people won't get confused and I shorten all the chapters so they
won't get bored. I can't read anything complicated these days, my attention
span is too short. Everyone else probably feels the same."
-- Martin Millar.
"You're off the edge of the map mate; here there be monsters." -- Pirates of the Caribbean.
"You know, London! Cup o' tea, bad food, worse weather, Mary fucking Poppins... London!" -- Snatch
"For I am a bear of very little brain, and long words bother me." -- Pooh.
"God created a bard, and from the waste left over, three critics." -- Unknown.
"To wives and sweet hearts - And may the two never meet." -- Old Sailors' Toast.
"This made the tea undrinkable... Even for Americans" -- From Mary Poppins on the subject of the Boston Tea Party.
"Sanity is not statistical." -- Orwell's 1984.
"Printing is ruining bookselling. The end of the world is upon us." -- Victor Hugo, Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
"Largely because Murdoch told him to. That's democray, one man one vote." -- Ian Pissflaps on "Have I got news for you" on the subject of Blair changing his mind on the EU constitution.
"Flight controller zero looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction" -- NASA's live commentry on the Challenger Shuttle blowing up.
"I am not even allowed a key; you swallow the thing one time and all of a sudden you are the weird key swallower who can't be trusted." -- Lab Technician in Legally Blonde 2.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -- Sir Edmund Burke
"If someone tries to kill you you try to kill 'em right back!" -- Firefly.
"Those that knew him best deplored him most" -- Epitath.
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." -- Henry Thoreau
"The wicked are always suprised to find that the good can be clever." -- Marquis de Vauvenargues.
"Most of the evils of life arise from man's being unable to sit still in a room." -- Blaise Pascal.
"If you forget yourself you become the universe" --Hkuin Ortegama.
"You must learn some of my philosophy.
Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure." -- Lizzie in
Pride and Prejudice.
"Every accused is presumed innocent unless proved guilty, and a hundred guilty persons may go free, so that not a single innocent person be declared guilty." -- Not quite a formal quote, but Thomas Jefferson is meant to have summed up this definition of the British Justice system with "better one hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man be condemned."
"The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes (I think).
"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time." -- Tolstoy.
"A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." -- Gloria Steinem.
"Thanksgiving: The only time the British were glad to have Indian neighbours." -- Anon.
"Nobody can ever make you feel inferior without your consent." -- Eleanor Roosevelt
"O, Lord, give me health and strength. We'll steal the rest." -- Fishhooks McCarthy.
".. And relations between America and England are better than ever... You're like Mini Me to our Doctor Evil, helping out in our Zany Schemes in taking over the world." -- Marge Simpson's Christmas message to England (2004).
"Wow! I've never been called an adult before... I've been tried as one but..." -- Otto from the Simpsons.
"It's a global village, but most of the people in that village are idiots". -- Somebody on telly babbling about the Internet.
"Rome.com wasn't built in a day..." -- Karl to Lou on Neighbours (probably nicked though)
"Love is a funny thing to describe. It's so easy to feel and yet so slippery to talk about. It's like a bar of soap in the bathtub - you have it in your hand until you hold on too tight." - MJJ
"... The first Church of the Obese Polygamist - Now known as the Church of England" -- Jonathan Meades
"I wouldn't piss in his mouth if his teeth were on fire." -- Anon.
"You sleep safe in your beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who do you harm" -- George Orwell
"... The weight of the new radios also led to Land Rovers breaking axles during trials." -- http://tinyurl.com/4srnb
"As below, so above; and as above so below. With this knowledge alone you may work miracles." -- Emerald Tablet of Hermes (2) From Fulcanelli trans.
"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
"I came to apologize, and make out with tongues." -- Bobby to Connie, King of the Hill.
""If you are an alien, how come you sound like you are from the North?"
"Lots of planets have a North!" -- Well the new Dr Who had to have ONE
good quote...
"It is wrong to discriminate between the chavs and the chav nots." -- Dead Ringers
"Resentment is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies." -- St. Augustine
"O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet." -- St. Augustine
He who fights monsters should look into it that he himself does not become a monster. When you gaze long into the Abyss, the Abyss also gazes into you. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
"What you do is you give them all your credit card numbers and if one of them is lucky they send you a prize." -- Grandpa Simpson.
"No matter how big they may be, and how much they may want to pick on you; one day they will be alone and unawares and it is then you shatter their knees with a short iron bar." -- Alan.
"Cricket? nobody understands cricket! You gotta know what a crumpet is to understand cricket." -- Raphael Turtle.
"Sometimes, if you ignore problems, they go away; more often, if you ignore problems, they don't get any worse and you feel better." -- Lexy.
"The Humans have seen too much, we can't allow them to escape!" -- Lots and lots of SF scripts.
"*** NewOrleans has signed off IRC (Excessive Flood)" -- Someone creative on IRC (2005.09.02)
"All right, I shall leave it to history... But remeber, I shall be one of the historians." -- Churchill.
"My dear boy, no woman is a genius: women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly." -- Oscar Wilde: Picture of Dorian Gray
"Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can." -- Jane Austen (Mansfield Park).
"Ah! The Generals! They are numerous but not good for much!" -- Aristophanes.
"Corruption of the best becomes the worst." ("Corruptio optimi pessima.") -- Latin proverb.
"(but) I took an oath to do no harm.." "Yea, it's not like they make you sign it or anything." -- House M.D.
"Those who can't dance say the music is no good." -- Traditional.
"You can be in my dreams if I can be in yours." -- Probably Bob Dylan.
"He was able to buy this 18,000 pounds car, using bags of 2 pound coins. He was on benefits at the time and that is what made the police suspicious." -- Quote from the News - There's no getting anything past the British Police, is there!
"I guess one person can make a difference, but most of the time they probably shouldn't." -- Marge Simpson.
"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." -- Sir Winston Churchill.
"Thou senseless, impertinent, quibbling, drivelling, feeble, paralytic, impotent, fumbling, frigid nincompoop." -- William Wycherley (The Plain Dealer, 1676)
""Tom put his mouth to the crack and began singing into it in a low voice. They could not catch the words, but evidently Merry was aroused. His legs began to kick." -- Fellowship of the Ring - Tolkien.
"Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population." -- Albert Einstein.
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity." -- Albert Einstein.
"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." -- Albert Einstein.
"The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?" -- Unknown
"Little squiggle, you are clever, I do not want to grew up ever." -- Pippi Longstocking.
"My Daddy told me that if a guy offers to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of a brand new, unopened pack of cards and spit cider in your eye, don't bet him; sure as Hell you are going to get cider in your eye" -- Sky Masterson (Guys 'n Dolls).
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." -- Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905
"The definition of a Freudian Slip:
When you say one thing, and mean amother."
-- Radio 4, random quote by Craig Brown or Adam Philips, I think.
"If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work" -- Billy boy.
"I was asked to run a marathon. I said, 'No way.' They said 'Please, it's for spastics and blind children.' So I thought, 'Fuck it, I could win this.' " -- Unknown.
"Take care, Pinocchio! Boys are always very ready to promise; but generally they are little given to keep their word." -- Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi)
"Every single problem we have in this world is because a child wasn't loved" -- Movie: An Unexpected Family.
"Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel" -- Possibly Twain.
"Nothing beats the Hobo Life, stabbin' folks with my Hobo Knife." -- Singing Hobo in the Simpsons.
"Never fight an inanimate object." -- P. J. O'Rourke.
"I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end." -- Margaret Thatcher.
"Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me." -- Senator Trent Lott.
"Ladies & Gentlemen - When two events occur simultaneously pertaining to the same object of inquiry we must pay strict attention." -- Special Agent Dale Cooper.
"I'm gonna fuck that bitch, shoot her in the head and then fuck her there." -- A nice romantic Valentine Brother in Hellsing.
"... it nevertheless seemed wildly unlikely to Jubal to the point of reductio ad absurdum that a God potent to shape galaxies would be titillated and swayed by the whoop-te-do nonsense the Fosterites offered Him as 'worship.'" -- Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein.
"All men have parties and are pals who never let each other down. A pal can say terrible things which are forgotten the next day. A pal never forgives, he just forgets, and a woman forgives but never forgets. That's how it is. That's why women aren't allowed to have parties. Being forgiven is very unpleasant." -- Tove Jansson (A Winter Book)
"Hey! Let's make them go out and get tattoos. It'll be like we branded them." -- Paris on boyfriend care (Gilmore Girls).
"Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres." ("In this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.") -- Voltaire's Candide.
"This isn't flying, this is falling... With style!" -- Buzz Lightyear.
"I had such a crush on her... Until I met you Lois; you're my 'Silver medal'" -- Peter Griffin (Family Guy).
"There is no greater bilge pump than a bucket in the hands of a frightened sailor" -- Traditional.
"But Man cannot live on Champagne alone. He also needs Claret." -- Giles Coren in Edwardian Supersize Me.
"D'ailleurs, c'est toujours les autres qui meurent." (But it's always other people who die.) -- Marcel Duchamp's epitaph.
"After the National anthems were played on the Whitehouse lawn, The Queen stood silently as the traditional 21 gun salute rang out... From the local highschool." -- Kirsty Young (Have I Got News For You).
"There are 5.7 billion people in the world and I can only think of one less qualified to do that job" -- Bob Marshall-Andrews on Tony Blair's new plan to spend his future bringing the faiths together (same HIGNFY).
"I am beautifying myself; if such be possible. I am selling out my principles today for the possibility of a bit of tall blonde nookie." -- Jonathan (Castaway)
"Well I'm almost ashamed to use that old trick. But it nearly always works." -- Professor Horatio Smith, 'Pimpernel' Smith.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -- George Santayana.
"I love children me... Snack sized people always leave you wanting more." -- Hyde in BBC's Jekyll.
"I don't think homosexuality is an issue when you're fucking a vac". -- Russell Brand, on having sex with a Henry vaccuum cleaner.
""Awards are like hemorrhoids. Sooner or later, every arsehole gets them." -- Common Knowledge.
"Ugly women can have feelings too, which frankly doesn't improve them any." -- Patrick in Coupling.
"I can't win... If I go to Tenerife, you want to go to Elevenerife." -- Some football player on Wife Swap.
"He was obviously a scientist of considerable repute (and I could have told this by his beard)..." -- Gerald Durrell - My Family and Other Animals.
"It's important to live beyond your means, or banks don't respect you..." -- Gerald Durrell - My Family and Other Animals.
"I like being half-educated; you're so much more surprised at everything when you're ignorant!" -- Gerald Durrell - My Family and Other Animals.
"No. no. no. When you read Faust you're suppossed to read Metastopholes in a scary voice" -- Stewie in Family Guy (Running Mates (210)).
"Carping about the way cabbage is cooked in Britain is like shooting a sitting bird with a gun that isn't licensed, on a Sunday out of season." -- Fanny Cradock - Daily Telegraph 1964.
"We approached our new microwave oven with the trepidation of two people returning to a reactor station after a leak." Fanny Cradock - Daily Telegraph 1979.
"Argue for your limitations and sure enough they are yours." -- Richard Bach (Illusions).
"Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is . . . impossible." -- Richard Bach (Illusions).
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts." -- Richard Bach (Illusions).
"He who would travel happily must travel light." -- Antoine de St. Exupery.
"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." -- Milton Friedman.
"Write a wise saying, and your name will endure forever." -- Anonymous.
"God is an imaginary friend for grown ups" -- Morgan Freeman in "The Big Bounce".
"(Ploughing with horses is) the best disguise work ever put on". -- Roger Clark, Weylands Farm.
"If you take something apart often enough, eventually you'll have two of them..." -- G4DWC's signature quote.
"Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, Wisdom is knowing not to put it in your fruit salad." -- Unknown.
"Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all." -- Princess Bride.
"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous." -- Albert Einstein.
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." -- Buddha
"I'm kind of jealous of the life I'm supposedly leading." -- Zach Braff.
"Look - I won't be any trouble, because I don't eat a thing, and I won't try to manage things, because I can't think." -- The Scarecrow (Wizard of Oz film)
"Are those sad tissues or happy tissues?" -- Kemo (Forgetting Sarah Marshall).
"You can't be so casual about this. This isn't Europe. There are rules here." -- Peter to Aldous on the subject of shagging his girlfriend for a year (Forgetting sarah Marshall).
"There goes the last lingering thread of my hetrosexuality." -- One of Marge's sisters on the Simpsons, on seeing Homer naked.
"He was the mildest-mannered man that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat." -- Lord Byron.
"Brunström is quite small. He has a taut, weather-bitten face and blue
eyes, his movements are swift but measured, and he never uses adjectives
in his everyday talk. His boat has no name.
We trusted him, immediately." -- Tove Jansson, Notes from an Island.
"Be Second... Be Better." -- Some advice given by the father of some bloke on The Dragon's Den. I should have listened to it years ago.
"Fucking stupid." -- David Kilcullen, advisor to Condoleezza Rice, on the decision to invade Iraq.
"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing." -- Muhammad Ali.
"Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are." -- Muhammad Ali
"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." -- Emma Goldman.
"Beware of geeks bearing formulas." -- Warren E. Buffett.
"I want my mother to know this before she dies so she can go to her grave a defeated woman." -- Jack in 30 Rock.
"Toronto is just like New York, but without all the stuff." -- Steve Martin in 30 Rock.
"I spend all my time it seems either driving or teaching." "Or judging." "There's always time for judging." -- Baber in Little Mosque.
"Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines, the slimy, the belly-wriggling invertebrates, the miserable sodding rutters, the flaming sods, the snivelling, dribbling, dithering, palsied, pulseless lot that make up England today. They've got the white of egg in their veins and their spunk is so watery it's a marvel they can breed." -- D. H. Lawrence.
"Physics is the only real science. All the rest is butterfly collecting." -- Rutherford (probably a misquote).
"People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges." -- Joseph Fort Newton.
"First they came for the verbs, and I said nothing because verbing weirds language. Then they arrival for the nouns, and I speech nothing because I no verbs." -- Peter Ellis.
"Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them." -- Dr Seuss.
"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams." -- Dr Seuss.
"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple." -- Dr Seuss.
"I'm only a four-dimensional creature. Haven't got a clue how to visualise infinity. Even Einstein hadn't. I know because I asked him." -- Patrick Moore
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature." -- Thomas Jefferson.
"Good fortune is a result of careful planning." -- Unknown proverb.
"Why can't you give me any decent food? You're Scottish... fry something!" -- Steven Moffat - Matt Smith's Doctor.
"So what if I can't spell armaggedon? It's not the end of the world." -- Anon.
"Don't start something you can't finish. It'll be your darkest hour." -- Some Hick who was eaten by a crocodile on Lake Placid 2.
"Challenge your preconceptions, or they will challenge you." -- Star Trek (Vulcan proverb).
"It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us." -- Epicurus (341-270 BC)
"And after it rains there's a rainbow
And all of the colours are black
It's not that the colours aren't there
It's just imagination they lack."
-- Simon & Garfunkle: My Little Town.
"Sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand." -- Cool Hand Luke.
"Running over the same old ground.. What have we found? The same old fears." -- Roger Waters (Wish You Were Here).
"We also know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether delusion is not more consoling." -- Henri Poincare (1854-1912)
"You should never have your best trousers on when you turn out to fight for freedom and truth." -- Henrik Ibsen.
"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable." -- Ezra Solomon.
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." -- Mahatma Gandhi.
"I can't understand a word she says, she's all noise and ignorance." -- Mrs Wormwood, Sarah Jane Smith Adventures.
"Here is my lesson from the heavy rain: On your way you meet a shower. You dislike to get wet, so you hurry along the streets running under the eaves. Still, you get wet all the same. As long as you accept that you will get wet, you won't suffer from being wet." -- Lessons From the Heavy Rain,
"He was not in complete harmony with the normal."
"He has a way of backing into the limelight." -- Churchill on T.E. Lawrence.
"The British are a very peaceful race, especially when it is raining." -- Wellington (on the Chartists),
"It's not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late." -- Emile Cioran.
"Keep out of Chancery. It's being ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going mad by grains." -- Charles Dickens.
"This is the Court of Chancery; which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire; which has its worn-out lunatic in every churchyard; which has its ruined suitor, with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress, borrowing and begging through the rounds of every man's acquaintance; which gives to monied might;the means abundantly of wearying out the right; which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope; so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart; that there is not an honorable man among its practitioners who does not give.who does not often give.the warning, 'Suffer any wrong that can be done you, rather than come here!'" -- Charles Dickens.
"They ain't fit to pour pee out of a boot with instructions written under the heel." -- Quote from Gettysburg.
"No more tears now; I will think upon revenge." -- Mary Queen Of Scots.
"England is not all the world." -- Mary Queen Of Scots.
"Be wiser than other people, if you can, but do not tell them so." -- Lord Chesterfield (1694 - 1773).
"Pretentious quote." -- Foreign Scholar.
"Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so." -- Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on society (1953).
"Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest." -- Larry Lorenzoni.
"The decision of 100 or more constituencies, perhaps 200, is to be determined by the most worthless votes given for the most worthless candidates." - Churchill on AV.
"Sarge, I didn't lay a tooth on the kid. Why doesn't anybody give me credit for that?" -- Det. Mick Belker.
"Hitler's dictatorship was the first dictatorship of an industrial state in this age of modern technology, a dictatorship which employed to perfection the instruments of technology to dominate its own people. ... By means of such instruments of technology as the radio and public-address systems, eighty million persons could be made subject to the will of one individual. Telephone, teletype, and radio made it possible to transmit the commands of the highest levels directly to the lowest organs where because of their high authority they were executed uncritically. Thus many offices and squads received their evil commands in this direct manner. The instruments of technology made it possible to maintain a close watch over all citizens and to keep criminal operations shrouded in a high degree of secrecy. To the outsider this state apparatus may look like the seemingly wild tangle of cables in a telephone exchange; but like such an exchange it could be directed by a single will." -- Albert Speer (Inside the Third Reich)
"Funny old world if everyone in Army. Nobody to wave goodbye." -- Jimmy (Reginald Perrin).
"On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women." -- James Russell Lowell.
"Relax, Steve. Part of gun ownership is killing people by mistake." -- Stan on American Dad.
"You just be careful. Computers have already beaten the Communists at chess; next thing you know... They'll be beating humans." -- Rusty Shackleford.
"What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow." -- A.A. Milne.