It is so interesting to watch how every soul is looking for trouble. It is not so interesting that every person is seeking pleasure, but it is most interesting to see how everyone is seeking his pain, looking out for it. Tagore says: ‘When the string of the violin was being tuned it felt the pain of being stretched, but once it was tuned then it knew why it was stretched’. So it is with the human soul. While the soul goes through pain, torture and trouble it thinks that it would have been much better if it had gone through life without it. But once it reaches the culmination of it then, when it looks back, it begins to realize why all this was meant: it was only meant to tune the soul to a certain pitch. - Hazrat Inayat Khan (source)

With the supermarket as our temple and the singing commercial as our litany, are we likely to fire the world with an irresistible vision of America's exalted purpose and inspiring way of life? ~ Adlai Stevenson

Joe Tormolen: We're all a bunch of hypocrites. Sticking our noses into something that we've got no business. What are we doing out here, anyway? Sulu: Take it easy, Joe. Joe Tormolen: Bring pain and trouble with us. Leave men and women stuck out on freezing planets until they die. What are we doing out here in space? Good? What good? We're polluting it! We're destroying it! We've got no business being out here! No business! "Star Trek: The Original Series: The Naked Time, Season 1"

Impartial, adj.: Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

One day this guy is finally fed up with his middle-class existence and decides to do something about it. He calls up his best friend, who is a mathematical genius. "Look," he says, "do you suppose you could find some way mathematically of guaranteeing winning at the race track? We could make a lot of money and retire and enjoy life." The mathematician thinks this over a bit and walks away mumbling to himself. A week later his friend drops by to ask the genius if he's had any success. The genius, looking a little bleary-eyed, replies, "Well, yes, actually I do have an idea, and I'm reasonably sure that it will work, but there a number of details to be figured out. After the second week the mathematician appears at his friend's house, looking quite a bit rumpled, and announces, "I think I've got it! I still have some of the theory to work out, but now I'm certain that I'm on the right track." At the end of the third week the mathematician wakes his friend by pounding on his door at three in the morning. He has dark circles under his eyes. His hair hasn't been combed for many days. He appears to be wearing the same clothes as the last time. He has several pencils sticking out from behind his ears and an almost maniacal expression on his face. "WE CAN DO IT! WE CAN DO IT!!" he shrieks. "I have discovered the perfect solution!! And it's so EASY! First, we assume that horses are perfect spheres in simple harmonic motion..."

[singing] Oh, the mountain is high and the valley is low It's the laws of Nature that make it so If the valley is high and the mountain is low You're either upside down or drunk or both.

"To know means to know all. Not to know all means not to know. In order to know all, it is only necessary to know a little. But, in order to know this little, it is first necessary to know pretty much." ― George Gurdjieff

"Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly. "In the past year strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barley reap crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their artichoke hearts. There has been a hot day in December and a blue moon. Calendars are made with a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon Holstein bore alive two insurance salesmen. The earth splits and the entrails of a goat were found tied in square knots. The face of the sun blackens and the skies have rained down soggy potato chips." "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito. "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made good copy." -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"

I want students to understand specific technologies, but the real goal is that they should be able to reason about how systems work and be intelligently skeptical about technology so that, when they're running the world in a few years, they'll do a good job. ~ Brian Kernighan

Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing - and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even. -- The Best of Will Rogers

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. -- Henry David Thoreau

FEW CAN IGNORE A BABY'S CRIES, EVEN IF THE RESPONSE IS IRRITATION. THIS IS ONE OF THE BUILT IN SAFEGUARDS THAT IS SUPPOSED TO GUARANTEE THE SURVIVAL OF THE RACE. -- Jenny Holzer

The project needs to grow gradually so the software can be strengthened along the way. I make this appeal to WikiLeaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. -- Satoshi Nakamoto; Dec 5, 2010

While gossip among women is universally ridiculed as low and trivial, gossip among men, especially if it is about women, is called theory, or idea, or fact. ~ Andrea Dworkin

"Life Is A Carnival, But the tents are folded before dawn" Beano Tavalis, The Armendago Caper, CY 727

Un cambio de actitud Lo que diferencia a los individuos exitosos de aquellos que languidecen es exactamente lo mismo que separa a las organizaciones innovadoras y en crecimiento de aquellas que se estancan y mueren. Los ganadores han convertido la iniciativa en una pasin y en una prctica. Adelante, prepara una lista de las personas y organizaciones a las que admiras. Apuesto a que el sptimo imperativo es lo que las hace destacar. Como ves, el reto no consiste en perfeccionar tu capacidad de saber cundo empezar o cundo mantenerte al margen, sino en adoptar la costumbre de empezar. -- Seth Godin , Hazlo!

apophasis saying something by stating that you will not mention it

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not. -- H. L. Mencken

I have a switch in my apartment that doesn't do anything. Every once in a while I turn it on and off. On and off. On and off. One day I got a call from a woman in France who said "Cut it out!" -- Steven Wright

There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca