Quotes

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

College is like a woman: you work so hard to get in, and nine months later you wish you'd never come.

We used to say if a frog had side pockets, he'd carry a handgun.

Confidence is knowing you're good. Arrogance is thinking you're better.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.

If I had any humility I would be perfect.

If one studies too zealously, one easily loses his pants.

If you don't know where you're going, you'll wind up somewhere else.

Not all those who wander are lost.

It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great.

Love? That takes Chemistry. Sex? That takes Physics. But Kinky? Kinky takes Engineering!

Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft, and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor.

Morbo congratulates our gargantuan cyborg president. May death come quickly to his enemies!

Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.

You hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called everybody and they meet at the bar.

Patriotism is a word which always commemorates a robbery.

Cynics are just idealists who have been disappointed.

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

L'audace, l'audace, toujours de l'audace.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

Reality is for people who lack imagination.

The easiest way to get shot is to carry a gun.

When given the choice between two evils, always pick the one you've never tried before.

Circling the Earth in the orbital spaceship I marvelled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world! Let us safeguard and enhance this beauty - not destroy it!

You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a realist, he is preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of doing.

You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd.

The presence of irony does not necessarily mean that the earnestness is excluded. Only assistant professors assume that.

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.

As your attorney, I advise you to take a hit out of the little brown bottle in my shaving kit.

Anything not worth doing at all is not worth doing well.

Some people have delusions of grandeur. Others have delusions of adequacy.

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

Efficiency is intelligent laziness.

It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.

A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time.

There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want.

Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

People who fight may lose. People who do not fight have already lost.

It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

If at first you don't succeed, try try again. Then quit. No sense being a damn fool about it.

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.

We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!

I don't need to compromise my principles, because they don't have the slightest bearing on what happens to me anyway.

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.

When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.

The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!

The only skills I have the patience to learn are those that have no real application in life.

The real fun of living wisely is that you get to be smug about it.

I say, if your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.

I'm learning real skills that I can apply throughout the rest of my life... Procrastinating and rationalizing.

What's the point of wearing your favorite rocketship underpants if nobody ever asks to see 'em?

Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.

Endorsing products is the American way of expressing individuality.

That's the problem with science. You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder.

Verbing weirds language.

Leela: I'm sorry, but if it's fun in any way it's not environmentalism.
Paul: Oh, really? How about blowing up dams?

Fry: I'm never gonna get used to the thirty-first century. Caffeinated bacon? Baconated grapefruit? Admiral Crunch?
Leela: Well if you don't like that, try some Archduke Chocula.

I'm gonna be a famous hero just like Neil Armstrong and those other brave guys no one ever heard of.

Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.

Fry: Well, thanks to the internet I'm now bored with sex. Is there a place on the web that panders to my lust for violence?
Bender: Is the space-pope reptilian?

Morbo: "Morbo will now introduce tonights candidates. Puny human number one, puny human number two and Morbo's good friend Richard Nixon."
Nixon: "Hello Morbo. How's the family?"
Morbo: "Belligerent and numerous."
Nixon: "Good man, Nixon's pro-war and pro-family."

Human female: All in all, this is one day that Mittens the kitten will not soon forget.
Morbo: Kittens give Morbo gas.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

I got addicted. News, particularly daily news, is more addictive than crack cocaine, more addictive than heroin, more addictive than cigarettes.

I've tried everything. I can say to you with confidence, I know a fair amount about LSD. I've never been a social user of any of these things, but my curiosity has carried me into a lot of interesting areas. As an example, in 1955 or '56, I had someone at the Houston police station shoot me with heroin so I could do a story about it.

This race between Dick Swett and Bob Smith is hot and tight as a too-small bathing suit on a too-long car ride back from the beach.

Art is I, Science is we.

If you're not a part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.

Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

The theory of our modern technique shows that nothing is as practical as theory.

Happy is he who gets to know the reasons for things.

It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation which could be relegated to anyone else if machines were used.

The only way to reconcile science and religion is to set up something which is not science and something that is not religion.

Some things need to be believed to be seen.

There are three possible roads to ruin - women, gambling and technology. The most pleasant is with women, the quickest is with gambling, but the surest is with technology.

There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.

All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.

make install -not war

I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.

Don't tell me that man doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go - and he'll do plenty well when he gets there.

The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

There are some things so serious that you have to laugh at them.

Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel, for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are.

It may literally turn out that a Hottentot, an educated and literate Hottentot it is true, but one who is a member of a relatively primitive society, would be able to make bombs.

When you're skiing, if you're not falling you're not trying.

If you foul up, tell the president and correct it fast. Delay only compounds mistakes.

On the river path in Boston beauty was most expressed as youth and intelligence. That made sense; sixty degree-giving institutions, some three hundred thousand students; that meant at least one hundred fifty thousand more nubile young women than demographics would ordinarily suggest. Maybe that was why young men stayed in Boston when their college years were over, maybe that explained why they were so intellectually hyperactive, so frustrated, so alcoholic, such terrible drivers.

Bernstein: "Girls delightful in Cuba. Stop. Could send you prose poems about scenery, but don't feel right spending your money. Stop. There is no war in Cuba, signed Wheeler." Any answer?
Charles Foster Kane: Yes. "Dear Wheeler: you provide the prose poems. I'll provide the war."

If there hadn't been women we'd still be squatting in a cave eating raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girlfriends.

Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good, and when it is bad it's still better than nothing.

Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

Those who can, do; those who can't, simulate.

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

A motion to adjurn is always in order.

Eschew obfuscation!

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.

Advertising is legalized lying.

How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.

The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

Gotta drink to write... gotta write to live.

Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.

If when you say whiskey you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.

But;

If when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman's step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.

Until these folks acquire the habits of American democracy, there is always going to be the danger that some guy in a mustache is going to turn up on TV one day saying, "I am in charge. I have all the guns."

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose, In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes, But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back, Up front there oughta be a Man In Black.

You know, we haven't left anywhere and come home since the beginning of World War II. We don't come home anymore.

A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history, yelling 'stop!'

The problem with the current conflict is that when our people get captured, they get their heads chopped off.

No one says that [our bases in Iraq] are going to be permanent, because permanent would imply that they would be there until the end of time -- either until the sun burns out or Christ returns in glory.

Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

All theorems have three names: a French name, a German name, and a Russian name, each nationality having claimed to discover it first. Once in a while there's an English name, too, but it's always Newton.

Mathematics is the art of accurate reasoning on inaccurately-drawn figures... let that be our motto.

Stigler's Law: No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer.

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.

Shyeah, Right! I don't even own *a* gun, let alone many guns that would necessitate an entire rack. What am I gonna do... with a gun rack?

No matter how cynical I get, it’s just never enough to keep up.

Congress is good at doing two things: one is nothing, and the other is overreacting.

I don't think you could have gone to Baghdad without significant additional U.S. casualties. And the question in my mind is, how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is, not that damned many.

At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.

Oh please, dear? For your information, the Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint. I got buddies who died face-down in the muck so you and I could enjoy this family restaurant!

The struggle against evildoers is a growth industry and the Marines want a piece of that.

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Live every week like it's Shark Week.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

Power corrupts, PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

The closer you look at something, the more complex it seems to be.

On email and the first instance of spam: This is not for advertising! This is for serious work!

I pledge allegiance to the flag, the white flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of America. When they say black or Negro it means you're not an American. I pledge allegiance to your flag - not that I want to, but for the hell of it... Yeah, I pledge allegiance to the United States of America. I pledge allegiance to seeing that someday they will live up to their own promises to the victims they call citizens. Not just the black ghettos, but the white ghettos, the Japanese ghettos, the Chinese ghettos, all the ghettos in the world. Oh, I pledge allegiance. I could pledge a whole lot of allegiance. You think I'm jivin?

Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.

The ablity to make love frivolously is the thing which distinguishes human beings from the beasts.

We've had a realistic drug policy for 20 years in the Netherlands, and we know what works. We distinguish between 'soft' and 'hard' drugs, between traffickers and users. We try not to make people into criminals. But what'll it take to convince the other countries about the high cost of repression? Especially America. Will we have to teach Clinton to inhale, or what? I'd never want to raise my kids in America, with those morality crazies. They probably think we're all perverts. I think they are the perverts.

Living like a millionaire requires doing interesting things, not just owning enviable things.

Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure grain alcohol? Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face? I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids!

Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver.

Our Republican leaders tell us economic laws -- sacred, inviolable, unchangeable -- cause panics which no one could prevent. But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night, saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me.