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"Don't imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking
propagandist of the Soviet regime or any other regime, and then suddenly
return to mental decency.  Once a whore, always a whore." - George Orwell

"Common sense should not be confused with %2common opinions%1, namely the
beliefs we can readily formulate when asked: these are often false
overgeneralisations or merely the result of prejudice.  Common sense
is a rich and profound store of information, not about laws, but about
what people are capable of doing, thinking or experiencing.  But common
sense, like our knowledge of the grammar of our native language, is hard
to get at and articulate, which is one reason why so much of philosophy,
psychology and social science is vapid, or simply false". - Aaron
Sloman in the introduction to his book 
"The Computer Revolution in Philosophy".

"But the height of audacity in serving up pure nonsense, in stringing
together senseless and extravagant mazes of words, such as had previously
been known only in madhouses, was finally reached in Hegel, and became the
instrument of the most bare-faced general mystification that has ever
taken place, with a result that will appear fabulous to posterity, and
will remain as a monument to German stupidity".

"Life is not made for happiness but for achievement" Durant - The story of
Philosophy, p. 297, paraphrasing Hegel.

"When we read, another person thinks for us; we merely repeat his mental
process.... So it comes about that if anyone spends his whole day
in reading, ... he gradually loses the capacity for thinking. - Schopenhauer.
II, 254 Essays, Books and Reading; Counsels and Maxims p.21

"As it stands, we have on our hands a generation of students so harried
by today's pop ethics that many of the best consider careers in a
regulatory bureaucracy or a romantic retreat to the design of small
tools as the only remaining respectable form of scientific or technological
endeavor". - Richard L. Meehan in Science 11 May 1979.
 
"So, when on one side you hoist Locke's head, you go over
that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in
Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor
plight.  Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming
boat.  Oh, ye foolish!  throw all these thunderheads
overboard, and then you will float light and right".
Moby Dick, chapter 73, near the end

"The same theory and methods that yielded Freud's most compelling
analytic insights underlie the analyst Abrahamsen's (1977) "discovery"
about Richard Nixon.  The ten year old Nixon apparently was proud
of his ability to mash potatoes so smoothly that there were no lumps.
Potatoes, Abrahamsen solemnly observes, were a substitute for people."
Nisbett and Ross, Human Inference, p.243.

"A major problem with the assumption (even in Freud's hands, but
especially in the hands of many followers) is the uncertainty of
criteria for determining when it is the patient's associative
networks that have been laid bare and when it is the analyst's."
ibid.

"Psychoanalysis pretends to investigate the Unconscious.  The
Unconscious by definition is what you aren't conscious of.  But
the Analysts already know what's in it.  They should, because
they put it all in beforehand.  It's like an Easter Egg hunt.
You hide the eggs and then you find 'em.  That's on the up and up.
But Analysis ain't". - Saul Bellow in The Dean's December, p. 298

"I beeseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you
may be wrong". - Cromwell.

"Toward a better world I contribute my modest smidgin;
I eat the squab, lest it become a pigeon." - Ogden Nash

"I would eat my own father with such a sauce". - Grimod de la Reymiere,
cited in Brillat-Savarin p. xvii.

"Oh! you know, Spencer's idea of a tragedy is a deduction killed
by a fact." - T.H. Huxley, as quoted in Spencer's autobiography

"The great tragedy of Science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis
by an ugly fact". - T.H. Huxley, Collected essays viii. Biogenesis and
Abiogenesis.

There once was a man who said "God
Must think it exceedingly odd
  If he finds that this tree
  Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad" - Ronald Knox

Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd:
I am always about in the Quad.
  And that's why the tree
  Will continue to be
Since observed by
	Yours Faithfully,
		God. - anonymous

Cet animal est tres mechant,
Quand on l'attaque il se defend.

Cruel, but composed and bland,
Dumb, inscrutable and grand,
So Tiberius might have sat,
Had Tiberius been a cat.  Poor Mathias, l.40 - Matthew Arnold

Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. - Proverbs i,17

Neither let her take thee with her eyelids. - Proverbs vi,25

He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it. - Proverbs xi. 14

Where there is no vision, the people perish. - Proverbs xxix. 18

He that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow. - Ecclesiastes i.18

Wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness. - Ecclesiastes ii.13

Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these?
for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this. - Ecclesiastes vii. 10

There is no discharge in that war. - Ecclesiastes viii. 8

The liberal deviseth liberal things. - Isaiah xxxii.8

Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. - Isaiah xxxv.3

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. - Lamentations i.27

Be not curious in unnecessary matters: for more things are shewed unto thee
than men understand. - Ecclesiasticus iii.23

If thou hast heard a word, let it die with thee; and be bold, it will not
burst thee. - Ecclesiasticus xix.10

How can he get wisdom ... whose talk is of bullocks. - Ecclesiasticus xxxviii.25

The whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and
perished in the waters. - Matthew viii.32

Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. - Matthew ix.31

They be blind leaders of the blind.  And if the blind lead the blind, both
shall fall into the ditch. - Matthew xiii.14

Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge. - Luke xi.52

Certain lewd fellows of the baser sort. - The Acts of the Apostles xvii.5

What will this babbler say. - The Acts of the Apostles xvii.18

Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this
incription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.  Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him
I declare unto you. - The Acts of the Apostles xvii.22

Some therefore cried one thing, and some another; for the assembly was
confused; and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together.
- Acts of the Apostles xix.32

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places. - Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians iv.12


How small of all that human hearts endure
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure. - Samuel Johnson
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
 we make or find:
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy. - Lines added to Goldsmith's
'Traveller'

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are
supplied, must admit those of fancy. - Samuel Johnson

Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
But - why did you kick me downstairs? - An expostulation - Isaac Bickerstaff

Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry.  Oliver's advice
Valentine Blacker

The corn was springing fresh and green,
And the lark sang loud and high,
And the red was in your lip, Mary,
The love-light in your eye.

They say there's bread and work for all,
And the sun shines always there:
But I'll not forget old Ireland,
Were it fifty times as fair.
- Lament of the Irish Emigrant - Helen Selina Blackwood, Lady Dufferin

Your levellers wish to level ⊗down as far as themselves; but they cannot
bear levelling ⊗up to themselves. - Samuel Johnson in Boswell's life , p. 448

We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that
society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days.
But so said all before us, and with jsut as much apparent reason ...
On what principle is it that, when we see nothing but improvement
behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us.
- Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1830 in Edinburgh Review.

We have a saying in the lab that the difficulty of a project goes from
the Nobel-Prize level to the master's-thesis level in ten years!
Sydney Brenner as quoted by Horace Judson on p. 208 of "The Eighth Day
of Creation".

The world has not promised anything to anybody. - Moroccan proverb

He who has money can eat sherbet in hell. - Lebanese proverb.
We traded in shrouds, people stopped dying.

The drowning man is not troubled by rain. - Persian proverb.

Auf said on the authority of Hasan: "The feet of a son of Adam will
not stir [from the place of judgment] until he be asked of three
things - his youth, how he wore it away; his life, how he passed it;
and his wealth, whence he got it and on what he spent it". -
Al-Jahiz: Clever sayings - reprinted in "Anthology of Islamic
Literature" edited by James Kritzeck.

A local proverb: when you buy your slave
Buy a stick too, and teach him to behave. - Al Mutanabbi: Lauds - Kritzeck,107

Unbroken drive even for welfare is only warfare. - Al Mutanabbi p.

Now this religion happens to prevail
Until by that one it is overthrown, -
Because men dare not live with men alone,
But always with another fairy tale.
-Al Maari, about 1040, p. 122 Kritzeck

	The shooting star
The watch star saw a devil-spy, that came
	On evil work,
  At heaven's gate lurk
And leapt against him in a path of flame;
 - Ibn Sara, Kritzeck, p. 137

"If, in studying his material, the author had picked up a little of
von Neumann's clarity of thought and a little of Wiener's kindness,
this would have been a better book. - Rudolph Peierl in a review
of Steve Heims's John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener - New York Review,
1982 Feb 18.

"In M_, an important town in northern Italy, the widowed Marquise of O_,
a lady of unblemished reputation and the mother of several well-brought-up
children, inserted the following announcement in the newspapers: that
she had, without knowledge of the cause, come to find herself in a certain
situation; that she would like the father of the child she was expecting
to disclose his identity to her; and that she was resolved, out of
consideration for her family, to marry him." - Heinrich von Kleist in
"The Marquise of O_".

Following is quoted in "STANDING OVATION OR POLITE APPLAUSE?" a
book on (obviously) public speaking from St George Press.

Classified advertisement appearing in London papers in 1900:

"MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS Journey.  Small wages, bitter cold,
long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return
doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.
		-- Ernest Shackleton"

Shackleton commented later, "It seemed as though all the men of
Great Britain were determined to accompany me, the response was
so overwhelming."

    ''In the future we can expect great difficulties to be faced by
Marxist theory in trying to explain the reasons for wars between
socialist countries.''
Mensur Ibrahimpasic, one of the party's leading theorists in
Socijalizam, an organ of the ruling League of Communists of
Yugoslavia (LCY), from news story, February 1982.

"I am the Golux," said the Golux proudly, "the only Golux in the world,
and not a mere device." - James Thurber in "The thirteen clocks".

"A moderate amount of fleas is good for a dog.  Keeps him from
brooding about being a dog." - David Harum (fictitious philosopher).

"Yourjob isn't to fight alligators; it's to drain the swamp". -

"The heart's grown brutal from the fare. ... More substance in
our enmities/ Than in our love." - Yeats as cited in Irving Howe's
"A Margin of Hope", p. 199

"If there were fewer fools, knaves would starve." - cited by Isaac
Asimov in his introduction to Randi's Flim-flam.

"There's no drama in a discussion that
goes "defenders of X believe Y" -- it's like watching people watch TV."
- levitt@mit-oz, 1983 feb 1