Secondhand Quotes

(Quotes compiled from other sources, 
but worthy of attention here)

"Nothing is ever foolproof because fools are so ingenious."

"New systems generate new problems."

"Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle."

"Androphobia - fear of men."

"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."

"If you learn one useless thing every day, in a single year you'll learn 365 useless things."

"Why do we want intelligent terminals when there are so many stupid users?"

"Always remember that you are absolutely unique, just like everybody else."

"A bachelor is an unaltared male."

"If we could ever make red tape nutritional, we could feed the world."

"Variables won't.  Constants aren't."

"The way to a man's heart is through the left ventricle."

Teamwork (n) - having someone to blame.

"A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets people's attention."

"A university faculty is 500 egotists with a common parking problem."

"The reason that every major university maintains a department of mathematics is that it's cheaper than institutionalizing all those people."

"If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse."

"The poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits."

"Perhaps no person can be a poet, or enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind."
Thomas Macaulay

"You have no idea the amount of potty-training books out there.  No idea.  [Toddlers] read them with fascination - the books are to babies what Modern Bride is to engaged women."
James Lileks, Star-Tribune

"Support your right to bare arms!"
National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association

"The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the number of participants."
Adam Walinsky

Contradiction confusion

"The following statement is not true.  The previous statement is true."

"All generalizations are false, including this one."
Mark Twain

"This sentence contradicts itself - no actually it doesn't."
Douglas Hofstadler

Laws of Life

If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing well."
Gordon's Law

"It is easier to defend consistency than correctness."
Air Force Inertia Axiom

"The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing."
Mr. Cole's Axiom

"Any attempt to use the new super glues results in the two pieces sticking to your thumb and index finger rather than to each other."
Gilbert's Discovery

"An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys."
Van Roy's Law

"The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on."
James' Second Law

"If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you will pick the wrong one."
Second Law of Business Meetings

"If there are multiple possible explanations of a phenomenon that are consistent with the data, choose the simplest one."
Principle of Occam's Razor

Courtroom Testimony
Q: "What happened then?"
A: "He told me, he says, 'I have to kill you because you can identify me.' "
Q: "Did he kill you?"

Great Moments in Game Shows
Host: "Is your husband rural or urban?"
Contestant: "I don't know what they are."
Host: "Well, is he more rural or urban?"
Contestant: "He's urban."
Host: "How long has he been this way?"
Contestant: "Two months."
Host: "Has he done anything about it?"
Contestant: "He went to the doctor."
Host: "Did the doctor give him anything for his urban?"
Contestant: "No, but he gave me something."
from "The Newlywed Game"

Bucky Badger stolen from Camp Randall Stadium
"The costume, valued around $4,000, should stand out in a crowd."
Associated Press

Minnesota veteran startled to learn of his death
Les Trnka opened his mail and found some distressing news: He was dead.

The national phone center told Trnka that he had to present himself to a regional office as proof he was alive.  Once Trnka reached the office in Grand Forks, it only took a few minutes to prove his existence.

Trnka said a stocky man with a beard was behind him in line, listening to the details of his situation.  That man had his own paperwork problem with social security officials.

"I asked him what his problem was," Trnka said.  "He said, 'I'm a girl.' "
Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Yet another parody of the Mastercard ads
Four tickets for your family to the 2002 All-Star Game: $720

Required additional tickets to the Home Run Derby, Futures Game, Celebrity Game, and Fan Fest that must be purchased in order to buy All-Star Game tickets: $520

Annual credit card interest on those amounts at 19.8 percent: $241

A midsummer classic that ends in a 7-7 tie:  Worthless

There are some things money can't buy.  But baseball is working on that.
Jim Caple, ESPN.com

The Three Major Kinds of Tools
Tools for hitting things to make them loose or tighten them up or jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a manner that they function perfectly.  (These are your hammers, maces, bludgeons, and truncheons.)

Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate your foot."  (Awls)

Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far greater than the value of any project that could possibly result.  (Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.)
Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"

Headline
Heaven or Hell argument ends in shotgun slaying

Tombstone Pizza truck dumps 30 miles of bad dough
Chippewa Falls, Wis. - talk about pizza to go

Pizza dough spread out over a stretch of 25 to 30 miles in the cheese state Tuesday after hot weather caused yeast to rise and pop open the back of a Tombstone delivery truck.

Chippewa County Lt. Tim Blizek said police received a call concerning a sticky substance on the road.
Associated Press

Woman pleads to stealing money from elderly relative
Houghton, MI - A Calumet woman who stole more than $6,500 from an elderly relative she was caring for pleaded guilty to larceny as part of a plea agreement Monday.

Mary P. Tadel, 43, faces up to five years in prison and a fine three times the value of the stolen money after pleading guilty to larceny of $1,000 or more but less than $5,000 in Houghton's 12th Circuit Court.
Steve Neavling, Houghton Gazette

Warning: Intelligent quote section ahead

"The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it."
Theodore Roosevelt

"Conformity is the refuge of the unimaginative."

"Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition to crave knowledge."