Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.
— Francis Bacon
Well, that was a piece of cake, eh K-9?
— The Doctor (Tom Baker), Doctor Who, “The Key to Time”
Piece of cake, Master? Radial slice of baked confection … coefficient of relevance to Key of Time: zero.
— K-9 (John Leeson), Doctor Who, “The Key to Time”
There is a love which seeks to possess; there is a love which softens and enervates; there is a love which withdraws a man from the battle; there is a love which shuts its eyes to faults and to ways which end in ruin. But [real] love will always seek the highest good of others and will accept all the difficulties, problems and toil which that search involves.
— William Barclay
Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of his followers.
One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing.
“Tell me, you dumb beast,” demanded the Priest in his commanding voice, “why don’t you do something worthwhile? What is your Purpose in Life, anyway?”
Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied “MU”. (The Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.)
Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened.
Primarily because nobody understood Chinese.
— Camden Benares, Zen Without Zen Masters
A tequila high sneaks up on you like a memory of the only person you have ever loved: a warm glow pierced by nausea.
— Kevin Berger, “The Agave Blues,” San Francisco
Once Law was sitting on the bench
And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
“Clear out!” he cried, “disordered wench!
Nor come before me creeping.
Upon you knees if you appear,
’Tis plain you have no standing here.”
Then Justice came. His Honor cried:
“YOUR states? — Devil seize you!”
“Amica curiae,” she replied —
“Friend of the court, so please you.”
“Begone!” he shouted — “There’s the door —
I never saw your face before!”
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
- Mythology, n.
- The body of a primitive people’s beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
- Ocean, n.
- A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no gills.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
When the doors of perception are cleansed, man will see things as they are, infinite.
— William Blake
We the unwilling, led by the unknowing,
have been doing the impossible, for the ungrateful.
We have done so much with so little, for so long,
that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
And we do it for nothing!
— Robert Bonomi (seen in a “data processing center” in the mid ’60s)
Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road …
— Stewart Brand, The Media Lab
Art is not a mirror held up to reality; it is a hammer used to shape it.
— Bertold Brecht
Wall diving [is] like a lorry trip past Harrod’s during rush hour, but with more fish.
— British Diving Journal