Some quotations (collected by Michael Ross Murphy) Murphy's Laws If anything can go wrong, it will.

Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.

If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

Nothing is as easy as it looks.

Everything takes longer than you think.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first.

Every solution breeds new problems.

If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.

Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

Mother nature is a bitch.

The wisdom of the ancients Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. K'ung Fu Tse (Confucius) Philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

Do not forget your brethren, nor the green wood from which you sprang. To do so is to invite disaster. Homer The Odyssey
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. Epictetus
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities. Aristotle
If you do not expect it, you will not find the unexpected, for it is hard to find and difficult. Heraclitus
Don't be more precise than the subject warrants. Plato
Learning from the past They know enough who know how to learn. Henry Adams
A creature without memory cannot discover the past; one without expectation cannot conceive a future. George Santayana
A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience. Doug Larson
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. Anonymous
It takes a long time to grow young. Pablo Picasso
The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Albert Einstein
I never worry about the future. It always comes anyway. Albert Einstein
We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full. Marcel Proust
I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense. Harold S. Kushner
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Of Marriage and Single Life
Technology If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants. Sir Isaac Newton
Be not the first by whom the new is tried / Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. Alexander Pope Essay on Man
If God is in the details, then the Devil is in the assumptions. Walt Smith
Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. John Wooden Basketball coach - U.C.L.A.
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
If it weren't for electricity, we would all be watching television by candlelight. George Gobel
You know you've achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away. Antoine de Saint Exupery
The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the pieces. Aldo Leopold
My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared. P.J. Plauger
I look for what needs to be done.... After all, that's how the universe designs itself. R. Buckminster Fuller Engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)
Information wants to be free. Stewart Brand
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations that we can perform without thinking about them. Alfred North Whitehead
We are agreed your idea is crazy. What divides us is whether it is crazy enough to be true. a spokesperson of the colleagues of Paul Dirac in re: his 1932 theory of negative energy states
It's not the bullet that kills you, it's the hole. Laurie Anderson
Not all those that wander are lost. J.R.R. Tolkien Novelist and philologist (1892-1973)
Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too long. Ogden Nash
Thinking about thinking yields knowledge about knowledge... Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. Samuel Johnson
Knowledge is that area of ignorance that we arrange and classify. Ambrose Bierce
If one does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away. Henry David Thoreau
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Ludwig Wittgenstein
Signs and the signs of signs are used only when we are lacking things. Umberto Eco
Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination. Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosopher (1889-1951)
A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once. Blaise Pascal Philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)
One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights. Henry David Thoreau Naturalist and author (1817-1862)
God has no religion. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea , at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering. Saint Augustine (354-430)
All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry. G.K. Chesterton Writer (1874-1936)
Cynical -- but amusing! The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilized being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story which is told simply for the amusement of the company. Oscar Wilde
Money, A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. Ambrose Bierce Writer (1842-1914)
You may not get all you pay for, but you'll pay for all you get. Frederick Douglass
Malt does more than Milton can / To justify the ways of God to man. AE Housman
Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't. Erica Jong
The weather's here. I wish you were beautiful. Jimmy Buffet
The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side. Hunter S. Thompson
Ever notice that "What the hell?" is always the right answer? Marilyn Monroe
Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure. Thorstein Veblen (1857-1925) The Theory of the Leisure Class (1897)
Lawyers on opposite sides of a case are like the two parts of shears; they cut what comes between them, but not each other. Daniel Webster
I have never killed a man, but I've read many obituaries with great pleasure. Unknown
Work is the curse of the drinking man. Unknown
Authority makes some people grow and others swell. Unknown
Rudeness is a little person's imitation of power. Unknown
Just go ahead and do it. It's always easy to apologize afterwards than to get permission ahead of time. Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
Today, people exploit people. But after the revolution, it will be the other way around. Chinese proverb
When a true genius appears in this world you may know him by the sign that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. Jonathan Swift
Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end. Igor Stravinsky
The Large Print giveth, and the Small Print taketh away. Tom Waits
It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous. Robert Benchley
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. Mark Twain (1835-1910)
In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made school boards. Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Get your facts first; and then you can distort them as much as you please. Mark Twain (1835-1910)
The report of my death was an exaggeration. Mark Twain (1835-1910)
The lion and the lamb will lie down together, but the lamb will not be very sleepy. Woody Allen
My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world. George Bernard Shaw
Art There are six essentials in painting. The first is called spirit; the second, rhythm; the third, thought; the fourth, scenery; the fifth, the brush; and the last is the ink. Ching Hao
Man in society There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result. Winston Churchill
A free society is a place where it's safe to be unpopular. Adlai Stevenson Statesman (1900-1965)
The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. Carl Gustav Jung psychiatrist and psychologist (1875-1961)
Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is ... impossible. Richard Bach Writer (1936- )
Democracies operate by persuasion, and men are persuaded by ideas and ideas are packaged in words. One of the problems in our time is that we suffer from a paucity of ideas surrounded by a plethora of words. Grattan O'Leary Recollections of People, Press & Politics
We have learned to ask terrible questions. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H.G. Wells Outline of History
I have ever hated all nations, professions and communities, and all my love is toward individuals... But principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth. Jonathan Swift Letter to Pope, 29 September 1725
We have enough religion to hate each other but not enough to love each other. Jonathan Swift
So, naturalists observe, a flea / Hath smaller fleas that on him prey; / And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em, / And so proceed ad infinitum. / Thus every poet, in his kind, / Is bit by him that comes behind. Jonathan Swift On Poetry
God exists because mathematics is consistent; the Devil exists because we are not able to prove it. Unknown
How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. Annie Dillard
What's the difference between Rift Valley Fever and a Thomas Pynchon novel? You might actually get Rift Valley Fever. Robert J. Howe
We listen to others to discover what we ourselves believe. George Grant
A good book is the best of friends, the same to-day and for ever. Martin Tupper Essayist (1838)
Those who do not hear the music think the dancer is a fool. Unknown
Man in nature There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Force maketh nature more violent in the Returne. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Nature, like us, is sometimes caught / Without her diadem. Emily Dickenson The Sky is Low, the Clouds are Mean
In every nature and every porion of nature which we can descry we find attention bestowed upon even the minutest parts. The hinges in the wings of an earwig are as highly wrought as if the Creator had nothing else to finish. We see no signs of diminuition of care by multiplicity of objects, or distraction of thought by variety. We have no reason to fear, therefore, our being forgotten, or neglected. Rev. William Paley
Each man deciphers from the ancient alphabets of nature only those secrets that his own deeps possess the power to endow with meaning. Loren Eiseley The Golden Alphabet
No longer, as with the animal, can the world be accepted as given. It has to be perceived and consciously thought about, abstracted, and considered. The moment one does so, one is outside of the natural; objects are each one surrounded with an aura radiating meaning to man alone. Loren Eiseley The Unexpected Universe
Men are subjects of society. It is true that they carry bits and pieces of their past about with them, but they also covertly examine in the social mirror of their minds the way they look. Thus there is a quality of illusion about all of us. Loren Eiseley The Inner Galaxy
Upon this world, life is still young, not truly old as stars are measured. Therefore it comes about that we minimize the role of the synapsid reptiles, our remote forerunners, and correspondingly exalt our own intellectual achievements. We refuse to consider that in the old eye of the hurricane we may be, and doubtless are, in aggregate, a slightly more diffuse and dangerous dragon of the primal morning that still enfolds us. Loren Eiseley The Hidden Teacher
Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earht find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. Rachel Carson
Earth does not understand her child, / Who from the loud gregarious town / Returns, depleted and defiled, / To the still woods, to fling him down. Edna St. Vincent Millay The Return
As one who long in populous city pent, / Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air, / Forth issuing on a summer's morn to breathe / Among the pleasant villages and farms / Ajoin'd, from each thing met conceives delight. John Milton Paradise Lost [book IX, line 445]
The city is only the desert in disguise. Thomas Pynchon V.
Cultural awareness Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble throughout. Chinese proverb
He is always right who suspects he makes mistakes. Spanish proverb
Revenge is a dish best eaten cold. Spanish proverb
Two great talkers will not go far together. Spanish proverb
Whoever tells the truth is chased out of nine villages. Turkish proverb
Whether it happened this way, I do not know. But you can see that it is true. Sioux storyteller
Ah, the immortal Bards! Like -- but oh how different! William Wordsworth
A poor life this if, full of care, / We have no time to stand and stare. W.H. Davies Leisure
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - / I took the one less travelled by, / And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost The Road Not Taken
And Be these Jugling Fiends no more believ'd... ...That keep the word of promise to our Eare, / And breake it to our hope. William Shakespeare Macbeth [Act V - viii]