If there 's delight in love, 't is when I see
That heart which others bleed for, bleed for me.
-- William Congreve (1670-1729)
-- The Way of the World, Act iii, Sc. 12

Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.

And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
Am quite myself again.
-- A. E. Housman

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and company doesn't mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans.
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure... that you really are strong,
And you really do have worth.

All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot;

Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings
He made their brutish venom,
He made their horrid wings.

All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.

Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid.
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did.

All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small.
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.
-- Monty Python's Flying Circus

"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan.
The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. ...The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. We were the first to have this weapon in our possession, and the first to use it. There is a practical certainty that potential enemies will have it in the future and that atomic bombs will some time be used against us."
-- Admiral William D. Leahy,
-- Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, I Was There, 1950

Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be prosecuted.

cold matsushita
their technology stronger
enslaves our people
-- Damon Koronakos and Brian Roberts: HI-TECH HAIKUS

DAT arrives
frequency notch treachery
people are not fooled
-- Damon Koronakos and Brian Roberts: HI-TECH HAIKUS

But how can this be?
My Teacher commands me: Press
ENTER to exit.

HAIKU:
Danger lurks, where a
crushing avalanche of white
has buried my desk.

Haiku's inventor
must have had seven fingers
on his middle hand.

honda seatcovers
winter warm and summer cool
little lambs no more
-- Damon Koronakos and Brian Roberts: HI-TECH HAIKUS

In the 17th century, Kikaku, one of the ten disciples of the great
Japanese poet Basho, composed a haiku:

Take a pair of wings
From a dragonfly, you would
Make a pepper-pod.
Basho told Kikaku: That's not a haiku. You kill the dragonfly.
Kikaku recomposed the lines:

Add a pair of wings
To a pepper-pod, you would
Make a dragonfly.
-- Amal Naj, PEPPERS

midori ito
girl finds glory, is broken
they can rebuild her
-- Damon Koronakos and Brian Roberts: HI-TECH HAIKUS

oh no godzilla
guns and planes cannot stop him
tokyo is ablaze
-- haiku from Effector Online, Volume 1, Number 6

one with nintendo
halcyon symbiosis
hand thinks for itself
-- haiku from Effector Online, Volume 1, Number 6

samurai fighter
keyboard and mouse are his sword
digital battles
-- Damon Koronakos and Brian Roberts: HI-TECH HAIKUS

sheepskin seatcovers
winter warm and summer cool
little lambs no more
-- Sheep haiku

the sand remembers
once there was beach and sunshine
but chip is warm too
-- haiku from Effector Online, Volume 1, Number 6

Twice five syllables
Plus seven can't say much but
That's Haiku for you.

young sony worker
innocent hands build walkman
tears run down faces
-- Damon Koronakos and Brian Roberts: HI-TECH HAIKUS

A group of the unwilling, composed of the unfit, to do the unnecessary for the unaware in an untidy manner at an untimely moment employing unseemly tactics for the uninformed. Ah, give me a chance at that committee and we can really go nowhere fast and get there before most people even know that we left. This is nothing more than the formula for good government, or it seems that way from what I have been able to observe so far in this life.

A group of white South Africans recently killed a black lawyer because he was black. That was wrong. They should have killed him because he was a lawyer.
-- A. Whitney Brown

Laughter is always the best medicine, no question about it. Laugh and have fun, you only go through this life once, and if you do it right, once is plenty. Somehow, it just does not pay to go through life acting like you are a monument to chronic constipation.

Heaven is: an American salary, an English house, a Chinese cook, and a Japanese wife.
Hell is: a Chinese salary, a Japanese house, an English cook, and an American wife.
-- Peter Kegelman

I don't mean to make you feel guilty, but I would if I could.

...before I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility. What did it matter what anyone knew or ignored? What did it matter who was manager? One gets sometimes such a flash of insight. The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, and beyond my power of meddling.
-- Joseph Conrad

But whether there's some grand design really matters little to me. My only hope was this: to see what might be, to believe that it should be, and then to do all I could to bring it to pass, whatever the cost. When a life spins out as joyfully as mine has done, then the price, once paid so painfully, is now recalled in gladness. I have received full value. Here among the shepherds, my cup is filled with the water of life; it overflows.
-- Orson Scott Card, "Treason"

I could not say I believe. I know! I have had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself, something that people call God.
-- Carl Jung

I'd hate to be a new baby being born into this world today. There seems to be so much trouble everywhere. If I were a new baby, I don't think I could stand knowing what I was going to have to go through. That's why they don't show them any newspapers for the first two years.
-- Charles Schulz ("Peanuts")

She is mine own,
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
-- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), The Two Gentlemen of Verona
-- Act ii, Sc. 4

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves?
Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.
-- Isaac Asimov, The New Hugo Winners

Almost had a psychic girlfriend-she left me before we met.

Kryten personal blackbox recording. Time: unknown. Location: unknown. Cause of accident: unknown. Should someone find this recording, perhaps it will shed light as to what happened here. My short-term memory has been erased. This I ascribe to the proximity of the magnetic coils from Starbug's rear engine. Secondly, due to the proximity of the magnetic coils, my short-term memory appears to have been erased. This, combined with the erasure of my short-term memory, has left me a little disoriented.
-- Red Dwarf - 'Terrorform'

O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man: we had been brutes without you.
Angels are painted fair, to look like you:
There 's in you all that we believe of heaven,--
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,
Eternal joy, and everlasting love.
-- Thomas Otway (1651-1685)
-- Venice Preserved, Act i, Sc. 1

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you. There's only one catch.
Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.
-- Frederick Buechner

It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.
--Miss Manners (Judith Martin)

Without love and trust all you can be in life is alone.

"Is not absence death to those who love?"
-- Alexander Pope

In Anthony Burgess' The End of the World News, one of the characters recites the following: "I loved you. And love for you has not yet burned out of my soul. But don't let my love cause you distress any more. I don't wish to bring you grief. I loved you silently, hopelessly, sometimes in joy, sometimes in jealousy. I loved you so sincerely, so tenderly. Ah, may God grant that you be so loved by another."

Immature love says: "I love you because I need you."
Mature love says "I need you because I love you."
-- Erich Fromm

I love you, not only for what you are,
but for what I am when I am with you.
-- Roy Croft

"If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear pain or loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater."
-- Unknown

For one man is my world of all the men
This wide world holds; O love, my world is you.
-- Christina Rossetti

"Because he once wrote, We must love one another or die, he can command me to follow him."
-- E.M. Forster

A Requiem For Today's Technologist
A computer is my lover
The only life I've ever known
I've given it my soul
And in return I've got it's own.

I tried to love a human
But he filled my days with pain
The ache was so intense, I swore
I'd not love man again.

My love went to the computer
For it was quick and smart,
And it would never hurt me -
Until it became my heart.

The life in me has died -
The greatest pain I've ever known -
From the computer as my lover
And the empty soul I own.
--Unknown

"A life without love in it is like a heap of ashes upon a deserted hearth - with the fire dead, the laughter stilled, and the light extinguished."
-- Frank P. Tebbetts

"Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing if certain persons die before they sing."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."
--William Shakespeare

May every new sunrise bring you closer to your dreams.

I'm not conceited, I just can't stand mortals.

There is no racial bigotry here. Here you are all equally worthless.
-- FULL METAL JACKET

God creates Dinosaur, God destroys Dinosaur, God creates Man, Man destroys God, Man creates Dinosaur, Dinosaur eats Man, Woman inherits the Earth
-- Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern in Jurassic Park

Why torture yourself when life will do it for you?
-- Laura Walker

O words of love, O words divine!
The silver thought, the golden line!
Of all men's words, there's none so fine,
As these three words: 'I've got mine!'
-- Hagar the Horrible

A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times.
-- "The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII"

A wizard, huh? I throw my drink at him.

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.
-- Joseph Addison

My name is Marshall Teller, and I've learned an important lesson about Reality. In this life you can either follow the script they give you, or demand a rewrite. Here in Eerie, Indiana, _Weirdness Central USA_, you've gotta be ready to improvise.
-- "Reality Takes a Holiday", Eerie Indiana

This life is a test. It is only a test. Had it been an actual life, you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where to go. You may or may not be issued an actual life later.

This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well. Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly. Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature. Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you. Take the power to make your life happy.
-- Susan Polis Schutz

I feel like a 20-year old! Unfortunately, there aren't any here.
-- Milton Berle, at his 80th birthday party

May the angel of death skip your house altogether -- and send Satan instead.

May the angels that guard your bed take bribes from the devil.

May the bird of paradise fly up your nose.

May the bird of paradise peck a hole in your eardrum.

May the bird of paradise shit on your head.

May the bluebird of happiness crap all over your birthday cake.

May the bluebird of happiness shit on your shoulder.

May the egg you ate tonight rouse you bright and early tomorrow.

May the fairy god-camel leave a lump on your pillow!

May the fire be your friend, may the sea rock you gently.

May the fleas of a thousand camels infest one of your Erogenous Zones.

May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits.

May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your pubic hair.

A wizard must always know how to use words. Practice smiling as you recite the following simple exercise. First: "The spell has not worked. It is best that you get out of your house before it explodes." Second: "The spell has not worked, It is best I get out of here before you explode." And third: "The spell has not worked. Will you please pay me the rest of my retainer before your money explodes with you?" Delivering lines like these with conviction is the sign of a professional sorcerer.
-- The Wizard Finals: A Study Guide (Third Edition)
-- Ebenezum, Greatest Wizard in the Western Kingdoms

A wizard must do his best not to judge any person or thing on their first appearance. Many a human or other intelligent creature will have hidden depths to their personalities which you will only discover as you get to know them and work with them; and hidden cash reserves, which you can bill them for regularly as this aforementioned knowledge process takes place.
-- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Vol. LVI

A wizard's reputation is his bond, or so the sages say. And, as all learned men know, a reputation is difficult to build, and all too easily besmirched. The wizard with a fallen reputation is often led to less savory forms of employ, and, while these sometimes pay better than whatever the wizard was doing before, they are not the sort of thing one writes home to Mother about. The successful wizard, therefore, should develop three or four reputations simultaneously, and then, happily, will have one for every occasion.
-- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Vol. XIII

Bartender, I'd like whatever the man on the floor was drinking.

Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
At length broke under me and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye:
I feel my heart new opened. O, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!
There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have:
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.
-- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), King Henry VIII
-- Act iii, Sc. 2

A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate.
-- Lazarus Long

A man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies, because if you indulge this passion on some occasions, it will rise of itself in others; if you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you.
-- Plutarch

Can you imagine how life could be improved if we could do away with jealousy, greed, hate....
It can also be improved by eliminating love, tenderness, sentiment
-- the other side of the coin.
-- Dr. Roger Corby and Kirk, "What are Little Girls Made Of?,"
stardate 2712.4

People who believe, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all," will refuse to talk to you.

O you much partial gods! Why gave ye men affections, and not power to govern them?
-- Ludovick Barry

The concept of power dressing was instigated in Japan by the Samurai, whose finely crafted garb invariably included a three-foot, razor-sharp head remover.

A good day is when the shit hits the fan and I have the time to duck.

"He's a man of few words, and he doesn't know what either of them mean."

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.
-- H. L. Mencken

If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival.

There may be even a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.
-- Sir Winston Churchill

It is better for a city to be governed by a good man than by good laws.
-- Aristotle

It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck? One in a million, perhaps.

Other things you could have removed while you waited were your wallet, your stomach lining, your mind and your will to live. The muggers and pushers and pimps and hamburger salesmen, in no particular order, could arrange these things for you.

It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.

It is better not to live at all than to live disgraced.
-- Sophocles (496-406 BC)
-- Peleus, Frag. 445

It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.
-- Sir William Blackstone (1723-80.)

It is better to be a coward for a minute than dead the rest of your life.
-- Italian Proverb

It is better to be a has-been than one who never was.

It is better to be always on your guard than to suffer once.

It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.
-- Oscar Wilde

It is better to be brief than boring.

It is better to be deceived by a friend, than to suspect him.

It is better to be defeated on principle than to win on lies.
-- Arthur Calwell

It is better to be defeated standing for a high principle than to run by committing subterfuge.
-- President Grover Cleveland

It is better to be feared than loved, more prudent to be cruel than compassionate.
-- Niccolo Machievelli

It is better to be good than original.

It is better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for what you are not.
-- Andre Gide

One should want only one thing and want it constantly. Then one is sure of getting it. But I desire everything and consequently get nothing. Each time I discover, and too late, that one thing had come to me while
I was running after another.
-- Andre Gide

It is better to be looked over than over looked.

It is better to be on the ground wishing you were flying, than vice versa.

It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.
-- Whitney Young, Jr.

It is better to be silent and be real, than to talk and be unreal.
-- Ignatius Martyr

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi

It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.
-- Joseph Joubert

It is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.
-- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
-- Herman Melville

It is better to go into a corner slow and come out fast, than to go into a corner fast and come out dead.
-- Stirling Moss

It is better to go skiing and think of God, than go to church and think of sport.
-- Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930),
-- Norwegian polar explorer, international humanitarian

It is better to have a little than nothing.
-- Publius Syrus (42 BC)
-- Maxim 484

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
-- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

It is better to have loved and lost than to have had your hand stuck in a blender.

It is better to have loved and lost than to have hated and won.

It is better to have loved and lost than to have just lost.

It is better to have loved and lost than to have paid for it and not liked it.
-- Hiram Kasten

It is better to have loved a short woman than never to have loved a tall.

It is better to have nothing to do than to be doing nothing.
-- Attilus

It is better to have tried and failed than to have failed to try, but the result's the same.
-- Mike Dennison

It is better to know useless things than to know nothing.

It is better to laugh about your problems than to cry about them.
-- OLD JEWISH PROVERB

It is better to lead the revolution than to be caught by it.

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
-- Chinese proverb

It is better to limp all the way to heaven, than not to get there at all.
-- William Sunday

It is better to live happily in risk, than depressed in safety.

It is better to lose an instant of your life, than your life in an instant.
-- Italian Bumper Sticker

It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser, better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the sick room.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson

It is better to never have tried anything than to have tried something and failed.
-- motto of jerks, weenies and losers everywhere

It is better to place a fence at the edge of a cliff than to have an ambulance waiting at the bottom.

It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them.

It is better to shred the bugger than to bugger the shredder.
-- Ancient Doltic proverb

It is better to solve a problem with a crude approximation and know the truth, plus or minus 10 percent, than to demand an exact solution and not know the truth at all.
-- Thumb's First Postulate

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
-- Samuel Johnson

It is better to trip and end up on the floor, than to not trip and end up on the floor for no particular reason

Let us not be too particular: it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
-- Mark Twain

That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.
-- William J.H. Boetcker

This is the third installment of this type of thing, and if this is the type of thing you like, than you will like this type of thing, otherwise, it will not be so unless it is. Everyone has to be somewhere and so there you are, and there is lots of there around, so it is better for you to be there than here. If you stay there long enough, something will happen that will not happen here, so you will be witness to it, where otherwise you would not have been. There is your reward for being there and staying there and not being here or coming here.

...whether it is better to spend a life not knowing what you want or to spend a life knowing exactly what you want and that you will never have it.
-- Richard Shelton

It is better to say nothing and have people think you are stupid than to open your mouth and remove any doubt.

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
-- William Blake (1757-1827)

It is easier to wear slippers than to carpet the entire world.

It is more shameful to distrust one's friends than to be deceived by them.
-- la Rochefoucauld

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

It is better to have loved and lost than just to have lost.

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

A wizard is only as good as his spells," people will often say. It is telling however, that this statement is only made by people who have never been wizards themselves.
Those of us who have chosen to pursue a sorcerous career know that a knowledge of spells is only one small facet of the successful magician. Equally vital are a quick wit, a soothing tongue, and, perhaps most important, a thorough knowledge of back alleys, underground passageways, and particularly dense patches of forest, for those times when the spell you knew so well doesn't quite work after all.
-- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Vol. I